When we think about adoption, it is easy to think about all the joys associated with adoption.  You have a couple becoming parents, the formation of a family. Hopes and dreams are realized.  Yes, there are many joys associated with adoption, but there is heartache and loss too that are often not recognized.

Many times, this loss and grief is kept inside.  It is not so much loss and grief over the adoption process itself for adoptive parents as it is the loss and grief that brought them to adoption.  These losses include the fertility process, the loss of privacy, the loss of control and the loss of the dream child.

When we fall in love and get married, we automatically think children will be next or at least in the not so distant future.  So, we settle into our new household and dream about our children.  We dream about becoming a family.  It is almost something that we feel is a given, that it is just going to happen.

Then, when it doesn’t happen like we plan, it can be devastating.  The first loss that you face is the loss of becoming parents in the way you had always imagined.  Maybe you planned on waiting a year after you were married and then you thought nine months later you would have a baby.  Perhaps you planned it all around a romantic vacation somewhere.  You essentially lose your “dream conception”.

So, you turn from this dream conception to the help of fertility doctors.  Everything evolves around timing from tests, to procedures to being intimate.  Along with this comes the loss of control, loss of privacy and loss of money.  But, you think, “surely this will work”.  So, for many of you, your second choice is medical consulting and medical assistance.

When this second choice fails, the loss is even greater.  You knew that there was a possibility that medical intervention wouldn’t work, that fertility procedures might not have a positive outcome yet it is devastating when they don’t.  It is at this point that you face your biggest loss, the loss of your dream child.

For couples who have not ever faced this loss, there is no way to possibly describe the pain it brings.  Together, you and your spouse have probably dreamed that your son would be tall like your husband with your eyes or your daughter would have your curly hair and your husband’s dimples.

Letting go of this dream child is hard.  It is a loss that you never thought you would have to face and it often takes a long time to find any peace with letting that dream go.

Out of the loss of your “dream conception” and your “dream child” is born the hope brought by adoption.  The hope of becoming parents, the hope of becoming a family.  It is ok for couples to recognize that adoption is often a third choice.  It doesn’t mean you don’t embrace adoption, it just means you have recognized and accepted your past losses and you are ready to move to the next step, the next choice of becoming parents through adoption.

Adoption does not take away the losses that you have suffered.  What couples who have adopted have stated is that in the end they just wanted to be parents and adoption brought them to that goal.  They still recognize the losses in their lives and they are losses that are forever a part of who they are.

What they have been able to do is to become at peace with those losses.  Only after they have found peace were they ready to move forward with adoption.  After so much loss, finally becoming parents, finally becoming a family, finally having a child in their home is a true and wonderful blessing and something for them to celebrate.  This is the moment they have been waiting for, this is the child that they have been waiting for and dreaming about for many years.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 17th, 2006 at 4:00 am and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.