Today I am going to continue to address issues that are commonly barriers for people considering adoption, and are also often concerns for families that do move forward with their adoption plans.

I have already written about financial barriers as well as the worry of being able to love an adopted child the same way a parent loves a child born to them. Now I am going to tackle the health issue, as that is one that seems to pop up very early on in the “considering adoption process” and is a question that I get a lot.

I know that very early on in our first adoption... more

Continued from here...

Now for some advice on how to move past the fear of not being able to love an adopted child as “your own”, or as much as you love your biological children.

-Talk to other adoptive families. While there are some adoptions that do not have a happy ending, an overwhelming majority of adoptions turn out beautifully. Many adoptive parents are more than happy to talk about their experiences, their fears in the beginning and how things turned out for them. Hearing another adoptive parent admit to having similar concerns early on in their adoption process, and then seeing... more

Last week I wrote about financial barriers to adoption, both the cost of the actual adoption itself, and the cost of adding another child to your family.

Today I am going to talk about a different barrier to adoption for many people, and that is the fear of not being able to love an adopted child as “your own”.

This is a common fear, and one that often stops a couple or parent from moving forward with adopting. I have heard it time and time again…”I don’t know if I can love a child that isn’t mine” or “I don’t know if I can love an adopted child as much as the child I gave birth to.” Here are some of my thoughts on this one.

-It is normal to question something that... more