ILLUSTRATION BY KAREN SHANGGUAN
Today’s First Person is part of a week-long tribute to mothering.
First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
Adoption through foster care is not glamorous. There are no blog posts that take the reader on an exciting countdown across oceans and time zones to exotic locales. No one meets you at the airport with tears streaming down their cheeks. Instead, as parents who have adopted through foster care, we’ve had to justify and validate our decision four times over.
Children adopted out of Social Services are treated like public property – “What’s wrong with them?” “Why don’t they sterilize that woman?” “You can’t adopt them all!” “So, what’s their story?” – as if the questioner is settling in on the couch with a big bowl of buttered popcorn as I regale them with details of my daughters’ in-utero experience and apprehension. As though it is any of their business.
One (former) friend, upon hearing that another sibling to our foster daughter had been born, responded by saying that she had a friend who was waiting to adopt and although it was “not proper protocol,” we should give the baby to her. As if this brand new baby was a piece of merchandise that could be shopped around. The infant’s biology, her sisters, her rights – her very humanity – were moot.
On May 11, 2017, the adoption of our youngest daughter was finalized after she had been in care for 617 days. Her older sisters were in care for over 1,200 days combined before their adoptions were finalized. Since 2009, my husband and I have completed over 60 hours of two provinces’ required foster-parent training, had three separate home studies done, disclosed financial and medical information, and provided a total of 11 references who would speak, to the best of their knowledge, about our abilities to parent. We have had our entire lives examined and scrutinized in our pursuit of a family.
When people make comments about my daughters’ biological mother, they are implying that my daughters do not have the same worth and value as children who remain with their family of origin. More often than not I respond to such comments with an awkward smile and don’t say anything else. I wouldn’t, after all, want to make someone uncomfortable.
But perhaps it’s time to make people uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s time to change vocabulary and perceptions. Children in foster care, particularly children being adopted out of foster care, are not in need of saving. The individuals who adopt them are not rescuers or saviours. We are not superheroes or worthy of accolades. We are simply individuals who saw a need and answered a call.
Loss is an undeniable component of adoption. I mourn with and for our daughters’ biological mother and all that she has given up. I wonder how she feels each year on their birthdays and how her heart must ache with wonder at what could have been. When I look at her children, their dark brown eyes peering back at me, I see her and I hope and pray that I will be enough. I hope that my love for these girls – I would walk through fire for them – would be enough to thank her. How could I ever thank her for such a gift? Her loss is my gain.
Believe it or not, our daughters’ birth mother is someone I hold in high esteem and with great regard. She is not some evil villain in a children’s story who set out to destroy her children’s lives for her own malicious profit. Quite the contrary. She chose life for the girls. To make the decision (four times over!) to continue to carry a pregnancy and place your child for adoption is to courageously put the needs of another person ahead of yours in a way that many of us cannot understand. She made the most selfless decision possible for them by giving them up. I do not for a second question her love for them.
We strive to teach our children to be compassionate and non-judgmental, yet as adults we give ourselves a free pass to do and say whatever we want, particularly when shielded by the veil of social media. We love to fill our feeds with hashtags – #momtribe, #squadgoals, #takesavillage, #blessed. But we seek out people who are like us, leaving little room for empathy and understanding of differences. Would people make comments about my daughters’ birth mother if she was standing beside me? I would hope that people would not intentionally be that uncouth.
Having carried and given birth to a child myself, I can say that there is nothing like holding your baby after labour and delivery. And, having gone through the adoption process four times, I can say that there is nothing like holding your child after finally receiving their adoption papers. But one experience does not trump the other. My biological son is no more cherished than my adopted daughters. Adoption is not a consolation prize.
I may not be able to wax poetic about the beauty of breastfeeding my daughters, but I was there for the sleepless nights, countless diaper changes, learning to walk, first day of school, first lost teeth and first tears over hurt feelings on the playground. I was there, I am there and I will continue to be there. My journey to motherhood, a journey I share with my daughters’ birth mother, has been different but it is of no less value than that of any other woman.
Erin Norton lives in Saskatoon.