From a Lesser Mom on Mother's Day
May. 9th, 2010 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_the_blueCouldn't you just have one of your own? I can't tell you how many times I heard that when my daughter was a baby, when she was little, when she was just growing up. It's too bad you had to adopt. People would say this with the greatest sorrowful looks on their faces. As if building a family through adoption made me a special social pariah, a sad excuse for a woman, some sort of lesser mom. As if one method of forming a family was less entitling than another, as if one was better than another, as if one was preferable to another. I prefer my way: no visible stretch marks.
It was around this time of year fourteen years ago (minus two months) that my husband and I stepped off a plane in Portland with a fussy dark-haired baby girl in our arms. She'd been awake the whole way from Hong Kong to L.A., finally sleeping on the short leg from L.A. to Portland. We walked out of that plane and in those days when people could still welcome you at the gate the first familiar faces I saw were my parents, who'd been housesitting for us while we were in China on the most fantastic trip imaginable. They both cried with excitement (and so did we).
Since then it's been fourteen years on a roller coaster ride the likes of which I'd never seen before. I couldn't have imagined the dips and turns and spins and breathless wonderment accompanying it, the winding roads my child has taken me down, or how much I've learned from her. She's wonderful, as those who've met her can attest, and like no one else on the planet and every single day, it's an absolute joy to have her in our lives.
So let me tell you who I'm grateful for today: our daughter's birth mother. We don't know her story; we can't know her story. Because it was illegal for her to leave her daughter in a place where she could be located and taken to safety, she took the greatest personal risk in doing so. She ensured that this most precious and amazing tiny human being would be safe and survive. Without you, birth mom, I -- we -- would have no child and today, I honor you. That you couldn't keep our little one doesn't make you any less of a person or any less of a mom. That I'm her mom too doesn't make me any less of a person or any less of a mom. It all works out and we're partners, you and I, and have been from the start. With the utmost respect and appreciation, thank you.
It was around this time of year fourteen years ago (minus two months) that my husband and I stepped off a plane in Portland with a fussy dark-haired baby girl in our arms. She'd been awake the whole way from Hong Kong to L.A., finally sleeping on the short leg from L.A. to Portland. We walked out of that plane and in those days when people could still welcome you at the gate the first familiar faces I saw were my parents, who'd been housesitting for us while we were in China on the most fantastic trip imaginable. They both cried with excitement (and so did we).
Since then it's been fourteen years on a roller coaster ride the likes of which I'd never seen before. I couldn't have imagined the dips and turns and spins and breathless wonderment accompanying it, the winding roads my child has taken me down, or how much I've learned from her. She's wonderful, as those who've met her can attest, and like no one else on the planet and every single day, it's an absolute joy to have her in our lives.
So let me tell you who I'm grateful for today: our daughter's birth mother. We don't know her story; we can't know her story. Because it was illegal for her to leave her daughter in a place where she could be located and taken to safety, she took the greatest personal risk in doing so. She ensured that this most precious and amazing tiny human being would be safe and survive. Without you, birth mom, I -- we -- would have no child and today, I honor you. That you couldn't keep our little one doesn't make you any less of a person or any less of a mom. That I'm her mom too doesn't make me any less of a person or any less of a mom. It all works out and we're partners, you and I, and have been from the start. With the utmost respect and appreciation, thank you.
