Adoption Is Love

​This weekend Rhett, myself, and my mom all drove down to Vegas to have lunch with our birth mom and it got me thinking about a few things that I wanted to share. When we first decided to move forward with adoption the number one thing that really was hard for was the thought of a relationship with a stranger. I never doubted whether I could love a child, but I really doubted whether I could love their birth family.

​I am not an easy egg to crack. I don’t like meeting new people and I don’t often come off as the friendliest person. This is something I really try hard to overcome, but it has been a struggle for a long time. I guess I have a fear of saying or doing the wrong thing and being judged for it. I don’t like the idea of being hurt so I would rather stay to myself and not let it happen. Phew, that was kind of hard to write out (writing is therapeutic!) Moral of this paragraph is that I was really scared that I wouldn’t be able to open up with our birth mom and bond with her. I feel like we have bonded, but I am still holding back from her.

She wants to be friends on Facebook, but I haven’t allowed that yet. I’m just not ready for that amount of sharing. We have set up a private facebook group where I am the moderator and have to approve most everything that happens within the group but becoming “friends” is still hard for me to grasp. On our way to meet up with her in Vegas we stopped in to the adoption agency we used and met with some of the women who helped Rhett find is way to us. It was so special to talk to them and bring up a few of the issues I have been facing with the openness of our adoption. They both assured me that what we are doing is perfect, that boundaries have to be set early, and we should never do anything we don’t feel comfortable with. Getting that validation from them felt really good and sparked confidence in my decisions.

I may not be an open book with our birth mom, but we are bonded more than I ever thought possible and it’s all because of one feisty little boy. We will forever have an unspoken bond that revolves around him. We both love him dearly and to think about not loving the person who gave him life is a really hard pill to swallow. We are bonded in a stronger way that I ever expected.

Just to be clear we are still completely following through with the promise that we made for our post placement plan. We agreed to 1 update every 3 months and 2 visits per year. We will never back out from that promise unless given a legitimate reason to. If we every feel something is not in Rhett’s best interest we will reevaluate and come up with a better solution. At this point in time we are doing what we feel is best for all of us involved, most importantly Rhett.  He deserves to know the woman who chose life for him and who loves him tremendously. I would never want to hold any love back from him.

​If you are debating on whether adoption is the right choice for you and are questioning the emotional side of it, please know that it is hard but so worth it. I promise that the right direction will be laid for you and the adoption journey you are dealt. No 2 adoptions are the same, no 2 birth parents are the same, and no 2 adoptive parents are the same. You will figure out what works best for you and your child while the relationship transforms. Please don’t let this fear hold you back from becoming a parent through adoption. It is so, so worth it!