Saturday, September 8, 2007

How to Convince Your Family that You Are Not Taking on Too Much?

I was finally able to talk to my brother yesterday. Unfortunately, it had to be on the phone. Which wasn't ideal. But overall it went okay. He admitted he doesn't know anything about HIV - which is fine! I certainly don't expect anyone to be an expert on a disease they have likely never had any (knowing) contact with. So I appreciated that he asked questions. I think he may have been a little concerned about transmission, etc. But he also trusts me and knows I would never put my children in any danger.

His real concern is that we are taking on too much. I think this is a concern of my dad's as well, but he hasn't really talked about the issue at all....

My brother asked me an interesting question - basically trying to determine, to get me to ask myself, if I was 'getting anything out of this that I needed. He didn't ask it rudely - but I think it was more along the lines of "do you feel like you have to do this to save the world" or something like that. Which isn't an outrageous question. It isn't easy to put into words though.

I guess, the simplest way I can say it (and I probably didn't express it very eloquently to him) is that I know we can do this (we know we can). For us, once we knew we could, it was much harder to walk away. Because it is always easy to say, we've got enough on our plates, it is okay to just want to adopt a 'healthy' child - let someone else save the HIV kids. But who is that someone else going to be?

And besides - AJ's our son. He just also happens to have HIV.

But we came to this conclusion before we knew AJ was ours in our hearts. We personally had to come to terms with the disease before we allowed our hearts to fully open to a particular child. It just took some time. But it was inevitable. Because he is ours - and we're his forever family.

If there are any readers out there... Anyone have any thoughts about how to better express this feeling? I think that it can also be just adoption related (since far too many have that "it's for someone else to do" feeling about adopting in general) ...

1 comment:

SupermomE13 said...

Hey, This is Erin. :)

We get this sentiment A LOT, that people are worried we are taking on too much... we have since our first adoption.

My response is that yes, we acknowledge that we have taken on a lot, but to us, these kids are not burdens (because usually when you say "taking on" it implies burdens, or something challenging). We feel like while we have taken on a lot of responsibility, which we take very seriously, we have also been blessed immeasurably by our children.

We aren't "taking on" burdens because we feel that it is something we have to do, we are choosing to adopt children that we believe are ours, and we know that will bless our lives. We desire to parent them... we desire the challenges of having more children, because we enjoy all that comes with having those children.

Our daughter may be HIV+, but that is such a tiny part of who she is. When we chose to adopt her we got a beautiful, sweet, cuddly, loving, smart, resilient, brave, sassy and amazing little girl to call our own. The fact that she is HIV+ matters very little when you look at all the other things that she is.

I think a lot of people hear HIV and can't see past that, or imagine a "real child" beyond that (until they meet them in person). For us, the children who are HIV+ are no less exciting or special than "healthy children" and we are no less lucky to be given them.

Ok, I am rambling. :)

Hugs,
E