Legitimate, a post-Infertility/Adoption Reflection

A significant milestone happened the other day. I briefly picked up my 9 year old, resulting in a back spasm that brought me to my knees. Ibuprofen, ice, stretching and rest gave me time to ponder. This is no longer a little kid I can carry and hold.

She is made of solid muscle and sturdy bones, maybe a smidge of baby fat still, and she is growing up. I believe this to be a universal parenting moment. 

Her 8th birthday last year was notable too because we had spent 8 years trying to become parents (years of infertility, years of recurrent pregnancy loss, then a year or two preparing and waiting to adopt). Her turning 8 marked the full seesaw/ upswing of that lengthy journey.

These years now are hard ones though. Along with her growing body is her growing confusion and pain as she starts to slowly grasp how she ended up with us as her parents. There is anger, and sometimes rage, and confusion and pain. And there is love too although it often shows itself in funny ways.

Today she said something about when she was born, No, we were not there at her birth, although we were close by, waiting. Her birth mom had initially invited me to be present at the birth, and then changed her mind. Totally understandable. If I was her, I wouldn’t want me there either. 

At the time, I was so used to disappointment it didn’t even phase me. I kept my eyes on the big picture: she had reassured me I was going to be this child’s mother. I was going to take care of her, teach her things, soothe her, kiss her owies; and hopefully have an enduring mother-daughter bond with her. We were trained that open adoption was the way, and being a multiracial adoptive family who doesn’t match would make us “conspicuous”. Our daughter would have questions, and so would complete strangers who think it’s their purview to have their curiosity satisfied. Our daughter’s questions and developing identity would take precedence. We would need to both protect her and prepare her for the way society would respond to her as both a person of color and an adoptee. 

Today my daughter said, “If you and Daddy hadn’t adopted me, I’d be with my REAL mother”. “You mean your birth mother” I said, wondering how many times I’d hear some version of this, and how to best help her understand this complexity that we’ve discussed many times before. “NO, my REAL mother” she said with full tween sass. 

Before, I’ve had her pinch my arm to prove I’m “real”, have explained she has 2 mothers (birth mom and me), have tried explaining the difference between birthing someone and raising them, but nothing has made sense to her. This time, I gently explained that if we hadn’t adopted her, someone else would have, even though it broke my heart to have to say this to her. And perhaps it was the wrong thing to say. How do you console a grieving adopted child? Not by telling her that her birth mom chose us to parent her. This truth is only part of the story, and it clearly isn’t helping right now. Hopefully someday she will hear it from her birth mom in ways she can understand, and see her way through the pain to something else?

She is made of solid muscle, sturdy bones, a heavy broken heart, and blood that is not ours. She is both our child and not our child. She is not of us, and yet she is with us. Her heart may not always be with us, yet our hearts are with her always. 

I don’t spend much time thinking about my lost babies. They were not fully formed and my body was forced to release them. They are, I learned,  disenfranchised or “shadow losses”. My body also has no legitimate claim to my fully formed and growing child. Yet our family is “legitimate” despite being built differently than some. I want her to know this. And this I know too: her grief is legitimate as well. She lost not only her birthright: being raised by blood relatives, but a cultural piece too. Try as we might to provide, we cannot fully do it justice. 

She is made of solid muscle, sturdy bones, a heavy broken heart, and blood that is not ours. She is both our child and not our child. She is not of us, and yet she is with us. Her heart may not always be with us, yet our hearts are with her always. 

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