They tell you you'll have days like this.

[kyburg]

No, really. They do.

"How are you going to come to terms with the reality that your child's birth parents gave them up? And remember, you probably will never know why either."

You sit in that room, take it in and roll around your head in the most academic of fashions - I mean, how else? It was a decision someone else made with the intentions they had, with the facts known at the time - their desires, their needs, all of that.

End result - we have the kid, and she made it possible. Badabing.

In Taiwan, this is made every more bald with a court process that is as transparent as you can get. (I don't know it's always been this way, but it was this year.)

Her fingerprints are on the documents, right next to the words 'you are giving up your child forever. You understand this.'

She could have taken him back before signing and printing the documents, no questions asked. She didn't.

His first father is not mentioned anywhere.

It's very, VERY clear she loved him. Hell, he wouldn't even be here if she didn't have some inkling towards him - abortions are not uncommon or unavailable.

We're told she didn't have the means to raise him.

His foster family took him home from the hospital, after he had been there for 17 days (not a couple of weeks, or something less precise. 17 days - they counted) when it was clear his first mother could not take him home.

Clearly, they loved him. I'm told they also did not have the means to raise him, that's why he was released for adoption...and had been from the day they had brought him home.

Because of the hypothyroid diagnosis. Which is now pretty clear they did not confirm before the final court documents. If they had, they would have found out immediately they had been overtreating him and he no longer needed the medication.

They did not check. I was told they had, but now - I'm not sure I believe them.

Keep in mind, I saw this myself - they loved him. You can't fake it. We even have videotape and believe me, I'm going to make sure there's archival copies.

No, it was better for him to be adopted, be torn away from the family he knew, language, world, everything...my head is just not taking it without choking on it.

They loved him. He had a ton of people who loved and adored him.

You could have kept him. If you had only checked.

Or, like his first father - they didn't document what they knew. Maybe that's what it was. So the adoption could continue.

Why did you make us do this to him?

He's the sweetest kid - I really get blindsided when he does something that hits a button because I don't see it coming. You should see him with the cats - he's never done so much as pull a tail or whiskers, albeit he's had a healthy curiousity about them. Hiroshi has been laid on, hugged and petted, Rei jumped up on him last night going to sleep and allowed him to pet her into purrs (we had to put her down because she was too much of a distraction for him to sleep) and Kibo just scoots out of the way.

He's our kid now, and will be from now on - and my head knows a kid has to lose everything to be my kid in adoption - but right now, it's MY kid who has lost everything, MY kid who had all these people who loved him but wouldn't keep him, MY little baby - who didn't deserve this.

And I still have to tell him no and scold him, make him eat his dinner, and go to sleep at night when he doesn't want to. Because I can't spoil him out of the adoption either.

Nobody would ever mean to do this - and I can't get the 'meant to be' either.

Or is it just my POV talking? I'm sure it is.

The decisions were made before anyone even talked to us - and nobody changed their mind or showed any reluctance to go through with it. We had nothing to do with their decision to place him for adoption. We were just acceptable people for the job, and decided he should be ours.

But they loved him. They did it - I saw it.

They loved him - and they gave him up. With the resources they needed to raise him, they gave him up.

That's my belief, and I'll never understand it. And at times, I might be downright upset about it.

(There's a lot of feelings involved in this game - if I wanted boredom, this isn't the way to get it. ^^)

I'm also going to leave this out in the open - I am dearly in debt to everyone in his life prior to coming to us. He is who is he because of them.

I just wish I could tell them that. And ask...why.

Comments

[gvdub.livejournal.com]

Sometimes loving means letting go. Heinlein once defined love as that condition when "the happiness of someone else is essential to your own." That may be all there is to it.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm going with Brother George on this one.

Sometimes, loving is knowing when to let go.

[poetpaladin.livejournal.com]

It could be that part of it is the social stigma of having a child out of wedlock. Being a single mother, being divorced, is still a major stigma. Think about 20 or 40 years back in the U.S.

Also, I think part of it is, in Chinese culture, while parents do love their children very much, it's also not uncommon for children to be raised by another. Remember I told you the story of my cousin, whom we still nickname Fei Zhou (Africa), because my father's older brother was originally going to send her to be raised by my father as he was still unmarried in his early 30s?

Chinese parents are willing to sacrifice a lot if it means their children will have a better life. And sometimes that better life is a life far away. Like in America.

I think the best thing you can do to show you understand. Make sure they get updates of him often and try to give them a chance to stay in touch, maybe take him back for a visit after a few years. (If they're poor, it's unlikely they'd be able to afford a flight.)

I agree

[turandot.livejournal.com]

And my meant to be, I mean that for whatever inexplicable reason, he is supposed to be with you. The reason is so intricate that you or I can't see it, but it doesn't mean that it isn't there. Call it god given, call it chance, call it anything in between.

It is what it's supposed to be.

Re: I agree

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

Yep. I don't understand some of this either - heck, a lot of it - that happened to us, especially the twins. But it is what it is.

I agree also

[drlaurac.livejournal.com]

And will add:
There are many things in this world that happen, and we never know why. Sometimes little stuff, sometimes hugely important monumental stuff. This will probably be one of those.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

For more than 25 years now, whenever I have heard an adoptive parent say, "This child was meant to be mine/ours," I've wanted to slap them upside the head. Or at least ask, "Oh? And was all the pain that went into causing this child to be yours 'meant to be,' too? Because that's what it took for this child to be yours--someone's, maybe multiple someones', pain and loss."

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

Can't disagree with that point, either. I see the pain in Mere's eyes when she thinks about her Chinese family, and doubtless she wonders why they would have given up the twins. I wish I had answers for her and her sissy; I don't, and I doubt I ever will.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And in her case, you really DON'T have much to build answers with.

It's a tricksy thing - we have an embarassment of riches in comparison, but I'm wondering if it really will be or not.

[reannon.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm too far outside to really get it. They loved him. But they also knew he'd have a good life with you, and that has to be a comfort. He's very young, and he's imprinting on you both. Does it matter WHY they gave him up? They did, and now he's with you, and eventually he will know that you won't give him up.

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[paper-flame.livejournal.com]

Gotta comment, since this hits so close to home for me...

My girls were abused and neglected...by a birth mother with overwhelming mental illness. Because of this (could be inherited), because of their ages (4 and 5 when they came into the system), and because they were an ethnic minority (asian), they were considered UNADOPTABLE! To see these beautiful girls today...I have so many mixed emotions. I'm angry that they were labeled so cruelly. Yet it's probably the reason I'm lucky enough to have them in my life. But I also think so often about their birth family...their birth mother, grandma, aunts, cousins...who probably weren't adequately explained in their language why the girls were taken from them. I ache for them, and can only imagine their sadness whenever a birthday comes around, or a holiday. I wish they could know, somehow, that the girls are okay. Maybe someday we will be able to find them and let them know. That will be up to my daughters.

So this is why, whenever anyone tells me how lucky my girls are...it just upsets me so. There is so much grief behind our happy family. And I am the lucky one...but yes, sometimes I allow myself to think that we are all three lucky to have each other.

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

It's hard to explain to people outside the triad that while many, many biological families begin with hope and love, all adoption and families built through adoption begin first with loss and grief along with the love.

And it's not catastrophic or irrecoverable, but there is always for all of us that underlying sadness and wondering, things missing, paths not taken or not possible.

[violet-tigress1.livejournal.com]

*hug* I don't really have anything useful to say...

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you find out the why, and it's almost unbearable. We can discuss this in private email sometime.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

No worries - sometimes, it just helps to say it, since there is so much 'don't talk about this' surrounding the whole experience.

Saints don't get angry, after all. *sniggers*

[galewolf.livejournal.com]

缘份

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Silly rabbit, you know I can't read that. ^^

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

They're saying, essentially, that 'It's just fate.'

[amanda-nye.livejournal.com]

Because they wanted him to have more chances than they could give him? They wanted to be sure he had a safety net if the worst happened? You said the foster family was older before. Maybe they weren't sure someone else could or would take him in if they passed, particularly after he was older. It's much harder for older kids to be adopted.

And you're American. The American Dream lives, and maybe that was the dream they had for him, to go to another country with more opportunity.

A couple possibilities. And with either of them, they could well have known and stayed quiet. A bonus for you. You loved him and wanted him when he was special needs. You wanted to know so much, and sent bits of yourself and your home ahead of you. That made you the right people, maybe put them at ease that they were doing the right thing.

[moropus.livejournal.com]

You can't change any thing that has already happened.

You can give him a good life, send him to college and you have other relatives and friends to help and health insurance.

Be at peace. Take care of yourself. Stop feeling guilty.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I seriously doubt there will be funds for us to send him to college.

If the community college system still exists when he's old enough to use it, he'll likely do what I did - start there, and ek out a way through quarter to quarter to finish.

We'll do what we can - but we're hardly the rich white folks people seem to think we are.

I come from a unique perspective

[scratch3000.livejournal.com]

I was adopted 3 days before I was born. The papers were signed and they waited for my sex and birth time to be filled in. I know my birth parents, and have known them from very young. They were older, birth mom had been told she was barren through 3 marriages, and I still don't know for certain if my folks were married when I was born. That said, they knew a couple that couldn't have any more children and desperately wanted a girl. Me. Things were arranged, and I grew up in a home where I was loved and wanted. My first adopted mother passed when I was 4.5 and things turned for the worse. But in the end, I knew my birth parents and spent time with them during the summers. I ended up in foster care at 11, and know what it's like to be labeled unplaceable, I was never released for adoption from the foster care system, but I knew a lot of kids who did. Older kids that know that people want the babies and the toddlers, and not those older than 5. It's hard and heart breaking.

When I was in high school I found another family I wanted to be a part of. They took me in when the foster care system dumped me out at 17 because I had graduated. I love them more than anything, and am eternally grateful to be a part of their lives.

If I ever decide to adopt, I want to choose one of the unadoptable ones, maybe even a troubled teen. Just to give something back. But that's my choice, and I applaud those that take in a kid for any reason and any age.

I know there's a lot of loss in the start, but kids are strong, and the love that comes from you, will heal that loss. There will be questions when he is older. Answer them as straight as you can. Knowing that you have a safe base to come home to, means a lot.

*hugs*

Char