What do you do when you know your family was born out of brokenness? Out of another family having to break apart?
Imagine that. Really. Think about that first mother, the first family. That’s a part of adoption that no one really wants to dive into.
A family, a mother and child bond, had to be broken for my family to be made.
Motherhood has rearranged me, and the very notion that they are not mine, that I am some sort of stand in for the “real” mother, or that adoption is a terrible thing, is almost an impossible pill to swallow because…. because they are my children. Me, their mom, knows love in the deepest most maternal way because of adoption.
And yet, I am digging into the big gaping glaring problems in that very thing that made me the truest best version of myself.
Adoption, the thing that has allowed me to mother, and has allowed my children to be mothered, and to be nurtured, can cause so much pain and harm. And yet, in my world, in my family of 4, we are theirs, and they are ours in a pure, beautiful, instinctual, I know this to be true, sort of way. I am always holding that other truth, that something had to break down so our family could be built up. I need to consider it, know it to be true, and also hold all the truths of my own motherhood. I won’t deny myself of the beauty of motherhood because I can't. It's part of who I am.
A mother’s love is incredibly complex and deep and magical, and mine is all of those things, but interwoven has to be the reality and brutal honesty of what was sacrificed so I could feel the magic. It’s almost impossible to hold it all. But not only is it my responsibility, it is a privilege to hold it all. It is a privilege they are mine, and I will consider it to be so each and every day of my life.
What I don’t know, and perhaps the hardest thing, is that I don’t know if I will ever be enough for my children, or if the trauma of my children being separated from their birth moms will be too much for them. I always say that I can hold both, me and birth mom, but can they? Can they hold us both? Can they hold the broken and the thing that was built. It’s a lot to ask. It is so much.
We’ll take it one step at a time, always leaving room for ALL of us, not only leaving room, but intentionally creating room for their family; birth, adoptive, choosen….No one kind of family is better than another. We are not better than birth family. We are not better because we had the resources to parent.
My boys will be the ones, like all of us, who get to choose who they spend time with. They will decide who it is among their family (birth, chosen or otherwise) who become the ones they need, the ones to lean on, the ones to fill them up. It is my job as mom to step aside, it is the job of all mothers to step aside, and to trust that we have taught our kids to trust themselves, love themselves, honor themselves and move towards those who make them feel complete.
I hope and pray it’s me, I really do. But, beyond my own hopes and desires, I hope THEIR hopes and desires are met, and then surpassed and that they get to feel the kind of love I feel for them. It’s an absolute honor. Xx