Day 9 - Becoming a Parent

Becoming a Parent. Did becoming a parent change your perception of adoption or being adopted? Or did it strengthen what you already believe or feel? If you are not a parent, has watching your extended families expand (e.g. having nieces or nephews) changed your views on adoption or did it strengthen your views? Looking forward to your own potential parenthood: do you want kids, what strengths or challenges do you see in the future for yourself in becoming a parent? How has being adopted affected your own parenting philosophy?

I became a parent through adoption. We had originally planned to conceive a child through artificial insemination, but then we were approached and asked if we would consider adoption (and obviously we did). A few years later we did try one more time to get pregnant via donour sperm from someone we knew. I wanted to go that route instead of anonymous donour as I realized that by using an anonymous donour I was in essence “creating” an adoptee. And I could not bear the thought intentionally bringing a child into the world who would be missing half of their history. However pregnancy was not to be and I am very content with our family.

My being adopted has played a huge role in my parenting, and not always for the better. I often find it hard to not let my own emotional baggage cloud issues, or impose my problems on Liam. Just because I have XYZ adoption issue, it doesn’t mean that Liam will too. I have to work hard on separating our 2 situations.

A theme that often comes up from adoptees once they have children of their own is that they finally have a physical/DNA connection to someone in their world. This is not something that I ever looked forward to before becoming a parent, nor is it something that I feel is lacking from life now. I guess I’m okay without any genetic mirroring in my life.