Shannon: One Inch of Grace

I'm so happy to have another guest here today. Shannon, from One Inch of Grace, is one of my adoption homies. Her family was created through the foster system and I'm honored that she is sharing part of her story here.

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Choosing Adoption

This is something that I’ve never discussed on my own site. To put it simply, my husband, J, and I chose adoption over pregnancy. I know the reverse is true for many people, even though they would never trade their adopted children for anything - even though their children are definitely not “a last resort.”

Most people have enough propriety not to ask us about our choices - but some don’t. They want to know about our infertility. But, as far as we know, this is not an issue for us. This is why, when we decided to adopt, we went the foster care route. Now, we’ve never been foster parents, but given our situation, we were determined to adopt older children.

Those who know about our choice, sometimes want to know about my “biological clock,” or what we would do if I got pregnant, since pregnancy always follows an adoption. To me, “what if” questions seem ridiculous, after all, who can predict the future? And, given our assumed ability to become pregnant, our children are deemed “lucky” to have been chosen by us. This is also nonsense. Although we’re going through a hard time right now, I have no doubt that in 20 years, I’ll be thanking them for making us even better. And, they are certainly not lucky - who counts losing one’s parents as something lucky?

Our family was formed by choice, that’s true - our choices, their first parents’ choices, but not our children’s choice. In an ideal world, we would never know each other, because children would never be neglected. We can only try our best today, and hope that someday, their first parents will be proud of the people they have become.

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Amazing right? I just think it's fantastic how many ways a family can be built and I love that Shannon shares hers with such honesty and grace...One Inch of Grace...if you will. Thanks Shannon!