Center For Healing Childhood Trauma

“My adopted child ruined my life.”

It’s a phrase several adoptive parents have thought yet refuse to admit. What happens when your biggest joy becomes the source of so much hurt and confusion?

I recently received a similar message from a mother. She wrote, “I’m glad adoption worked out for you. It doesn’t for everyone.”

I would never say that adoption has worked out for me. I am broken and lonely, not who I was before we adopted. I combat voices that tell me I am fighting a losing battle, and every single day I struggle to rise up and parent trauma. I live with big behaviors and hard emotions. I live with simple victories and tiny miracles. And I hold onto both as landmarks along the journey of family.

I am a very frail human woman, and adoption has broken me into pieces.

I learned a long time ago that my life does not belong to me. Every failure, every hurt, and every poor choice is held in the hands of a God who sees past my big behaviors and ugly tears. The hours I’ve spent in anguish and terror.

One cannot see the plight of the orphan or the abuse inflicted on foster children and remain untouched. I have wanted to run away from the flinch of the sexually abused 6-year-old, flee the smell of the sores on the bed-ridden, infant-sized teen in an orphanage, and scream to the heavens watching my two youngest children rock soundlessly, mentally locked back inside an orphanage.

Adoption has not worked out for me, and it hasn’t worked out for others, either. Unfortunately, there aren’t one-size-fits-all, quick-fix resources for adoptive parents. Adoption is always, always the second choice. It is not God’s plan for me to raise another woman’s child. He never planned for hurt and broken families. His plan was not sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect of tiny minds.

Instead, adoption is stepping into brokenness and loss. It is doing my very best to point my children to the only One who can heal. I have been given a spot in the arena to fight for my child’s worth and love. It is a messy, painful, daily battle.

Adoption often does not work out well because children are not resilient. Bad things cannot happen over and over to a child and just be forgotten. Children's cells cling to past traumas, and the slightest triggers spiral them into fear and pain. 

It is said that pain is the greatest teacher. My children have learned from a young age that this world, and those in it, can hurt them. Translate that into the context of family, and you see a mixed message of hope and fear. Some days hope wins; other days we drown in fear.

I read your words again: “I’m glad adoption worked out for you, it doesn’t for everyone. My adopted child ruined my life.”

Oh mama, I hear your pain. I see how you feel like you have failed. Perhaps your child has progressed beyond your family’s ability to parent safely. Maybe the days of rage and sleepless nights have spiraled into in-patient treatment or a group home. Or maybe you have been led down the path of severance because your adopted child was on a path of destruction, and you were standing alone.

I see you, and I want you to know that your child’s brokenness is not yours to claim. We all must reach a point where we realize that we can only do our best and that sometimes our best cannot remove the splinters of childhood trauma. That some children will not heal under our care.

I hope, mama, that you do not carry the burden of shame or failure. It is not yours to carry.

Many choose to follow God, whatever the cost. The pain of this life is often more than we can bear and darker than our sight can penetrate. Sometimes, all we taste is the bitterness of failure. In those moments, I pray that you remember that Jesus is familiar with your pain.

Maybe today you are broken, and you drop to your knees. Perhaps you have reached the end of your ability to handle one more round of heartache. I have been there too. 

But in my darkest hours, I have met God. In the spaces filled with dark, dreadful, and suffocating silence, I have heard the still, small whisper of a God who loves me in my brokenness. A God who has promised to exchange eternal life for my daily hurt, failure, and struggle.

I see you, mama, and you are right. In the eyes of the world, your adoption did not work out. But one day, the eyes of the God of the universe will look upon you, and the words He speaks will not be of your failure. He only wants you. He will use your pain on this side of death to open your eyes to Him.

For it is through our lows and valleys that we glimpse of the grace and love of our King. It is in the dark and lonely spaces that I know the King sits. He is sitting with the lonely, the broken, and the heartsick.

Reach out, mama. You are never alone.

At Lost Sparrows, our charity, we provide resources for adoptive parents. 

Learn more about The Center for Healing Childhood Trauma, which provides resources for adoptive parents through online video lessons about early childhood trauma and adversity. The lessons cover a breadth of content, and you can tailor it to your unique pace and desired topics.

Learn more about our resources for adoptive parents, such as our monthly support group and our annual Lost Sparrows Trauma Conference.

Written by Stacey Gagnon (2019)