Decisions, Decisions

Deciding to adopt sounds like an easy decision, doesn’t it?  There are kids who need good homes, there are wannabe parents who are ready to provide them.  It should be easy, just feed the information into a computer and come up with a match.  I had no idea how complicated it truly would be.

My first knowledge of anything to do with adoption came from The Brady Bunch.  Mike and Carol had friends who wanted to adopt a son.  They took him out of the orphanage for a few visits, like checking a book out of the library, then decided to bring him home for good.  He missed his friends and snuck out of the house to be with them.  In the span of one commercial break, they had added a set of bunk beds and adopted three boys: one was Caucasian, one African American and one Asian.  It was a ready-made rainbow family; happy, shiny predecessors to Brad and Angelina.

This memory brought up one of the biggest decisions having to do with adoption.  Do we try to adopt a newborn or an older child?  If we seek an older child, where has that child been living?  In the foster care system, in an orphanage, in this country or from a foreign land?  What kind of issues does that child already have?  Did his mother die of a drug overdose?  Was her father in prison for murder?  How did that child come to be in the situation of needing a “forever family”, as they called us when we adopted our retired racing greyhounds a few years ago?

One of the biggest questions in my mind was this:  would I be up to the challenge of taking in a child who already had serious issues to overcome?  With a newborn, we could start with a blank slate, as it were.  While the chances would always be there that issues beyond our control could arise, we would know that our child would be raised in a secure, loving environment from the beginning.  That had to count for something, right?

Ultimately, the decision came down to this: I am not going to be able to stop working full-time after we adopt.  I can’t in good conscience take in a child who already has needs above and beyond those of a typical child and then put that child in daycare 40 hours a week.  I know there is a chance with any child that there will be issues and that is something we will have to face if it comes, but I feel more comfortable knowing that I won’t be taking in a child and then not being able to care for that child in the way he or she deserves.  I don’t want to be one more person letting down a child in need.