The statement that adoption is not the same as having a child of your own is both remarkably accurate and remarkably wrong. Adoption and giving birth are two very different ways of creating your family. Just as New York City and Paris are two different vacation destinations, or chocolate and vanilla are two different flavors of ice cream. They miss out on the wonder of seeing a tiny foot or head or butt make waves across the belly. The expense of adoption, while often similar to the expense of giving birth, is covered by the adoptive parents rather than insurance.
And then there is the worry about the unknownโprenatal exposures, genetic conditions, emotional state of the expectant mother, and on and on. We seem to focus so readily on what adoptive parent miss by not giving birth that we overlook what parents by birth miss by not adopting. They have missed so much. This combination of emotions helps etch even the tiniest details into your memory foreverโ the colors, the smells, the words, the emotions.
Adoption can make the everyday seem miraculous. The moment when this child that you met only a few months or even weeks before seeks you, and only you, out of the crowd with her eyes. The moment when you realize that your small developmentally delayed child is now a robust into-everything preschooler, and the quiet pride you feel knowing that but for you, these gains may not have happened.
The contentment in knowing that you took a risk and it paid off. A feeling of satisfaction unique to adoptive parents when we look around our Thanksgiving table and realize that we are a family created by choice and love.
Creating a family by adoption is not the same as creating a family by birth. I highly recommend the Creating a Family show on Nature vs. A child conceived and born of you and your spouse will be a mixing of two different gene pools, with a unique environment thrown in for good measure.
