Best 315 quotes in «adoption quotes» category

The life of an adoptee is like an ancient voyager who searches for the unknown. The stars guided their destiny. They had their sights on the wonders that lay ahead of them. An adoptee travels in the opposite direction.

The life an infertile person seeks comes to her not by accident and not by fate but by hard-fought choices. How to put together the portfolio of photographs. How to answer at the home study. What clinic or doctor or procedure. Donor egg or donor sperm or donor embryo. Open or closed adoption. What country, what boxes to check or uncheck. What questions to ask, and ask again. When to start and when to stop. What to say when her child says, Tell me my story.

The more intimate the setting, the greater the challenges of diversity. Adopted children, for example, often report they never felt they fit in. In a British study of adults who were adopted as children, 46 percent of whites adopted by whites said they felt a sense of not belonging. For non-whites adopted by whites, the figure rose to close to 75 percent. Researchers reported that their constant refrain was, “Love is not enough.” There can be worse: The authors of a 2005 study on domestic violence in the United States reached the sobering conclusion that “the incidence of spousal homicide is 7.7 times higher in interracial marriages compared to intraracial marriages.” One study for the period 1979 to 1981 found that white men who married black women were 21.4 times more likely to be killed by their spouses than white men who married white women. A white woman increased her risk of being killed 12.4 times by marrying a black man. Marrying a white did not appreciably change a black person’s risk of being killed by his or her spouse.

The pain will always be in you — but you will not always be in pain.

There are times today when Rachel looks at Zach and sees an effusion, she sees him in colours of yellow and blue, sun and sky. She sees the yellow crew-neck jumper and blue jeans the boy of eight years old appeared in the day he came to Chelsea from the Coram Family via the two or three previous fosterers who returned him there, defeated, pronouncing him uncommunicative and maladroit in the extreme, animal, said one; unruly. So why this boy? For Katya the fractious? Of all the orphan boys in the world, why him? Of all potential mothers, why Katya? What did she see? Everyone has a part and a destiny. Rachel remembers the yellow jumper the boy rarely removed, even after the family shopping spree for a new wardrobe at Harrods followed by lunch in a restaurant with napkins large as small tablecloths, and heavy cutlery and wine for Katya and Lev and a pervasive daunting hush. Zach had never been to a restaurant before and chose spaghetti, because he knew what it was. He ate it with knife and fork. On the day he arrived in Chelsea, he stopped in the vestibule to slip his feet from lace-ups without undoing the bows, removing his shoes with institutional efficiency, left hand still held in Katya's right. Rachel sees that boy still, blue and yellow. Sky and sun.

There were two types of survivors in life: those, like her, who found the requisite strength in having once been loved with great intensity; and those who, having not been loved, learned to thrive on hatred, suspicion, and the meager rewards of revenge.

There's nothing more important in this world than caring for a child.

The word, 'issues,' is perhaps a misnomer, a gross understatement, or a pale and withered description for very real psychological illnesses and emotional losses. Nevertheless, "post-adoption issues" is a catch-all phrase, and at least it avoid pathologizing adoptees.

The woman who gave her baby away. The woman who told the world her baby was dead. She is a coward and I am the thing she fears the most. The litter from her belly, the filthy issue, the prodigal daughter.

They had always dreamed of a large family but have now realized that they would be equally blessed to have even one child.

The wrinkled pages of the Bible crackled as Mom leafed back to the beginning of Matthew. I had always felt I was conceived from the powers of the universe. Maybe I was chosen to fulfill a divine mission.

They will grow up knowing that they should be only proud about being adopted. I will consider it a parental failure if our daughters ever try to use it as some kind of excuse.

Thus bound together, they sheltered the child from the cold, dark night, enveloping him in warmth.

To begin with, homosexuality has nothing to do with pedophilia; one is sexual orientation and the other is sexual perversion. Yet, in that most cases of pedophilia involve incest, we must consider the question. If our objective is to prevent pedophilia in adoption then the only logical action is to permit only homosexuals to adopt children who are only of the opposite sex. This would reduce incest to zero. If we permit heterosexual couples to adopt children, then children would be at risk.

Today I'm aware of all the times I have said no to opportunities God has placed before me because I think I'm not rich enough, equipped enough, talented enough, strong enough, or crazy enough to say yes. All the times I have mistaken good things for bad. All the times I have allowed the opinions of an ignorant majority to guide my thinking instead of looking to Jesus and his heart in the matter. I wonder how many times we, his children, choose a comfortable no over a terrifying yes - the kind of yes that will lead us to the only place we should ever long to be: in the arms of Jesus.

We acknowledge, indeed, that Christ in human nature is called a Son, not like believers by gratuitous adoption merely, but the true, natural, and, therefore, only Son, this being the mark which distinguishes him from all others. Those of us who are regenerated to a new life God honours with the name of sons; the name of true and only-begotten Son he bestows on Christ alone. But how is he an only Son in so great a multitude of brethren, except that he possesses by nature what we acquire by gift?

We could adopt. there are lots of kids out there who could grow up to hate us as much as any kid we could make

We have the opportunity to pour into them what they were created to be; and pullout the treasure that they cannot yet see.

This is overdue. Quite a bit, I'm afraid. I apologize. We moved to Topeka when I was very small, and Mother accidentally packed it up with the linens. I have traveled a long way to return it, and I know the fine must be large, but I have no money. As it is a book of fairy tales, I thought payment of a first-born child would be acceptable. I always loved the library. I'm sure she'll be happy there.

Those who are wounded wound others. Moses was wounded profoundly when he lost his birth family, his heritage, and his history. In the years to come, he would come to know Jehovah-rophe, the Healer of life’s sicknesses and sorrows. Exodus 15: 26b says, “…for I am the Lord, who heals you.” (from Under His Wings: Healing Truth for Adoptees of All Ages)

Today, when I’m asked, I often say that I no longer consider adoption—individual adoptions, or adoption as a practice—in terms of right or wrong. I urge people to go into it with their eyes open, recognizing how complex it truly is; I encourage adopted people to tell their stories, our stories, and let no one else define these experiences for us.

...tried to be faultless as a parent, but still she worries that in the end, all her love for her daughter will not compensate for the loss she suffered as a baby

We'll be up in a minute,' states Katya, speaking from a particular stillness, in sudden recognition of a dream made real, a dream annulled, so she had thought, by long words of the womb—'endometriosis,' 'hyperplasia'—and now made true, this vision of a boy on a staircase answering to his name, coming to her call. My son. She raises one arm slightly in front of Lev at her side, in gentle impediment. Not yet. Wait here. Let me see. This was always preordained.

Well, just remember this. When my ma got me, she picked what she wanted. But when your ma got you, she had to take what she got.

We must protect the girls," Mrs. Kroehne said. "You understand." I do understand. I am a contaminant and must be kept silent. It has been three months since my baby was born, three months since I walked away from my baby with milk dripping from my breasts. I will not say this to any of these young people during my time among them. I will construct careful lies and memorize them to explain myself, my dark inward life, my hunger for love, my tough resistance to trust.

We should have given up years ago. It's so clear now. We should have "explored other options." We should have adopted. We gave up years of our lives and we very nearly destroyed our marriage. Our happy ending could have and should have arrived so much sooner. And even though I adore the fact that Francesca has Ben's eyes, I also see now that her biological connection to us is irrelevant.

What else can I tell you? From the very first moment that I held him, I loved him and felt he was mine. Each day that I wake up and look at him, I can hardly believe it. Our love for him grows stronger each day and we enjoy watching him develop.

What happens to a mother in that second when she places her baby in the arms of someone else and turns away? And the lie? Who do you become the moment the deceit is formed on your tongue? When you first speak the words that your baby has died? Is there a diary entry buried somewhere in a loft full of cobwebs and regret that reveals even the slightest fragment of heartbreak?

What many black and biracial transracial adoptees were not prepared for was that the societal realities they faced were the same as those facing other people of color. The information that white transracial adoptive parents needed to give their children did not exist in the white world; these parents would have to interact with black America in order to understand the problems most likely to trouble transracially adopted children.

What matters most is not 'what' you are, but 'who' you are.

What makes a family is neither the absence of tragedy nor the ability to hide from misfortune, but the courage to overcome it and, from that broken past, write a new beginning.

What would my life, have been like, if I hadn't been put up for adoption? Who would my parents have been then? Or my parent, my mother?

What would it be like to feel so attached, so intrinsically bonded, so protective of one’s own best connection with time and the ages, of generations past and future, of another human life, of their time?

When a heart hears - and believes, or half believes - that it is not the child of God by origin, from the first of its being, but may possibly be adopted into His family, its love sinks at once in a cold faint: where is its own father, and who is this that would adopt it?

While our life remains more chaotic than not, we continue to land on our blistered feet, drag each other out of the quicksand, beg for forgiveness as we wander out of the doghouse, and dig for the humor beneath our grief. So our family, four-pawed members included, continues to bound forward celebrating our canine connection and sharing hope with all who need healing.

With every beat of my heart, I believe she thought keeping her secret was in everyone's best interest. She thought the secret would be buried with her, never to be revealed. She thought wrong.

Without the Fatherhood of God driving our manhood, we become "mad scientists" as we destructively experiment with those in our charge. But because of Jesus there is hope...Through a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, God becomes our Father.

We don't have adoption issues, we have an issue with adoption.

Women are like trees, growing slowly over time. So many rings creating layers of maturity as their branches spread and reach out to the sky. Motherhood prunes those branches. Sometimes it prunes them back hard and painfully. But if you let go and trust in the good of what it means to be a mother, if you can trust in the knowledge learned from the hard lessons, then faith and belief will carry you through. And in the end, you will grow fuller and more beautiful from the, sometimes harsh, pruning of motherhood.

YOU AND YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN HAPPINESS, NOT ANYONE ELSE

You are real! Everyone has to be different or the world would be really boring. If we all looked the same, then no one could tell us apart. -Janelle

You had nightmares every night for a long time and screamed in Korean words, but we didn't know what they meant. I asked someone who knew Korean, and he said it was um-ma um-ma, the word for mom.

You need to call on your best and strongest self.

Your ancestors are rooting for you.

You were tossed away like a pair of beautiful, brand new shoes that did not quite fit.

[Adoption] could turn you into an exquisite comedian. Ask Richard Pryor's ghost.

Adoption is the highest privilege the gospel offers.

Adoption was a bumpy ride - very bumpy. But, God, was it worth the fight.

After all, children are children no matter their background.

All we can say is that, as the result of a process which went on from the fourth century to about the eighth, a standard type of text was produced, which is found in the vast majority of the manuscripts that have come down to us. At least ninety-six per cent of the extant manuscripts of the Greek New Testament are later than the eighth century; and of those only a handful preserve traces of the other types of text which were in existence before the adoption of the standard text, and out of which it was created.