Back when my husband and I adopted our first child, I think we were in the belief that adoption was an experience more than it was a process. We naively went along for awhile as if once the adoption was final, we could move on to the next stage in our family life and that would be that. Of course we had openness and contact with several of our oldest daughter’s birthfamily members, but we assumed that the issues inherent to adoption, were also mostly dispensed with when the adoption was finalized. Boy did we have so much to learn!

With many years, and the addition of two other children,... more