This post is one that I wrote many months ago and did not publish. I struggled with whether to post it or not. As I reread it, I realized that many of the items on here were what many of us expected from adoption. We have discovered that adoption did not play out in our lives as we expected that it would.

Adoption would always be a perfect solution:

 If babies were blank slates that you could mold and shape into a an exact replica of yourself or whatever you wanted;

 If most mothers who gave their babies to others to raise could feel at peace with that decision and not be traumatized for the rest of their lives;

 If research showed that there would be minimal effects on a baby if you separate that baby from its mother at birth;

 If studies showed that birth mothers thrived and healed quickly after placing their children for adoption;

 If most adoptees were not presented with a whole layer of new issues simply because they grow up adopted;

 If no adoptees in closed adoption ever had a need to search because they were fine without knowing the first chapter of their lives;

 If babies were not born with a whole set of intricate genetic components that would play a large role in who they turned out to be;

 If all adoptees had absolutely no curiosity about their roots and had no need to know their family history;

 If the bond between a baby and its mother did not matter and an adoptive family with unlimited resources could insure a perfect life for a child;

 If every adoptive home would automatically be better than a home with biological parents;

 If adoptive parents were exempt from the serious life issues such as divorce, death, addictions, etc.;

 If it really made any sense to relinquish a child, and then have another baby (or try to) 2, 3 years later or even 5 years down the road as though it is okay to pick and choose which child to keep and which to give up;

 If women deserved to pay for their crisis pregnancies by putting their babies up for adoption;

 If having a baby at a young are really did ruin a young woman's whole life;

 If being a parent was not better than riches, a good job or anything else;

 If there was no secondary infertility in birth mothers.

I am a realist and understand that adoption has its strengths and weaknesses. However, before anyone relinquishes or adopts, they owe it to their child to be as educated and prepared as possible about what adoption is really like.

Photo Copyright 2007 Jan Baker