When we talked about our plans to adopt, people often asked a lot of questions. The most common were along the lines of “don’t you want a baby of your own?” “Are you sure you can love another child like you love your daughter?”
I always found that quite curious. I’m not biologically-related to my husband, but nobody ever suggested that I should marry a relative! We have some very close friends who have children of a similar age to our eldest, and some had younger siblings. I adore those children, and have looked after some of them when friends had work commitments. The more time I spend with them, the more I feel that our bond grows stronger. It’s the same with any relationship really, but sometimes people assume that the love we have for a child is more difficult to form. I actually think children are often the easiest to bond with!
Perhaps in part because I love my friends’ children who have no biological link to me or my husband, I have never had any doubt that I would love any child we adopted. It’s not genetics that makes me love my family! Love is complicated and difficult to explain or understand, but one thing I do know is that love does not depend on DNA.
American Opera Singer, Robert Breault, put it well when he said:
“There is an instinct in a woman to love most her own child – and an instinct to make any child who needs her love, her own.”
