deep thoughts

I find the drive to and from work affords me the luxury of ‘downtime’, solitude, thinking time. With little to no cell phone coverage through the mountains I can be assured of this.

Sometimes, I’ll think about work, home, family, friends, other times I’ll click over to the radio for the latest in noise or even make a stop on one of the 5 stations that pick up NPR in the morning. I think there’s a whole other post in here though on the idea of 5 stations picking up the same recorded coverage/tapes each morning.

Last week there was a series on adoption, though I only caught the last day of the series. That day had a woman (let’s call her Jane), who was adopted as a child. One day her biological mom (let’s call her BM) just showed up in her life, with a phone call and they met. Jane talked about what it was like to meet BM, how different it was than Jane ever thought it would be, she learned about the circumstances of her adoption, her biological father and insights into her BM.

But the story digressed briefly into a conversation Jane had with her adoptive mom (let’s call her AM). As a young child Jane said she talked often with AM about having lots of kids and that they would be adopted. When Jane became an adult, one day she was talking with AM and Jane mentioned that she had developed a desire to have a biological child, not that she didn’t want to adopt, but that she ALSO wanted to experience giving birth.

AM responded by saying “what? Adoption isn’t good enough for you?”

Shocker eh? Yeah, I thought so too. And then I really got to thinking. How might I respond in that situation? I would hope with a bit more tact, grace and thoughtfulness for starters. However, we all know what happens to the best laid plans.

It really caused me to analyze and play the what if game. For us, the thought of giving birth is fraught with the reality of the hand that life dealt us. Giving birth isn't all it’s cracked up to be on the outside looking in. Those "statistics" of what can happen to a pregnant woman, well, they earned their spot in black in white as they really do reflect reality.

Our ability to support Magpie should she decide to have children might be marred by our experiences. It could be terribly hard to be supportive without our own fears infringing upon her desires. I think about a conversation I had with a woman I know through our similar waits for China. She was a few months pregnant at the time and we were talking about being pregnant, life, etc. She asked about our story, you know, the details, the background. I told her I was concerned about sharing all "that" with someone who was pregnant, I think it’s more than any hormone raging pregnant person should listen to. I told her I would tell her, if she still wanted to know, after her daughter was born, in the end, she agreed it was for the best not to know while pregnant.

I wonder our ability to let go of our experience and just turn over a new leaf of opportunity for Magpie. I don’t think it will be all that easy, especially if it relates to our grandchildren.

I don’t for one second believe that my reaction would be “isn’t adoption good enough?”, though some may in fact feel that way. However, adoption is not for the faint of heart, it’s not easy, it’s not natural (literally and figuratively) to the majority of the population. And so, for people adopting, there could be a bit of insecurity, of proud defiance, of feeling the need to justify the decision to begin with, just like Jane's AM did.

I can understand Jane’s AM’s saying this to her but I shudder at the thought of those words. I cannot imagine how it made Jane feel, I cannot imagine the depths to which AM’s experience brought her to adoption. There is likely a river of emotion and experience flowing under the surface of this story. Perhaps, there's even a history of a lack of support or of questioning the ‘rightness’ of adoption by people in AM’s life.

I'm thankful that we are creating a small village of positive influences in our life, both with regard to adoption, but also, more importantly, just positive influences period.

As to what happens when Magpie starts to question her future, what her family will look like, how she’ll form it, who she’ll choose to form it with? Time will tell. I hope we have the grace, love and dignity to get behind her decision, regardless of how different her vision may be from our own.

I hope that if it’s giving birth, I can finally separate our experience from hers.