• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Hope-Filled Family

  • Adoption
    • Adoption process
    • Parenting an Adopted Child
    • Blended families
    • Explaining adoption to others
  • Faith
    • Discipleship for kids
    • Discipleship for parents
    • Books and resources
  • Family Life
    • Parenting
    • Marriage
    • Education
    • Home
  • Seasons
    • Christmas & Advent
    • Mothers’ Day
    • Easter & Lent
    • Fathers’ Day
    • Summer
    • Halloween
    • Birthdays
  • ABOUT ME
    • About Me
    • Contact
  • Shop
  • Basket

WHY ADOPT WHEN YOU CAN HAVE BIRTH CHILDREN?

April 16, 2018 7 Comments

Tweet
Share
Share
Pin

I use affiliate links in some blog posts. If you click through and make a purchase, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to yourself. Thank you for your support.

It’s one of those questions that many of us might have in our heads, but never actually verbalise. After all, it sounds rude, doesn’t it? As if we’re questioning someone’s life choices – something we know never, ever to do in 21st-century Britain.

Well, here’s an answer. It’s my answer, and it may not be everyone’s, but here it is.

Why adopt when you can have birth children? Why would couples make the decision to go through the adoption process if they knew they could conceive naturally? What motivates people to choose adoption?

Because of God’s promptings

If you’d asked me in October 2011, when I was sat up in the night feeding our newborn, reading post after post on my friend’s adoption blog, I may have said something about God pulling on my heart strings in a way that He hadn’t previously. Surely the conversion of “I’d rather not adopt…unless we have to” into “I’m desperate to adopt – how much longer do we have to wait?” is answer enough. (Read the whole story of how we decided to adopt.)

You see, we were never making the decision between adoption and the usual route.

We hadn’t had a serious discussion about whether to go for a third child or not – in our off-the-cuff comments to one another it was possible that I was keen and he was not, but I think now that God protected us from getting deep into these conversations, so that we might consider adoption on its own merits, and not as an alternative to having a birth child.

Because children need choice

If you’d asked me in April 2015, when we attended an adoption preparation course, I’d have struggled to answer. Here we were, sat in a room full of those who couldn’t have children – straight couples let down by the crueller side of nature (check out Mothers’ Day and Baby Loss if this is you), and gay couples who had limited options for having a family – knowing that, to the best of our knowledge, the equipment we possessed for bringing a new life into the world was still fully-operational.

Why were we here?

It’s a question I blurted out to my social worker once the course was over. I wasn’t thinking of pulling out – more playing Devil’s Advocate, challenging this experienced professional to tell us, like some competitive reality TV show, why we should remain in the process.

Her answer was wise and insightful, and we’ve quoted it many times in conversation with others. It’s all about the child, she said. He needs to find the right family for him. The more families who enter the pool, the better the chances for the child.

And that was it. A complete reversal of the adoption process.

She’d reminded us that we weren’t in this for us, as if we simply wanted to make our family more quirky, or gain new blog followers. We were in it for him or her or them – whoever God might have, ready and waiting, who needed our family.

Later, we were to call one of our boys “God has remembered”. (Not literally, of course, we’re not that quirky – but a name which means that. Being a public blog and all, I’m not about to share the actual name with you but if you enjoy that kind of thing then by all means look it up.)

The point is that our boys were not forgotten. They were not forgotten when they were parted from birth family and they were not forgotten when they were being cared for by their foster family. God remembered them.

Because we can’t imagine a different family

And, if you were to ask me now, April 2018, when our boys have been with us for well over two years, and the reality of our blended family has become normal and everyday – what would I say?

I would ask you what might have happened to our boys had we not entered the process. It’s highly likely that they would have gone to another family – they were young and cute enough to be a popular entry on the looked-after children register. This thought gives me huge relief on the one hand, to know that my boys would have been loved.

But that’s just it.

They’re my boys, and the thought of them being in anyone’s family other than ours is so inconceivable that it actually just feels wrong. It shouldn’t matter whether you have birth children, step children, foster children or no children – if God leads you down a path of adoption, go there without hesitation: you’ll discover rich treasures of love, belonging, identity and family that you never even knew existed.

Adoption is immensely rewarding, but also immensely challenging. If you’re struggling, you may find our own story of seeking post adoption support helpful.

Related posts:

2 MYTHS ABOUT STAY-AT-HOME PARENTING
Should my child take part in activities which clash with church?
DEAR WORLD, MY 'ADOPTED' CHILDREN ARE ALSO MY 'OWN' CHILDREN. PLEASE DON'T DIFFERENTIATE.
HOW DO YOU COPE WITH TWO OR MORE CHILDREN? 6 MUM BLOGGERS SHARE THEIR TIPS...
THE MERMAID WHO COULDN'T - BOOK REVIEW
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT THERAPEUTIC PARENTING?
FANTASTIC PEOPLE WHO DARED TO FAIL - REVIEW
THE UN-BIRTHDAY: CELEBRATING THE BIRTHDAY OF THE CHILD YOU HAVEN'T MET
Tweet
Share
Share
Pin

Adoption· Adoption process· Blended families· Explaining adoption to others· Faith· Family Life· Parenting· Parenting an Adopted Child

The Hope Filled Family (thehopefilledfamily.com) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and all regional Amazon sites.

Previous Post: « WHY MY SON TORE UP HIS MOTHERS’ DAY CARD (AND IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK)
Next Post: THE DAY OF DEMANDS (AND THE HALF-DEAD FLOWERS WHICH SPOKE MORE THAN ANY BOUQUET) »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jessica says

    May 9, 2018 at 6:26 pm

    Love this blog post. We have 2 birth daughters and likewise are pursuing adoption not as a plan B, or as an alternative to having “our own kids” but because there are many children in need of a family and we can be that family.

    Reply
    • desertmum says

      May 9, 2018 at 9:53 pm

      That’s fab Jessica! We know how that feels 🙂 My giveaway is open internationally, so do enter if you’d like to win a copy of this book – part one would make great reading prior to adopting, and part two would be great when you’re in the thick of it!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. editors, rejections, and becoming blog-savvy: the first four months of freelance writing says:
    April 30, 2018 at 10:54 am

    […] been updating this blog more regularly (check out my post on being a feminist SAHM, or this on blending adopted and birth kids), writing for Home for Good (e.g. what the church needs to know about trauma and the inspiring […]

    Reply
  2. … (what I’m into – April 2018) says:
    May 3, 2018 at 9:09 pm

    […] asked Why adopt when you can have birth children? and explained Why my son tore up his Mothers’ Day card. I also shared the highs and lows of my […]

    Reply
  3. Log-fired pizzas, hands-free parenting and incredible acrobatics (watching, not doing) - What I'm into - April 2018 - says:
    February 17, 2019 at 10:12 pm

    […] asked Why adopt when you can have birth children? and explained Why my son tore up his Mothers’ Day card. I also shared the highs and lows of my […]

    Reply
  4. Why adopt when you can have birth children? – desertmum says:
    July 16, 2019 at 10:39 am

    […] post has moved! Check it out on my shiny new website here. Thanks, Lucy […]

    Reply
  5. DEAR SON, THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF ‘BROTHER’ says:
    June 4, 2020 at 10:07 am

    […] > WHY ADOPT WHEN YOU CAN HAVE BIRTH CHILDREN? […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

The Hope-Filled Family - UK Christian parenting and adoption blog by Lucy Rycroft
  • About
  • DISCLOSURE POLICY
  • COOKIE POLICY
  • PRIVACY POLICY

Terms and Conditions