? for those who've adopted....

[shortbun]

No bio kids here but we bonded with DS the second we laid eyes on him. I can not imagine a tighter bond.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

My best friend just found out they were chosen to be the adoptive parents of a baby due in the summer. She is having these same fears.

She is afraid she won't bond with the baby, and she is sort of upset that she is missing out on the nine months of the baby growing inside her. I feel bad for her, because they have been trying for 5 years to concieve, it they just can't.

I know that the minute she lays eyes on that precious baby, her motherly instincts will kick in.

 

[canadianjovigirl]

Our story had a few bumps in the road as we also did a foster to adopt and our son was almost 7 when placed in our home so had alot of baggage and had been diagnosed with disorganized attachement disorder. My girls were 4 and 10 at the time and it did take work to adjust to the change in our family dynamics, but at no time did i not love him..........i think that took on a whole new meaning the first time he sought me out for a good night hug after months and months of me having to search him out. So yes, i guess you could say love and bonding was not instant in our family, but it was grown and cultivated to be strong and healthy.

He is treated the same as the girls in my house and is loved the same by all family members dispite where and who he came from, he is my son and at times i am even more overprotective of him (due to his history) than my girls and will fight the brave fight to have him reach his potential.

I could not imagine my family without him and my heart breaks that i do not have the baby and toddler memories to share with him that i have with my girls...............

 

[EMom]

We met DD at 9 months and returned to Russia a month later to adopt her. From the minute they brought her into the room and I laid eyes on her, I'd have given my life to protect her. I was smitten. She had bonded to her caregivers so she went through a grieving period when we took her from the baby home, but she quickly transferred her attachment to me. She was a bit more wary of DH, but bonded to him soon after.

It never once occurred to me that I WOULDN'T feel the same about her as I would have about a bio child. And I don't. She is everything to me. As happens fairly often in Russian adoptions, she does look like us. Once when I told a friend that DD had been adopted and was not our bio child, she blurted out, "Are you sure?" She recovered and explained that DD looked so much like us that it was hard to believe she was not our bio child. DD has my accent, many of my mannerisms and my outgoing nature.

We do have a different situation from most international adoptive families, in that we know her bio sibling, who was adopted by another US family. We have a relationship with that family so that the children can have each other forever. The two look like peas in a pod, but their personalities are completely different.

As for some sort of "missing bond" because we don't "see" our famiily faces in hers........Well, let me just say that I lived in fear that any bio child we had would look like my BIL, who takes arrogant and condescending to unbelievable levels. If I'd given birth to a Mini-Him, heaven help me. THAT was a face I did not want to reproduce. To be fair, I didn't want to see the faces of a few folks on my side of the family tree as well. You never get a guarantee that your child will be a combo of you and your spouse. Nope, you often get your BIL, your obnoxious aunt, the grandfather who made your life miserable, the MIL who thinks no one is good enough for her son, etc. Genetics are funny like that.

My bond with DD is in my heart, not in my DNA. And I'm fine with that. I had many miscarriages before we adopted and if I could go back in time and carry one of those babies to term, I wouldn't do it. Because that would mean I would have missed out on having my precious DD and THAT is too awful to consider.

 

[*pixie*dust*]

From the moment the adoption agency handed me that one small square picture of my son, I was completely and utterly changed for life. Never in my life could I have imagined loving anyone so instantly, completely and fiercely. Prior to seeing that referral picture, I did worry about bonding and feelings, etc. But one tiny picture changed my world and took away any doubts I had.
There is something so amazing about the love a mother has for her child. There is nothing I can compare it to. Not bio child, not adopted child-- just HER child. The child of her heart.

 

[nealymouse]

Our 3 DD are adopted.They are all older now (20,16,15). I do remember that strong bond came the second I saw them. I also believe in my heart that your children no matter which way they arrived are where they were meant to be.

My middle DD used to be sad she was not born from me as she would say. I told her she arrived the way God wanted her to. She also as a little girl said she had no one to love her the second she was born, I told her that was not true, I loved you the second you were born it just took 6 months for us to find you.

Two of our adoptions are open one is closed. My 20 yr old met her bio mom at age 18 without me. I was upset because I wanted to be there but she at 18 got on a plan and did what she had to do for her. While she was there I was a wreck, I worried where my place would be when she came home. Was I still mom, was I still the one she wanted as mom etc....

When she got home I had so many questions but I wanted to wait for DD to talk on her own. It was killing me LOL I finally said "So what did you call "HER". My DD looked at me like I had 3 heads then started to laugh, hugged me and said "MOM I called her by her 1st name, I only have one mom and its you" I cried and still get teary thinking about it.

DD 16 has met her bio father and his family only. She dreads those days LOL She is nothing at all like them and just sits there and smiles, makes small talk and after its over she laughs and says " Man am I glad you and dad are my parents LOL"

The bonding no matter how long it takes they are your children and you are their parents.

 

[nealymouse]

Wanted to add something that just happend to me.

I was in Puerto Rico last month. I was in a bar and met some woman from NYC. We started to exchange numbers when this one womans family pic fell out of her purse, she started to tell me her kids names and said "Oh these two are adopted" she was so upset she said that and started to cry "I never said that before" she said. I then showed her my girls and said "My girls are adopted too" and we both started to cry LOL

Its funny how the bond of adoption will come in so many shapes and forms.

 

[rie'smom]

We had 2 biological children before we adopted our daughter. I bonded with her instantly. She was mine and when I saw her, I felt the immediate surge of love that I felt when I saw my sons for the first time.
Example: A few days after we brought her home, I was rocking her and thought, "My c section is not bothering me this time." Duh

 

[luvmy3jewels]

The responses to this thread have been really interesting. I have been mulling the possibility of adopting a child, but have the same fears as the OP. We currently have three biological children and I would like one more, but have been advised by my Dr. that the health risks are too high for me to go through another pregnancy.

To add to my fears about adoption, I have an adopted cousin that has had some serious emotional and behavioral issues that his parents have always blamed on the fact that he was adopted (he had fetal alcohol syndrome when he was born).

I have just begun to research international adoptions, but my fears have held me back from really getting serious about going any further.

 

[davidsprincess]

Our 3 DD are adopted.They are all older now (20,16,15). I do remember that strong bond came the second I saw them. I also believe in my heart that your children no matter which way they arrived are where they were meant to be.

My middle DD used to be sad she was not born from me as she would say. I told her she arrived the way God wanted her to. She also as a little girl said she had no one to love her the second she was born, I told her that was not true, I loved you the second you were born it just took 6 months for us to find you.

Two of our adoptions are open one is closed. My 20 yr old met her bio mom at age 18 without me. I was upset because I wanted to be there but she at 18 got on a plan and did what she had to do for her. While she was there I was a wreck, I worried where my place would be when she came home. Was I still mom, was I still the one she wanted as mom etc....

When she got home I had so many questions but I wanted to wait for DD to talk on her own. It was killing me LOL I finally said "So what did you call "HER". My DD looked at me like I had 3 heads then started to laugh, hugged me and said "MOM I called her by her 1st name, I only have one mom and its you" I cried and still get teary thinking about it.

DD 16 has met her bio father and his family only. She dreads those days LOL She is nothing at all like them and just sits there and smiles, makes small talk and after its over she laughs and says " Man am I glad you and dad are my parents LOL"

The bonding no matter how long it takes they are your children and you are their parents.

This sounds like how it goes with DH biological mom. Small talk - and if it is more than that, it is usually her and her husband doing all the talking.

 

[pigletgirl]

I know of a family who adopted a little boy from Romania about 10 years ago or so. They are really struggling. He has bad reactive attachment disorder and bipolar. He does NOT get along well with his mom and his older sister. (He has an older bro too)

So, while they have unconditional love for him, it does feel different (from what they have told me) because he's pretty much put them to hell and back.

So no, not all adoptions are peaches and cream....There can be a real ugly side to it all....

And I've been reading about reactive attachment disorder and it can start as early as in utero. If you adopt a baby right at birth, it doesn't mean you'll be 'fine'.

 

[rie'smom]

I know of a family who adopted a little boy from Romania about 10 years ago or so. They are really struggling. He has bad reactive attachment disorder and bipolar. He does NOT get along well with his mom and his older sister. (He has an older bro too)

So, while they have unconditional love for him, it does feel different (from what they have told me) because he's pretty much put them to hell and back.

So no, not all adoptions are peaches and cream....There can be a real ugly side to it all....

And I've been reading about reactive attachment disorder and it can start as early as in utero. If you adopt a baby right at birth, it doesn't mean you'll be 'fine'.

Anyone's bio children can have reactive attachment disorder or be bipolar.

 

[ChrizJen]

We haven't adopted, but we're foster parents hoping to adopt someday.
We've had our current placement for a little over a year now.
The one piece of advice I would give, and I know that this may meet with some criticism, but I would recommend looking into attachment parenting.

The key to bonding with a foster/adoptive child is setting up the parent/child trust from the beginning. How is that done with a biological newborn? By swaddling and making eye contact and meeting your baby's every need. Through things as simple as feeding a newborn when she's hungry and changing her diaper when needed, the baby learns that you are the parent. You are the person she can trust when she needs anything. Many adopted children have a history of neglect where they never learned this bond. At the very least, they have lost any bond that they may have had with their biological parent.
When bonding with a foster/adoptive child, no matter how old the child is, you have to establish this system from the very beginning. It's obviously slightly different depending on the age of the child. With infants/toddlers, it's slightly easier because they still depend greatly on you for their care. So you just make sure that when they get a bottle or sippy cup, YOU hold it instead of letting them hold it themselves. Cuddle them and make lots of eye contact with them when feeding them. Basically, treat them like they're newborn again.
With slightly older, more independent children, you have to set up an understanding that you are the parent and they are the child. Set up a system where if they need ANYTHING, they ask you and you get it. Even if it's something that a child of that age can typically do. That way they start to learn that they can depend on you for their needs instead of having to do things for themselves. They have to see you as the parent.
For folks with biological children, this probably sounds insane and counter-intuitive. It goes against just about everything you've ever learned about parenting and raising a healthy and happy child. But because of the loss that adoptive kids suffer (and they ALL suffer significant loss, no matter how old or what their background), you have to aproach parenting differently at the beginning. Essentially you have to set aside much of what you've learned about raising kids. You can't think, "Oh he's X years old now. He should be able to soothe himself back to sleep by now." Or, "She's X years old, she should be fully capable of making her own sandwich." Yes, they're CAPABLE of doing these things, but you have to take every opportunity you can to show them that you are there to do these things for them. This isn't to say that you treat them this way forever. You establish the bond and the trust at the beginning, then you gradually ease them into the more independence.

Sorry this is so long. But we've done tons of research, and this just makes sense. Here are a couple of really great books I would recommend reading:

Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow, by Gregory Keck and Regina M. Kupecky

When Love Is Not Enough: A Guide to Parenting Children With RAD by Terena Thomas
(this book deals with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), from which many adopted children suffer, and it also goes in depth with the parenting methods I mentioned above.)

Again, I'm sorry I got so long-winded. But this is a subject we're passionate about, and we've researched it at great length. Hope some of this helps!!

Good luck!


-Christal