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Middle Age, Kyrgyzstan, Food & The Tooth-Wiggling Situation

Mea Culpa.  I don’t even know what happened.  The last month has just done me in.  But, I’m all better now but it’s been a few weeks of house guests, end of school year picnics, family graduations, a new play group and then the big finale was going down to San Diego to meet with the Tokmok orphanage director, our in-country co-ordinator Lyudmilla, the Tokmok judge and Kyrgyz adoption inspector who had come to see how the children who have been adopted are doing.  Many families came from near and far which shows the strength and commitment in our Kyrgyz community of children from Tokmok.  I met Hillary, Mala and Jackie!  The afternoon went by so quickly, but I felt very very glad to see Lyudmilla again.  Tatyanna, who is the director of Tokmok orphanage could not believe how big Isabel is.  When we left Tokmok a year ago, Isabel was not even 13 lbs at 8 months of age, anemic, not able to turn over, and hypotonia.  She was a bit tearful in seeing her.  Isabel had been very loved in Tokmok and I think they worried a fair bit about how she was going to fare in a new family and country.  There was a lot of picture taking (future post, I promise…really, I’m incredibly lame…I know.)  We stayed with Lori, our travel partner who adopted from Tokmok at the same time we did and we took both trips to Kyrgyzstan together.  We went to Disneyland in the middle of a heat wave.  It was insane. In four hours we ate lunch and went on two rides.  We left with our hearts very full.

Ok, so you all threw out a few great topics for me to discuss.  And in no particular order…away we go.

Middle age.  Oh my…I suppose it is finally here.  It’s funny to age isn’t it because for the most part, I feel a lot like my much younger self a lot of the time.  I mean, I respond and react differently to most situations but I’m still an insecure teenager inside.  I’m looking forward to my 50’s, when I will embrace my inner Ruth Gordon. 

Suzanne…you want food?  I’ll give you food.  It’s totally my calling in life to feed people.  I’m happiest when I’m watching someone eat something I cooked, particularly something I’ve baked.  What have I been cooking….well, not a whole lot to be honest.  But, now that the rest of the summer stretches out before me with little plans other than going to the beach, I’ll be doing my usual farmer’s market schedule of Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Summer menus here revolve heavily around tomatoes, basil, stone fruit and a lot of fish.  Sunday is the big cooking day around here.  For breakfast there are waffles or scones or Art makes Dutch babies, and then there’s light noshing while we do household things.  Then, about 4 o’clock Art fires up the grill and we all start cooking.  Zannie is taking pride in her budding knife skills.  This week she trimmed a massive bunch of broccoli all by herself.  I mean, I supervise and teach her while she’s doing it of course, but she’s doing the whole thing.  She gets very proud of herself, but tries not to show it. 

All the food writing and recipe development I’ve done this year still hasn’t been published.  I’m about to do some more and I’m working on getting a column in a new magazine.  We’ll see…I think digital media is going to replace many magazines, but I’m still hopeful I can get this gig. 

Ok, it’s late but I’m going to leave you with a parenting story that I’m sure will become a family classic for us.  Zannie’s front tooth has been loose for weeks.  She’s been wiggling and loosening it and eating apples and chewing gum and whatever else she can think of to get it out.  Then, tonight I noticed that it had turned grey.  The Time Had Come.  So, taking a firm stance that the tooth had to come out tonight, we had a circular conversation that went something like this:

Me: It has to come out tonight…

Z: Stop TALKING ABOUT IT!!!!!!!

Me: (trying to stay calm) Honey, you can do it yourself like you did last time, or I can do it but it has to come out now.  It’s only hanging by one thread.  It’s swinging in there like a door.

Z: NO! NO! I want to do it when it’s dark. I want to do it tomorrow.  I want to do it after we do our crafts.  I want to just wiggle it for now.  Where is the orajel?  We can’t do it without the Orajel!!  NO! NO! I HATE THE TASTE OF THE ORAJEL!!!!  Mama it is NOT coming out, it’s not ready!!! 

Me: It has to come out tonight.  Let me do it and then it won’t hurt…

Z: NO! NO! You kept talking about it!  I was THIS CLOSE to doing it and now I can’t!!!!!!! 

Me: Daddy will be there with ice cream right after so that the orajel taste will go away.  Mint chip…..you love mint chip…

Z: I don’t like mint chip

Me: Yes you do…you love it.

Z:  No I DO NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: What about all the times we’ve had it?

Z: Well, I didn’t like it but I ate it anyway…

Me: (doing all I can not to laugh) well then we’ll think of another thing to make the taste go away…

THREE HOURS LATER…..

Finally, weary with wiggling the tooth and putting up a fight, she said….ok…go ahead mama…and I reached  in and hardly touched it and it fell in the palm of my hand.  I think she had wiggled the life out of it and actually pushed it into her gums and by the time I got there, it gladly came to me.  Zannie started laughing with a slightly disturbing kind of mania with the occasional moment of crying – a schizophrenic kind of coming down from a trauma mixed with the relief that it was All Over.  The tooth awaits its capture by the tooth fairy and Zannie got in bed with a slight lisp and a promise that she will never do that again.  Then, she announced that her other front tooth was loose now. 

I’m not even kidding.  It took three hours.  She was absolutely exhuasted afterward.  But, she was such a sweetie, she even thanked me afterwards.  So…that’s all for now, but I will hopefully be posting pictures in the next few days.  Ciao.

 

If you are about to adopt – reset your compass

The following will be a list of ideas and concepts to reconsider during your wait.  This is, in part a reaction to the changing face of wordpress adoption blogs and it seems that we have some work to do.  So, in no particular order (and feel free to add more in the comments section) here are things that PAP’s, in my opinion as both adoptee and adoptive parent, must confront before adopting. 

VERNACULAR 

1. She is not a birthmother if she hasn’t given birth or signed termination of parental rights.  If you are ‘matched’ with a pregnant woman considering adoption, she isn’t ‘your’ birthmother and the baby isn’t yours either. 

2. Also, let’s give the terms original mother, first mother and other mother a fighting chance.  Consider a woman’s feelings and worth when reducing her role when you call her ‘birthmother’

3. Don’t ever breathe one single negative word about your child’s mother, father, state, country, race or culture.  Not for any reason.  If there are disturbing facts in the situation, state them plainly and support the feelings that may come.  But don’t add commentary. 

EXPECTATIONS

1. Tough, but the truth.  No one owes you anything.  Infertility does not buy you the right to parent someone else’s baby.  Sucks, but there it is. 

2. And this isn’t going to win over any friends, but…here it goes… God did not hand-pick, or decide to have someone else get pregnant for YOUR benefit.  Believe me, I can understand how it feels that your child is perfect for you, was the missing piece in your family, or is spiritually connected to you.  That still does not mean that there was a grand, benevolent or divine plan,  to have a misfortune befall a woman, so that a child could fulfill your family, or so that you could feel as though you are doing what your church teaches you is right.  Children are not pawns.  Neither are their mothers.  Also, just because you believe that children ought to have a two-parent home in which the parents are married, still does not earn you the right to dictate what ought to happen to the child. 

3. Along these lines, later on in life, do not tell your child that she ‘grew in the wrong tummy’.  Do not tell her that she was’chosen’.  Do not tell him that you were able to give him ‘a better life’  It’s a different life…you can’t know that your family and life would be better.  Don’t go into an adoption without the implicit understanding that your family will be different than if you had had children biologically.  You are taking on extra responsibilities. This means that your child needs nurturing that encompasses their feelings which typically include, but are not exclusive of: lifelong feelings of rejection, insecurity, a certain ‘otherness’ and also feelings of grandiosity.  Do you have a longterm plan to support your child if you begin to see these things creep up?  Do not minimize the impact of adoption.  Yes, even if you adopted at birth.  Ask any newborn baby who they want to be with.   They want to be with that lady who sounds familiar. 

4. Put your infertility issues in the past.  If you are adopting straight out of the doctor’s stirrups, you are setting up a highly charged situation which can propel you into unethical behavior such as coercion of a pregnant woman.  Again, it isn’t appropriate for a woman to decide on adoption until after her baby is born, as well as having an advocate who is talking with her about all her options and telling her of the support available to her.  If you have a serious broken heart, and a houseful of baby stuff – that’s some serious danger! danger! Will Robinson.  A child you adopt should not be put to work by being there to heal the serious and lingering pain of infertility.  Besides, healing doesn’t work that way anyway. 

5. Do nothing but encourage honest feelings from your child about how they see their adoption. 

6. Do not lie or misrepresent facts to your child.  Adoption happened to your child and they had no say in the matter.  Honor your child with the truth.  Do as much as you can to obtain their original birth certificate. 

7. If your child is old enough to know their name, which is probably younger than you might think, don’t change his name. 

8. And just because you see the world and people of color as represented by a beautiful rainbow of colors does not mean that the rest of the world does.  The public can be a cruel place for your child.  People say stupid and racist things.  Be prepared for this if you have adopted a child whose skin color does not match yours.  How will you teach your child tolerance while others are being intolerant?.

GET BRAINY

Read Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew – Sherry Eldridge

Don’t read books about how you can say and do things that will speed up the process.  Yes, there is a book like this. 

CHECK ON YOUR AGENCY

Check with your state for any grievances or complaints on file regarding your adoption and/or placing agency.  Email previous clients, find ones who are not on the provided list given to you from the agency. 

In closing, this is not a transaction.  We are dealing with human lives.  And, as beautiful as you might see the whole idea of adoption, for those of us who have experienced the many feelings of loss because of adoption, we ask you to consider the above.  Don’t strip away or deny what is real and what may be troubling for the others involved, namely your child and his or her mother.  Please uphold the bond between mother and child.  Celebrate family…the one you’ve created and the family that your child also has somewhere else. 

If you can’t do these things, or at the very least, be willing to examine and challenge your given ideas or even your core beliefs, then you probably aren’t ready to be an adoptive parent. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crack open the Kumis and raise your glasses!

Suzanne, over at Straight Down The Mountain has downright made me blush.  She has nominated me for the “You- make-the-world-a-better-place” award.  Holy smokes that’s fancy.  So, I’ll pass on the blog lovin’ to a few people who I know without a doubt are making things better in the world.

www.actofkindness.blogspot.com John Wright and his family walk the talk.  They give of their time, energy and money to the people who need it most in Kyrgyzstan.  He and his group fix up properties, restore hope and provide dignity for the forgotten and needy.  They bring food, vitamins, warmth, toys and money to the orphanages and baby houses in Tokmok and Orlofka.  They help people who are living in the dump and have no other options.  John plays with the children, reaches out to those who are sick and can’t afford healthcare.  He does this because of an unwaivering belief and faith that this is what he must do.  I admire him so much.  He and his family are there now and I dare anyone to read his blog and not feel the same admiration and respect.

Margie over at her blog, www.thirdmom.blogspot.com is a wise, kind, funny, insightful and amazing mom and human being.  I feel that she is an online mentor for me in her graceful and gentle way of interacting with other bloggers (especially ones whose opinions are different from hers) and she writes about adoptive parenthood that exemplifies respect for her children, their mothers, and their country of origin.  Margie is an activist, writer and a good soul.  Read her.

Judy over at www.justenjoyhim.wordpress.com makes the world a better place because of her peerless honesty, humor, chutzpah, and her all-around sassyness.  Judy is another adoptive mom to Nate and I admire her parenting so much.  She walks an honorable path in everything I read in how she lives her life.  Right now, Judy is battling cancer and is asking the tough questions that go along with a life-threatening illness.  I totally love Judy.  She makes the world a better place because her writing is as big as her heart.

Lastly, but not leastly, I want to send an award out to Nicole at www.paragraphein.wordpress.com for being an incredibly brave blogger.  She writes with her whole mind, heart and soul on being a relinquishing mother who regrets placing her daughter for adoption.  She writes with great compassion and anger about adoption, the system that let her down over and over, difficulties and pain in open adoption, and what it all means to her.  I never tire of her willingness to put it out there, and to let all comments stand, even the ones that hurt her.  So, while I wish she weren’t having to write a blog about her pain, I celebrate her and I feel that she absolutely is making the world a better place by writing at length about that which must be changed in the American system of adoption. 

There are many others I’d love to honor.  But man, it’s late here.  Four is good, right? Oh darn…I just remembered one more new-ish blogger I really like.  Talk about honest.  KAD blogger Kev Minh. www.borrowednotes.wordpress.com

Feast on the riches of these people. 

Craft For China – Putting Creativity To Work

I found a blog that I believe exemplifies part of responsible adoptive parenting.  Should we adopt from afar, then we owe that country a deep and lifelong commitment to its betterment for the future.  I think this is especially true for adoptive parents to take a part in helping the orphanages.  Along comes the brainchild of blog creator and art student, Melissa Robertson.  www.craftforchina.wordpress.comCraft for China is a fundraiser for orphans in China. Artists, crafters, and other volunteers have donated their time and products to be auctioned on eBay. 100% of the proceeds will go to Love Without Boundaries, a nonprofit organization that helps Chinese orphans get medical care, nutritional care, foster care, educational help and so much more. The money raised goes towards sponsoring children or their orphanage 

Consider putting their button on your blog, crafting your own items to donate which will be sold at their fundraiser, or sending in a donation.  I think this is a marvelous idea and I would like to perhaps start making things to sell at Etsy and donate the proceeds.  Maybe someday I could even start a Craft for Kyrgyzstan, or Craft for Central Asia. 

Global Issues Start With Me (A Repost)

The following is a post I wrote nearly a year ago.  In response to my last post regarding Daniel Drennan’s article, I remembered this post and feel that it’s worth putting out there again because it directly speaks to the moral and ethical questions of international adoption. 

I read blogs lately a lot, most of them written by someone in the adoption triad. I’m reminded by these writings several important things when it comes to adoption and has solidified many of my own stances and beliefs regarding adoption. The main things I’m reminded of are that adoption is borne of imperfection and loss. I mean, let’s stop, as a society, putting a pretty bow on it and calling it a gift. The abandonment of girls in China, the extreme poverty of peoples across the world, and in our own country, there is a great deal of pressure put on young women who are in a certain socio-economic situation to relinquish their babies. I have experienced my own great feelings of sadness, confusion and persistent emptiness all stemming from adoption. It’s real, and it goes on and on. If that weren’t so, my reunion would have been a piece of cake and I’d have this terrific relationship with my first mother, which I do not. Also, the losses surrounding adoption are chronic and everlasting. Becoming an adoptive parent has not only left me unchanged in my belief that there needs to be sweeping ethics reform and acknowledgment of those losses within the adoption community and outside of it as well. So now what? What do I do now? As a girl who was once very active in the adoption reform movement in my 20’s, part of me wants to say, “Shhhh…don’t tell anyone I’m adopting.” And if someone does find out, particularly all you lovely adoption bloggers out there, I feel like saying, “I’ll be good! I promise! I’ll do all the right things and take her back to her country every year and speak her language and cook her country’s cuisine and we’ll learn to make beautiful felt rugs”… and anything else I can think of. Just don’t hate me ’cause I’m adopting. See, that’s the adoptee in me. Don’t reject me! I’m ok! Really I am!

But I am. I’m adopting. And you know what? I’m SO SO SO SO SO SO glad I am. There it is. I’ve said it. Hmmm. No thunderbolt yet.

So, the thing is, how do I, and therefore we as a society and global community reconcile adoption? On a microcosm, how do I reconcile being adoptee and adoptive mother? How do I navigate myself so that I “reflect the change I want to see in the world”? By standing up and lending a small but distinct voice in the adoption world. I can stand up for myself by declaring that closed adoption was a tough road for all involved. My adoption didn’t at all serve my first parents. They were promised that they would be able to go on and ‘pretend like it didn’t happen and lead normal lives.’ It left them hurt and confused and with wounds and they both live lives that reflect those wounds. I can stand up in particular for my first mother who, in response to her experiences during her pregnancy and relinquishment of me, forged her own armor which she feels she must wear for the rest of her life. She is aware that it protects her from hurt, but that also it is bondage and barrier.

Most of all, the change I want and must reflect is in my parenting my daughter whom I have yet to meet. So, yes. I will cook her country’s cuisine, learn to craft felt like they do in her country of origin and buy beautiful things on our trips there. By honoring her place of birth, I honor her and her first mother and family. And while I’m doing so, it’s still not enough. Because orphanages aren’t simply filled with children whose parents have died and need homes. No, there are children around the world who are in orphanages because of poverty, hunger, politics and other countless reasons. THAT is the change that I must be a part of, and ultimately must be a part of adoption reform. Yes, it’s that global. So, simultaneously I am adopting and ultimately working toward eradicating the need for people across the world to feel as though they must relinquish their babies and children. There is so much work to do. Our foster care system is broken. The western world has too much to eat and so much of the rest of the world is starving. Where do we begin? It begins with me. In my own adoption stuff and in adopting my daughter – it starts with me. And while I can’t solve much in the way of the world’s problems, I can do what I know to be true and right. Love is a great beginning, but my daughter is going to need so much more than that and I’m so OK with that. That’s my job. That’s what every adopted child needs. She will reflect the kind of parenting that I very much needed. These are the things I can do. That’s the thing. Yeah. That’s what I wanted to say.

Up For Consideration

…a very interesting article I found on Google News today.  I’d like to link it here and get everyone’s honest opinion.  I found it quite powerful.

Let me know your reactions and thoughts.

Six Months Later

 

Isabel has been my daughter for six months.  We’ve been a family of four for six months.  I’ve learned by ‘listening’ to Isabel how to care for her.  She’s showed me what she needs and when.  She’s taught me her different cries and that the ‘hungry’ one is more urgent than the ‘I’m bored’ cry and different still is the ‘I need a bottle’ or the ‘I need some cuddles’ cry.  I speak fluent Isabel-ese. 

It hasn’t always been easy, not by a long-shot.  I’m not speaking about the love part.  The love just comes and has been there since meeting her and holding her.  But being the kind of mom she needs has taken time and lots of mistakes.  I hate that that’s true, but it is.  I wish I could say that since I had already been a mom to a baby before Isabel, that I seamlessly parented her from the day I brought her to our home.  But I didn’t. 

I had to learn that she likes to be held close, but she needs to be able to look out and around.  She likes to sleep on her own and adores her crib.  (She won’t co-sleep…have mixed feelings about that)  She loves savory foods over fruit or sweeter things.   I had to learn that she is, at times, tentative.  She holds back a minute, decides if she trusts what you’re offering her, and then pushes it away or grabs it with a smile.  She’s shown us who she is over time, and it’s been nothing short of amazing to watch it all unfold. It’s lovely. 

I look into those deep, brown eyes and wonder, “Where did you come from?”  “Your mother must be beautiful and graceful because you certainly are.”  I wonder what her mother is doing and if she’s safe.  I wonder exactly what circumstances led to her decision regarding her baby girl.  I hope that she is not suffering.  I wish we could send her letters and pictures, and we do send pictures and notes to the orphanage in case she comes looking, but that’s just not the same.  I wish that young women, particularly women in impoverished nations, didn’t have such impossible choices when faced with an unplanned pregnancy outside of marriage.  I heard my husband talking softly to Isabel the other night as he brought her down to her bath.  He said, “I’m so sorry your mom couldn’t keep you and raise you.  But since she felt that she couldn’t, I’m so lucky that we get to raise you.  We’ll take you back to Kyrgyzstan and find her if you want to.  We’re here to take care of you.”  Those were some powerful words for me to overhear.  He’d got it just right.  For me, hearing that with adoptee ears, he’d got it just right. 

Over the holidays I heard the often-said “That’s one lucky girl”.  With my extended family and with close friends, I usually reply with a minimum of, “No, we’re the lucky ones.”  And we are.  Isabel has lost so much and has been through enough without the added burden of hearing how ‘lucky’ she is.  She deserves a childhood free of obligation, guilt and the message that her existence in our family is one in which she ought to feel grateful.  We’re going to set up her whole childhood around the truths around her birth and adoption, and let her feelings come without our own feelings getting in the way.  She’s not in our family to help us overcome infertility.  She’s not here in any sort of ‘occupational’ way.  It’s hard that it happened this way – for her mother and for her.  Never for a moment do I push aside the enormous losses Isabel and her mother will always carry with them.  But now, and for the future, Isabel is in our family.  She’s my daughter.  She’s thriving and lovely.  For that, and so much more – I am so incredibly lucky. 

Reunion Is Good. Reunion Is Heartbreaking. Both Are True.

 

I’ve had a couple people ask me about my own reunion story and history.   I have definitely dodged this topic here since I started writing this blog.  At first I thought that my own reunion story didn’t fit into the story of adopting my daughter.  But, how ridiculous is that?  I mean, it’s all intertwined in my life, so naturally my own history is intertwined with my daughter’s, particularly in how I will parent her. 

 I was born during the period called the ‘baby-scoop’ years in adoption.  This was the time of secrecy, shame, unwed mother’s homes, unbelieveable coercion and abuse and closed records. 

While I was growing up, I always knew that I was adopted and I always felt a certain pain that I knew stemmed from it.  My birthday was not necessarily a happy day.  I have always dealt with a lot of feelings that I would later find out are very common amongst adoptees.  I felt insecure, never felt like I belonged anywhere and still tried to blend into any social scenario as much as possible.   PArt of the problem of going through this when you’re a kid, is that you don’t have the language to put with the feelings.  You need a label-maker and boxes because there are so many little parts to figure out. 

My parents were high school sweethearts brought together by their mutual circumstances and feelings of isolation in their respective families.  They were together for more than a year. In high-school, that’s an eternity.  I think that in that era of youth having a new-found identity and forceful voice against the Vietnam war and with a rising awareness for women, they found shelter and understanding in each other.  I believe they loved each other.

She was pregnant.  She tried to ignore it for a few months but after awhile she had to beat down the denial.  There was a family meeting between the parents.  Everyone nodded and was uncomfortable and angry and ashamed.  Adoption…yes, what else is there?  Apparantly, her parents being the good wasps that they were tried hard to find a doctor who could help.  But, she didn’t want it.  No.  She was standing her ground.  And, so she was sent away.  She finished out her junior year and was sent away for the summer, “to visit relatives.”  The truth was, she was sent to live with people who were employees of the adoption agency.  A kind of unwed mother’s home, except she was the only one there.  She gained less than 25 pounds.  She didn’t go back to high school her senior year.  She studied while waiting for October, for when she was due.  He went off to college.  She went into labor on her due date and I was born.  She was treated with disdain by the delivering doctor and was not given pain medication or anything else that aides women or helps to keep one’s dignity in labor.  Her mother was at her side, helping her push.  At first, he wouldn’t tell her if I was a boy or a girl.  The social worker later told her that I was a girl.  He drove down from college and saw us in the hospital.  There are two different stories of when he showed up and how he acted. 

Anyway, the papers were signed and she went home and back to school.  She was thinner now than she was before she got pregnant.  She broke up with Him or vice versa or it doesn’t even matter.  She graduated with honors.  They both married different people while in college. 

I grew and lived in an interesting family.  I always knew I was adopted and I had my mom tell me my adoption story often.  She didn’t use those annoying stories of being special or chosen or hand-picked.  She told me that some day, if I wanted to, I could search for my birth parents.  I wanted to.  I put the promise of meeting and knowing away in a special place in my heart.   Growing up adopted for me meant that I had a hole in my heart.  I had a good family, though they didn’t truly understand me and didn’t do much to try and bend toward me, but, rather, required me with many unwritten rules, to bend to them and to blend. 

I turned 18 while living on my own in England.  I thought to myself, “when I get back home, I’ll search.”  And so I did.  It took about 18 months, the majority of which was just getting names.  My mom got ahold of what was called an ISC, independant search consultant.  She was amazing.  In just a few days, she had the data from my original birth certificate.  Every phone call from her was enough to make my heart pound.  I had an original name, parents’ names too.  From there, she went on marriage certificate hunts and searches elsewhere.  Finally, we had two solid names and phone numbers.  My mother was married and owned a home in the Pacific Northwest.  My father was married and living about an hour away from me.  Both were in professional careers.  I called my mother first.  I waited all morning and figured out what I wanted to say and how to say it.  I heard her say hello and I started in with things like, “You don’t know me, but I’m trying to find some family members and you may be able to help me with that.”  She sounded cautious but curious about what I was asking.  I then said, “I was born on blah-blah-blah in 1968 and I think you’re my mother”  and she started to cry and said, “I think you’re my daughter…”  We both cried on the phone for a few minutes before she asked me, “What was your name again?”  I’ll never forget how sad that was, for a mother to ask what her own daughter’s name was.  We talked for two hours.  We had a lot in common, surely she would want to meet me, right?  At the end, I got my first taste of what was to become a pattern.  I told her that I very much wanted to meet her and she said that she had to think about it, she had to take some time to mull things over and that she wasn’t sure what it all meant to her.  I had prepared myself for this and for total rejection as well, but hearing it was a different story.  We did meet, and we met once or twice a year for a long time.  But, reunion is hard.  We always came to a spot in our relationship where she would feel pressured to be in a relationship with me and then act cold and unkind to me.  Sometimes she wouldn’t talk to me and I’d be the one to put on my tap shoes and dance and sing and try and get her to smile or open up, if only for the short time we’d be together.  She loathed that I looked more like my father.  She talked only about the past and what happened to her.  She couldn’t get beyond what had happened.  All I wanted was to get beyond what had happened.  I certainly understood that her experience had been atrocious and abusive.  I knew that my father had treated her horribly after she got pregnant.  I knew all these things and wanted to support her in all of those feelings.  But, it turned out that holding on to the negative was her only way to make sure that no one would ever treat her poorly again.  So, she put armor on and she never took it off.  Those were her own words.  And, she would never take it off, not even for me.  Not even with me standing in front of her, wanting to just know her and love her.   It really was all too much pain for her.  Over a few years, we’d get together and it was all strained and very uncomfortable.  Don’t get me wrong, there were many times that we were like twin sisters, giggling and shopping and eating lunch and we liked all the same things and hated all the same things.  It was heaven or it was hell. 

After five years in reunion, one visit we had at my house, she became pouty and sullen.  She didn’t like anything I did or said.  She was pushing me away and I knew it.  But, it made me hurt and angry.  I wrote a letter that I wish I had never sent, but I did.  I told her that I was tired of having to feel that I am the source of all of her pain, because I wasn’t.  I told her that I supported her feelings of loss and anger, but that could we please focus on what we DID have.  We were never promised any relationship and now, here we were.  We could do with our relationship what we wanted.  And then, as I was writing that, I felt my stomach drop.  I realized.  She didn’t want it.  She wanted some of it, sometimes and only on her terms, or when she was able, which wasn’t very often.  When confronted with the reality that she had had a daughter and remembered all that she had endured, in the end it pretty much meant that she couldn’t ‘be’ with me.  I fully realized it all.  She wanted.  She didn’t want.  She loved.  She hated.  She felt joy.  She felt pain.  It was all too much.  I wrote that I deserved to know if she wanted to be in my life or not.  I told her I deserved better treatment.  I never heard from her again. 

About two minutes after I dropped that letter in the mailbox, I regretted it.  It is the single biggest regret in my life that I sent that letter.  I was just so mad and confused.  I understood too much and I understood too little.  I was young and idealistic.  I thought love was stronger than pain.  Sometimes it isn’t.  I wasn’t kind in my letter.  For that, I have to live with forever. 

And now it has been 11 years since we’ve spoken.  I’ve written 3 letters asking for forgiveness and explaining how I didn’t know how to deal with any of my feelings of frustration and disappointment.  I told her that I wish I had written a letter that would have preserved our relationship.  I told her that it is so painful knowing that my unkindness had caused her pain as well.   I told her I was married and that I was a mother and that my mom had died.  I told her that I missed laughing with her.  I never got a reply. 

I know that part of me has not given up and I’m not sure if it’s naievete or denial or stupidity.  I just cannot accept that I’ll never talk with her again. 

What I really want to say though, is that for all the pain and the arduous task of sifting through the bits and pieces of one’s past and never retrieving certain parts, reunion is reclamation.  Reunion means that you finally have your label maker and a stack of sturdy boxes, for once.  It’s liberating even though it can also be burdening.  Why?  Because it is truth.  What happened – the good, the bad, the immoral and the fattening are all being exposed in reunion.  It’s not pretty a lot of the time.  People are uncomfortable, angry, sad, depressed, overjoyed, moved, ecstatic, grieving all at once.  So, I say to all of you adoptees and mothers and fathers who are searching  – don’t give up.  There is consecration in finding what belongs to you, your history.  And for those of you who may be found one day – take off your armor.  Rejoice in your serendipity. 

Margaret,  Please.

Slowly but surely

 

We are getting more and more officially closer to being Isabel’s family.  Yesterday and today we got to go see her in the orphanage and today we started the legal proceedings.  It feels very exciting.  We are nearly done with our visit and while we are enjoying it here very much, it is feeling like it is time to come home. 

To celebrate, our coordinators took us (three families over here to do our adoptions)to an authentic Kyrgyz dinner.  It was so delicious.  We had naan, tomato and cucumber salad, Chuch Vara soup, Lagman noodles, various lamb dishes, crepes and Soviet beer. Now we are back at the hotel feeling very satisfied and tired.  It was a very good day.  I am not superstitious so I will say openly that our adoption experience has been incredibly smooth and rather fast.  I am thankful for our agency who is so thorough and most of all, ethical. 

Anyway, you’re only coming here for the pictures, so here you go.