The Evil Adopter

I've read some pretty amazing things over the past few days. All of them have me thinking.

Is adoption ever a good thing?

I used to think so. Now I'm not so sure.

I know when I look at my daughter, I feel good. When I nurture her, I feel good. Based upon her snuggling, laughing and other baby behaviors, I think it feels good for her, too.

When I reach out for her parents in an effort to include them in our lives, I feel good. When we receive packages from them and I have the opportunity to include them in the moment via video, it feels good. When I snap photographs ~ hundreds of them ~ and take the time to write the captions on the back describing every single person and the moment, I feel good. When I see Crettie or Arthur's emails in my In Box, I feel good. When Elizabeth and I take our Mommy-Crettie and Daddy-Arthur time everyday, the time when we look at pictures and talk about them, I feel good. When I notice another Crettie or Arthur trait and do everything in my power to encourage and promote it, I feel good. When I tell Elizabeth how beautiful her mother is, and how she's going to look just like her, that really makes me feel good. When I love Elizabeth, I feel good.

It feels good to change her diapers, fight her runny nose, feed her growly tummy and rock her to sleep. It feels good to watch my husband bounce and play with her. It feels good to see the love in his eyes when the first thing he does after arriving home from work is to grab her and kiss her and hug her and tell her how much he's missed her. It felt good to sit beside her in the hospital while she fought RSV ~ even when the RSV seemed to be getting the better of her.

It all feels good. It makes me feel better than I've ever felt in my life.

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There's a crowd that insists adoption is not good. Inherently, it's bad; self-righteous, evil. That's something to digest.

If your body doesn't work, has lost it's ability to bear children, does that mean you've forfeited the ability to parent? It certainly doesn't alleviate the biological urge, even if the organs are no longer there.

Is it selfish to want a child? Is it selfish to yearn to mother someone when biology won't allow you that particular pleasure?

Am I really a mother at all?

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I read something that insisted adoptive mothers were nothing more than surrogate mothers. That stung me almost as much as someone who insisted I was nothing more than an evil adopter.

My love doesn't feel surrogate. It feels real. It defines me as the person I am, right now, this second. My career is raising this perfect little person; this little person who is so different from me...those differences I rejoice in noting to her parents.

I didn't enter into this adoption land with any preconceived notions of trying to find natural parents with dark hair or dark eyes, people who loved art and reading, birds and gardening. Those are characteristics shared by both my husband and me. Whoever that child might have been, it certainly wasn't going to be a mold I would try to force my daughter into.

I grieved that child...I mourned her and the little soul she might have had. I closed that door in my heart and opened a new one: one for a person with characteristics all her own. Unique. I promised myself that rather than suppress her uniqueness I would revel in it, encourage it, delight in it. That by doing so I would be honoring and respecting the people who created her and passed along her beautiful personalities.

I opened the door of my heart, fluffed the pillows in the guest room, just in case. I was the one who reached out to her parents with all our identifying information, our phone numbers, addresses, email contacts, IM addresses...I did that. I was the one who stood up to our agency and cried "foul!" when they started censoring my packages and communications. I was the one who said I'd had enough. I was the one they couldn't understand: this woman who was so willing to share. I was the anomaly.

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When my extended family jokes about whether Elizabeth's parents would consider having another child for us so Elizabeth can have a sibling, I'm the one that gets angry. I'm the one who has gone so far as to alienate her own parents for the sake of Elizabeth's first parents. I'm the one who rails against the stereotypes and miseducation. I'm the one who cleared a whole room at Christmas because I refused to entertain the notion of dismissing Elizabeth's parentage.

I'm the one who explained to our parents about our intentions to include Arthur and Crettie in whatever they wished. I'm the one.

I'm the one who insisted upon copies of all the paperwork at the hospital, which ultimately landed me Elizabeth's original birth certificate application. I'm the one who has all those records and papers locked in a firesafe box...to keep them safe. I'm the one that made two extra sets of copies of that paperwork and distributed them to family members...just in case some awful tragedy should destroy our own.

Is this a picture of an evil adopter?

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We had no flowery tickers announcing the birth of our daughter. We didn't claim her as our own, we felt no entitlement.

In fact, when she was born, we owned nothing a person needs to care for a child. Nothing. We didn't include the picture of the perfect nursery in our profile. In fact, we didn't even clean out the junk room. If, or when, it happened we decided, we would deal with the mess in that bedroom.

When Elizabeth was born we had no crib, no clothes, no bottles, no diapers, no car seat. We had nothing. We didn't prepare. We wouldn't do it. If Elizabeth hadn't spent a week in the NICU after she was born, she would have had to sleep on the floor...or in the proverbial dresser drawer.

We never had to worry whether our actions would be construed as subtle coercion. We didn't meet Arthur or Crettie until the agency had finalized their TPR paperwork.

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So now I've been wondering. Just, what is right? What is just? What could I have done, or what can I be doing differently? What things am I doing today that may suppress my child from showing her individuality? While I know improvements can always be made, I am firm in my belief that I am doing everything within my power to raise and nurture a child to know and love her first parents. I am doing every single thing I can to foster communication between us so that Elizabeth can ask her own questions of the people who have the real answers.

I am doing everything I can to learn about her legacy.

Tell me again. Tell me I'm evil.

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I'll be the pariah for the anti-adoption crowd. I'll wear your standard around my neck and shout your battle cry. I'll take your chains. Why? Because I'm not the one you're railing against. You're angry with a system who created parents who are everything I'm NOT.

I tell you: find some other poster child. I'm not going to further your cause with my actions. The ones who will question your beliefs and ideals and then dissect my actions, they won't understand. They'll wonder why you're pointing towards someone who is seemingly everything the industry should be.

And they'll continue to shake their heads and wonder what all the fuss is about. And the chasm that grows between us: the first parents, the adoptees, the adoptive parents, it will continue to grow. The people who affect change, those people will wonder why they should make an effort for change. They'll wonder because they'll see that even when change is made it won't make a difference, that the crowd of dissension will just find another topic and move on. If you can't please even a small bit of the people some of the time then why bother? And this unaffectedness, this lack of caring to do the right thing, it will only perpetuate itself.

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I am one of Elizabeth's mothers.

I will not let you take that away from me.