Tonight Beth and I are at a very special dinner date. We are having pizza with Beth’s first adoptive family. She arrived in the US from China at 8 months of age, and came to live with my family two weeks before her third birthday. In the interim she lived with her first adoptive family.


They are really nice folks and I am looking forward to seeing them. I can’t fault them at all for the way Beth’s trajectory unfolded. They learned they were pregnant just weeks before they were scheduled to travel. They asked both the local and the national placing agencies what they should do. They were told, “If you want two babies, go for it!” Not a word about attachment issues, or the ramifications of trying to parent a traumatized and loss-affected ethnically different child while in the last stages of pregnancy and then dealing with a newborn as well. Five months after bringing home Beth, they had a baby girl.


From the get-go, things were rocky with Beth. Her first adoptive parents sought help almost immediately … and received the usual platitudes, blank stares, and misinformation. Two years later they were seeing yet another counselor who was consulting with a physician who had heard of ATN … and thus they were round-aboutly referred to me. The rest, as they say, is history.


Beth asked me last week to set up a meeting with them. We have kept the placement open from the beginning, but we haven’t seen them since we returned to Kansas a year ago January. We just haven’t had time, and Beth hasn’t asked. When she did, I made it happen immediately. There is no doubt that our considering adopting another child from a disruption has raised some new questions in Beth’s mind.


Last night as we sat in our chair, she peppered me with questions. Foremost on her mind was, “Why did they give me up?” And of course, what a legitimate question!


I explained that they had asked all the right questions from the beginning, but consistently received all the wrong answers. By the time they found me, they were expecting their second biological child. The dynamics between Beth and both parents, but especially Mom, were very poor. They didn’t know what to do for her. Her needs were not being met, and her rejecting behaviors escalated. This vicious circle continued, and the entire family was imploding when I met them.


I explained to Beth that even if they knew what to do, to accomplish what needed to be accomplished while simultaneously parenting two younger kids would be nearly impossible. And they didn’t have the training or the experience. I did. I had no other kids to compete for my attention during the day. And last but not least, we—Beth and I—are soulmates. I understand her, she understands me. She’s a good fit with us.


I acknowledged that this additional loss was yet one more “layer on the onion” for her. But we also talked about finding a gain after experiencing yet another loss. And how might her life have unfolded if she didn’t join our family, where her needs could be met and where she was such a good fit? It wouldn’t have been good for her first family and it wouldn’t have been good for her. And I concluded that God really knew what he was doing, because we couldn’t have retrieved her from China ourselves (for several reasons) but I had no doubt that she was meant to be with us.


I’ll let you know how our pizza date goes! We made Chocolate Éclairs to bring for dessert!



Adoption disruption, when love is not enough


Photo of Beth age 3