A New Perspective: How Adoption Gave Me Mine (by Super-Spouse)

November 30, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

For National Adoption Awareness Month, we asked adoptees and their families to share with us their thoughts, feelings and experiences regarding adoption. This is one adoptive father’s perspective about what changed HIS.

Written by Super-Spouse, my favorite guest blogger of all time

I am not quite sure how the topic of adoption always seems to come up when I meet new people, but it seems that I have had the same conversation hundreds of times about being an adoptive father.

I never mention that I have adopted sons because I don’t think of them as adopted. They are just my boys, no different than the two biological children we have. But somehow, new conversations frequently turn to them.

Sometimes the conversation starts when I show a picture of the family.

Other times it may begin when I mention our time in China or that we purchased a large van to haul our boys and their medical equipment.

Regardless of how the conversation begins, I always enjoy the opportunity to talk about our family experience with adoption. But when I was thinking about what to write for this post, I started to wonder why the same questions and comments generally come up during each conversation.

The closest thing to an answer I could come up with was PERSPECTIVE.

When Love Is Not a Feeling

November 28, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

For National Adoption Awareness Month, we asked adoptees and their families to share with us their thoughts, feelings and experiences regarding adoption. This is one courageous mama’s true story of attaching with her teenage son.

Written by E, adoptive mama

Adoption is not for the faint of heart.

It is not unicorns and rainbows, and anyone going into it with visions of Little Orphan Annie better wise up REAL QUICK.

What adoption has taught me is that love is a verb.

When All I Have Is More Than Enough

November 27, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

Written by Kate, adoptive mama less than one year home from China

Although I denied it at first, I had conjured up expectations of what “attachment” would look like when we began the adoption process of our then-9-year-old girl.

She had been abandoned at the age of 6, although this was a rough estimate by the police and social services.

She could only state her name.

No connection with a specific town.

No family to speak of.

Just a name.

Who had loved this child before she was found? Who had tucked her in at night, reassured her that she would be taken care of? Met her basic physical needs?

We just didn’t know.

We received her picture from friends who had met her in China. They were finalizing their own adoption of a girl aging out of the program, and they felt drawn to this quiet child from across the room. She was tender and sweet; soft spoken.

It was God who brought that small, intimate encounter across the ocean.

Right to our door step.

We Can't Adopt a Child With Special Needs: How Will We Ever Take Our Family to Disney?

November 15, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

In my time as an orphan advocate, I’ve heard a lot of reasons why extremely blessed and well-equipped-with-medical-care families right here in our state and our country “can’t” adopt a special needs child.

They don’t have the time.

They don’t have the medical knowledge.

They worry that a child with “special needs” will be detrimental to the children already inside their family.

(Want to know what children with adopted siblings whose special needs are just superpowers in disguise really think? Check out our World Adoption Day video HERE.)

My favorite, though, is the line that I’ve been given not just one time in the last five years but TWICE.

“We can’t bring home a child with special needs,” both families told me very seriously. “We love to travel. How will we ever take our other kids to Disneyworld?”

Last week, our family with two “special needs” children learned how.

By getting in the car and driving there.

Unmasking Adoption: A Teenage Adoptee's Perspective

November 12, 2018 Michelle Cuthrell

For National Adoption Awareness Month, we asked adoptees and their families to share with us their thoughts, feelings and experiences regarding adoption. This is one courageous adoptee’s true story.

Written by Sera, adopted out of the foster care system at age 2

A lot of times, we don’t realize the importance of adoption.

Sometimes, we are so caught up in the flow of life that we don't take time to appreciate our families.

As an adoptee, I know that family is one of the most important things in life.

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