Celebrating National Adoption Month

In 2011 and 2016, my husband, Marc, and I adopted our now 9 and 5-year-old sons. We spent ten years and over $30,000 on unsuccessful medical treatments for infertility. After all of this, my husband started to mention the idea of adoption by way of foster care.  Since we had put a second mortgage on our home to pay for many different types of medication and procedures, a private adoption just wasn’t possible at the time. Since he grew up with a foster sister, he was familiar with foster care. He would nudge, and I would always say, “I just don’t think I can do foster care.”

After more fertility treatments, more money, and more disappointments, I began to think that this was what God wanted for me. I was ok being the favorite cousin or the fun adult friend, but honestly, I wanted my husband to be a dad. I wanted my parents to be grandparents. 

And yes, I wanted to be a mom. 

After more nudging from Marc, I agreed to consider the idea of being a foster parent. One year after attending our first introductory meeting to foster care, we were blessed with our first foster child, who thankfully became our first forever child. Four years later, we adopted our second child, who was actually our third foster child.  

Celebrating National Adoption Month

I have never really thought about “celebrating” National Adoption Month because I don’t “think” of myself as an adoptive mom. Heck, I am just a cool mom (insert laugh here).

Is there a difference in the love of a birth mom versus the love of an adoptive mom?  I don’t “think” about my sons being adopted. Don’t get me wrong, I pray for their birth families and have a special place in my heart for birth mothers who make the courageous and selfless decision to put their child up for adoption.  I guess I feel as though I celebrate adoption every day – as my husband and I raise our two sons, hoping we are following God’s plan for them.

I advocate for adoption, foster care, and all families to feel like “YES, we can do this” all year long.

There is certainly a benefit to having a month to bring greater awareness to such a wonderful thing – opening hearts to a child who needs a forever family and a family who needs a child. A Google search informed me that in 1976, then-Governor Michael Dukakis proclaimed Adoption Week in Massachusetts to promote the need for adoptive families in the foster care system. Former Presidents Ronald Regan and Bill Clinton proclaimed a national week and a month, respectively, calling it National Adoption Month. The most common way states and counties choose to celebrate National Adoption Month is to use one day in November to hold all the approved adoptions.

When we moved to Florida in 2018, we wanted to continue being a foster family. Thankfully, we met Charlotte Thomas with Embrace Florida Kids. We had been foster parents in Texas since 2011, and she was able to help us get licensed here in Florida. 

Charlotte has many years in the child welfare/services vocation.  She provided the following in regards to celebrating the many emotions of adoption:

“Adoption is acceptance; it’s inclusion, its commitment, and its unconditional love. Most of the experiences we have with adoption at Embrace Florida Kids are children not returning to their families of origin due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment within those families. It can be incredibly heartbreaking that reunification won’t occur. While children have to experience that loss, it is also truly heartwarming that there are families in our world who step out of their comfort zone to say “YES” to opening their homes and lives to children who come to them with invisible scars and anxiety about what will happen to them. It’s hard to hold two powerful and extreme feelings in one’s heart (heartbreak for the loss of a family of origin and joyfulness with adoption by a family of choice), but it CAN be done.”

Supporting Families Who Want to Grow Through Adoption

Adoption may not be for everyone. However, we can all celebrate and support the 125,000+ children who are waiting for their forever family and the adults who have so much to offer those children.  

Here are ways your family can support and celebrate families who want to grow through adoption:

• Support efforts in your local community that assist children in foster care. Your children can get involved by asking friends and family to purchase a wishlist item instead of a birthday or Christmas gift to support a local agency. Check out the wishlist for Santa Rosa County Kid’s House.
• Purchase a book about adoption and have a family read night. Teaching your children that families are made in many different ways will teach them acceptance.
• Grab some snacks, pillows, and blankets and snuggle to watch movies with adoption themes. Discuss what makes up a family and how families are different.
• Financial support is always needed. Seek out agencies that provide services to children in need.
• Encourage your church to be advocates for adoption. Support families seeking adoption by collecting funds to help with legal fees. Even host a shower for adoptive parents, especially if they are adopting a sibling group or older kids.
• Finally, if you are a person who believes in prayer, pray for the children waiting, for the adults yearning, and for government officials to put the needs of children first. Pray also for the birth families who make the difficult decision to put their child up for adoption.

Let us celebrate adoption all year long,

but especially in November during National Adoption Month