The subject of our boys’ adoptions come up rarely, so rarely that we all forget that that’s how we became a family. It’s a non-issue most of the time, and when it is an issue, it’s only a remark, like “I wonder if I’ll ever meet my birth mom/birth dad,” to which we respond with, “When it comes time for that, we’ll be right there with you.”
Every once in a while I’m caught off guard and don’t have a Standard Adoption Response on the tip of my tongue. That happened this morning and I’m still trying to figure out what to do about it.
Jeremy’s learning about blood and bones and what makes up our bodies, so it should’ve occurred to me that we’d eventually make our way to chromosomes. We were reading about blood cells and then all of a sudden wound up here:
It’s meant to be a fun experiment to see how a child could’ve looked with alternative traits from his parents, but all I saw was a BIG RED STOP SIGN. It would be cruel to have him fill in information about Chuck and me, knowing that none of our physical traits were passed down to our children. It would be more cruel to fill in his birth mother’s physical traits and leave the birth father’s blank, a reminder that someone didn’t take interest in his existence.
I didn’t have an answer at the ready, so – on the fly and in a panic – I turned the page and muffled something like, “Oh we’ll come back to that.”
This must be dealt with. Jeremy needs to learn about chromosomes and blood type and do that graph thing where you figure out the probability of eye color, but I’ll have to get my words sorted out beforehand. I’ll have to find a way to celebrate his reddish hair, freckles, and long eyelashes even though we aren’t sure where they came from. Jackson too, with his zigzag hairline, tan skin, and eyes that smile. So far, I think we’ve done a stellar job of reinforcing how much they were wanted and prayed for and how their adoptions fell perfectly into place for both our family and their birth families. Neither child, to my knowledge or intuition, feels short-changed or discarded. But this sort of Science lesson flies right in their faces and reminds them, “Oh yeah. I don’t have this information. It doesn’t apply to me.”
Maybe I’m not giving Jeremy and Jackson enough credit here. Just this afternoon I overheard Jeremy tell his brother, “I bet I could play soccer against ninth graders. I have soccer in my blood.” A true statement, I might add. His biological mother and half-brother are soccer pros and I have no doubt Jeremy is like them. Likewise, he favors his biological aunt in the same wonderful way Jacob favors me. Jackson, too, shares the same bright smile as his birth mother. Their childhood photos are incredibly similar.
Even with all of these parallels we’ve drawn, I still feel a need to patch holes, to pull them in a suffocating Mom hug and say, “IT’S ALL FINE! WE’RE ALL FINE HERE!” But then they’ll roll their eyes and tell me to calm down and that I’m making a big deal out of nothing.
UGH. Why does it all feel so HEAVY?