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What a ride! Now the story …

You have finally come to the end of your adoption journey, and what a ride it’s been!

The story, however, is still very near the beginning. Now it’s time to begin thinking about that story … whose story it is, or which parts of the tale belong to whom.

When the first thought of adoption crossed your mind, you dropped a crumb on the path that now winds over the months, through the paper chase, around the anxieties, into the Homestudy, out of the putting together of profiles, past the sleepless nights, over the seemingly endless waiting, alongside the birth parents, and on and on, all the way up to, “Hello, Little Beauty … I’m your mother.”

Following those tiny morsels back down the trail puts the story in order … the story called, “How you came to our family” … a precious commodity, as individual as a fingerprint and every bit as personal.

Now that you’re an adoptive parent, you are likely to find that people have a great interest in adoptions, and many feel any question, comment or statement of opinion is fair play in the game of human discourse.

We have looked at how and why you shouldn’t feel compelled to comply with requests for info at the beginning of the adoption process, and now that you’ve reached the point of parenthood, there’s even less reason.

You see, as pleased as you are to have put the grinding obstacle course behind you, and as proud as you are of the wonderful reward now dozing away in your arms, much of the tale is not yours to tell. It belongs to the sleepy little bundle.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t use the word adoption with pride, or offer assistance, experience or advice to another family considering the same route … not at all. Letting people know that adoption is as much a miracle as procreation to you is important for everyone, including the baby who will soon be listening to every word you say, and helping others who are just finding their feet is only fair.

It’s giving away the story that’s the problem, or the parts that aren’t for you to give, before your child is old enough to have some say in who gets what.

An adopted child is tied to you by fewer threads than a biological one is; your DNA doesn’t double helix itself through his chromosomes, and he didn’t start out as a tiny egg you manufactured for the purpose. What you do share is a history that began at the beginning, and it’s your job to hold that for him and to add to it as the years pass. How you choose to present this is part of what will make your family special, but passing out bits and pieces just because some yahoo has a curious streak can only serve to cheapen the whole shebang.

There’s no place like home

This is the place you gazed at longingly from such a great distance for however long your journey has taken. You’re now home, sweet home, and a family.

There is settling in to be done, adjustments to make, and a whole new family to learn and love, and before long the process that brought you here will be a memory that tends to hold on to the high points along the way and scoff half-heartedly at the worries and anxieties that plagued you.

Your child is your dream come true, and even after hours and days and months and years of lovingly nuzzling your darling you may not quite believe that the path stepped onto all those months ago really did lead you here.

But it’s true. You did it. You filled in the papers and sat through the interviews and gathered the information and made the choices and waited and waited and waited, and now it’s done.

You’re parents.

And you may already be thinking of starting all over again …

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Credits: Sandra Hanks Benoiton