Fully Bonded

As an adoptive parent I often wonder if I'll be able to provide my adopted child with the same quality and perhaps caliber of love that my biological children. I know that I love her, I guess I am scientific enough that I want a number, a statistic...something that I can measure and say, see I do!
That can't happen though. Well, not unless I get very scientific and use all the things I learned in my research class that I had in Nursing school. haha, NOT.
So...with those things in the back of my head...a lot of my day...I was pondering the labor and delivery stories of my children a couple days ago.
I was thinking how my oldest...it was horrible, and was followed by a c-section. My youngest son, it was early, he was so small, he was a VBAC. My oldest daughter, hurt like hell, but I watched her come out in the mirror thanks to my darling friend that let the midwife know that might help. My middle daughter, it was ok, hurt really bad, got the nurses running when I wouldn't stop pushing just because the doc was doing a section. I told the nurse she was an L&D nurse and she could do just fine. haha..anyway after she was born, my body didn't do well. I was very sick. I was told that if I wanted to raise my own children that I probably shouldn't have any more. That broke my heart.
So..that brings me to my youngest daughter. I was sitting there thinking about her labor and delivery...and ohh wait, that's right...we got her when she was less than a month old. I wasn't there when she was born.
haha..had to laugh at myself there!
She feels like my child...which I guess means that I can stop trying to measure and adjust and quantify the love ratios. The love is evenly spread out.

Now if I could just help people understand what I just went through. It IS possible to love another persons child as much as your own. SO much infact that you can actually forget that you didn't give birth to them.

I am also mostly stopping telling people that our youngest child is adopted. I will save that fact for when it is necessary. As much of a advocate for adoption and foster parenting....I'm going to let my sweet toddler avoid as much labeling as I can. There is such a gray area between being an advocate for adoption and allowing my little girl to grow up feeling like a complete part of a family.