Jonathan and I adopted our first child in November.
Since that time, one comment we’ve heard fairly often is, "You guys are amazing! What a great thing you’ve done!"—or something along those lines.
But here today, in this post, I want to set the story straight. We aren’t the heroes in adoption. We are simply a blessed couple who was entrusted with the most precious gift of all: a child. We didn’t do anything special or amazing other than stay open to God’s will for growing our family. We didn’t do anything superhuman.
Others did, though. I want to tell you about the people who get overlooked at times in our pro-life culture: the birth family, and in particular the birth mother.
Adoption is not some easy decision it is often painted as.
Pregnancy is tough work.
Choosing to endure any pregnancy, let alone a difficult one with sickness or extreme back pain, etc. is not for the faint of heart. Add to that the dilemma of life’s circumstances making it so that parenting would be very difficult at this moment in time. A choice is then made by the birth parents to pursue a plan in which others can receive the gift of life via the path of adoption.
Following that is sharing the news about the adoption plan with extended family members, all of whom will likely have a variety of opinions and input. Again, not an easy conversation to have.
Lastly comes the inevitable joy and grief involved in bringing a new life into the world, and then entrusting that baby to another family to love and raise.
All really, really hard stuff.
I think birth mothers and fathers are amazing. They are the real heroes of adoption. If they wanted convenience or an easy path, our culture has made abortion easily available to them. But instead they chose life.. in spite of the difficulties and challenges that come with that path.
I want to publicly thank our daughter’s birth family for loving her and giving her what they believed was the best life possible. I want to thank all birth mothers in particular for being completely selfless and thinking chiefly about their child. To endure not only pregnancy, but also labor, delivery, negative comments, and criticisms of your decision makes you a real hero.
Thank you for your "yes" to life. Thank you for allowing others to receive the greatest gift of all. Thank you for being mine and thousands of other adoptive parents’ heroes.
Amanda Teixeira writes for FOCUS’s (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) blog where this article originally appeared. It is reprintered here with kind permission. She also has her own blog at www.truegoodandbeautiful.net.
And today we celebrate...