What is adoption?

Adoption is many things to many different people. The interesting thing is how many people have actually been touched by adoption.

To many birth parents it means a chance to get a plan in place for their lives, a chance to finish school, whether it is high school or college, a chance to give their children the very best lives possible, and a chance to start over after sometimes very difficult situations. It means expanding their extended family by choosing a loving adoptive family for their baby. It means changing the lives of an adoptive family who has waited so long for a baby. It means doing something that no one else can do. Birth parents are angels.

To adoptive families, adoption means a miracle. It means waiting so long for something they long for. It means that only a special person, a birth mother, can fulfill their dream of having a family. It means heartache through infertility and miscarriages. Adoptive families share the most blessed gift of a child with the birth parents.

Adoption is all around us. Friends, neighbors, family members. Sometimes adoption is very visible, and sometimes it is a quiet story shared in a moment of need. Adoption is a gift. Adoption is an answer to prayer. Adoption is family.