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This is the second post in a series that examines the book, Two Little Girls: A Memoir of Adoption, by Theresa Reid
These days, when people say they want to adopt a healthy infant, they receive dirty looks from some in the adoption community. “Why not adopt one of the hundreds of thousands of children waiting in foster care?” people ask. “Why not adopt one of the millions or orphans from around the world?”
If you want to adopt a healthy infant, some insinuate that you’re an adoption traitor. They imply that you should be more altruistic and less selfish than to desire what every parent who gives birth wants: a healthy baby.
In her memoir, Two Little Girls, Theresa Reid eloquently expresses this dilemma:
All parents want perfectly healthy babies, but only adoptive parents are forced to express this desire, as a first step in their search for a baby, as a series of “No’s.”
I have seen versions of this sheet several times now, the sheet with three columns: “Yes,” “Will Consider,” “No,” and a list of twenty-five or so possible afflictions that abandoned or orphaned children might suffer. Mental retardation. Crossed eyes. Club foot. Cleft palate. Mother used drugs. Mother used alcohol. Born of rape. Born of incest. Premature. Missing or stunted limbs.
Our utterly common desire for a perfectly healthy baby could not be expressed positively. It was expressed as a series of “No’s. With every check mark we made in the “no” column, we felt criminally deficient in the capacity to love, in generosity of spirit. With each “No” we checked the image of a specific child floated before our eyes, a child we would refuse to consider even trying to love. And we checked “No” almost everywhere: not even “Will Consider,” just “No.”
This negative expression of our heart’s desire was one of the unexpectedly agonizing steps in adoption. But we had to admit that we wanted a healthy child. Who doesn’t? Who gets pregnant saying, “It’s all the same to us if this child is unhealthy”?
We consulted our hearts, looked each other in the eyes, and checked No, No, No, No, No, No, No.
Readers:
What were your motives for adopting?
Did you seek to adopt a healthy infant? If not, why not?
How did you feel as you were checking off the list?
Other posts in this series:
Part 1: Book Review: Two Little Girls: A Memoir of Adoption by Theresa Reid.
Coming Next:
Part 3: Reid’s decision to adopt internationally.
Part 4: Reid’s anxiety about accepting a referral.
Part 5: Reid’s motives for adopting a second child.
For more about Two Little Girls, visit http://theresareidbooks.com.
i couldn’t agree with you more. i have written and spoken out on this topic often. (in our case we wanted a healthy older child. we definitely did not want an infant.)
i have been very honest in expressing my belief that one of the reasons that our adoption of our daughters has been so successful (to date) is because during the process i looked our social worker point blank in the eye and told her “do not attempt to place a sick and disturbed child in my home. don’t do that. if you do, i am going to be able to tell right away what you have done and i will disrupt the placement so fast it will make your head swim.”
she didn’t blink an eye. but i know she believed me. within weeks she called and told me, “Dr. Gray i think i’ve found your daughter, there’s just one small glitch.” i held my breath ready to read her the riot act “i told you NO—” and then she added, “there’s two of them, they’re a sibling pair and from everything that we can see and what we know, they are not disturbed, there are no behavior or mental health issues, no developmental delays, no medical concerns. they just need a permanent family.” i’m sure that’s not exact, but that’s how i remember the conversation.
here we are SIX years later…happy as all get out with our two girls (now ages 9 and 10) and our one biological son (just turned 12 this week!).
things are NOT perfect. they all three drive me nuts with one thing or another. and there are days that they all three think i am really nuts. but i could not have ordered up a more perfect union. all because, i spoke up without shame and without fear about what i really wanted. i guess, in a way, i did order it up!
My husband and I are seriously considering adopting from Armenia. We have two sons and always talked about adopting our third to give a family to a child without one. We looked into Armenia because I am half Armenian and I felt I could easily give this child a sense of pride in the culture and an understanding of the people’s history. I also knew there was a large number of orphaned Armenians. This felt so right until we found out that most of the children up for adoption in Armenia are adopted. The large number of healthy Armenian children in orphanages are actually those whose parents were unable to care for them but whose parents did not relinquish them to be adopted. Those who can be adopted are. OUr
We could adopt a special needs child, but I just cannot see being able to handle that with two children. We could take on a foster child in this country, but many of these children have emotional scars that run very deep. My own parents took on a foster child and he was physically abusive to me and my parents sent him to another family. I just cannot risk it having been through that.
I told my husband that perhaps we should forget it, but then I realized that “saving a child” was not my only motivation. The trust is, I would love a third child. I love being a mom and I love my kids–even though I may yell and they do drive me nuts. I would love another child, but feel the world is too over populated for me to bring another one in.
But this child would be so wanted and so loved.
This post helped me to realize it is okay to want a healthy baby. I prayed that my two sons would be healthy so why would I not doi this again?
Dear gkest,
I don’t know who told you there are no healthy infants available in Armenia, but there are. We brought home our perfectly healthy daughter less than a year ago. What agency did you speak to? Hopscotch is the only agency that is successful in this country, so you should really check into them. If you are Armenian, you should definitely go to this country…it is such deeply emotional thing to do (I am also half Armenian). Good luck!