I have been writing about the wide range of emotions that many adoptive parents feel at some point during the adoption process, and the rapid rate at which those feelings can change. In my last post I wrote about some of the happier emotions, and touched on the happiness, joy and excitement that adoption brings to adoptive parents in overwhelming quantities.

And yet while adoptive parents can be feeling extreme happiness one moment, the complexity of adoption issues and realities often means that the happiness is swirled around with many other emotions. I used the term "swirled" because the emotions keep their strength and unique qualities, despite being combined with other conflicting emotions. Usually when you say something is "mixed together" it gives the picture of things being blended, and turning into one new end product. I know that for me, my happiness was true happiness, my grief was true grief and my stress was as stressful as could be, and none of the emotions "dampened" or lessened the others.

So what is there to be sad about in adoption? Well, it is important to remember that adoption begins with a loss, or even several losses. A child that is available for adoption has lost his birth parents. He has lost his family and his home. A child being placed for international adoption is also losing his home country, his language and his culture. Many children available for adoption have lived through traumatic events and suffered numerous losses.

There is also incredible loss on the part of the birth parents. Whether through death, illness, poverty or other circumstances, when a child is being placed for adoption, the birth parents have suffered the loss of being separated from their child.

It is very common for all of this loss to become real when the adoptive parents get their referral. Usually the wait for a referral is emotional, and then when that referral finally comes it is extremely exciting and joyous. But along with that first photograph, name and birthdate that introduce you to your new child comes that child's life story, and often it is hard to hear.

Whether a child was abandoned or relinquished and no matter the circumstances, reading about what has lead to a child becoming available for adoption is often heartbreaking and hard to think about. Adoptive parents only receive the blessing of a new child after that child and his first parents have suffered significant loss, and that is something to be sad about.

I have grieved for the ways that my children have suffered. I have cried for my children who were old enough to understand that they were being relinquished for adoption, and knew that they were losing their first family and first life. I have cried for my children who were abandoned or relinquished as newborns and did not get that love and security that all newborns should get. I have cried for my children who saw their beloved parents die. I have cried for my children who have suffered neglect, abuse and illness.

I have also grieved for their parents, and the unfairness of life. As a mom, I try to imagine what it would be like to have to relinquish a child for adoption, or to have to abandon a child and hope that he would find someone to care for him, or to be dieing, and not knowing what would happen to my child or who would love him.

As I said, adoption is love and there is much happiness, joy and excitement in an orphaned child becoming a part of a family. In ethical adoptions, the children being adopted (and the adoptive parents) are gaining much, and yet at the same time, there is sadness, grief and loss to be recognized and understood as well.




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