The Private Face of Adoption

When you think of the word "adoption", what are some words that come to mind?  Many people would say, "blessing", "miracle", "gift", "love", or "family".  The reality is that these words describe the public face of adoption - you know, the happy, multicultural family you see at a restaurant or the mall or the movies. The reality is that the words that describe the private face of adoption are not always so happy.  Here's the truth: in order for our family to adopt an orphan, she has to be just that: an orphan.  Orphan.  Process that word for a minute, and now think about the words you'd use to describe adoption.  "Grief", "loss", "relinquishment", "death", "abandonment", "anguish"....not such a happy picture now, is it?

While we are overjoyed that God has placed this little girl on our hearts and eventually in our home, we grieve for the losses she will face: her family, culture, country, identity, and language.  Adoption would not be possible without loss.  Whether our daughter's situation involves abandonment or relinquishment, we have the utmost respect for her birth family, who made the most difficult decision a parent could ever make: to let their child be loved and cared for by complete strangers halfway around the world.  Can you imagine the decisions that these families must make?  To keep your child and watch her starve, or give her up and never see her again?  To watch your baby die from AIDS or to relinquish her to a family who can provide treatment?  To be a mother dying from AIDS and wondering who will care for your baby when you're gone?  One of these situations is what our daughter's birth mother is facing right this moment, or will be facing in the near future.  Yes, God is a father to the fatherless and places the lonely in families, but until now, have you really considered what it means to be "fatherless" and "lonely"?

Adoption does not come without an enormous emotional cost.  The emotions we are experiencing as our daughter's adoptive family are nothing compared to those of her and her birth family.  Yes, we can empathize with their grief, but we can't sympathize.  We can never know the anguish they are feeling.  We can only imagine...