Unconventional Triplets

Written by Danelle Henden. When you go through an adoption process, you focus a lot on losing your kids, losing the opportunities. However, in my experience, I have gained a kid to love. My relationship with Dawn was a bit touch and go at first. She was so smart and so expressive, but I could tell when she would see me and wonder where her birthmom was. I remember the dread in my heart from the look in her eyes. I just knew that, if she started having issues with me being there, I may not be able to come around anymore for her emotional well-being.

I started to empathize with how she must feel, and it strengthened my resolve to never allow the twins to feel that from me. It also empowered me to help Dawn know that she was loved. She became my little buddy.

I would make sure to include her in all the things I did. I wanted her to know that I wasn’t just an adult that cared about the twins. I cared about all of them. I would make sure to bring Dawn a small gift on the twin’s birthday, especially since I usually was not in the states to attend her birthday.

I was an only child, so I never got the sibling experience, and being around all the kids makes me extremely grateful that Dawn is there to help and teach the twins.

In my mind, Dawn is another child of mine, and I love her just as much as the children I gave birth to. It was Nelson Mandela who said, “History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children.” I pray that I am a positive difference in all of the kids’ lives because they have certainly changed mine for the better