You Talk Too Much...About Adoption

A friend once told me I talk about adoption too much. Now, before you get all mad on my behalf, she wasn’t wrong. I had been talking a lot about adoption. To be fair I am also asked a ton of questions, something that I have come to expect when a new person I encounter discovers we are an adoptive family. In this particular case I could see that the new person was desperately trying to avoid asking questions. You know the moment I’m talking about; when you can see on someone’s face that they have more to say but are afraid of being rude or inappropriate. I decided to spare the new person her agony and brought the subject up myself freeing her to ask her questions. Allowing the conversation to happen made it possible for us all to wrap it up quickly and enjoy the rest of our morning.

Just so you know, I don’t mind answering questions about adoption and what it means to me. The best advice I had received during our home study process was to understand that, whether we wanted it or not, acting as a teacher was going to be a part of our new lives. So I began to treat each conversation about my family as a teachable moment. I thought I would take a moment and answer a few questions now that I hear most often. Some of them are appropriate and some are not, but I thought I’d share my standard responses.

Why did you adopt?

How a couple chooses to build a family is a personal choice. I have mentioned previously that we had issues with pregnancies. In three years, I had four miscarriages due to an unidentified issue likely caused by an antibody (at least that’s the theory). We had many options available to us. We could have chosen to continue tests and tried to create a viable pregnancy. We could have chosen to use a surrogate (I had a couple of wonderful people in my life including my younger sister offer their uteruses for rent). And the final choice was adoption. Frankly, our goal was to have children; the means didn’t matter. Pregnancy was a way of reaching that goal but it wasn’t something that either of us felt so strongly about that we needed to keep putting me body through sometimes painful often heart wrenching process.  Adoption just seemed like the right choice for us.

enjoying doughnuts like a regular family

Can you have your own kids? Do you want your own kids?

This is one of those inappropriate, or at the very least, ignorant questions I was talking about. As witnessed this weekend by the scores of Japanese seeing my daughter’s very public breakdown, I do in fact have my own kids. They are loud and crazy and wonderful. And they are mine. The real question is do we ever wish we had bio kids; to that the answer is a firm no. I love my bebes. They are the exact children we were meant to have. It is impossible for me to love any child more than I live these two. This question is usually followed by some statement about how you never know what could happen (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). And to that the answer is, birth control. So yeah, I’m pretty sure I do know.

How much did you pay? Was it expensive?

This question can be either inappropriate or appropriate depending on the motives behind the conversation. Usually, my standard answer to how much did you pay is, “a lot.” Unless the person is looking into adoption and needs to know for planning purposes, I try to avoid the details of our finances. There are grants and loans people sometimes get in order to pay for expenses and tax credits after the finalization that one can apply for, but just know, the cost is entirely dependent on what type of adoption is chosen (didn’t know there was more than one, did you?)

Was the process hard?

The process was bureaucratic and emotional. Each time we thought we finished something there was more paperwork to do. We took hours of parenting and adoption classes. We had to open our lives to scrutiny and sit with a social worker before during and after placement. We got our hopes up and were let down several times and even had an adoption fall through at the very last minute. It tested us and our relationship but we ended up with our wonderful kiddo’s so it was totally worth it. 

Was it hard to learn how to do your daughters hair?

So, when we started the home study process the first time I had a fabulous and beautiful manager who was an African-America woman. When she learned that we were open to multi-racial adoption her only comment was, “please just make sure that if you have a little black girl, you give her good hair.” It wasn’t until we brought Baby Girl home that we both really started to appreciate the pressure put on AA women when it comes to beauty. One eye opener was Chris Rocks movie called Good Hair , something I think everyone should take time to watch.  The answer to was it difficult to learn how to take care of Baby Girls hair is no. I like playing with and styling hair so it wasn’t hard for me. The more important thing to focus on is how am I going to teach my daughter to love herself and feel that she is beautiful? So far she knows she is beautiful and I hope she can hold onto that knowledge through her adolescences.

See, not imaginary; very real child. 

Why did their birth parents give them up?

This is the only question that I feel a little uncomfortable answering. Let me first explain that none of my children’s birth parents gave them up; that would imply that the decision to choose adoption was not based in love. Their motives were personal and something I know each of them struggled to come to terms with. I cannot speak for others, and I wouldn’t even want to if I could. This is a private conversation between my children and their respective birth parents to have one day.  All I can do is wish them well and thank them every day.

To be clear, even when I am asked those sometimes off-putting questions, I’m not often offended. Most of the time, people inquire not to be hurtful, but simply because they just don’t understand and want to. I probably do talk about adoption too much, but I don’t think I do it any more than other mothers discuss their children’s’ birth stories (I know more about some of my friends lady bits than I care to). So, if you have a question, feel free to ask. I will give you the best answer I can and try not to talk too much.