Adoption Narrative

I have always been the youngest. I was the youngest of a rather large family of seven. My parents, then two girls, then three boys. Me being the last of the boys. I was five when it all began. I was living in Sheffield, England and my parents had been thinking about adoption for a little while. One day when we all met in the conservatory for devotions, Mom and Dad walked in purposefully and started devotions by saying,”Kids, we have been thinking about adding a member to our family. We want to adopt.” The room got quieter and everyone was still while Mom and Dad waited for a reaction. I had absolutely no idea what in the world that meant, but the word sounded sharp so I liked it. I quickly learned that it meant “finding a kid whose parents couldn’t take care of them, and bringing them into our family and making them our son, or daughter, brother or sister.” I liked the idea and was all for it. Mom and Dad warned us that it would not be easy to adopt. We discussed the what it would take and what it would mean for us. I’ll admit I didn’t understand most of it, but I did understand that I was getting a new sibling, and that some things would change. If I only knew how much…

I’m BACK! I was in school studying phlebotomy for the last month and a half so now I’m studying for the state test and hoping to keep up with my blog again! Sorry about that, I hope you missed me like I missed you.

Last year their birth mother relapsed. We had not heard from Beth in a while--in fact, no one had. Beth’s friends in Columbus had not heard from her, and she had not been showing up to her job. Everyone was concerned. My family had tried to contact her for weeks before she finally got in contact with us again. She had said that she checked herself into rehab as soon as she relapsed. Rehab was where she had been hiding out. My parents did not want to tell my siblings where she had been. They did not want them to think that their biological mother had chosen drugs over them. Since Beth had taken responsibility and went to rehab, they decided to give her a second chance.

On January 29, 2001 at around four o’clock in the afternoon, a beautiful little girl named Leslie Arreaga was born. It was the first time I was able to hold and see a baby so up close. When I saw her for the first time I didn’t know what to say. All I told my parents was “ I love her and she is perfect.” My parents laugh at me because I was only four years old when she was born. I just couldn’t believe that I was finally an older sister. I remember that every time a person would come in and try to hold her I would give them a look saying “ If you hurt her, I will hurt you.” Leslie was the most precious little baby I had ever seen in my little four year life. She was so chubby, with big brown eyes and a little heart shaped mouth. The day my

In 1992, a woman gave birth to my sister and I. Due to unknown reasons, at some point during the first year, she left her twins at the doorsteps of a local police station. My sister and I were eventually placed in an orphanage in Addis Ababa, where we would then go on to be adopted and brought to the US. We grew up in a loving home with loving parents, and all of our needs met. Our childhood was ideal in many ways and I grew feeling up very blessed. Our adopted mother loved us so deeply, and our father was always a provider, stable, loving father.

One day in August 2013 I woke up ate my breakfast got ready for work just like every other day. Not realizing this day was going to change my life forever. Around noon that day I received a call from my wife, she said do you think we can take care of the neighbor’s child who was eight-months old for a little while. I sat there for a few minutes and then I replied yes that would be alright not realizing that little while would be months to years. I had no knowledge of kinship care, foster care, foster children, or adoption. My wife or I did not even know what the concept was when you have a foster child in your home. This was the first time in over ten-years I had been responsible for an infant in my home, throughout all the shock I still was positive that we could help this child and his mother with reunifying and him getting to go home. The first morning I woke up at 5:30 am and made him a bottle and some oatmeal cereal, it became my morning routine with him waking up and feeding him for next few months, before I could sleep till 7:30 or so before heading to work. My wife and I rearranged our lives to welcome another child into our heart and lives.

Imagine a couple flying millions of miles to adopt two children who have been abandoned by their parents. They gave me a second chance at a better life in the US. It all started in 2001, Saint Petersburg Russia, Carrie and Brendan flew over the seas. Traveled to a tiny town called Luga to pick up my brother and I. I was dressed in a child's dress and two hot pink bows. I was too young to remember most of these events but I’ve been told many times how it went. I was very curious when my parents came to meet me in the orphanage that I stayed in.

Before I went into foster care, I was heading back to Iowa, from Arkansas, to see my older sister Shantell’s graduation. I left early that night and fell asleep in the car. It took us 22 hours ,but we also stopped a lot, and when we got to Iowa Falls, it was like 5:00 p.m. We got lost until my mom called Shantell’s foster mom, and she told us where the house was. So when we got there, my sister Patience and I went into the house and went into the living room where my older sister Shantell was sitting on the couch watching TV, and she saw us, and we saw her we hugged. She cried then we asked her foster mom if we could stay the entire summer. The foster mom said yes, and then me and Patience asked our mom if we could, and she said yes Then she was told by Shantell’s foster mom, if she was gone over a week it would be called abandonment. Our mom didn’t tell us that. Then she left a week later.

Mark comes home one day to see both of his parents sitting at the table staring at him. A sense of suspicion creeps into his mind. His dad sternly requests Mark to sit down. At that moment, Mark’s parents inform him that he is adopted. As Mark recollects the event in his mind years later, that was the point where his life changed forever. Children around the world experience the life changing event and nothing prepared them for it, but it can be avoided through open adoption. The subject of adoption continues to be a problematic topic, but for the betterment of the people involved, open adoption brings the child a sense of wholeness, more information on the child’s background, and lessens the grief of the birth mother.

On Saturday evening, with his nerves strung tighter than a bow, Arthur backed his black Ford Mustang out of his parking space and drove toward George Washington Hospital. Tristan insisted he wanted to come along, promising he’d sit in the hospital lobby. While Arthur wanted to sit in the car alone and stress, he didn’t blame Tristan for wanting to tag along, because Arthur had instigated a real shit storm outside of the hospital last night and had almost been arrested.

I vividly remember that day about two years ago, Jasmine and I were shopping in Bismarck when we decided to go to Tutti-frutti for some frozen yogurt. While we were eating I asked something like, “why are you so different from your siblings?” And she went on to explain that her parents adopted them after they went through her foster home. This got me curious so I questioned more about what it was like to grow up with foster kids. It was about this time that Jasmine and I moved outside the restaurant to finish our frozen yogurt and continue talking.

For centuries, multiple societies from numerous countries including America encouraged couples to build families either by birthing their own children or by adopting domestically or internationally. While a number of countries nowadays permit foreign or intercountry adoptions, a large portion of those completed adoptions are influenced by the Christian Adoption Movement, which is based on the idea that, “Some evangelicals are so enamored of international adoption as a mission of spiritual salvation — for the child and the adoptive parents” (Crary 2013). Because of this, people with this specific mindset, who adopt from foreign countries, “have closed their eyes to adoption-related fraud and trafficking, and have not fully embraced alternatives

When I was a baby, my sister and I were placed in a foster home. I didn’t have a mother or a father, and while I did have clothes and toys, I had never felt the true love that only a parent could give. My sister and I lived in a foster home until she was 3 and I was 4. It was normal for us, and we never realized parental love was missing from our lives.

A few months before my 16th birthday, I had gone to my great grandmother’s church on “National Adoption Sunday”. This day in September is dedicated to encouraging people to adopt or foster an orphaned child and to celebrate the adoption of countless children in the United States. While listening to a lady give a presentation, I felt God nudging my heart to do something for these kids, but I was crazy enough to ask God, “What can I do? I’m only 15.” Being nudged by God is a feeling that I couldn’t ignore. After the presentation, I talked with the

This novel shows through personal testimonies what the adoption process is like, and how emotionally moving it can be. In part one, The Decision, Dr. Aronson explains some of the main reasons why people adopt. The most commonly assumed reason why someone adopts according to Dr. Aronson is infertility. This is understandable because a woman, or a couple may want to have children, but they cannot have their own biological children. Adoption is a way for those individuals to start their own families. Secondly, Dr. Aronson states that young couples may want to simply save orphans as opposed to having their own biological children, which leads to another reason why people adopt. If a person sees a news story about a disease that is affecting children in a particular area, then they may feel emotionally inclined to adopt. Sometimes, working abroad can strike the desire to adopt, as well as the loss of a loved one, or becoming empty nesters (Dr. Aronson, 2013, pgs. 7-8). All of those are valid reasons for why individuals decide that they want to adopt, and the various personal stories in this section, demonstrate those reasons. For example, Dr. Aronson includes a testimony from Maggie Greenwald, a New York filmmaker who tells her story of why her and her husband chose to adopt. Maggie states that she found love at an older age: late thirties- early forties. Since she found love at an older age, she had difficulties conceiving. She reflects on