I’m John M. Simmons and I love real-life adoption. Of course I cherish the rainbow and unicorn moments, but that’s just what they are; moments. My wife and I had three biological sons before we turned to adoption to add to our family. That has culminated in adding six more children to our brood (I think that makes a total of nine…). We have four adopted daughters from Russia who are biological siblings, a son who is not related to them, who also came from Russia, and a son whom we adopted here in the United States.
We have adopted an infant, toddlers, an elementary aged child, and teenagers. As you might imagine, that comes with some difficulties long days frustration profanity “challenges.” Words we use with psychologists as we work together to try to help our children heal include; Reactive Attachment Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Thank goodness for Tylenol and caffeine.
One of our children has Down Syndrome but we don’t consider that a challenge as much as we see it as a dose of pure and unpolluted love that we have been given to help us through the difficult times. Jack, our son with the “bonus chromosome,” is eighteen now. He is a riot and everybody in our small mountain community loves him.
Before being placed in separate Russian orphanages, our daughters came from living conditions that Stephen King would love to have the ability to describe. All of them can show you scars on their bodies that pale in comparison to the scars they have inside.
One of our daughters turned into the stereotypical horror story that you read about, complete with constant threats—and even acts—of violence, comparable to what had been inflicted on her before her adoption. It finally got to the point where it wasn’t safe for her to live in the home with us, but she is still a cherished member of our family. We have stuck with my daughter as she spent time in institutional care and has finally been able to move into group-home settings. With the extra professional help that came with those changes in her residence, we saw improvement. Today, our daughter is doing comparatively well. We see her weekly, talk to her on the phone and email back and forth. Sometimes she comes home for visits. She is twenty-two now. The first six years were blood, sweat and tears. Now, it’s mostly good.
Sometimes people ask my wife and me if we would do it over again. When asked that question, I always respond with a melancholy smile. Then I say, “Of course, but first I would need a minute to sit on the ground and cry.” There’s an old Bob Seger song called Against the Wind. It has a line that perfectly describes how I feel about the situation with our oldest daughter, “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”
Sometimes adoption is tough. Marriage and other family building events—including children obtained biologically—can also bring difficult circumstances. But there is one difference between those who soldier on and those who walk away. The difference is the understanding of one simple principle. I have shared this truth with my oldest daughter and we remind each other of it from time to time, “When all you can do isn’t enough, you still need to do all you can do.” That is the thin red line between those who give up and those who stick with it, as long as it takes, until they finally succeed.
There is lots of writing that helps us through the hard times in adoption if we take the time to do the research. We have each other. Tylenol and caffeine will never abandon us. But we are people who made a promise to help our children forever; and we will keep that promise! We are people who would rather die tired than lazy.