Fears

One of the biggest concerns that any adoptive parent has is: "Will my adopted child love me as much as a biological child" or worse yet: "Will I love my adopted child as much?"

It is not easy to admit that we have these questions. (Let alone put them on a website for everyone to look at). We always hear stories about how parents magically fall in love with their child immediately upon their birth. It's as if there is some scent that the child gives off that causes the parents to bond with this child no matter what.

But what about adopted kids? Will they give off a scent? (No, not THAT scent) Will I magically fall in love with them? (For the record: I'll be the first to admit that I didn't immediately "feel the magic" with our first two. To tell you the truth, babies are fairly selfish creatures that aren't always fun to be around. That doesn't mean I didn't love them. I totally loved them from day one - but it was more of a "duty" love than a "Hey, you're fun to be around" love.

A friend of mine shared a very encouraging story related to this topic. He and his wife adopted a child about 18 months ago and also have a biological child who is about 1 year. (They didn't plan for it to happen that way, but that's a whole different story) Anyway, the story is fairly simple: It is their adopted child who is cuddly, loving and affectionate; and it is their biological child who tends to be more independant, less cuddly, doesn't want to be held, etc.

He has commented several times that if it were the other way around, they would naturally be concerned with what went wrong. But instead they simply see it for what it is. Every kid is different. It doesn't always have to be "Because they were adopted".

I wanted to share that encouraging story for anyone else who fears not "feeling the love" right away.