Long post
To adopt: which we will do, I believe. I never thought that if faced with infertility I would take cancer-causing drugs and give thousands of dollars to a hospital that I could have put into having a child that already exists. It is inelegant and unpoetic and forced.
We will adopt, but I want to do this first — one does not preclude the other. I had to understand in myself that this need to have a child will not go away–it may fade, but it will come back. It is part of why I am on this planet, and I feel that in my body — that it will revolt if I don’t let my body do what it was meant to do. And because the infertility isn’t my fault, I fear that I will feel resentment and defeat if I don’t try.
Rosie was taken from her mother as a child just about every other night, and her attachment issues are still a part of her character. Children, I believe, are meant to be near their mothers, at least until age three or so. I think joint custody is a strong idea and in many ways effective, but from what I have seen, it is unnatural to remove a baby from her mother when she sleeps.
I have heard that the cry of a baby taken from its mother at birth is different than any other cry. Maybe that’s not true, but the idea haunts me. Moby was taken from his mother too soon and there is nothing I can do to comfort him when he is tired and groaning, suckling a blanket to sleep. Lucky, our white cat, was taken from his mother too soon and he never learned how to retract his claws or how to self-soothe. Joon and our black cat Roxy were not taken too soon and there is something about their core that is sturdier, less neurotic. I am not ready to make a new baby go through this trauma just because I want a baby and the mother thinks at this moment that it’s best to surrender hers.
To adopt domestically, many of the babies have been created in a body that also houses drugs, alcohol, McDonald’s, and no prenatal vitamins. I know too much about the value of the perinatal environment and its effects on the baby throughout its life. I am not willing to raise a child who I cannot help, whose brain is too handicapped by drugs before birth. I want the control of growing a child in the best environment I can give it.
Many children born unwanted in this country are not born into conditions of true poverty–poverty like the kind I saw in pictures when I was young of Ethiopia. Some are born into conditions of extreme adversity, but I’m not sure if adversity is a bad thing. Leonardo DaVinci was born out of wedlock by a poor woman. I’m not sure he would have left such an extraordinary mark if his life had not asked so much of him. Who am I to say that the life I could provide for a child is any better than the one he was born into just because I currently have more resources to protect him from most harm? And who am I to say that protecting a child from poverty is better than letting a child stay with its mother? And if what the mother needs is money, then shouldn’t I give my $20,000 to her directly instead of taking her baby away?
And where are the grandparents or sisters or aunts? If a woman undergoes such a trial, I believe that first it is the family’s job to rally together and raise the baby inside its own culture and country. If Rosie had a baby at a young age, I feel right now that I would raise it for her in an instant.
Some of the children offered through domestic adoption are birthed by women who are 14 and rich, whose parents are asking the young woman to make this choice. Some are not so young but already have a child or two and do not feel they could provide for a second or third. I know a girl who had to give away her child at age 14 and she never recovered. She kept a photo of her baby by her bed and stayed there powerless. I have a friend who had a child out of wedlock and the man ran away and she had no job, no money. She could easily have given up her child for adoption, and her life would certainly have been easier and the child’s possibly, too. But she kept her baby, and she is changed for the better because of it, and her boy is brilliant and ebulliant. Steve, too: when Rosie was conceived out of wedlock with a woman he did not want to marry, he says he wanted to abort. But now he feels that his life was spiraling out of control and that his baby grounded him, connected him to himself, helped him define himself more clearly. Perhaps it is dramatic, but both he and my friend feel that without their children they may have died–even though at the time they felt nealry certain that they did not want the fate they were given. Who am I to say that I should take a child away from an unwed woman who feels terrified and unprepared? Perhaps what she needs is counseling or a little money instead.
I already know what it’s like to be the second mother. I have already adopted. In many ways I have entered a situation that is more difficult than adoption: I came so late, I had to attach myself the best I could, and the birth mother is right there reminding me of my second place. I do not want to go through this life without knowing what it is like to birth someone, to be their only mother, to create her out of my own dna. I feel that I have experienced this form of adoptive love with all my might, and I am glad I know this feeling — but I need to be the first mother to know what it’s like, especially if I have the opportunity to.
To adopt internationally is at first admittedly appealing because it is exotic. A beautiful Chinese baby! My mom loves Chinese babies! But there is so much more involved in this decision. While I do not consider myself untraveled, I do not feel attached to another country. I’ve not even visited China or India or Africa. I don’t have Chinese drawings in my house, and I have never dated anyone from Africa. I had many friends who were Indian-American in college, but my relationship to India feels too removed and stereotypical: I like yoga, I like curry okay, garlic naan makes me gassy. I have read that one should not adopt from a country if they would not consider dating the race of someone from that country. I would, it’s not that, but I once tried to date an African-American boy in junior high and I wasn’t allowed. It makes me feel initially uncomfortable to bring someone from Darfur into my home to be my everpresent child and my parents’ grandchild when I know it might be awkward for them.
That would not be enough of a detractor — I have certainly made them grow up plenty with the choices I have made for myself that they have had to live with — but I do not think that it is perfectly okay to remove someone from their culture and put them into a home that has no trace of their home. And I don’t think I could throw myself into Kwanzaa. I would not suddenly know or want to know how to cook authentic Chinese food. I don’t really want to learn Vietnamese. And I don’t want a child who is from Korea to not be able to talk about his roots. My culture is not better than his, and if he lived under my roof I would not want him to feel that he has to ignore where he came from and his differences and how people, for better or worse, treat him because of all this. A baby was baptized in our church last year and she was Chinese and her parents were white. The woman was overweight and had shoulder-length hair and wore a kimono fo rthe occasion. I haven’t seen them since. Another child who was adopted from China to white parents makes fun of people who are Chinese by putting her fingers at the end of each of her eyes and pulling until she’s really-really squinting.
Lately when I see people in town, I ask myself if I could be their parent. That overweight Chinese boy laughing in the Thai restaurant with his Chinese friends, could I love him? Could I love the Indian with the serious look waiting at the busstop? These babies grow into adults. These adults will have friends that are most likely people who look like them. To adopt someone from clearly another culture is to adopt a whole country, and I don’t have one that I am drawn to more than any other.
Genes are a lot of who we are. And it’s a lot of what we talk about. I look at Steve and I see his father. When I go home to my parents, we sometimes talk about our ancestry. I know in my maladies what is genetic and what might be. I know that twins separated at birth grow up to be remarkably similar. I am not yet ready to accept that my child I adopt will be very much not me and that there is nothing I can do about it. I have already raised someone who is very much not me.
I know that a lot of this is simply fear of the unknown. I have to talk to people who have been adopted and who have adopted — not just those who have newborn adopted children, but those who have been through the teenage years and come out the other side. Many people who have been adopted go on to adopt, so I know it must be a powerfully beautiful experience for many — well worth the struggles. Maybe I’m just not there yet.
