Adoption stories

I taught the last session of the adoption training course yesterday morning, and in the afternoon we all had a chance to hear a panel of birth parents, foster parents, adoptive parents, foster children, and adoptive children. The panel was my favourite session when I took the course myself, and it's my favourite one to run as well, not only because I don't have to do all the talking, but also because I get to hear the stories from the panel.  Their lives, often difficult and in some cases horrifying, are nevertheless testimony to the difference that people can make in each other's lives.

Yesterday we heard from a birth mother who chose to pursue adoption for her baby daughter but who was reunified with her more than 20 years later and now has a close friendship with the adoptive parents as well. We heard from an adoptive mother who didn't begin adoption until she was older than most parents and then became a mother to two sisters. We heard from an adoptive child who now helps her family to foster because she knows how important it was for her to have a home where she was loved.  We heard from an adoptive family who has built a strong relationship with the birth parents of their son, allowing them to be involved in his life. We heard from a now adult woman who bounced between foster homes, group homes, and even an attempted adoptive home, but who only found her true home when she made one with her own child.

These are not miracle stories.  All of them are full of pain and loss and disappointment and struggle, of parents not being able to look after their children, of children being abused and neglected, of children being let down by the homes and courts and governments that were supposed to protect them, of families who were desperate to have children but could not. They are not miracle stories, but they are stories of what can happen in these situations when people commit to loving children and making a home for them, even when it means far more perseverance and work than miracles.

Making this commitment isn't easy. Just getting through the adoptive system can be a struggle, never mind trying to parent children who are working through deep hurts and losses. If it is a commitment that you can make, however, it will change you as much as the children who come into your home, and cannot imagine anything more worth doing.