[Peace.]

Not sure if this is the right place for this comment, but here it goes!
I'll try to not offend with my observation
I have been noticing that there seem to be a lot of people who are adoptees and b/moms or adoptees and a/moms or b/mom and a/mom or even all three. I find this interesting and wonder how you all found yourselves in these situations. I'm sure, as with any adoption, that each story is unique, but wondering if there is any common thread that makes one triad member take on the other role (or all three).
I remember when I was trying (took 2 years) to get pregnant, a friend asked if I'd consider adopting, my answer was a quick no....not that I had a bad adoption (I couldn't have been given to better parents) but I did have some of the 'symptoms' that adoption can bring about and didn't want to have to endure that for my child) I also could'nt imagine placing a child either (I would find it easier to abort) I know, both very selfish comments, but my experience and thoughts none the less.
I would love to hear from anyone who has gone down the path of being more than one triad member.
Thank you

[ocracoke]

I am an adoptee. I was removed from my bio family at age 5.5 years due to abuse and neglect and placed with my adoptive family at age 7.5 years. I bounced around the foster care system. Since being a little girl I always wanted to adopt. It was such a positive experience for me. And frankly the idea of giving birth just didn't make any sense to me. But as an adult I discovered that it was cheaper to get pregnant then adopt. So I tried to get pregnant. But apparently my body sided with my mind and it turns out that I have major fertility issues. I was so relieved when I found that out because it meant that I would be adopting. Adoption is my first choice even though I tried to get pregnant. Almost a year ago I brought my beautiful daughter home from Ethiopia. She is now 2.5 years old. And I have no doubt that she was meant to be my daughter. I could not have created a better match for me in my womb.

We all have different needs to fullfill, different methods to fullfill our needs, and different tolerance levels for things. I am just happy that I have the parents I do and the daughter I do.

Samantha

[BarbaraB]

I was adopted as an infant in 1962. When we had trouble getting pregnant it was much easier for me to say "let's adopt" than for my husband...which is not to say that it was easy. There were certain things I did not want to do, and a closed adoption was not an option. I think on one hand my experience as an adoptee from that era, and having found my birthmother as an adult, made me worry more about how we would go about adopting ethically. On the other hand, having grown up in a family where adoption was accepted and not a bad thing, I did not have any reservations about whether I could love a child "not of my body" just as much as I would have loved a child I gave birth to. So I guess you could say my experience made adoption both easier and more difficult. We ended up with one bio and one adopted child, and they are both perfect in different ways.

I never had to deal with an unplanned pregnancy, and I realize that we can never be 100% certain of what we "would have" done, but I am as certain as I can be that I would not have had a child and relinquished it to a closed adoption (which was the only option I had ever heard of when I was a teenager and young adult).

Also, when I was younger, before I had searched for my birth family, I did go through a phase of thinking that it might not be fair to a child to be adopted by me because it would be a double layer of "disconnectedness" from their roots. But I moved past that...I think it was just part of my figuring out what I was comfortable with in my own life.

[loveajax]

Peace, my husband is an adult adoptee who has now adopted. He was FAR more reluctant to adopt than I was -- he really wanted to have a bio kid because he had no other (known) bio links in the world. We have now adopted and he says he can't imagine not having our DD.

It has raised some issues, however....He is from a closed adoption, our DD from an open one. The whole a process has been somewhat "cathartic" for him...he now has "located" his birth mom (though he has not contacted her yet, not sure when/if he will, but I think so).

He thinks he is very "unique" (i.e., being an adoptee who has adopted!). I am glad to have his experiences to rely on as I raise DD, though sometimes he plays the "adoption card" with me (like he NECESSARILY knows better about things!).

[sarahbunny]

Well, I was adopted in 1976 in a closed adoption.

And I always said as a child that I wanted to adopt when I was older, not give birth. I thought it would hurt. I also would say that I would just go buy my children, which my parents still think is funny. Looking back now, I thnk that is one of the saddest and awful comments ever and I guess it is telling on what I thought the undercurrent of my adoption was. I was like...6 at the time.

But I did always want to adopt eventually.

So, when I got married, I had a feeling that I wouldn't be able to get pregnant and several thousands of dollars later, I would be proven to be correct. So we moved to adoption, which we had discussed and decided on before we were married anyway. Like i said, I always wanted to adopt. On the whole, it was a good situation for me.

One of the only reasons that I truly wanted a biological child, as well as adopting, was because I was adopted. I wanted to see someone with similiar features as me across the table, for example.

[NJNative]

I am the granddaughter of TWO adoptees (my dad's dad and my mom's mom), cousin to four more adoptees and mother to one adopted son.

I have never known a life where adoption wasn't "normal." So when I had fertility issues, it honestly wasn't a big deal to me. I had always thought about adopting anyway! Eespecially since my aunt adopted my cousin who was born on my 11th birthday, and made a fine present. She was sort of a my "living doll" to play with and actually took her first steps for me!

Robin

[sarahbunny]

Robin...that's a good point. My dad, uncle and grandmother were all adopted. It was very common in my family.

[ticchick]

I am an adoptee and a bmom. I was adopted along with my twin sister at birth. My parents are the best and I can't imagine having been raised by anyone else. When I got pregnant at age 19 I was in no shape to be raising a baby- I had no job, was living on the streets (by choice but still) and was a mess. When my parents found out they were very supportive of me and were very supportive of my desire to place my baby for adoption- they felt so grateful that someone had given us to them that they were touched to be on the other side of things and wrote a beautiful letter to his parents to send with him. It was a painful experience for all of us but I think having been adopted by such a loving family I felt and hoped that it would be the same for him.

[Peace.]

Wow ,all such wonderful stories, thanks for sharing. I wonder how those of you who are from closed adoptions are dealing with the current prefered style of open? Robin and sarahbunny, I can imagine with various adoptees in your families that you would have a more normalised view of adoption and therefore find it a natural thing to do for yourselves.
It seems that often we do "get what we need" as the song goes rather than what we thought we wanted.

[leslie5645]

Hi! Just yet another perspective...I placed a baby for adoption at 20, as I knew I couldn't give him the life he deserved and never regretted it! When I was married and stable, after four years of fun with infertility, we decided to adopt and then got pregnant! But the whole adoption process through the state got us thinking about all the kids who need homes, and we are now adopting a 13 yr old. So at 40, I have a teenager and a toddler and we are loving it! We are considering adopting again, but who knows what God has in mind for us? Everything seems to tie together in the end.
I think being touched by adoption more often than not gives you a unique opportunity to be open to building a family in non-traditional ways, which can only be beneficial to you personally as well as to society. The more you stretch the envelope of your mind and experience, the more effective you are as a person, and specific to adoption, as a parent. Despite the stresses involved, I wouldn't want to live in any other world!

[fauxgina]

My adoptive father is also an adoptee. Although I'm not sure exactly what the circumstances were surrounding his adoption (either he didn't talk much about it or I didn't listen), he was born in 1947, so I imagine it was to a young unwed mother, pregnant with her first child, who had no other choice but to give him up. I didn't learn this until a couple of years ago, but apparently when he was 19 or 20, he and his first wife adopted a 17 year old boy! I'm really not sure how that was allowed to happen, or why they adopted someone who was so similar in age, but as far as I know Dad had no further contact with the boy after he and his wife divorced.

He chose adoption because he felt there were more than enough children in the world without him contributing to overpopulation. He was in Pakistan as a young man (probably after he'd been drafted to fight in Vietnam), where he saw a woman trying to nurse her dead baby. He decided right there to have a vasectomy, and that's just what he did.

I doubt if I'm likely to become an adoptive parent myself, for several reasons. I completely empathize with your so-called "selfish" views about adopting and relinquishing; I don't think it's so much selfish as self-aware. There is no reason to push yourself into doing something you don't feel comfortable with, especially when a child's life hangs in the balance. It's better that you know how you feel about it and act accordingly than try to be selfless and end up in a tragic situation. For me, my dad's feelings about overpopulation rang very true (still do), but I don't want children by any means, so it's not a matter of preferring to have "my own." Also, I found my dad to be a very difficult parent to have at times because he'd been through so much in his life that he hadn't dealt with that he acted more like a child than we kids did. He threw tantrums, shouted and swore, demolished things--and when it was over, he was as calm and collected as ever. He still has trouble controlling his emotions at 60, but as he ages he mellows out. I figure by the time he's 90 he'll be the kind of father we should have had as youngsters. Anyway, I'd hate to think that my own experience as an adoptee and daughter of a volatile adoptee would negatively affect my own parenting skills.