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If your sister-in-law asked you to parent, I would consider that to be a first step in the right direction. My husband and I adopted his granddaughter (his daughter was 17 when she got pregnant) and the first couple years were difficult with my husband's mom and the birthmom. We currently have no contact with birthmom as she refuses to speak with us (going on 3 years this fall). The family has adjusted well to this decision and for us, it is similar to raising any other child that we love.
As an adoptee, I still wonder to this day why someone in my birth family didn't offer/want to raise me. This feeling weighed heavily on my decision to adopt my daughter as I didn't want her to feel that she was completely cut-off from her roots and that nobody wanted her.
Is it easy? No. My husband now longer has his daughter in his life so just be aware that fall-out can and does occur, but the rewards outweigh the difficulty in my opinion.
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