SpIGoT: My real kids

Certain narratives and expectations exist in the adoptive world, including the one that has families giving birth to their children first, then adopting children later as the bio kids are growing up and the parents find they missed having little ones around. As a mom of mostly teenagers now, I can certainly understand! I have friends who have done exactly that, as a matter of fact, and their new children reap the benefits of having experienced parents.

In our family, and many others I know, the order is rather more mixed. We are bio, adopt, adopt, bio, bio, adopt, adopt, adopt. In our particular case, I believe it happened that way because neither method of bringing children into our family was our "Plan B." Both were "Plan A."

Still, expectations hold sway. A few months ago I was asked about adoption by a new friend who was unfamiliar with the order of our family ("order" being a word rarely used to reference the Spicer family!).

"Do your biological kids ever resent that you've adopted all the other kids?"

I've been asked versions of that question many times so it is clearly a concern of pre-adoptive parents. I have friends whose older children have been resentful so it is a valid consideration.

In yesterday's blog post, I mentioned that "I never remember my children are adopted, but I never forget, either."

And so it happened that after I read the question on my iPad, I turned to Song (our 3rd child) to ask her if she ever resented all the children we had adopted. No kidding. Just in time, I remembered that she was adopted!

I started laughing and told her what I had started to do. If I remember correctly her excited response was something like, "are we getting more?!?!"

I doubt I will continue to write daily during November about adoption awareness (or my lack of awareness!), but I do love sharing glimpses into the ways adoption is woven into our lives.

I love that 14 years on, I can look at Song, who clearly was not born to me, and first and foremost see my lovely daughter.