Open Arms Series: Adoption after Biological Children

Guest Post by Angie

Hi! My name is Angie and I blog at www.abailey423.blogspot.com about my life and my loves. I am thrilled to be guest blogging today about adoption, something very close to my heart.

 

My husband and I have always wanted to adopt. We discussed it in detail before we were ever married. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page. We both dreamed of having biological children and then adding to our family through international adoption, preferably a little girl from an Asian country, where by default we

 

would have no contact with the biological parents. That was always our plan. We are a family who relies heavily on our faith in God. I had no idea what a role that would play in “our” plans to adopt. Our plans couldn’t have been farther from our reality. We adopted through the Illinois foster care system, a little boy who physically looks so much like me I’ve had strangers say, “you could never claim he isn’t yours, he’s the spitting image of you!”

 

Our story is simple, but complicated, as are all adoptions. After a year of trying to conceive we were told we could never have children without fertility treatments. We were both in graduate school at the time and could not afford the treatments, so we prayed and took a break instead. The weekend my husband graduated with his Masters degree God blessed us with our first child. It was a very uneventful pregnancy, everything went very smoothly and Aiden John was born without any pain medication in January of 2005. In December of 2005 we lost a baby through miscarriage. Fast forward to 2006. Aiden was 15 months old and we were expecting another little boy in October. We had always wanted our children to be close in age and we were suddenly finding ourselves in a position to conceive easily. However, the pregnancy itself was extremely difficult.

 

Around that time God moved us from my homestate of Texas to a small town in Illinois. I was seven months pregnant when I saw him for the first time. My husband was interviewing to be a college minister in a church. There was an older couple in the church fostering a four month old baby boy. They had him since birth. He was absolutely gorgeous and so tiny. He was born with intrauterine growth restriction and weighed 4 pounds 2 ounces at birth. He had the cutest, roundest, baldest head I’ve ever seen in my life. I held him in my arms and immediately knew he was meant to be my son. It scared me! I was seven months pregnant! I’ve never had that happen before, it was the strangest feeling. I pushed the thought to the back of my head and quickly handed him back to his foster grandma. His name was Anthony and I couldn’t get him out of my mind.

 

A month later we made the move to Illinois. The day we moved our son, Colin Michael, was stillborn at 32 weeks. The hardest thing I’ve ever done is watch my first born grieve his baby brother while trying to navigate through my own devastation. He cried for him, calling him by name at night, even though he was only a baby himself. He understood pain even though everyone around us kept telling me he was took young to grasp what was going on. It was a long hard road.

 

Four months later. I told my husband I thought God wanted us to adopt Anthony and what had happened the first time I held him. My husband told me he was just waiting on me, God had been telling him the same thing! We began the process of adopting the little boy I had held. Many implied we were trying to “replace” Colin, as if that were possible! My biggest fear as we began the process was seeing our oldest hurt again. It was a foster care situation and parental rights had not been severed. The baby was still having visitation with his biological parents three times a week. Over and over we heard, “you may not get him.” However, God gave us clear direction to move forward.

 

We began taking classes to become certified foster parents. We told Aiden we were attending “Anthony classes” and we had him stay with the foster parents during that time so he could spend time with the baby. We gave as many opportunities as possible for the boys to play together. With each step we were as honest as we could be about the process with our oldest. We told him Anthony would be moving in with us. We allowed him to be a part of biological visits. We took each step one day at a time and were extremely conscious about explaining everything in an honest and age appropriate manner.

 

One day we had to go out of state to pick up a family member from the airport. Anthony lived with us at the time, but was still a foster child. We could not take him across the state line without special permission, and it was a long drive for a little one, so we left him with his former foster grandmother. I will never forget, as we were leaving, Aiden began to cry for his “bwother.” We had never given Anthony that name in front of Aiden. We had actually been extremely careful not to call him that. Yet, in Aiden’s heart it was already true. I panicked! The fear of losing Anthony and Aiden being crushed with grief overwhelmed me. My sweet husband reminded me of our motto from the beginning of this journey, “it is impossible to give away too much love.” Aiden, in his little two year old world, knew this better than I did. He embraced his brother with open arms, even before I could drop the guards around my own heart. My first son taught me how to love my second little boy without fear.

 

A year after we began the adoption process we finalized in a historic open adoption agreement. When I took the stand that day the judge asked me why I wanted the adoption finalized and I replied, “I want to make legal what my heart already knows to be true, this is my son.”

 

Since then we have lost two more children, given birth to a miracle girl born at 3 pounds and five ounces and we are currently expecting another surprise little boy in October of this year. Many have asked us if four children will be where we stop. Honestly, we don’t know. We do know we are finished with adding to our family through pregnancy. However, God may still want us to find that little Asian girl. If that dream is to be a reality, we will once again approach as we did in the past, “you can never give away too much love” and complete honesty with our current children as we deeply involve them in the process every step of the way

 

Be sure to check out the other stories on adoption from previous weeks:

International Adoption

Adoption after Infant Loss

Adopting Special Needs Children