Can't Love Them

I went out for dinner the other night with a friend from college.  We did some reminiscing and updated each other on our mutual friends, old roommates and such.  We went to college 14 years ago!  Wow.

One of our mutual friends we had both run into at different times, her more recently than I.  When I had last spoken to them, they were struggling with infertility and looking at adoption.  I emailed them a ton of stuff, but then never heard from them.  I have now been updated that they still do not have children, and won't be adopting either.  Reason?  They cannot love them like their own.

Right there I no longer felt sorry for them.  At that instant I was thankful they didn't go through it.  But then, after more thought, I was feeling sorry for them again, mostly because they can't experience what I do everyday.  At least they "admitted" it, for lack of a better word, and didn't do adoption just for the sake of having children when they knew deep down they could never love them like their own.

I've posted before about loving adopted children enough.  Four years ago, before having any children, I wrote this:

A blood link isn't what makes a family. It is hearts being united that make a family. It is the connection. Just think of the number of people you have said "he was like a brother to me" or "they're like family". Yet they look nothing like you. They don't share your blood line. Even in-laws are family - a hard pill for some of you to swallow. One definition off the internet says a family is "a domestic group of people".

For those of you have not or will not be adopting, and for those who plan to adopt but question whether you can love a non-biological child as if it were "your own", YOU CAN!! To be honest, I had questioned it early on in the adoption process too. It was a soon-to-pass fear that I wouldn't love my adopted child like I would if he/she were biological. Here's reality for you skeptics: There is no difference in loving a biological child or loving an adopted child unless you make up a difference! That in itself is a choice.

My step-dad loves me unconditionally. That was, and continues to be, his choice. He could have treated me and my brother differently than his biological son - my step-brother. He could have been my worst nightmare. Instead he chose to love me and share a piece of his heart with me. Do I doubt his words ... never.

It is a question that comes to mind for pretty much all adoptive parents at one time.  It's a rollercoaster of an adventure, and when nerves hit you do wonder those things.

Loving adoptive children is an amazing and beautiful gift.  I can't actually imagine loving my child more than I do.  I can't imagine knowing a more profound love.  Granted, I don't have biological children to personally compare with, but I am a biological child and a step-child.  I am a receiver of biological and non-biological parental love.  I can't see, feel or determine any difference. 

But, if you really know deep down that you can't do it.  That's it's too drastic of a comparison for children for you.  That you would always look at the child and think "You're not really mine" than definitely don't do it.  And thank you for admitting it and not doing it.  As much as there's always children needing roofs over their heads, more importantly, those children need love.  They don't deserve to grow up in a loveless house.  I knew a family, although I haven't seen them for years, where the dad consciously chose not to love his step-daughter the same as his biological child.  It was disgusting.  And he verbalized it no matter who was there.  Knowing we were adopting, he said some things he strongly felt, but we were disgusted with.  The friendship ended there.  But he honestly thought the step-daughter would never know the difference.  HELLO! THEY KNOW!!  They feel it.  They see it.  They hear it.  They know!  We saw sadness in her eyes every time we saw her.  Her eyes were missing a spark.  She was alone in her world. 

So thank you to all those step-parents, foster parents and other styles of parents, who embrace their non-biological children as their own.  They can all be a very difficult roads.  Thank you to those of you who don't compare; who don't have strings attached; who love all your children as your own, just as God has chosen to love all His children as his own!