[LunaSeaBloom]

I'm looking for some thoughts on the feelings that adoptive parents feel toward adoptive children.
My husband and I have two naturally born children of our own, aged 3.5 and 1. We know that we want to have more children and are interested in adopting an older child. Before we dive into the process, I have some concerns I'm hoping someone out there can address for me.

The first and foremost is love. I adore my kids. They're my heart and soul. I'm worried that if we adopt a child I won't feel the same for him/her and I don't know if that would be fair to that child. My husband feels that even if I didn't create that same maternal connection, the benefit we could contribute to that child... getting them out of the system, giving them a family and a home, providing a college education... would outweigh the potential inequality. I'm not convinced.
What are your experiences? If you already have birth children, do you develop that some connection with your adoptive child? If the connection isn't as strong, is it still worthwhile enough to that child to adopt anyhow?

I would really appreciate any words of advice that can be offered. Many thanks.
LunaSea

[Lolley33]

I understand the way you are feeling. I adopted as a single mom without having had children before. I wondered if I would love the child that I would adopt as much I would love my biological child. I can tell you that I love my son unconditionally. Like I said, I do not have bio children but I figure this.... Every mom loves their children differently. My mom loved & treated all of her children differently (not more or less) based on our personalities & needs. I think that maybe you are thinking about it too much. Trust that the love will come even if it is not immediate. You have to develop a bond, just like you did with your newborn from the hospital. You have to find creative ways. My son & I had "baby" time, where he would sit on my lap & I would rock him, he would tell me about his day, play peek-a-boo & sing songs. He had never had that before and he is five years old. He loved it. Three months later he is calling me Mommy & he no longer asks for "baby" time. It was something we did to bond. It will be challenging & rewarding.

[ranoutofnames]

I'm the exact opposite of you. I adopted two children and then had a biochild. I was so bonded to my adopted children that I was worried either I wouldn't bond to my bio or that it would be different, stronger. Everyone (meaning those who've never adopted) said I'd feel different about my bio.... and they were right... but not like they thought. I had a hard time bonding to my bio. Turns out I had Post Partum Depression with Anxiety Disorder. I had a hard time integrating he was really mine and that THIS child wasn't leaving. I also found all my old fears and anxiety when we went through adoption on our first two children suddenly resurfaced and got into the way of bonding with my bio-son.

PPD is real, whether it's through giving birth or adoption. If you find you have a hard time bonding you might speak with a therapist (be very open about how you are feeling) because it could be an issue of PPD.

Just like anyone else in our life, we all have a special bond with each person for a different reason. We all find things we cherish and things we just don't like about EVERY person in our life.

A maternal bond may happen instantly for you or may happen later, but if the child is open to a maternal bond then your heart will open to it too... because you already know how to open your heart for a maternal bond, it's the child that you will adopt who you don't know if they have ever learned to have a strong bond with someone in their life.... that "I love you and only you" type of bond. If they've had that at least once in their life they can have it again.

[saj]

I have 3 bio and 2 adopted children I adore all of them. I do not have any extra motherly connections with my bio children that I do not have for my adopted ones.

[jp4ga]

I have a 12 year old bio son and a 10 month old adopted daughter. I bonded with both children as if they were both biologically mine.

What you do need to remember is that the older the child the more difficult bonding may be for you and the child. I was a foster to adopt parent and had several child bond right away, and others who fought it and wanted "mommy or/and daddy." Thier age and reason for being placed may effect how well and how quickly they can bond with you.

With our daughter she was a week old at placement, she bonded very qucikly with us and we bonded quickly with her. Every child and situation is different. I wish you the best with this.

[Amaurosis]

I think that how you are feeling is understandable, but I think you really, really need to resolve these feelings before you adopt. No child deserves to feel second (or third or fourth) best in their family, regardless of what you can materially give them. Please adopt a child because you really want to and believe that you can love the child as your own, not out of a misguided attempt to
"save" them.

[LunaSeaBloom]

"believe that you can love the child as your own, not out of a misguided attempt to
"save" them."

Yeah... that's my concern. I feel like my desire to adopt a child is more based on wanting to give an older child (7 or older) who doesn't have a family, the chance at a family. We know that we want a third child, but also feel that families should limit biological children to 2 per family for environmental issues. But without really knowing if I could give an adopted child an equal amount of love, I don't feel it's fair to take the chance.

The more thought I give the subject, the more I feel that in our case, adoption is the socailly and environmentally responsible choice, but that social and environmental responsibility shouldn't be the priority when a child's future is at question.

Heather

[joskids]

Luna - I'm the mother to 4 biological children and 4 adopted children. I love them all very, very deeply and bonded well to all of my adopted children.

My concern, in your case, has less to do with your ability to love a child and more to do with the fact that you have 2 young children in your home. Before you consider adding a child to your home that is older than your biological children, please do a lot of searching into the issues that children have when they have not bonded early in life. When a child is moved from situation to situation and does not have a solid bond with a biological parent (or individual), he or she is much more capable of causing issues within your loving family unit. There are many on this board who can attest to the difficulties they have encountered when fostering or adopting a child over the age of 2 who has been in and out of the system (or a child UNDER the age of 2 who has had numerous moves and losses).

Don't do this because you think you owe it to society. Ask yourself if you can love a child who may never love you back and if you are committed to a child, even if he or she causes emotional or physical harm to the children you already have in your home.

[kretzklan]

Much like Josie said - PLEASE do research on older child adoption. I adopted two older kids in 2005 and it's been incredibly hard on our older son (bio) because the majority of older kids come with a lot of past neglect/abuse and can suffer from PTSD, ODD, AD, GAD...a whole alphabet soup of issues. There can be a protection issue with having younger children at home...plus the stress of learning to parent an older child (it's different than babies...really it is). I suffered from PADs (post adoption depression) and looking back I don't know if it was because of me or them. I'm not blaming them, but they both have attachment disorder and they pushed me away from day one. Not exactly what you expect the day you adopt. My love has grown and I would say after 3+ years I'm getting there - but not there as far as I hope to get. I've felt the need to care for them from day one - but all encompassing love - nope. And, I had guilt that they deserved someone who could love them whole heartedly - but I'm their mother and we are all working through this. I'm doing so much better now that I've reached out for a lot of help and really started attachment parenting...I wish I had done it from day 1. Again, think strongly about adopting out of birth order - that may be the biggest hurdle you are about to face!

[startedover]

I agree with the first two post. Adopting a child older than you bio kids would be harder and could possibly cause resentment with your kids now, feeling "replaced" as the oldest.
As for loving bio and adopted. I have two bio and one adopted and nothing could be farther from the truth. But my other two children were 12 and 17 when we adopted. But do be prepared to love a child when you met then but you may not fall in love with then for awhile. I remember bringing home our AD and my husband was so in love. I loved her but not the way he appeared. He said it was because I spent 9 months getting prepared to love our bio kids. Maybe he was right but within a few months she had me so far in love with her I wandered how we had made it without her. Good Luck

[mdesi]

Okay, Please don't adopt a child. I would hate to have parents who were so interested in social and environmental causes that adoption just fell into that category. TBPH, I found a lot of your posts pretty offensive. First, all children are "natural born." There is no factory that produces children for adoption. Any adoptable child will also have natural origins. Second, the socially and environmentally sound reasons you listed for adoption makes it sound like people and children are just another item to recylce. Never adopt b/c you think it is a new and great cause for you. Given your posts and reasons stated, it would not be the responsible thing to do.

Now if you are open to learning more about adoption, and open to building your family through adoption, that is great. If you are ready to learn language that is not offensive to people in the adoption triad, this is an excellent place to do that.

Building a family through adoption is a beautiful thing to do if you are in it to build a family and love someone who will not have a biological tie unconditionally.

To answer your question about if people can love children who are not biologically tied to them as much as those who are, I can tell you that I have. I love my step son, nieces and nephews, and two friends' children with the same depth of love that I have for my family of origin. Also, many people on this board have correctly pointed out that most of us love of our spouses with a strong deep love. I know that I do, and we are definitely not tied by biology.

[MilehighDad]

Originally Posted by mdesi

Okay, Please don't adopt a child. I would hate to have parents who were so interested in social and environmental causes that adoption just fell into that category.

I have to disagree with this one. (The quote, that is) Everything we do has many sides and any big decision in your life will have many factors. All of us have to look at our lives and the world around us and decide what we think is most important. We also need to respect that others see the world in a different light that isn't wrong, it's just different.

For me, one of those most important facts is that there are 130,000 kids in foster care in the US waiting to be adopted. These aren't social causes, they are real kids who don't have a family. Many people think that because they have a foster family they'll be fine. But what I know absolutely from adopting three is that they desperately need a family that will be theirs and love them no matter what. A second fact was that we had enough love in our hearts and enough room in our house to take in more kids. The third fact was that I actually agree with LunaSea: I didn't want to have more than two kids through birth because I think it's irresponsible.

So, you add up all those facts and they lead to our decision to adopt from foster care. I just couldn't stand the thought that there are kids all around us who don't have a family. My wife and I both love all our kids unconditionally, that has never been a problem!

I would caution everyone from being critical of why someone else wants to adopt. Especially since the different types of adoption: domestic infant, international, and foster care, can have very different motives with very different expected outcomes.

I think LunaSea's motives are noble and they are more than enough reason to adopt. I will say, however, that when you meet your child the whole motivation changes, anyway. They just become yours and you love them and fight for them just because they are yours.

And to LunaSea: of course you're worried, because it's new and different and you don't really know what it will be like. We had the advantage of caring for a girl who's family was in crisis for a large amount of time when we were young parents. We learned from her that you can love someone else's child, because we would have kept her as ours in an instant if the need had ever been there. In our experience there was no need to worry, but I do know that some parents can struggle to bond with older kids.

I can't tell you if you should adopt or if you will have trouble bonding. I can tell you that it is has been the hardest and most awesome experience of my life. Raising kids gives my life meaning, and raising kids who were once on the cover of a Heart Gallery has a completely different meaning than our birth kids and yet it is completely the same too. Given the chance, I wouldn't go back and change a thing about our decisions.

[mdesi]

I have big issues with people looking to recycle people. Your motives are noble. This motive reads like "I'm not sure I will love a recycled person as much as I love my natural born children." You knew that you had enough love in your heart to adopt a child through foster care, while she is questioning it. I fail to see why in a country which has a 1.9% population growth why someone would feel that having three biological children is irresponsible. Most industrialized countries barely produce enough children in subsequent generations to replace the adults. Most of Europe is actually importing people to work due to a negative population growth factor.

I honestly don't think Luna Sea is ready to adopt, yet. That is not to say with more education and meeting more children that will not change. However, I strongly believe that people should not be looking to adopt to be noble. Adopt b/c you want to grow your family through adoption. Not to save the world.

[DannieAS]

During my pride classes this also came up....and basically we were told that if you are adopting to "save a child" then DON'T. They'd rather pass you by and place a child with a family that wants to add to their family and wants to parent than hand them over to the "save the child" couple.

The pats on the back eventually go away and then that's when parenting remains.

If you're comfortable adopting a child and parenting them when everyone else has stopped congratulating you for it, then go for it

[MilehighDad]

Ok, I'm usually very nice and cordial on this board but this one makes me mad. Two parents just through training decide to give advice on who should adopt and who shouldn't. That is way out of line and way beyond your experience or anyone's right. Seriously, mdesi, the original poster was not the one who brought up "recycling", that was you. The only term she used was "natural born" which is not that far from the accepted term of "biological child." The accepted term implies that all adopted kids are robots - are we really going say that is offensive and that she should learn her terminology? And the "pats on the back" comment - Hello? Do you really think someone is going to dedicate their lives and their families to a child because they think other people will congratulate them? Are you insane enough to think that's why I did it? For one thing, if that's all it takes, I'll drive over to someone's house twice a week just to knock on the door, pat them on the back and say "good job" if they'll give a kid a home for the next 15 years! It is NOT about how other people see it, it is about how YOU see it. How I see it is that I adopted three child because I believe it is essential that they have homes, and no one else is doiing it! What I have given them is unconditional love, acceptance, and protection. There's no price or congratulations that can buy that, it was freely given because I feel that is what is right. And there are THOUSANDS of kids not getting it because not enough people step forward and commit their lives to someone else's child.

As for "saving the child", I'm sure that many social workers will tell you that your motives need to be closer to "normal" parents, growing your family and all that. But, those same social workers put the kids they can't match up on websites, on the TV news, and in picture galleries in the mall hoping someone will see them and decide to "save" them. Ironically, as I sit in the airport, free advertisements are rolling across the top of the screen. One of them says, "You may have what it takes to adopt a teenager. They don't need perfection, they need you." I agree with that statement wholeheartedly, and I'm one of the 5,000 families a year that adopt teenagers while 40,000 foster kids a year turn 18 and age out of the system. Don't like my statistics? read them yourself at:
AFCARS Report - Preliminary FY 2006 Estimates as of January 2008 (14)


With all that said, the experienced posters brought up a relevant issue: you should be very careful adopting an older child with younger siblings in the home. That doesn't mean absolutely don't to do it, because we did, but you have to be careful because not all older kids will be a good match.

Heather (LunaSeaBloom),
Thank you for considering older kids that need a home. It is not a simple or easy decision and you may face a very difficult time in the future. However, it is also extremely rewarding and can be quite phenomenal to watch a kid who was deep in disaster figure things out and start to let out their warm and compassionate souls they've been keeping hidden. You can make the difference in a child's life, and that might be all the difference they need.