At Adoption & Beyond, it is important for us to take the time to talk personally with families when they call, and we remain available to answer questions throughout the adoption process and beyond. We love hearing from our families during life after adoption.
We recently reached out to the Prindle family to ask “What has life been like as a family after completing adoption?”
You can find their story below to learn about how choosing to adopt was and will always be the greatest decision they could have ever made.
Life After Adoption
Hi! We are the Prindle’s, Terry, Jill, Mason (15), Bryson (13), and Alyssa (11). Our family was made through adoption. We can’t count how many times we’ve been told how wonderful we are for choosing to adopt three children and welcoming them into our family, but the truth is, their birth family and God are the ones who are wonderful for allowing us to be their parents. We were extremely blessed to have adopted three full biological siblings, all from birth. Since becoming the parents of three incredible kiddos over a short period of time, life has been the perfect balance of crazy, love, laughter, tears, joy, exhaustion, excitement, worry, pride and many times of feeling, as our kids would put it, salty when they’ve been fighting with each other. In other words, we are your typical normal every day American family.
Bonding as a family
As their mother, I used to worry that they wouldn’t bond with me as they would if I had given birth to them. I worried whether they would really ever feel that I was their mom and my husband their dad. I look back on those early years of worry and laugh about it. Most of the time we “forget” that our family was made from adoption. We are their parents and they are our children. We’ve always felt it important to be completely transparent and honest about how our family was made and we believe that because of that, our children seem to be un-phased by the fact that they were adopted. We have always treated it as if it’s normal because well, it is. We have been lucky to have an amazing support system of family and friends/colleagues who have never treated our family any differently than their own.
The Prindle’s have always enjoyed our family vacations! One big family tradition of ours is how we utilize Christmas money that we get from grandparents. Rather than spend it on more “stuff,” we have chosen to pick a different family experience every year. We’ve done things like a weekend at Great Wolf Lodge, admission to a Disney park, skiing/tubing lift tickets, and this year, well, I can’t yet reveal. It’s important to us to create memories and to find that time to come together as a family reestablish those bonds. We are the parents of three adolescents now, so let’s be honest, we have our fair share of not so graceful family moments like every household. Those family getaways help us to balance all of those times throughout the year when we are the nagging, mean, homework and chore enforcing, phone and varying other electronics taking away gestapo!
Our children
Although our children are all full biological siblings, they have personalities all their own! Mason recently turned 15 and loves all things sports. He was recently awarded defensive player of the year on his freshman football team. He has wanted to be a police officer since he was a little boy and to this day still feels that way. Bryson who will be turning 14 right after Christmas is our brainiac. He does NOT love sports. He loves all things LEGO, and just finished participating in his middle school robotics tournament. I think we might have a future engineer on our hands. Alyssa who is 11 is just about as girly as you can get. She loves to draw anything, but specifically anime and tells us that she hopes to help create it someday as a career.
The greatest decision we could have ever made
Choosing to adopt was and will always be the greatest decision we could have ever made. Our lives couldn’t have possibly ever been fulfilled without our children apart of them. God chose us to be their parents and although we certainly felt the brutal emotional pain that is associated with infertility, we will never be able to express our gratitude in words for how our family was made in the end.
This is an update story from the Prindle family. To see their previous interview on the blog, click here.
If you have any questions about the adoption process, or if you’d like to know more, you can easily contact us at Adoption & Beyond and we will be happy to help.
Interested in learning more about The Ultimate Guide to Adopting a Child? Check out our entire guide here.
Interested in learning more about The Ultimate Guide to Family Life After Adoption? Check out our entire guide here.