
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.