Seven years apart to the day, on two separate continents, two women labored and birthed my children. One woman I may never see face-to-face, but I see her in our son’s eyes every day. One woman I met as I left the hospital with her baby and she left with an empty carseat. Both are women I love for giving the gift of life to two of the most precious people on the planet and on their shared birthday, I am especially thankful for their first mothers.
In the days before I experienced childbirth I remember watching a show where a woman gave birth. The intensity and obvious pain of it all made me thankful I didn’t have to experience labor and delivery, even though for years I had grieved my inability to do what seems most natural for a woman to do. I was trying to see the silver lining of my infertility, but then the doctor on this show said, “Statistically, the most dangerous thing a woman will ever do in her life is give birth” and the thought struck me— a woman who is a stranger to me took all the risk and I reap all the reward. And I cried. I escaped the pain and fear and recovery of giving birth, but SHE didn’t.
Sometimes young adopted children mistakenly think some kids were born and others are adopted. It takes some conversations to explain that all children are born and then some are adopted. While it may seem so obvious, I think sometimes adoptive parents subconsciously carry that same wrong belief. We don’t want to acknowledge what we missed by not carrying our children and we don’t want to acknowledge what someone else went through to bring that life into the world. Those are two painful thoughts and it’s easier to believe our children were magically delivered via stork (or social worker) as blank slates ready for us to write on.
Right now my kids don’t seem to have any conflicted feelings about their birthday. It’s hard to be conflicted when you’re turning 8 and 1 and birthdays are about cake and presents and being the center of attention. But I carry the conflicted feelings for them and I grieve what they’ve lost and what I’ve lost. Maybe they will never have a moment of birthday sadness all the birthdays of their lives, but if they ever do, I think I can understand where they’re coming from.
I wish I could have known the joy of carrying these children in my body. I wish I could have protected them and sheltered them from any harm. I would have taken my prenatal vitamins and prayed over this growing baby and made sure they had the best medical care even before they took a breath. I wish I could have heard their first cries and welcomed them into my waiting arms. I wish their grandparents could have come to see them in the hospital and celebrated them with gifts and kisses.
I wish these beautiful children had been spared the pain of separation from the women who gave them life.
I have no doubt that it was the best thing for my children to become my children. There are no ethical questions left lingering about the rightness of their adoptions. They could not safely be raised in the environments they were born into. I know this to be true, but loving these two children means loving their families and grieving their losses as my own.
I hope these mothers know how loved their children are. I hope they know how thankful we are to get to be the family that raises these sweet kids. I hope they know we will always speak respectfully of them and treat their story with tenderness. I hope they know we will pray for them and love them for the gift of life they gave this child. I hope I am someday able to tell them these things in person.
Today is a happy day. A day of joy and a Pokemon cake and a ladybug cake and presents and pizza and all things fun and wonderful. These are children worth celebrating living a full and beautiful life. I think their first moms would be happy to see the smiles on their faces and to know how treasured our kids are. I hope they don’t ever feel like they took all the risk and got no reward. The reward is in the lives of children who have their birthmom’s eyes and her smile and will someday tell their children about the women who gave them life and will pass her legacy on.
4 Comments
Leave a reply →