i had my first real cry in months about our adoption the other night. i had a lot of emotions welling up in me, and they weren't necessarily about the long wait. they were about adoption and how i feel about doing it and how i feel about how other people feel about us doing it. i try to be honest on here about how i feel, and yet i think i end up sharing more of my opinions than my feelings. my friend, leigh, inspires me because she really is honest about how she feels. she'll tell you straight up when she's hurt or when she's missing her kids or when she's feeling misunderstood (and i think my motivation for writing tonight is her blog post from today).
i often fear that when i try to articulate what it's like to be a first-time parent through adoption in a preggo-centered universe, people go away thinking i hate pregnancy and bio kids or that i secretly wish i were pregnant and am manifesting that desire by being bitter towards pregnant women or that i think all people who have bio kids must not care about orphans. i want to clearly articulate that none of these things are true. the truth is, i am just so, so, so tired of having my experience of becoming a parent be discounted because it is not "normal" (apologies now that this post sounds like i have regressed since writing a post about affirming adoptive families. but i'm realizing that no matter how much i tell people what all this feels like and what we need to feel supported, people aren't going to listen and really understand until something clicks in their brain). i'm so tired of having our adoption have to somehow revolve back around the experience of pregnancy when people observe that we're in our third trimester because we've been waiting 6 months or basically just whenever someone says, "oh, so i guess it's a lot like when you're pregnant and..." i often want to scream that i have never been pregnant, and while i understand the general concept because i understand the basic premise of being pregnant, i have never experienced pregnancy and thus all of those metaphors are really lost on me. i just for once wish that our adoption could be seen for what it truly is -- an adoption -- and not be compared to something else or seen through the lens of something else or assimilated to some other more typical experience.
i have asked jamie whether these kinds of things bother him, and based on his thoughts, i think a woman just experiences this (and by this, i mean becoming a parent through adoption before pregnancy) differently than her husband. what is at stake here, in some sense, is the female body and what it was apparently intended for. as much as we have chosen adoption and feel as though we have answered a calling on our life, i so often look at myself and feel inadequate and embarrassed because i'm not using my body for what everyone is telling me it's meant for. i read all these christian mom blogs where these women talk incessantly about how pregnancy and giving birth are the most feminine things a woman can do. and suddenly, i am alienated and feel like a total freak show because my desire is not really for a child of my womb but a child from outside of it -- a child who grew in someone else's womb and, because of many painful circumstances, will become my child because we are cosmically tied in this great story of love and loss. and because of all these things, i grieve everytime i have to hear someone talk about their "own" kids as opposed to "adopted" kids because my entire being believes that those two children who are slowly but surely coming into our family even as we speak are my own in every sense of what that means. and i fear so much for those two little lives because i know that so many people will always see them as "adopted" kids, orphans-- these two pitiable bastard children who were taken in by us, the very nice christian couple. i don't really know why i give a crap if the rest of the world sees my children as my children. i just don't want them living the rest of their lives believing that they are somehow "less than" because they aren't somebody's "own kids." (and just to throw it out there, what i have written above describes what i think are the feelings a woman struggling with infertility probably faces to a much greater extent. i do not in any way want to take away from that experience and act as though i know what that feels like because i do not).
in general, i worry so much about my kids and how they will be perceived and how those perceptions will shape their understandings of who they are. when people comment on how great and sacrificing we are for adopting or how adoption is such an "act of kindness," i often fear my kids will only believe they are objects of our mercy and "great kindness" and not simply our children who we would love even if they did not come to us in this way. i suppose that when people only see adoption as a kind act, it becomes easier to dismiss it as something "we hope to do one day" as if it's just like saying "i hope to visit paris one day" or "i'd like to eat a hamburger tomorrow" -- something that would be nice if things worked out for it to happen, but something not extremely urgent and not necessarily devastating if it doesn't get done. but i digress from my main point that when people don't have a right view about adoption, they will never have a right view of adoptive parents, but, more importantly, of children who come into families by adoption. and i get it, people have to have time to journey towards that understanding. it doesn't come right away for some people. but honestly, it hurts a lot for people to consistently discount our experience and thus our children. not for a second do i want people to see our adoption as the same as pregnancy. i've said that before. it's not the same. when people act as though adopted children and biological children are the same, it is offensive to the adopted child who brings a past and a history and many painful scars to his or her new family. you cannot pretend that history does not exist and treat your adopted child just like your bio kids. you will love them in different ways and parent them in different ways. but the quantity and quality of your love will be the same, and their standing in your family -- as your own kids -- will be the same.
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There is alot of truth in this post. I know that sometimes this stuff feels like an up hill battle. :)
ReplyDeletelove love love you lauren.
ReplyDeletethese are deep, hard thoughts, but you write them out so well. i especially identify with fearing for your adopted children... what they'll have to hear and deal with regarding their worth. I worry for Sam all the time. And then I have to let go, but that's hard. He'll have to deal with stuff that Leah and Pete won't have to. and that's hard for my mommy heart. this is when we surround ourselves with people who understand, and hold on tight.
see you soon :).
b
I love the honesty in your writing Lauren. I totally resonate with you when you say, " but i'm realizing that no matter how much i tell people what all this feels like and what we need to feel supported, people aren't going to listen and really understand until something clicks in their brain." We have several family members that continue to act like we are not going to have another child. They were super excited and supportive when we had a bio child but now...they act as if this child doesn't even exist...like this whole adoption thing isn't real.
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm glad like Becca said that we can surround ourselves w/ people who do understand.
For some reason I am just now seeing this. Maybe because if i had seen it on the day you wrote it I would have been a massively bigger mess than I already was that day. I just nodded the entire way through and wanted to get in the car just to drive and give you a hug. I UNDERSTAND. I know you know that. I am SO unbelievably thankful to know you and be able to do life with you!
ReplyDeleteAmen, thank you for sharing. I could relate to some of your feelings.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, we're raising our three nieces. They have spent more than half their lives in our care (at least, in the case of the twins; Charity will hit that mark next year). Court decision aside, they're MINE. I'm the one who cares for them when they're sick, who tucks them in at night, who scares away monsters and flicks "giants" in the nose, who kills stinkbugs with impunity, who plays and reads and loves and hugs. My husband, too.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have to take on this responsibility. We chose to, just as you choose to adopt your sons. We could have let the state step in. We could have given up when things got truly insane. We could have surrendered without a fight when my brother and his estranged wife got stupid. Instead, we fought back. We endured the craziness. We determined that there was no way the state could provide better for these precious little girls.
Since the court ruled in our favor, we have physical custody. That won't change until and unless somebody goes back to court. The girls are ours just as much as they are their biological parents'.
And therefore the odds are quite likely that we will never have our own biological children. This makes me feel a lot of the same ways you do...that somehow, I'm not being "woman" enough, because I'm not/I can't grow babies. That I'm missing out on the thing God designed me to do simply because I got two X chromosomes.
I disagree somewhat...I fully believe I'm doing what God designed me to do: be a mom, to the children God chose to bless me with. I didn't have to give birth to them. I have them all the same.
In some ways, I think adoption (in your case, and, similarly, in mine, although we aren't actually adopting the girls) is a higher calling. Our hearts must open wider to accept these forgotten children. I don't discount any mom worth her salt who's given birth to her own children. There is no doubt she loves her children. But while a love borne of pregnancy and delivery and delight over birth is fierce, it almost comes naturally. To adopt--or take in as we did--means giving a mother's love without that biological connection. Our love for our children, though, is no less fierce. It's what we've chosen to do.