Adoption Is Different

Different is not less, it is just different.  Family is family.

Adoption is a path to growing and building family though it is different than giving birth to and parenting a child.  Coming from a perspective where I have experienced parenting from having given birth and parenting those children as well parenting again via adoption, I am here to say it is different for me.   Not everyone will have the same views or move through this process the way that I have but I know that there are differences that are across the board for adoptive families.

To have a child through birth usually does not require applications, interviews, or financial scrutiny.  To have a child through birth does not necessarily begin with a deep loss from all sides.  To have and parent a child through birth will not come with comments and questions about your child's "real mother" and "real father".  As a parent through birth there is a pretty good chance you will not be asked where your child came from (meaning what country).  You most likely will not hear your child utter the words "you are not my mother".  It is different.

 As a parent do I love our youngest child, who came to our family just shy of her 2nd birthday, in the same way as the first three I carried in my womb?  Absolutely!!!.....now I do.  If I had to answer that question a year ago my answer would have been quite different.  I cared about her and took care of her and gave her all I could of myself but the love between us was not immediate and it was not certain like it was after I had given birth.  How I came to love her is not inferior to how I came to love our sons it is just different.

I believe it is in embracing the differences not in minimizing them that we can begin to see that family is family no matter how we come to one another.