View of Adoption from the Adoptee

I'm sure through the years my little girl will have different thoughts on adoption, especially as she gets older.  I thought since I shared what each biological child thought about adoption I'd share some of her thoughts too.  

She told me early on that it was confusing, because she had been to lots of homes and she wasn't sure which family was going to keep her.  Interestingly, she was not in foster care.  She was just shuffled within her family and then she had people step in and take her for weekends and things like that.  Yet it made her very confused and uneasy.  There were people she met along the way that were nice to her.  She wondered if they would be her mom.  

After moving in with us on one occasion we sent her over night without any of us to a friends house.  She came home pulling out her eyebrows and sucking her lip till it was raw.  In her young mind she was unsure if we were deciding not to keep her.  After that we didn't send her anywhere over night unless her siblings were with and it was with a grandparent.  Then she did fine, as she felt safe within our family. 

Now she constantly pretends to adopt her baby dolls.  She will say to me, "I'm just like you.  I'm a little mommy and I'm adopting my baby."  She also likes to talk about all the people she knows who have been adopted.  She thinks that's very special.  

Yet, there is still a sadness to it.  She regularly looks up at me with her big brown eyes and says, "Mommy, why couldn't I have been born into your tummy? Why did I have to be born to my old family and then be adopted?"  There are times when she feels very sad about all she's been through and she wishes none of it happened and God would have given her to me first.  At first she thought she must have done something wrong for her old family to not want her.  I look into her eyes and I say, "Honey, you did nothing wrong. You are a good gift from God.  They made bad choices and they did not follow God's laws or ideas. They did not treat this wonderful gift they were given the way God wanted. God saw you needed to be rescued and he put you into a family that would love you. "  I've told her that many times.  She needs to know that it's not her fault, that she's not bad or unlovable.  She also needs to know that bad choice of people were the cause of her anguish, not that God made a mistake and put her in the wrong stomach. 

We talk a lot about how we have a choice.  We can follow God's good plans and do things his ways, showing love to one another, being kind, making good decisions or we can choose to do things differently and it will not only hurt us, but it will effect those around us.  She knows her birth mother made lots of bad choices and those choices are why she is now with us, and most of her birth siblings are now adopted out. 

She views adoption as a good thing.  She is happy that God talks about adoption in the Bible.  She's happy that she has friends that were adopted too.  She's happy that she has a good family now.  She prays for other kids to be adopted and be in good families too.  She's especially happy that many of her birth siblings have been adopted.