Wow, It's really hitting home right now how many movies {especially Christmas movies} deal with orphans and adoption... I guess I'm a bit toucher about it because one of mine is a heart child but it either gets me crying or irritates me because I don't like how they are portraying it. Not to mention the many questions it creates now with all of my children. Mostly I have to explain over and over again that his birthparents were NOT evil or they DIDN'T die, because those seem to be the only two scenarios covered in movies. I can only imagine how disturbing that would be to a child. {And I know it's true for some children, but not mine, and I don't want to upset him that way!} Then I have to delicately explain a very sad and complicated birth story in an age appropriate way to four little children, over and over again. Sigh. I think I'm going to start being even more selective on the movies over here. Adoption has always been an open topic around here, but this is just getting exhausting! Plus there is always the added worry that I'm not doing it right, not sure that ever goes away. No matter how many book I read... :)
I often forget that I didn't carry him in my own womb. Then it hits me with a raw clarity at moments when I am explaining things to them and it makes me feel a longing and a sadness. I wish I could tell him birth stories like I do with the other ones. I wish I could tell my other children their birth stories with out worrying that it might be upsetting my heart child. I try to tell his birth story too, in the best way I can. But I don't know it well, and it's hard to tell without the sad parts. I smile and try to make it sound beautiful the way I do with the others, but it feels really fake, and I cringe some times inside hoping he doesn't pick up on that. He's old enough now that he's well aware that he grew in his birth mothers tummy and not mine. It's hard to hear him say that. It's hard to be the adoptive mom. It's hard to know that the special part of carrying him inside me will never be mine. My heart breaks for him birth mom, but at the same time I selfishly want the story of my heart child to be all mine.
He came to our home when he was a sweet tiny six day old baby and I often pick up the story there, telling him all about how adorable I thought he was. {On a side note I still think he's adorable, ha ha!} How I snuggled him all night long and carried him on my body in a sling every moment of the day. I was five months pregnant at the time so he likes it when I tell him he was snuggling with Spike from the moment he came home. They use to sleep next to each other all the time and would snuggle up in the sweetest ways. I always tell them that they have been doing that even when Spike was still in my tummy, my heart child on the outside curled up in a sling, and Spike in the inside curled up in my womb... listening to each others heartbeats.
I will be forever grateful and full of thanks that I have been blessed with such a special child, and that all of my children are so close. Because the boys were so young when my heart child came there was never a moment where he stood out and didn't just blend right in. At least for us, I did get lots of comments from strangers. Everything has always felt natural and meant to be for us. That's not to say there haven't been hard times, but they've all been worth it. I feel sure that there will be rough times in the future too, maybe in the form of an insensitive comment from a kid. {Or an adult, that happens a lot actually, but my heart child hasn't noticed yet.} I've read stories about the things people have said to adopted kids, hurtful mean things or insensitive things and my heart breaks. One comment I've read over and over again is "well that's not your mom then" in reference to the adoptive mom. Or "why didn't your mom want you?" Different things like that. I wonder how to prepare him for the possibility. Without making a big issue out of it. But I'm not sure that is possible. There might be some hard questions in the future as well, or a want to get to know his parents that is hard to fill. Or a disappointment or sadness when he does meet them. There is the worry on my part that he will want to spend time with one or the other of his birthparents as a teenager and they will be a negative influence on him. But I must push those aside and deal with them if need be. Focus on raising him up with a healthy self esteem, so that he may deal resiliently with any difficulty headed his way. I feel like we have a good start with that, he has shown himself to be a Very Resilient Child in all the challenges that have faced him so far. :)
