Got adoption "tagged"

Normally, I don't do these things, but I like these questions!

If you are reading this and you are connected to adoption in anyway, consider yourself tagged. It will be interesting to see who does it. I am hoping my new blog friend in Minnesota does.

Four things I thought about adoption when I was a child:

1) Oliver Twist--wayward street children
2) Anne of Green Gables--precocious and unwanted until they proved themselves
3) Troubled--family friend of ours was adopted and I was told to stop asking questions about him. Jimmy Fagerholm! Where are you these days?
4) Secretive. Never had an open, candid discussion with anyone about adoption, ever.

Four things I have learned since then:

1) None of the above are true.
2) Adopted children are not strange because of being adopted. They are just like everyone else.
3) Adoption comes in all kinds of ways. Foster care, international, domestic, private, open, closed (not me!), family adoption, etc.
4) When you see an adopted child/person, there is a birth mom on the other end of it.

Four silly things people have said to me about adoption:

1) "Now that you have adopted, watch, you'll get pregnant with a real child." My kids are not fakes.
2) 100% of the time, when someone finds out I am an adoptive parent, I get asked, "Are they biologically related?" No. I honestly don't understand why that is asked all the time and why it is important to people. I am not saying this to be sarcastic, I really truly do not understand this question and why it's important.
3) "I think what you're doing is so great." Like we are doing some great humanitarian thing. Nope. What we're doing is completely selfish--we want kids. The person doing a great humanitarian thing is the birth moms.
4) "Imagine the horrible place your kids have been rescued from. How great they're with you." Very few birth moms live under bridges. Most birth moms are cornered in between a rock and a hard place with resources in their lives. They aren't abusive, mean, uncaring people. I don't think that I have rescued my kids. I do feel I have taken away the rock and hard place from a birth mom and given her a second chance and hopefully some opportunities she may not have if she chose to parent her child.

Four things that are hard about adoption:

1) In my top ten happiest days of my life--two of them have been when my children have been placed in my arms. Those same days are the saddest days of the birth mom's life. Her heart is tearing in two.
2) When adoptions fall through. Especially when an adoption worker has been unscrupulous. I am still paying off a $6,000 screw up.
3) Racism in adoption. I have been told recently that there is legislation in the working so that African American descended children can only be adopted by African Americans.
4) Getting incredibly personal infertility questions.

Four ways my adopted/placed child has surprised me (or how your adopted/first parents have surprised you if you are an adoptee):

1) I honestly cannot imagine loving a child more than I love my kids. Love for one's children is not created in the birth canal.
2) Children at my kid's age (up until recently with my oldest) do not see race.
3) I have no expectations for them. No "he's acts just like Uncle Johnny" or "he's so athletic like your grandfather". I really like this aspect. My kids are completely free to be whatever without any familial/genealogy expectations.
4) How cool and generous the majority of people are with my kids and our family. All of my complaining is tempered by the crazy amount of love people have for us.

Four things I wish everyone knew about adoption:

1) Not everyone should do it. But a lot of people should, who don't. There are needy kids in this world who need to be parented by the cool people I know.
2) Not all adoption workers are created the same. Please please get in touch with someone like myself or Natryn who have worked with ethical workers. There is so much pain for all parties involved when unscrupulous people start treating adoption like an industry.
3) Adoptees are not a minority. There are a lot of them, and it's not a secret. Being adopted is just one way a family is assembled.
4) The joy you will experience when a young child wraps his little arms around your neck and calls you "Momma" is unmatched. Especially for those kids who have come from troubled places. For a child from those places, when they start calling you "Mom" you need to accept that title with pride. You have broken through the shattered pieces and are on a new path.