I am getting ready to write all of the Adoption Attachment Blogs I have in mind to write. I thought I might pause here for a moment and share some information about what I have personally experienced and how amazing my own journey as the mother of two special needs siblings has been.
I thought I knew everything about being a great mother. I had after all raised two wonderful, healthy, and independent young adults even in a very difficult life. I did in fact find my “Prince Charming” and we found ourselves in the position of being ready to add children to our family. We had considered trying the invetro fertilization route but, not with great commitment. We started our look into adoption at the same time we considered science.
I had always wanted to adopt children. My Uncle Eddie was a profound role model in my life. He and his older brother had grown up in an orphanage during the 1940’s and had always hoped to be adopted–but, never were. My Uncle Eddie and Aunt Terrie had three children two biologically and one by adoption. They also provided foster care for many children. Uncle Eddie was an amazing man and had become a minister. He was someone who made it his personal responsibility to remind people about the waiting children, because he knew what it felt like to be one.
During our plans to adopt my husband and I decided that we wanted to adopt siblings. We knew this would mean that at least one of the children would be slightly older and we also knew that it might mean both were no longer infants. We got all the information, took all the classes and worked through the home study. We understood the risks involved and we understood we were willing to take them.
When you adopt children who have had a hard start in life the world starts to see you as something amazing. Friends and family see what you have done as some kind of selfless act and that your children should feel so lucky to have you. That might be true from the point of view of someone who is not one of the children. Becoming, the “new parents” of someone who can walk and talk is not always all about doing something noble. Adoptive parents can feel isolated and alone when dealing with the reality our children bring into our homes.
Our children were only one, and five-years-old when we brought them home with us. From the outside that seems like very young children, they will forget their pasts and our lives will be wonderful, Right? Well, it may look that way on the outside, but underneath there are two people who we didn’t even know until one and five years of their lives had been in the hands and control of someone else.
We have been together now for over three years. It has been a long and very often painful experience. Children are not removed from their biological parents and placed for adoption with complete strangers unless there is a very good reason for it. We were naïve in what we expected to face especially with our daughter who was five-years-old when we met her for the first time.
As I write the coming Blogs on the topic of Attachment I want you to know I am not a psychologist or expert on the topic, but I am a mother who has lived it and had to learn everything I possibly could about it. My name is Anna and I am a RAD Mom, I am the mother of a child who has Reactive Attachment Disorder and the past three years are the reason I even write about this topic. This is the hardest “Mom-Job” I have ever faced and I have learned a lot I hope to share here in the coming Blogs.
Special Needs and Adoption-Related Terms:
A | B | C | D | E-F | G-H-I | J-K-L | M | N-O | P | Q-R | S | T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.