What goes around, comes around.
Sometimes in life — most times — you just don’t know what’s past the next corner.
My lovely wife and I are facilitating a class for people considering adoption. We schedule speakers to address all aspects of the process including the various types (international, domestic, private), costs, agency requirements, and more.
At our last class we had a birth mother share her experience and perspective. She chose the adoption option many years ago when, in college, she became pregnant. She related a touching and compelling story that left barely a dry eye in the house.
Her story was somewhat anti-stereotypical. The boy wanted to marry and raise the child but he also agreed to abide by her ultimate decision. She was only a teenager then and felt ill-prepared to adequately care for this new life. But, most important, her parents had recently separated and his parents were divorced. She feared that the child would never enjoy the stable family life that all children deserve.
Time passed. She married and now has an eight-year-old. She’d like another child but is experiencing fertility difficulties. She’s thinking of adopting a second child.
The circle becomes complete. The girl who years ago presented one family with a beautiful baby wants some other mother to return the favor.
Human emotions are perhaps both too limited and grand to adequately express or understand the magnitude and significance of this wondrous passage.
What must be going through this woman’s mind? What is going through yours?
No, she doesn’t regret her teenage decision and, no, she’s not stalking her natural born in dark building recesses to steal a glimpse.
She’s living through the circle of life in an incredibly amazing way. Most people in our class are considering adoption because they can’t conceive on their own — or even with the benefit of today’s considerable technological aids.
In fact, many agencies and countries demand infertility proof before parents can realize their family dream.
It’s too bad that more children can’t be adopted merely for the love of it. Infertile couples love their chosen children no less than if they were the birth parents. Of that I have no doubt. I’m an adoptive parent. But perhaps more people will consider this alternative not because they have to but because they see the wonder and glory of it.
People often tell my lovely wife and me how lucky our kids are to have such loving parents. We’re honored to hear that and we acknowledge their kindness. But we hasten to correct these well-wishers by noting that we, the parents, are truly the lucky ones. We’re the recipients of our children’s love and we’re the ones to whom their care has been entrusted. All we have to do is parent — prepare and protect. Our children do the rest.
Love. It’s what completes the circle of life.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M.Ed.
Approximately 480 words.
© 1998