National Adoption Month: Adopted children do not come with gift receipts.

Disrupted adoptions are something that absolutely make my head spin.  Here is yet another example.  There was a comment from someone stating about how you don't know what these children were exposed to . . . she lived it and so on.  I agree.  You don't know.  What I do know is that when you go before the court (or fill out the paperwork) you agree to raise this child as if they were yours biologically.  The court and the court papers don't have a special "return policy" clause.

When you have a child by birth, you don't know how your child is going to be, behave or whatnot.  Truly.  You do the best you can and take the best care of yourself, but biological birth isn't a sure shot.  I'm just saying.

I'm friends with someone who adopted internationally.  Their child has RAD.  Believe me, I know issues that can come up.  K's brother has been diagnosed as ADD, OCD and Tourette's.  Holly refers to his diagnoses as "another layer to his onion" yet I can tell you that as much as L can be a pill, Holly and Joe have never considered 'giving him back.'  Heather and her husband haven't 'given' Lewi back either, but I admit that he has tested every boundary that they have set for him.

I've harped on this before.  Yes, yes-- I know.

Adopting children is something that you have to do from the core of your being.  (You should do that with birth children, too.)  It is true that you don't know the family history, the prenatal care . . . that went on.  When you choose to adopt, you choose to adopt the whole child, the wholeness that comes with them.  It is what it is.

It's not to say that the road is going to be one without bumps, hills and cliffs.  I know that both K's brother and Lewi have given their parents a run for their money.  Still, they are loved.

It is National Adoption Month.  Let's eliminate stories like this and give the kids as we promise to the courts and in all of the legalness of it -- a forever home.