There are many things I didn’t realize before I adopted. One was this new type of guilt that I would experience that made no logical sense. Though I know that it is illogical, it is something that I struggle with from time to time. I have guilt over things that happened to my children before they were my children.
I know that I had no control over what happened to what my kids before they came to me. I didn’t even know who they were or where they were and was in no position to change any of the outcomes, but I can’t help but wish that I had been able to protect them. My job as their mom is to protect them from anything that can harm them. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I have guilt over that.
With some of my kids, it’s that I couldn’t protect them prenatally from things that will affect them for the rest of their lives. With others, I could not protect them from things that happened to them as children.
When I see them struggling now because of those things I couldn’t protect them from, I would give anything to be able to take their pain away and to do that, I would have to be able to go back in time and change what happened to them. Since I can’t do that, I feel guilty.
Illogical, right?
What I can do is to protect them now, give them the best chance of reaching their fullest potential regardless of what happened to them before they came to me, give them a safe place to express their feelings, teach them of a God who loves them even more than I do, and pray that somehow, they will heal.
Yes illogical, but something I’ve felt too. Thanks for helping me realise I’m not the only adopter who has felt like this… x