My Dream of Having Kids

When I imagined starting a family, I'd replaced biological kids with adoptive kids.  That was it.  In my head we did all the things any family would do, fought, loved, had dinner, played soccer.  My family was my family.  We'd play board games and go camping, have holidays with my family.
 

The real me knew it was a bit more complicated then this.  In the state I lived in there are training and class requirements to adopt children, there was also the reading I did, and the "what type of children are you interested in" form.  This is a form my partner at the time and I spent a lot of heartache and time over.  You had a long list of physical, mental and emotional problems a child could have and checked off the ones that you were willing/not willing to consider.
 

For instance, I thought I could handle a child who was blind or deaf or had a birth defect, but not one who needed continuous serious medical care.  It was important to be honest.  Which was hard, as I've said before- rarely do assholes want to adopt.  You fill out this form trying to be honest yet feeling every "no" as a rejection to a potential child.
 

It's been 6 years since I filled out that form, and I still remember many of the "nos".  Hepatitis was a no, since I didn't feel like we would be careful enough to ensure the safety of ourselves and our potential other children (we wanted to adopt more then one).  HIV/AIDS was a no for the same reason, although this felt like a betrayal to my community.  Spina Bifida was a no since we weren't sure we were prepared to handle the sort of care needed.  Even now, these are hard to admit.  Each and every one of these children deserves a loving home.  It was important, the social worker told us, however to be as honest as you could about what you can handle and can't.
 

Another 'no' was Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), for some reason (I don't remember now) this one was called out as a non-starter to us at the time.  The other mental illness neither one of us were willing to take on was Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), from the stories we'd read these were the kids that were really, really challenging.
 

I laugh now.  The truth is the hardest part about adopting kids was realigning my dream about what having a family and being a parent would be like and what it actually was.  Neither of my kids had much interest in soccer- we spent one season watching a dandelion picker.  Reading to my children every night did not instill in them the love of reading I'd hoped it would, at least not yet.  We've only attempted to camp a couple times, which were an exhausted practice in my stubbornness to 'have a good time', and don't get me started about board games, that will be blog post in and of it's self.
 

I imagine all parents have this.  Biologically created families come home with these bundles of joy who puke and poop non-stop.  In the genetic jackpot there are certainly families who have children with a variety of challenges.  Bio-families don't get to fill out a checklist of 'nos'.  
 

I spent the first two to three years as a parent realigning my image of what I thought my family would/should be to what it was.  It's not like I had this iron image of my kids and their personalities.  I expected them to be different then me, to like cheerleading and olives, to be into dolls and gymnastics.  I was waiting for them to be unexpectedly awesome in ways I never imagined (which has happened).
 

The surprise, and struggle, isn't from my kid not liking soccer.  It's because I realized early on that I could never be their coach.  I couldn't be a significant teacher.  My role was parent, and that role for them was so damaged from their early life that I simply couldn't be anything else.  I tried to be coach, teacher, therapist, mentor, and every single time our damaged relationship of parent got in the way.  I wanted to tackle my child's problems reading head on and ended up running straight into a brick wall as my child confused my reading help with parental disapproval.  I tried to be an assistant coach and ended up completely embarrassed as my kid continuously and blatantly sassed me in front of the team as she might at home, to melt down when I cracked down on her in front of the team.  I have spent so much time caring for these children, setting boundaries and rules and structure, and being the parent that they need.  I've had to come to grips that their most significant academic, physical, and social leaps will happen because someone else, a teacher, coach or friend, connected to them on a level I can't.  My job is parent, to prepare the earth for planting.  To lay the foundation and safety to allow the growth.  Or at least that's been my role and is my role in the foreseeable future. 

How to cope:
 

I remind myself that I'm not in this for me, I'm in it for them.  I need to be the person in their life that they need right now.  Some day, in the very distant future, I'll have grandkids and will be their soccer coach.
 

What also helps is remembering that biological families don't always get what they expect either.  This is something everyone has to go through to some extent, as with many things with my kids it's a normal behavior/thought/moment taken to a more extreme level then most folks experience.