I remember telling my parents when I was barely into my teens that someday I wanted to adopt. I always intended to have biological children if possible, but knew that I wanted to build my family through adoption as well.

My husband’s earliest memory of me was when I was in 7th grade, hair in pigtails, and lighting those curly black snakes on our driveway… He was friends with my sister who is five years older than I am. I first remember him coming to my sister’s high school graduation party. I had just finished 7th grade and he was soon to be sophomore in high school. A little more than eight years later, we got married! So, considering I had known him for so long, and had made no secret of my intent to build my family partially through adoption, I have never believed him when he said we didn’t talk about it before we were married! I think it was one of those things he just didn’t HEAR!

I remember filling out the voluminous pile of forms when we applied to adopt our first child. Would you take a child with a hearing loss? Or one with a missing limb? Would you accept a sibling group? How many? What ages? I did reasonably well until I got to the part about “Will you accept a child with mental or emotional disturbances?” No thanks, not me! I’ll learn sign language or visit the orthopedic surgeon to pursue artificial limbs, but I am not “mommy material” for a child with an mental disability…

Doesn’t God have a wonderful sense of humor? Boy did He show me! I got physically very healthy kiddos who had more emotional problems than you could shake a stick at! And I have learned many, many things from that turn of events.

I have learned that other parents, like me, can much more easily wrap their minds around a heart ailment or an orthopedic abnormality than they can attachment issues or grief and loss. There is such a stigma in our society about mental health issues, isn’t there? How shameful or distressing to need counseling, but how noble to adopt a child who is blind! Many new adoptive parents don’t think twice about scheduling a complete physical, including extensive blood work and perhaps bone scans, but never even consider having their child evaluated for emotional or attachment-related issues. If someone suggests an attachment evaluation might be warranted, many parents are exceedingly quick to deny any possibility of attachment issues. Would they be so quick to rule out a heart murmur, even though they presumably recognize they are likely not qualified to make that call? I wonder!