Does anyone read this forum

I'm not in the same boat and I know that's who you're hoping to hear from, but I just felt compelled to reply.
I am an adoptive parent and I love adoption. It has been a great way to build my family.
I know that adoption may not be right for everyone, but I just wanted you to know how wonderful it has been for my family. No, it's not perfect, but what is :) ?
One thing I wanted to let you know is how much I feel like a mom. I can't imagine feeling it more even if I had given birth to them myself.
I hope you won't let a bad stepparenting experience ruin what could be the most wonderful thing to happen to you.
I will be praying for you. I know how hard it is to just want so badly to be a mom. I struggled so much with my own infertility problems and it just ached. It was an actual physical aching and longing for a child. I pray there there is some sort of resolution in this situation for you.

Most of the adoptees who pick up parent/child relationships with their birthparents were often victims of abuse at the hands of the people who adopted them. Most adoptees, I have learned, are fiercely loyal to their adoptive parents. They still have relationships with their birthfamily, but consider the people who raised them as their parents.

I just wanted to mention that.

I wouldn't expect my daughter to turn her back on her a-parents and call me Mom. I'm her mother, but not her Mom. If they raised her well and treated her well, I would find such actions to be horribly disrespectful to them.

It is a reality that you have to face in adoption. We adopted our son at 3 weeks of age. He has no knowledge or memory of his birth mother. At 6 yrs of age, he has a hard time wrapping his mind around adoption. He asks why his birth mom didn't want him. He says he misses her. He wishes she had been ready to be his mom. These things seem hurtful, but the reality is he feels a certain amount of rejection because he was relinquished. We love him and never treat him as anything but our child, but this is how he feels. Every adoption story is different. You can't choose how your child will react. Some people have a natural curiosity to meet their bith parents, others don't. It isn't a reflection on how they were parented as much as individual need to know and connect with their past. Embracing adoption means changing your parenting expectations.

I am a mother. I am adopting my daughters, but I do not think of myself as their adoptive mother. I am their mother. I'm Mom. It's not just a name they call me. It's something that I do.

Their biological mother was never a mother to them in any sense except biological. I know that sounds harsh but she was never a mother, not even during pregnancy. I mean that through her actions and the things she did that endangered the girls. I know that their are birth mothers who think of their child first, and I have no qualms about calling them a first mother. When you care and love your child and put them first in everything and want whats best for them, even if it means letting them go, that IS being a mother.

I guess what I am saying is it all depends on the set of circumstances.

I don't feel like I'm not getting the full mom experience just because my kids are adopted. I am mom in every sense of the word. Sometimes I get caught up in the world of adoption but that's because I choose to get myself involved and advocate for adoption issues. I also don't really feel that if someday my children had a relationship with their birthmom that it would detract anything from my relationship with them. JMO.

tiggermom803 said:     You can't choose how your child will react.

Thank you, Thank you!  I only wish more Mothers would keep and hold that thought.  It really bothers me to see Moms who want to INSIST that their children be NOTHING but happy about being adopted.  They cross their arms and stomp their feet "you WILL be happy, dammit!"

We  can't even be true with ourselves :(  

Love your kids unconditionally.  Allow them ALL their feelings.   Let us be genuine, authentic, and true to our emotions.  It doesnt mean we don't love you. 

I am my child's mom P E R I O D. I am just A mom. I am also an adoptive parent. I do not have anything I have to deal with in terms of my child's bmom. I send her letters, pictures, and we call each other. It is not a burden and often it helps me because she is a more experienced woman with older children. Ultimately dh and I make all the parenting decisions and she doesn't even try to. I can only tell you that at one in the morning when ds is vomiting his guts up I know clearly that I am Mommy. I also know I am Mommy when he throws a tantrum in the store. I don't expect my child to only love the parents who raised him. I don't know what his relationship will be with his bmom or how he will feel about her. I can only try each day to be the best mom that I can be. As far as reading other posts in this forum I just remember that it does not always reflect our situation. Take what you can and leave junk behind.

I have ot had time to read any of the other posted replys, but I can answer, with my own experience. I was raised by an abusive mother, and was abused from practically from birth to the age 14. I married and soon had a woman whom became what I called mother 30 yrs, until she passed dec.2008. Being called Mom, is an honor and is not done so with out sincere emotions of true feelings of love for that person. No she did not give birth to me, was my mom anyway. She taught me so much, where as I can truly say the only thing I learned from my mother was how to never abuse another living creature. I do not mean to sound as if , by her teaching me this was a small thing, for it was the best lesson I have leared to this day. It is so possible to call another woman "MOM" if it is true feelings from the heart...you nor I can tell someone to not call another women.."'MOM" if they love that person enogh to do so. JMHO,...C.J.

Many people felt or feel the way you do. I myself underestimated the birth bond between my son and I before I gave him up. Check out some books written by adoptees. Anything by Betty Jean Lifton or "20 things Adopted Kids wished their Adoptive parents Knew" by Sherrie Eldridge. Go to an Adoptee support group and ask them. Do some more reading, you'll get it.

p.s. there's some adoptees that feel the same way you do too.

"You can't choose how your child will react. Some people have a natural curiosity to meet their bith parents, others don't. It isn't a reflection on how they were parented as much as individual need to know and connect with their past. Embracing adoption means changing your parenting expectations." Thank you Tiggermom!!!! My search has nothing to do with abuse or mistreatment or poor parenting by my adoptive parents - it's just what I need to know and connect with as an adoptee. I lost my adoptive Dad (my ONLY Dad) this last week and there is no way anybody could replace him. They were and are my Mom and Dad in every sense of the word.

Praying: I don't think it is odd to be following this forum if you know adoption isn't for you. There are raw feelings that adoption brings forth that are common to persons who have faced other trials and challenges in life. Adoption doesn't have the market on loss and alternative plans.