I was thinking about adoption this morning . . . well, our adoption specifically. That’s not very unusual. After all, adoption is a huge part of our lives, so like anything else that’s a huge part of our lives, it flows in and out of my thoughts.
It’s an interesting thing, this belief that people have that Energy Boy was “meant for” us or that God lead us to each other. In some ways, I bought into that in the past, but if I look at it totally intellectually, I know that’s not really true. A twist of fate, perhaps, but nothing more. He was next, we were next. He could fit into any of a dozen of families . . . . and yet he became our son.
If I’m going to be totally honest, part of the reason that we chose international adoption was that I thought it might be “easier” to be a step removed from being chosen by a first mother. I felt uneasy not only “selling” myself to first moms (don’t be haters; I’m being brutally honest here), but also . . . I don’t know. I wonder if I knew that taking a baby from his mother would be gut-wrenching for me. I almost wasn’t able to take him from his foster mothers. The memories came to me this morning for some reason, unbidden, me, at the orphanage, crying to Absent Minded Professor, taking him aside and saying
I don’t know if I can do this.
I was torn because EB’s caregiver’s were crying so hard and obviously loved him so much. AMP’s face looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights; he didn’t know what to do.
But this is all in hindsight, and a person who wants a baby as much as I wanted a baby . . .
it’s not like I would have done anything (I shudder at some of the anythings that some women/couples have done), but I would have done a lot.
Like I said, this is in hindsight, and this is brutal honesty.
I love EB with all of my being and I can’t imagine my life without him. Yet, somewhere, someone is living that life — having loved him with all of her being, she’s living without him.
That’s the tragedy of adoption. My gain, her loss. Our gain, his loss of his family of origin.
He loves us, I know that. He’s a happy kid. But I’d be lying if I said that he didn’t already experience loss. That I haven’t already seen his sadness.
Some people say that he’s so much like me, it’s almost like he is my biological child. I know they mean well . . . . but that feels like it negates who he really is. He’s not, he’s just not, and that’s OK. He’s his own person with his own past, his own history. We share some personality traits, but not all.
Adoption is so darn complicated. It’s not just helping out some poor girl in a crisis pregnancy and a couple (or single) who want a child. It gets so much more complicated than that and lasts throughout the lifetime. Don’t get me wrong; I can’t regret adopting EB. I love him too much. But I also can’t put blinders on to what adoption does to the first family and the adoptee. It hurts my heart . . . but not nearly how it hurts theirs, I know . . . but yet don’t know.
