We went through the adoption process four times during our infertility journey. (Note: we ended up only bringing two children home. You can read that whole story in my book, Counting Grains of Sand.) I can tell you, without question or qualm, that adopting did not and could not fix our infertility. It wasn’t a cure or a correction. Adoption is actually an entirely different everything … [Read more...] about Adoption is Not a Fix for Infertility
Adoption
To the Adoptive Mom Who Feels She Has to Choose Between Her Kids
I’m convinced there is nothing more heart-crushing than facing a moment when it feels like you have to choose between your children. The day we finally made phone calls and placed one of our children in out-of-home respite care for an extended period, was the day I realized I was going to lose my other child's trust if I didn’t get unmovable boundaries up fast. It was also the day I curled up … [Read more...] about To the Adoptive Mom Who Feels She Has to Choose Between Her Kids
To the Adoptive Mom Who is Bombarded with Negative Words
Two weeks. Fourteen days in a row of solid negativity. Fourteen long days when there were a lot of things said from my child to me, but none of them could be twisted into anything nice. I heard that I was “not a real mom”, I was “annoying”, that I was “a murderer” (don’t ask, suffice it to say that nothing died or was in danger of dying). I was informed that my child hated me, wished … [Read more...] about To the Adoptive Mom Who is Bombarded with Negative Words
To the Adoptive Mom Facing Secondary Trauma
Adopting a traumatized child is not like a short-term missions trip to an orphanage where all the children are slightly unkempt but ever so sweet and want to be held and play games and tell stories. In fact, nothing is really like that in reality. (Not even the orphanage you might have visited.) This kind of adoption is more like a bloody, exhausting, sometimes horrifying, battle. … [Read more...] about To the Adoptive Mom Facing Secondary Trauma
To the Adoptive Mom With a Struggling Marriage
Marriage is hard. It’s also beautiful and life-giving—but that’s a subject for another day. For today, we’re going to address the fact that marriage can be hard and a healthy marriage takes a certain amount of cultivating. Relationships in general take a certain amount of cultivating. And nothing throws a relationship off course like trauma. It’s no secret that in the … [Read more...] about To the Adoptive Mom With a Struggling Marriage
To the Adoptive Mom Feeling the Weight of Other People’s Opinions
I still remember where I was sitting the first time another mom explained to me that my child wasn't as difficult as I seemed to think. She wasn't mean about it. Not at all. But the words still shocked me into silence. The truth? I had barely brushed the surface of the issues we were facing at home. Barely even said anything that indicated how hard things actually were! But … [Read more...] about To the Adoptive Mom Feeling the Weight of Other People’s Opinions