“She’s So Lucky to Have You” — Why Adoption Isn’t About Luck

I’ve heard some version of the same comment many times when sharing our adoption story:

“She’s so lucky to have you.”

I understand what people mean when they say it. It’s meant kindly. They’re looking at our family now and seeing a child who is loved and wanted.

But the word lucky has always felt complicated to me.

My daughter became my daughter because difficult things had already happened in her life. By the time she came to us, she had already experienced changes and losses that she had no control over.

So when someone tells me she’s lucky, my first thought is usually the opposite.

I’m the lucky one.

There were moments early on that made the losses behind her adoption impossible for me to overlook. One of them happened not long after she came to live with us.

We ran into her previous foster mom and foster brother while we were shopping.

We stopped and talked for a while. Everything seemed fine until it was time to say goodbye.

My daughter began sobbing and reaching for her former foster mom.

I still remember standing there watching her reaction. She was only 18 months old. She couldn’t explain to me what she was feeling or what she understood about what was happening.

But I could see that saying goodbye to someone who had cared for her for much of her young life was hard.

I loved my daughter completely by then. But moments like that reminded me that loving her didn’t erase everything that had happened before I became her mom.

That’s why I’ve never thought of my daughter’s adoption as something that made her lucky.

She has a family who loves her, and there is so much happiness in her life. But those things don’t cancel out the circumstances that made adoption necessary in the first place.

When I think about who was lucky in our adoption story, I think about myself.

I’m the one who gets to be her mom. I get the hugs, the inside jokes, the ordinary days and the chance to watch her become more and more herself.

I feel incredibly lucky to have her in my life.

Her adoption isn’t what made her lucky.

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If you’re navigating adoption or foster care—or trying to understand some of the things no one can fully prepare you for—you’re welcome to follow along. I share what I learned through our foster-to-adopt journey, including the things I wish I’d understood sooner.

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