01 December 2014

Not a Choice

november was adoption awareness month…so technically this is one day late.

but adoption doesn’t just happen one month out of the year…. adoption shouldn’t just be talked about one month out of the year.

adoption represents so much more than paperwork and legal terminology…so much more than the hague convention…so much more than the journey of a child and the longing of the parents.

adoption represents selfless love…healing…. restoration…reconciliation and the hope that we can come home.

ironically, this past month i have had to defend my position as a mother…more than any other time.

i have had to defend my husband and i becoming parents via adoption, given our employment status as missionaries and our lack of significant income….

i have had to fight for the validity of my children’s relationship with their big brother in comparison with his biological siblings…

jason and i have had to leave our children in a third world country…because despite being the only parent our toddlers have ever known…our home country will not grant them entry.

what saddens me…and honestly angers me the most…is the knowledge that if jason and i would have chosen to get pregnant…and in essence put my life and the life of a child at risk, rather than answering the call to save the precious lives of our two children….none of this would be an issue.

no one would question medical bills…which would be radically more than the cost of our adoption.

no one would question my role as a mother….simply because of dna…not because of any actions or decisions that a mother should make for her children.

no courts would question the relationship of our three children.

no one could stop us from being able to travel with our children or prevent them from meeting their family members…that happen to live in a different country.

there seems to be a misunderstanding about adoption.

on the surface and in a very practical sense, i am no different than a mother that conceived and gave birth…

i found out at the age of twenty-four that pregnancy would not be in my future…that very same day i conceived.

no, not physically…but in a very real sense, i carried my children for seven years.

just like every other mother who has adopted a child, i carried the hope of my children and i loved them….until the day that i looked into their big, beautiful brown eyes and knew beyond anything…that they were my babies.

they were the ones that i had been loving all those years.

no, i didn’t feel them growing and moving inside of me…i didn’t have ultrasounds or morning sickness…

and my boobs didn’t get any bigger…not even a little bit.

but i carried my children….i grew and stretched…and it was painful and beautiful all at the same time.

…and i bare the scars of that journey…scars that no amount of bio-oil will ever be able to erase.

i think there may be an assumption that adoption is a choice…and if you operate under the belief that all of life is a choice, then yes…adoption is a choice.

but to tell an adoptive parent that they had a choice, is like telling a woman who just gave birth that she has a choice to take her child home…or to not.

i did not give my children the gift of life….but they are as much a part of me as the blood the courses through my veins and the cells that make up that blood.

but family isn’t about blood…is it?

family is simply about love.

and the beautiful thing is that, at two years old, our children know that…they don’t question it.

they have not yet put together that mommy and daddy are a different color…that they are different colors than each other.

they simply know that they are loved.

they know that they are loved just as much by the people that they see everyday, by the people that they talk to on the computer and by the people that we see who, one day, they will know as their biological families.

they know that no matter what…we are their parents and that no matter where we go, we will always come back.

“real” mom and dad are not concepts that they have.

we are real and our love is real and that’s the they only criteria they care about.

oak knows that olive is his little sister and that even though she swipes his nuk…he has to take care of her.

olive knows that oak is her big brother and that mommy doesn’t need help putting him in time-out…but that when he falls down, he can never get too many kisses.

they both know that even though they have to talk to gaga through a computer, she loves them more than life.

they know that grandma and grandpa and mopmop and poppop would move heaven and earth for them.

they know that nini’s house is their house and that they are always safe and loved with her.

they know that their house is marie joy and betsy’s house and that there is always enough love to go around.

i wish we could preserve this toddler worldview for them.

i wish they could live in this world forever…where they are blind to the questions and misconceptions that i know they will face.

but I can’t.

what i can do is be their mom.

i can be there to tell them about their “tummy mommies” and their papies.

i can continue to surround them with people that love them.

i can be there when they have questions about loss and i can grieve with them for the losses that they have experienced.

i can rejoice with them over their joys.

i can refuse to be colorblind…but choose to provide a home that celebrates color and the beauty of difference and diversity.

i can tell them that adoption is not something that this world created but that is ordained by our creator….that we are all invited into adoption and into a bigger family.

i can tell them that before they were adopted by their daddy and me…they were adopted by their heavenly father…that their inheritance is not one that is of this world but is one that is from him.

i can tell them that they are not the lucky ones…that i am.

that i did not give them the gift of life…

but that life gave me the gift of being their mommy.

and i can cherish that gift rather than defend it.

that is my choice.


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