Adoption Brings Family Together
By Kaileigh Deacon
Adoption can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some, like the Spencers, adoption can give them the family they’ve always wanted when other means have failed.
Michealene and Ian Spencer tried for thirteen years to have a baby, and, after many losses, they realized they had reached the end of the line. Together, they discussed what this meant for their future: Would they just accept the fact that they wouldn’t be able to have children? Should they reach out to an adoption agency? Or would another option come up?
“In the end, we chose foster care, because those were children who needed a mom and dad and we were a mom and dad who needed children,” Michealene said. Over the years, they have had a total of seven foster children, including Jude, whom they specifically intended to adopt from his birth in 2016. As soon as he could leave the hospital they were the ones that brought him home. They started the adoption process and after seven months were able to legalize what they already felt and make Jude a part of their family. Jude is now a happy and healthy one year old.
For the Spencers, adoption was a way for them to complete the family they wanted to have and fostering gave them the opportunity to be the mom and dad for kids who needed it. While Jude is the first child they have adopted, Michealene said that they would be more than willing to adopt more. “We are so in love with our son and would be happy for a million more of him.”
“I truly believe families are meant to be together no matter how we get there. This boy was always meant to be my son. Once the stars aligned and he came to us, it was like everything just fit. Biology is not what makes you family. Love is what makes you family. There are so many children who need that love,” Michealene said.
Adoption can be the way to complete a family that needs something more or a way for a family to give a child a chance at a family that will love them and take care of them. Family in all its forms is complicated and beautiful. “Nothing about having children is easy; through adoption or biologically. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Adoption is an amazing experience; full of ups and downs. With anything in life, keep faith that what is meant to be will be,” is Michealene’s advice.
November may be National Adoption Month where people seek to bring awareness to adoption and its benefits and opportunities, but it is families like the Spencers that celebrate year-long for the opportunities that adoption has brought them. For many in our area, adoption has touched their lives in one way or another either directly or indirectly. Adoption allows families that may not be bound together by blood to be brought together by something much deeper: love, and the desire to be part of a family.