Connected with the idea of giving up is the doubt that comes into our minds after we have adopted. Doubt can grip us if we are not careful. Why do we have doubts?

First, doubt comes into our minds and then our hearts because our motivation to adopt was to love a child who had not experienced real love. There is no question that compassion is the major reason that people adopt children. Almost as soon as the child arrives home with us, they begin to reject our love, or so it seems. In their insecurity, they question whether any adult will ever love them, given that they have already been abandoned by the most trusted people who should have loved them, their birth parents.

Their rejection of our love comes with challenges to parenting. They are disobedient, disrespectful, defiant, and sometimes antisocial. These challenges serve the purpose of testing whether the child can make the new parent abandon them again. Couple this with the random attachment to strangers which sometime occurs, and the parent can doubt whether they can survive the adoption. This may be especially true if a birth parent was guilty of abuse and the child associates that abuse with the adoptive parent of the same gender.

Second, doubt comes into our minds because we want to think that we have adopted perfect children. Not only does it apply to their behaviors, but it also applies to their physical state as well. The adoptive parent wants to believe that everything will be okay, and that nurture will overcome all that nature (and special needs) has endowed our child with. However, all children have personality traits that differ from our own, as well as different likes and dislikes. In addition, we find that adopted children, like birth children, are all different from each other. What works for one does not work for another.

While many birth defects are obvious prior to adoption, some are not. Mental handicaps are severe at times. If a child needs surgery (for example, to repair a cleft palate), the parent may not appreciate the fear that comes into their hearts prior to the surgery (and certainly not the fear in the heart of the child). Again, fear engenders doubt.

Finally, we doubt because we do not see the goodness of God in our trials. We can be prone to despair at the outcomes of our children when we consider the time, money, and energy we have poured into them. Yet it is God who is writing the chapters of their lives, and we need to recognize that He alone is the One who can show our children His goodness. He also wants a relationship with them, and will allow our and their suffering to bring about a picture of something much more beautiful than we can imagine.

Where are you right now? Have you been tempted to doubt whether or not you should have adopted? Find someone else who has adopted and share your struggles with them. Feel free to comment on this blog.