No More Misconceptions About Adoption

Would he hate us for loving him this much?

I believe most parents love their children so much that they would do whatever it takes for them to be healthy and happy. My whatever is something I never could have imagined. As my wife and I drove away, we wondered.

Would he see this as the ultimate act of betrayal? We didn’t know.

Would he hate us for loving him this much? We didn’t know.

Would he embrace the help we had finally found for him? We didn’t know.

What we did know was our son needed help, help our love, couldn’t give him.

It was an hour earlier. We were in a tiny cabin. My hand was on his shoulder. He was seated. His head was down and he wouldn’t even look at me. I told him, “Mom and I love you. We are going home, but you’re not coming with us.” That was one of the hardest days of my life.

For his entire life, our son had a hole in his heart. A hole we never knew existed, and a hole that was tearing him and our family apart. We were blessed to adopt him as an infant, but at an early age we knew something wasn’t right.

To quote the Beatles, “All You Need Is Love,” was not going to help us navigate the challenges of raising him.

Originally we believed this misconception. We tried everything we could think of. We sought advice from other parents. We sought professional counseling and nothing worked.

Until we discovered a residential teen treatment center, one that specializes in abandonment and adoption issues. They had people there who understand adoption trauma.

Love is important in parenting, but with the children of adoption it is not enough. We found out the hard way. I’m sharing our story with you because I don’t want you to find out like we did.

My name is Tim, husband to Mary Beth and Dad to two adopted sons. This is our story.

In my next column, I want to deal with a myth about adoption that unfortunately a lot of people believe. And I believed it too.

I hope you’ll follow me as I share more of our journey in adoption story.

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