Confession: Sometimes I Hate Adoption

Sometimes I hate adoption.

Okay, maybe it’s not necessarily feelings of hate. It’s more like resentment and annoyance of the situations that manifest themselves to me from time to time. More often than not, the few people that I express these feelings to jump to one of  two conclusions:

1. I must regret my decision to place my child.

2. The adoptive parents and I aren’t on good terms.

That’s not even remotely the case. In fact, I have never regret my decision to place nor have I ever been on bad terms with the adoptive parents. We have a pretty open line of communication which I feel prevents that.  So why do I hate adoption? Let me tell you why.

In a perfect world adoption wouldn’t exist.

In a perfect world, no one would find themselves experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. The only pregnancies would come to those who were planning for a child and were prepared in all aspects: emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, and with two parents who are committed to each other. It would be an exciting time. Nobody would experience fear, stress, hurt, heartbreak, or sadness as they are placed with the burden that comes with an unplanned pregnancy and the unquenchable pain created by placing that child into the arms of the parents who will be raising them.

In a perfect world everyone would conceive as soon as they wanted to and there would be no struggle to start a family. No hearts would break month after month when hoped-for pregnancies failed to occur. Starting a family would be a time of excitement and happiness. There would be no tears, not stress, no diminishing hope.

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But we don’t live in a perfect world. Instead, birth parents and adoptive parents rely on each other. Adoption wouldn’t exist without one of the these two pieces of the puzzle. If there were no unplanned pregnancies and everyone only conceived at a time that was right for them, there would be no birth parents and all of those couples dreaming and yearning for a child would remain childless.

If everyone was able to conceive when they pleased and no one struggled to have children, there would be no one for birth parents to place their children with. If a birth mother just knew that her child would be better off with parents who were prepared for him/her, but there was no one available, what kind of life would this child end up in? If they were even given life at all?

So, sometimes I hate adoption. I wish we lived in a perfect world where adoption didn’t need to exist. But because we do not, while I may resent it, I’m also very grateful for it.