Pacing the Journey
Today is the third anniversary of our oldest son’s adoption. Placed in our custody at birth, Jeremy was legally adopted at six months old. Celebrating Adoption Days, or Gotcha Days, as some say, will be as important as birthdays in this house, complete with favorite meals, small gifts and special time with Mom and Dad.
It was only after Jeremy turned three that I started talking to him about being adopted. I know I’d dropped the word around him before his third birthday, but it’s only after this age that things actually begin to click.
We were in his bedroom one afternoon sorting clothes and toys and I thought it might be a good opportunity to show him pictures from his birth. I grabbed the small blue photo album from his closet shelf and had him sit on my lap on the floor. Like any child, he was eager to see pictures of himself as a baby.
I captured this moment in my mind before opening the album. Even though he met her twice in person before then, he was far too young to remember. She was a mere stranger to him. This was going to be the first time he saw his birth mother’s face with enough brain power to remember it.
To be honest, a part of me wanted to hide these pictures as some desperate act of self-preservation. Once we start this process, there is no going back. It is my own insecurity that harbors the fear that one day, in a nasty teenage rebellion, he’ll spout at me, "You’re not my real mother!"
I shake the fear and open the album to the first page.
The very first picture is of his birth mother and us. She is fully pregnant, laying in the hospital bed with Chuck and I at either side. We were hours away from delivery when the picture was taken. We had known her a month and felt confident she was carrying our child. I had never seen childbirth before, nor did I know what to expect, but we were there to welcome our son into the world. You could pinpoint every emotion on my face.
"That’s your birth mommy," I explained to Jeremy, with as much tenderness as I could muster. "You are in her belly. Can you see how big her belly is? Just like Mrs. Karin has Sidney in her belly, she had you in her belly."
My brain began to search for answers to all the questions he may ask. She carried you because I couldn’t. She loved you so much that she gave you to us. She’s wearing a blue gown because that’s what the doctors gave her. I pause for his reaction.
Jeremy pondered the picture for all of about three seconds before flipping to the next one. I almost flipped it back and urged him to ask me questions. Don’t you want to know how you got here? Don’t you wonder why you look so much like her? Of course, I didn’t. This journey will go at his pace, according to his curiosities and need for answers.
The second picture was taken right after he was born. A nurse was suctioning out the amniotic fluids from his nose and mouth and I happened to snap the picture from a less-than-desirable angle. It was this photo that brought his first question.
"What’s she doin’ to my nuts?" he asks, pointing to the nurse’s hand resting next to his tiny baby package.
"She’s cleaning you up so I can hold you," I reply, making a mental note to remind my husband to use proper vocabulary when referring to our son’s genitalia.
He flips through the rest of the pictures and we talk about how he used to be so little and now he’s such a big boy, capable of scaling tall buildings with little or no effort. He’s proud of himself for not wearing diapers anymore and being able to clean up his own room. No questions about adoption, his birth mother or why tears were rolling down my face.
Just before Christmas, the first real question came. We were reading a book at bedtime about a bear who adopted a bird and the light bulb in Jeremy’s brain turned on.
"Why did God make me an adopted boy?" he asked, staring up at me with his big blue eyes and long eyelashes. I was not prepared to answer since so many times we’d said the word adoption and nothing came of it. I scrambled for just the right response.
The truth is I didn’t know the answer to "why." Why are we infertile? Why is he our son? Why is anything the way it is? Before I could put words together to form a sentence, he answered the question himself.
"So I could be with you and Daddy?" he guessed.
"Yep," I calmly replied, satisfied and sure. "You are right. You are an adopted boy so you could be with us."
Happy Adoption Day, sweetheart. The pleasure is all mine.