Granted a Chance

I just finished reading an article in Parenting magazine that has made me stop and think – now that’s a good article! Unfortunately, it is not available on the Parenting website, but can be found on page 127 in the December/January 2007 issue. The title of the article is “Sharing Rebecca” and the introductory blurb says, “Thanks to open adoption, this mom gained a beloved daughter—and the girl’s birth mother. Why she wouldn’t change a thing.”

The author and mom, Ann Powers is passionate about open adoption and shares a lovely story about being selected by a birth mother and the relationship that her family and the birth mother’s family have formed. She writes about the emotional and often uncertain journey that she and her husband took to become Rebecca’s parents.

At this point, I would really like you to read the entire article before you continue to read here. I certainly cannot recap the entire article and do it any justice at all, but I would like to share my thoughts on some points made by Ms. Powers…and I would love to hear your thoughts too.

“For Eric (her husband), open adoption was primarily a matter of principle. He loved the idea of building a family that defied convention. I agreed, but I admit that I also wanted to know our future child’s birth family because of my own worries about adoption. I’d heard too many sad tales of the “empty space” adoptees feel inside without knowledge of their biological roots. I knew that no matter how great a mom I became, that hole wasn’t mine alone to fill, and I’d need help from those who could.”

I’m not sure that I understand Eric’s reason for wanting an open adoption. There are so many paths to building a family today – many that defy convention, which I take to mean mommy and daddy creating a child through natural conception. But, I don’t want to get into what means what to whom. What struck me about this paragraph is that Ms. Powers accepted her fears about adoption and didn’t feel comfortable without firm answers about her child’s biological roots. I am so thankful that there are so many different people in the world. People who recognize what is important to them and have the fortitude to admit what they can and cannot handle. Do I think that I’m a mom who can handle more because I won’t have answers to my daughter’s questions about their biological family? Heck, no! My hope and challenge as the mom of two children with a biological history that will remain unknown to us is to fill any “empty space” felt by my daughters with confidence in their identity and ethnicity. Whether my husband and I adopted these two little girls or not, they would never have the answers. We made the choice to be their parents and to address any questions, grief, emptiness or anger as a result.

“My fellow new mothers were especially shocked. “I could never do that!” one said after the other. “You’re so brave.”

This is where I get to say that open adoption was not the path to creating our family that we chose because of my own fears. If I were to ever meet Ms. Powers, I would never say, “I could never do that,” because I know better than to say such things. But, in all honesty, I would be thinking it. I couldn’t. Even though I’m trying very hard right now to get my girls to grasp the joy of sharing, I do not believe that I could openly share my children with another mommy on an ongoing basis. Call it selfish. Call it insecurity. Call it a weakness. It is simply the way I feel and it is an adoption option that I know I could not make because of my own fears.

“As I ventured into the world of new-parent support groups and infant “playdates,” I discovered that new-mama bonding doesn’t leave a lot of room for different experiences. For most women, motherhood begins in their own bodies. Mine started with a relationship I’d forged with a stranger and that would forever be part of the bond growing between Rebecca and me.”

How very true! I have several friends with only biological children in their family and the “mommy connection” that I share with them is vastly different than the one that I share with my friends who have adopted children. There is a special bond between mothers who have experienced pregnancy and childbirth. At the same time there is an extraordinary bond between mothers who have experienced adoption. Just like I will never understand what it’s like to be pregnant, many of my friends will never be able to understand what it’s like to experience adoption. They both have their ups and downs, but they are very different. The bond that I have with my fellow moms who have adopted is something that we hope will be passed down to our children.

My journey to motherhood began with two women who will forever be strangers to me and my daughters. I honor and pray for these women who, for whatever reason, made the choice to leave their newborn child to be found and cared for by someone who would forever be a stranger to them. This relationship of unknowns will also always be part of the bond between my daughters and me. We will never forget the mothers who gave them life.

“I have friends who never tell strangers their kids are adopted. For me, though, there’s no choice – not because I’m better or more politically correct, but because my firm belief that family ties are created as much as fated makes anything but unqualified honesty seem like self-deception. I’m a mother because another mother granted that chance to me.”

There’s not much of a choice for us to never tell strangers that our kids are adopted. It’s pretty obvious that they are Chinese and we are not. Even in families created through international adoption, there is the opportunity to ignore the child’s ethnicity. In my mind, that’s like denying that they are Chinese or Russian or Vietnamese or Ethiopian…and that is self-deception. But, that’s a whole other topic. What really touched me about this paragraph is the last sentence. It is so genuine and poignant. Reading it again and again gives me joy. Such a simple sentence is so very powerful in putting into words the greatness of another mother’s remarkable gift.

“…another mother granted that chance to me.”