Eleven Years Later

Recently, an old “note” that I’d written on social media about choosing single motherhood resurfaced, and I decided it was time for a remix.  You can read the original here, but without further ado, here is

What I want you to know… eleven years later.

I want you to know that almost exactly one year after I wrote this, the tiniest baby entered our family bringing with him layers of nuanced birth family relationships that would expand my heart in ways I could never have imagined.  Fostering him broke me open, challenged everything I thought I knew about what was best for kids, and brought me to the end of myself again and again.

I want you to know that after the two-and-a-half year journey to his adoption, I knew in my bones that we were finished.  I closed the door to being a foster parent without any doubt or regret.  I know that this is not true for everyone, and I think that if you’re not sure, you’re not done.  But I knew it.  And the relief that flooded my body after closing that door made me physically sick (on our “adoption-moon.”  In a hotel. With a toddler and his big sister.  It was grand.).

I want you to know that when things got hard, God’s people stepped up.  So many times, I’ve read about cases where church friends are supportive of an adoptive family at the beginning and then disappear when trauma, attachment issues and mental illness start showing up.  And I want to shout from the rooftops that this is not always true.  When the poo hit the fan in our family… and it did, friends… it hit hard… our faith community rallied and supported us in every possible way.  I went to (literal and metaphorical) places as a mom that were the stuff of nightmares.  And God’s people showed up in every single one of those terrifying places.  They walked us through shadows that I honestly wasn’t sure our family could survive.  And I will always, always be grateful that we never walked alone.

I want you to know that my kids are real siblings.  They can fuss and fight and pick on each other all day long, but when the chips are down, they have each other’s backs.  As they’ve gotten older, they’ve started talking about the future and their conversations about “always being your sister/brother” melt me.  I’ve made a rule that I never interrupt them when they are having fun together.  Do they take advantage of this to stay up too late and indulge in too much junk food and screen time?  Absolutely.  Do I care? Not even a little.

I want you to know that no one is allowed to tell us how we are supposed to feel about adoption.  Not me and most definitely not my kids.  Don’t tell me that we’re lucky to have each other. Don’t tell my kids that they should be grateful.  Don’t expect them to act like they’re happy on days that remind them of loss (which, to be honest, could be any day).  Don’t tell us that nature doesn’t matter… that sharing genes and history don’t matter.  They do.  We feel how we feel about adoption.  My kids are always allowed to tell the truth about it.  Even and especially the parts that aren’t rainbows and unicorns.  Always.

I want you to know that the pressure to “be the face” of all the things loosens its chokehold over time.  Therapy helps.  And finding safe spaces to tell the truth.  And knowing other families that look like yours (or, more precisely, that look every which way) where no one questions why you are black and your mom is white or why you don’t have a dad.  I think just plain getting older helps too… life’s too short to worry about appearances.  No one is going to choose not to adopt because we happen to be having a rough day.

And, most of all, friends… I want you to know that we’re ok, our little family.  In some ways, we are better than ever.  We’ve survived toddlerhood, middle school, a global pandemic and losses that took our breath away.  And we’re still here.  Messy, imperfect and not even a little bit like what I could have imagined eleven years ago.  But these kids of mine, they are incredible.  They are fully themselves.  And we are doing just fine.