In a recent post I mentioned that I have recently tried to "take inventory" and examine what it is I feel about being adopted. Most of what I remember is just being told that I was, and no recollection of my birth family or the events that happened before I was in the home of my adopted parents (roughly around 24 months). So it has never really bother me, and since I look so much like my adopted family - both sides believe it or not, it rarely came up in my childhood. And, as it were when it did; I only used it sparingly - when it made me special or "exempt" from gene or family tree project in school. My parents, half siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents acted as if I had been born into the family, sometimes I think forgetting; and once or twice noting historical traits I "inherited" from some relative. Heck, sometimes I forgot, or at least I felt right at home, extremely loved and well...family is as family does. A real experiment to nature vs. nurture. Anyway, as I expected I knew it would come up someday, probably after I had a child of my own, and very likely around their 2nd birthday...you get it. I have tried to face it however, and come to a conclusion before Em's 2nd birthday and avoid my self-fulfilling prophecy. So I begun to write. I have always kept a journal - yes paper to pen, way ol' fashion - and this was the perfect time to note some things I might feel, things I want to feel, things I haven't felt or things I should of felt. It worked, but I did some reading too. The following is the closest I have found to explaining a little about how I think I feel, it's of course not word for word how I feel, but very close:
"I wanted someone who looked like me. This need was an unconscious one, something I didn't understand before she was born... But now, I can slowly begin to examine somethings I have spent a lifetime running from and into. Having been adopted near my third birthday, I had never seen, at least to my memory one person who looked like me, or shared my particular genetic makeup. So there it is, perhaps the whole story, certainly the heart of it, buried down here, closer to the foot of it. Of necessity, I've had to have little faith in blood ties. But I longed for it, longed for what I imagined it carried.
Somewhere in me has lived the story of a child who was unwanted. That changed, sort of, when the social worker and my parents - the only ones I've ever known, the only ones who have ever taken responsibility for me - scooped me up late one winter night out of a foster home...It is said that my mother, father, and I got along famously from the beginning...But what if I hadn't? What if I had been obviously flawed? Would my parents have chosen me? What qualities must a child posses to be chosen, accepted, taken in, and loved?" - Maybe Baby
http://www.amazon.com/Maybe-Baby-Infertility-Childlessness-Ambivalence/dp/0060737816
If I come across more I will be sure to share, and as I continue to examine my thoughts, I will post more. Please feel free to share with me your experiences - either being adopted or adopting a child. I would love to hear about it.
