How to Adopt without ruining your family by Cheri Strange

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Introduction:

One section in one lecture during one college course I cannot even recall changed the trajectory of my life forever. I was nineteen, sitting in a history class when the professor mentioned the official one-child policy China enforced, along with the orphan crisis resulting. He told how these orphans could be adopted outside of the country to help alleviate the tragic ramifications. It stuck.

Over the past decade, my husband and I, along with our two biological daughters, have adopted six children. I can speak for the core of us: We wouldn’t have missed it for the world!

But adoption is not for the faint of heart. You can, indeed, ruin your family in the process. It’s a sad truth. And it’s easy. Just Google it. All sorts of negative testimonies will appear. Ruined marriages. Dissolved adoptions. Parents who wish they had never adopted –and possible never should have adopted. It’s not the single path for everyone. You bet. It can be cataclysmic.

What I hope to do across these days is offer my best advice and encouragement for anyone either thinking about adoption or anyone in the trenches of adoption. These tips may fit for fostering also, but fostering is not my experience. I did not want to claim it as such by placing it under my umbrella.

If you are in the midst of adoption, I pray you find encouragement, hope, and honestly, a friend in me who understands. May God richly bless your family as you seek His will in serving those entrusted to you.

If you are thinking about adoption, I pray for you, too. In full disclosure, I have not sugar-coated anything. This is not going to be the Facebook edition or my best pitch to get you on-board to adopt. But if you can prayerfully embrace all ten tips and still feel a pull toward adoption as God’s call on your life—then there is a greater likelihood adoption is exactly the direction God is leading you toward.

May God richly bless the study of His Word and his people walking in obedience of it.

Tip #1 - Forget the Unicorns and Gumdrops

There currently seems to be a romanticism with adoption. Today, adopting is portrayed as how realChristians respond to the Gospel. And if you don’t sign up–you don’t love Jesus enough. Often when I speak at conferences, people tell me how they, too, have thought about adopting someday. It’s as if they are enamored with the idea, like getting a free puppy at the shelter. That’s all well and good until it starts chewing up the couch and using your carpet for a bathroom.

Recognize the path of adoption is not filled with unicorns and gumdrops. It’s war. Spiritual war. Adoption is an endeavor God holds near and dear to His heart. That means the enemy stands in defiance against the very thing God is committed to restore—using you and your family. Don’t think for a minute you will escape unscathed without some bruises or battle scars.

This should be no surprise. Paul uses the same language with Timothy, encouraging him to “wage the good warfare,” (1 Timothy 1:18), to “fight the good fight of the faith,” (1 Timothy 6:12), and to suffer for Christ as a “good soldier” (2 Timothy 2:3).

With eight kids, invariably I’m confronted with unicorn-gazers. They offer accolades including, “Your family is such an inspiration,” or, “Your children are so well-behaved,” or a common misnomer with those who adopt, “You must just love children!” I respond with grace but my thoughts are more candid: “You have NO IDEA! And NO. In fact, I DON’T even think I LIKE kids- but I LOVE JESUS. I’m barely holding it together physically and emotionally while you gawk at the unicorns in their beauty and smell those gumdrops.”

What people on the outside of adoption peering in don’t see are the fierce battles daily taking place. Recently my single and childless young friend posted a picture of herself carrying someone’s baby on her bosom. The caption read, “The only way to shop!” Well, any mom knows that’s an oxymoron. My sweet friend thinks it’s adorable in the moment, but doesn’t HAVE A CLUE what she’s talking about!

If you are considering adoption, may I suggest: Lose the enchantment. Instead, prepare for war.

If you are already involved and somewhat discouraged from a lack of gumdrops and unicorns, I’m sorry it’s not what you’d hoped. It’s time to take off the party shoes and strap on combat boots.

Tip #2 - You’d Better ALL Be All In

Jesus tells a parable to underscore the importance of counting the cost before embarking upon a building project (Luke 14:28-29). What a tragedy if the builder were to begin and not be able to finish because he had not projected the cost of building! What about the labor required? Or how taxing would the project be on him personally?

What ambition! Jesus finds no fault in the pursuit. But tower-building is not something one attempts haphazardly. Building a tower is not a work for the faint at heart or for the careless contractor. This is what makes it such a powerful comparison with discipleship to Christ. Jesus calls those who might follow Him to consider the cost.

Sometimes following Jesus leads you straight into the path of adoption.

Counting the cost in terms of adoption requires the disciple of Christ to recognize that children without families are not perfect children who simply need a family. They arrive with baggage. Ugly stuff. You will not be starting with a clean slate or at Ground Zero. You will be climbing up to Ground Zero for a really long time. In fact, the bonding alone can be as taxing as building a twelve-foot tower with toothpicks and a glue stick. It is an all-embracing venture. It will be challenging emotionally, physically, and spiritually. You must be together on this one.

Allow me to offer you the same encouragement offered us. Contemplating whether or not to adopt a sibling set of four, our agency connected us with another family with similar circumstances. After asking several nitty-gritty questions and listening to how they were able to manage life amidst the chaos big families create, the father’s best advice to me was this: Don’t do it.

It wasn’t bitterness talking, just a voice of admonition. “Sister, unless you understand and are willing to do what it takes, just don’t.” He knew firsthand the irrational actions associated with trauma, the added stress and responsibilities to come, as well as what we would be giving up. His best advice sounds harsh until we realize Jesus offers the same hardball approach (Luke 14:33) at the end of that discourse on tower-building and cost-counting about following Him.

Considering adoption? Wait for His timing to lead you together.

Currently in adoption? Talking often and praying together can be most effective for landing you on the same page.

Tip #3 - Be Prepared When the Honeymoon Is Over

Most children, through adoption, arrive after the earliest stages of life. Consequently, there is a phenomenon known as The Honeymoon Period, which can last a week to even a year, depending on the child. But it will end.

There will likely come a day when you wonder why you ever thought adoption was a good idea in the first place. You’ll think you’re a horrible person for feeling this way. You can’t tell a soul. And you’ll find yourself fearing that you have, indeed, ruined your family.

You can understand. A child emerging from a precarious or even devastating situation is going to arrive with an extensive invisible suitcase, filled with emotional, mental, and physical junk. They move in; and it takes a while to feel safe enough to unpack the suitcase and spread it across the floor. When the contents are bestrewn, it makes quite a mess.

Expect some mayhem. My friends have experienced fits of anger, defiance, and the signs of sexual abuse around the six-month mark. Our honeymoon with Jolee lasted about two months. Chloe, just twelve months old, didn’t make a peep for a week. Her mouth formed a cry, but no sound came out. Then she screamed for two solid years (hours in duration, so loudly, our neighbors could hear her across the street)! Please don’t assume this effect is reserved for older children. Every kid brings their own invisible gear.

In relationships, we enter with a certain set of expectations. The honeymoon sets the tone. But when the honeymoon is over, in this case, without announcement, the relationship changes. Suddenly expectations are no longer being met, and life can become very scary.

Paul understood the menacing power a stronghold of fear could wreak. He calls fear “an opposing force to the Spirit of God.” Paul makes this clear distinction so that Timothy can choose not to be afraid. Instead, he can allow the Holy Spirit to provide the power to overcome what he cannot, to love those he doesn’t, and the ability to overcome his own self-defeating tendencies (2 Timothy 1:7).

When the honeymoon ends and crazy stuff begins to fling from the imaginary suitcase, you, too, can choose not to be afraid. Instead:

• Give your fears to God.

• Ask Him to help you love beyond your ability.

• Trust Him to give you the discipline required for the tasks.

Tip #4 - Embrace the Challenges Together

One of the downfalls of failed adoptive situations is a lack of support. The fault is multifaceted. It’s like choosing to live in a house you know is loaded with an assortment of fire hazards. You just don’t know what they are specifically or where they are located. After the house is burned to the ground, you then point fingers for how the fire began. It isn’t helpful. Nor does it keep your family from losing everything. Identifying the source of the problem after the disaster has destroyed everything we hold near and dear simply offers an explanation.

I think most of us would agree. Know everything we can know about how to prevent a house fire is a must if we are going to choose to live in a hazardous environment. Then we can place safeguards around us in case there is even a spark. The fire department can be on speed dial– and we can practice escape drills.

It sounds silly. But this is exactly what we would do if we were forced to live under such physical conditions. We would never take our chances and go it alone in this type of situation. Why would we take a Rambo approach with adoption?

Adoption should be an experience that brings you together, rather than pulls you apart. Make every effort to be (or get) on the same page. There are a lot of resources currently available. Maybe they work. Maybe they don’t. The key is being together on the issues and to approach life from a Biblical framework, consistently.

We read several books. We sought out at least six specialists in three major cities to secure help for our kids. Several years into this journey, and as little as a week ago, we were addressing an issue that is clearly an orphan issue. We can’t seem to get a handle on it through our tried and true methods, so we are going to try something else I read about in a resource book. I don’t know if it will be effective, but we are in agreement to give it a try.

Involving our older children has also been part of coming together, especially on challenges. This has enabled them to be a part of the solutions as well as recognizing family is not something done to them but with them.

How do you need to come together?

Tip #5 - Expect Loneliness

Invariably following an event, a woman will wait to speak with me. The details are different, but the sentiment is always the same. She is an adoptive mom or foster parent who feels so alone in her experiences that she has waited for the speaker, because, with six adopted kids, this woman believes she has finally found someone who will get it!

You must know, if you don’t already, your friends won’t understand. Your extended family probably won’t get it either. It will be years before the school will understand—if they GET IT AT ALL. Forget (and I’m so terribly sorry) the good-meaning people at your church. Don’t expect them to understand. They can’t. You wouldn’t have understood on the Outside, either. You can explain it until you are blue and breathless. You can show them proofs. You can repeat it ten thousand times. Your small group will look concerned and commit to pray for you–but they will display that deer-in-the-headlights look you will come to recognize as “I’m listening, but I have no idea what you are really saying and I don’t know what to do with it…” And the loneness will, if it has not already, envelope you.

I understand.

In fact, we’re such a freakish phenomenon, I can count on one hand how many times we have been invited to someone’s home in the past five years. In bulk we overwhelm our surroundings. Most people just don’t know what to do with us. I’m not sure what elements are responsible—the number, variety, or noise level. We simply aren’t like other families.

I get it.

Honestly, there was a period where we experienced loneliness, even from within. We were completely focused on our special needs daughter. It was sucking the life out of everyone. But you can’t complain. She’s not generating all of that damage on purpose. All we recognized was that we were hurting. The girls were hurting. And we pretty much stank at adoption.

The loneliness can knock the wind out of each of you. It’s real. But don’t allow it to crush you.

• Keep the communication open within your family.

• Practice hospitality – reach out when others fail to reach toward you.

• Remember, you may be the only one you know doing what you’re doing—but you are NOT alone. Your God sees, hears, and remains with you.

Tip #6 - Don’t Do It Alone

Recently I took three of my children to a social for adoptive families. “Are you speaking, Mom?” I replied, “No. It’s just lunch, for fun. There’s a bounce house.” My children were confused. “You mean you’re just going to hang out with the parents? That’s awesome, Mom. Good for you!” You see, even the children recognize the need for adoptive parents to find other people to come alongside.

Find an on-line support group. Or a blogger you may never meet. Or, like me, locate a church that provides ministry to families who foster and adopt. Go to the adoption events designed for families in your area. If nothing exists, start something yourself. We need each other desperately.

You don’t have to do the same thing exactly. They might foster. You may adopt. Maybe they have four kids to your one. It doesn’t really matter. The point is to seek out a network of support, because it won’t seek you out.

The statistics for parents of children with trauma, especially–are filled with issues of depression, failure marriages, and dissolved adoptions. Many of these failed forever families provide insights as to what they would have done differently. Atop the list includes finding others to come alongside, such as getting help early on and finding resources.

Please don’t allow pride to get in the way of securing reinforcements you need. I realize you want to be able to do it yourself. Maybe the strategies offered sound like nothing more than psychological hogwash. I get it. But what have you got to lose by trying the expert advice of someone who has been down this road before, or has at least studied those who have trod it successfully?

We have ample opportunity to make mistakes parenting. With five degrees between us, Chad and I could paper the walls with medical and child development expertise we share. But we have failed enough in our parenting to realize how much we don’t know. Let me encourage you to look beyond your own devices, for by doing so, there is safety.

Sometimes just having dinner with other families who have adopted is of great benefit. Invite them over. Meet at a local restaurant. Just talk about life. I promise, they don’t have it all together. You simply want to find ways to stop going solo on this journey.

Instead, do it together.

For the rest of the tips and to finish reading please CLICK HERE to start this Bible Plan.