Families are changing. Despite the mischievous rhetoric of the righteous right, families are changing, and stigmas of shame or second-class citizenship are, thank God, disappearing little by little. Many parents in this church and other Unitarian Universalist churches have adopted over the years. Several families combine adopted children and children born from the mother. It has been interesting to hear mothers who have both adopted children and children from their own womb talk about the similarities and differences of the two events.
Some pregnancies are easy.
Some are difficult. Some are so-so. Although obviously the issues are different, And after the child enters the picture, much of the scene is the same. Breast feeding is obviously and usually not an option with adoptive babies, of course. But then, for many decades in this century it was discouraged for all mothers.