Whitney McGregor and her husband, Brock, realized they didn’t need the ‘dream of a baby’ when they learned about Joshua and Jonathan, six-year-old twins living in a Guyanese orphanage
The following are Whitney McGregor's words, as told to Courtney Shea. The interview has been condensed and edited.
I always knew that I wanted to adopt children. My younger sister was adopted from China, so that has always been something that's a part of my life. Pretty soon after my husband and I got married we started looking into the process. We chose Guyana because he had done a lot of travelling and he had volunteered in that part of world and had really loved the culture. Originally we specified that we were looking for one child under three years old, and we definitely weren't expecting twins, but then we heard about Joshua and Jonathan, who had been living at an orphanage. It just kind of happened. We realized that we didn't really need that dream of a baby when there were these two wonderful six-year-olds who needed us.
We brought the boys home late last year and it was amazing. I remember they went to the bathroom in the airport and they were totally mesmerized by the hand dryer. That first night back in Canada we stayed at a hotel near Pearson Airport and I swear they were up half the night staring out the window at the lights and all the cars in the parking lot. Having a room to themselves and just having possessions of their own was a total shock to them. The first time it snowed, they ran outside in their socks because they didn't realize they needed boots.
They called me mommy from the start. For a while they called my husband "daddy Brock," and then they dropped the "Brock"— that was a big day. As an adoptive parent you prepare yourself for that "you're not my real mom" moment. I wondered if they would want to go back to Guyana and what I would say, but so far we haven't had anything like that. I'm not saying there aren't challenges (I once read that adoption is not for the faint of heart, and I certainly agree with that!). Mostly, though, we're like all parents: You go from one day where you are not a parent and then it's pretty much all you think about. You just want to do all you can to give them a life that they never thought they would have. Even now I think a lot about how things might have played out for the boys, and how different their lives were before us. The first week of school they came home and said, "You know, you can't get lashed at school."
We do want to keep the boys connected to where they came from. We have attended banquets for families who have adopted from the same area, and I still make the curries and other recipes that I learned from the people there. Adopting children who are a little bit older, obviously you have a pretty strong interest in nature versus nurture. I already have some experience observing that — my mother and my sister are basically the same person. And now with the boys we'll hear them saying things that they picked up from us. The other day I heard one of them say to the other, "We need to make good choices." That's straight out of my mouth.
Every once in a while someone will ask us whether we're planning to have "kids of our own." I know they aren't meaning to be hurtful, but Joshua and Jonathan are our sons in every way.