When I met the man I would one day marry, the very first thing I noticed about him was just how friendly he is.  It’s the first thing I’ll tell you about him when asked what he is like.  Friendly.  Amiable.  Kind.  He just wants to put a smile on your face.  He’s also incredibly brilliant and driven.  Loyal.  Protective.  A patient teacher.  He gets it from his mom and dad.  But it’s the traits he gets from his birth parents that I’m most curious about.

I wonder what comes from nature and what comes from nurture.

A recent episode of This Is Us got me thinking about all the things he gets from his bio-family.  By design, my husband’s birth family chose a closed adoption.  We are incredibly respectful of that.  Sure, I’d love to know what diseases run in his family…but what if his birth mother has never told the family she had years after my husband was born, that she’d placed a child with an adoptive family?  We can’t imagine how disruptive that would be.  We’re at peace not knowing and not searching.

As we get ready to welcome another child into our family, I wonder what traits my boys will have.  Who will they become?  When I study their father, I wonder what comes from nature and what comes from nurture.  My husband was loved and raised by an incredible family.  I’m grateful they are my own now.  But how do I know which of my boys’ *ahem* more charming characteristics will I never be able to change because it is part of who they are, who their father is, and who their birth father is?

National Adoption Day

As we recognize National Adoption Day in November, I remember to honor the families created from adoption, because of adoption.  As adoptive parents, you are becoming more than a mom and dad.  You have become someone’s mother and father-in-law.  Someone’s grandma and grandpa.  You choose to accept the unknown and make the most of nurture.  You choose every day to make this child your priority and give them your heart.

The three most important people in my life are there because three very loving families chose adoption. On this, and every, National Adoption Day, I am eternally grateful to the mother who carried my husband and gave him life, the foster mother and father who cared for him for two weeks, and the mother and father who raised him to be an amazing man. My life would look so much different without these families!