What We Don't Know

I had forgotten how busy a small person can keep you. I had thought that I would be able to write more while I was off on leave (due to the arrival of my son), but I soon came to realize that time is not something I have to spare. I had become spoiled by my six year old son's independence.

Today, however, I found myself thinking about what I don't know. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot that I don't know, but that's what makes me human. Fortunately, my thoughts were a little more grounded in the adoption world and didn't take me out to all the other things that I can't possibly know.

I do know basics about our newest arrival. I know basics about his birth parents and I have medical history since he was born. I know that he had a foster mother who loved him and took very good care of him - you can see it in the pictures and the video. I know how many bottles he had every day and if he took naps.

What I don't know speaks volumes. I don't know exactly what his birth mother was thinking when she made the decision to place him up for adoption. I don't know if his foster mother held him when he woke up at night or if she patted him on the back and sang him a song. I don't know about his extended Korean family or if they even know that he is here. I don't know if he has his birth mother's eyes or his birth father's hair.

I realize that I have more information for both of my children than my parents had. For me, they didn't even have my exact birth date. They knew the basics about what had happened since I had been found, but they had no names to think about when they thought about my birth parents or information about their families.

So, I am happy that I have as much as I do, but I also find myself dwelling on what I don't know. Every time my son can't do something, I wonder if it's because no one asked him to do it before or if it's common in his birth parents' family. It's funny, I didn't go here with my first son. Perhaps, with him, I had too many other concerns. This is new for me and interesting.

With both of my boys, I had hoped that they would come home with a letter from their birth mothers (or birth fathers). Our social worker had told us that it is happening more often. I know that contact scares some adoptive parents, but I keep thinking about all of the things that I don't know and I wish I had it.

Arrival Days

Today is my Arrival Day. (And yes, for those of you who haven’t heard my rant over the last couple of years…I generally use Arrival Day. I really dislike (on many levels) the term “Gotcha” Day.) Today has really been a regular day for me, nothing special or exciting. I dropped off my son at school, went to work, picked up my son and came home. Truthfully, the only reason I remember my Arrival Day is because it pops up on my Palm Pilot. (I love my Palm Pilot.)

I’ve heard the stories about my Arrival Day. My parents flew to Chicago O’Hare to meet me. In those days (I feel old saying that), you could still wait at the gate. My mother always tells the story with much more drama and flare than I can, but the gist of the story is that they waited for a long time. The plane landed and all of the people came off, but there were no babies. Finally the pilot came out and asked why everyone was waiting and there was (I’m sure) a collective gasp of horror. Someone said they were waiting for the babies and the pilot said, “What babies?”, but then the babies came.

When I was little, I used to listen to that story over and over and over again. Since my mother is a natural born story teller, I still hear it from time to time. It is different now for my son. He doesn’t ask me to tell him a story. He tells me he wants to see his movie. He’ll watch it over and over and over again…just the way I listed to my story. How the times have changed (and I’m feeling old again).

I’m trying to remember when my Arrival Day became just another day. I think it was in High School, though I can’t remember for sure. It’s still a special day, just not a celebrated day.

Adoption Agency Picnic

We attended our adoption agency picnic this week-end. The turnout was disappointing this year. It’s usually packed. I’m not sure if they got caught in the summer vacation season, but there were a lot less people this year than there was last year.

My husband’s parents came with us and my son had a blast. They had a snow cone maker and a bounce house. So, my very blue-tongued child bounced his heart out. Because of the low turn out, he didn’t have to compete with a lot of children and he had his grandparent’s undivided attention.

I know I’ve talked about it before, but I noticed once again that there seems to be a general age limit when it comes to these events. Families with adopted children are gung-ho participants in these events when their children are babies through kindergarten and then one by one they disappear. My mother says that it was the same for them. Though they ran an adoption group and, thus, stayed in the system longer than normal, eventually all of my events and schedules made it too difficult to continue.

When Did I Understand That I Was Adopted?

Someone asked me yesterday if my son understands that he is adopted. I have no clue, but I doubt it. He’s four. If you ask him, he’ll tell you that he’s adopted. He’ll also tell you that Mommy and Aunt C are adopted too. He’ll tell you that he is adopting a baby. Does he have a clue what that means? No.

I remind him that he’s adopted and I tell him about the day he arrived on the airplane, but I really don’t think that the message is hitting home. He does think that babies come on airplanes and he was vastly annoyed with us for making him fly all the way to Detroit by himself. He wanted to know why Mommy and Daddy weren’t with him.

So, when did I understand that I was adopted? I have no clue. As far as I can remember, I always knew that I was adopted, but I’m sure that isn’t right. I don’t remember any conscious moment where I suddenly knew and understood adoption. I suspect that I heard it so often before I could understand the concept that when I could understand it was a pretty mild realization. Of course, I also had the added benefit of looking nothing like either of my parents.

I spent a few nights recently really thinking about how I could bring the situation down to a four-year old level. I think that (as usual) I was over thinking the situation. He’ll figure it out when he figures it out and, as long as it isn’t a surprise, he probably shouldn’t be too scarred by the experience. Right?

Dancing

On one of the message boards, someone was asking about bonding activities. The parent was saying that she didn’t feel like she was bonding because her new child was so active. Everyone who responded had good suggestions – peek-a-boo, swimming, etc…

My son was younger when he arrived and he wasn’t mobile. I carried him around in my sling a lot, so I didn’t have the bonding problems, but I still tried to do things where we were together. So, I danced. It’s pretty funny since I have two left feet and no rhythm, but we danced and danced. Sometimes he was in my sling and sometimes I just held him, but we danced. I turned on the music. We swayed, twirled and dipped.

It was perfect for everyone. My very active boy thought it was an excellent game and it was something that we could do together. There was much laughter and smiles. It wasn’t bad exercise either. Hey, it was a two in one.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Three cheers for the internet. I have been trying to decide what to do with my hair. It’s a very complicated process because I have a tendency to pick something and hold onto it with both hands. When it comes to hair, change does not come easily to me. I can be easily talked out of anything that I decide to do.

Anyhow, I’ve been haunting the internet lately looking at different styles. I went to Google, typed in “Korean Hair Styles” and I received lists of sites to visit. Isn’t that something? Truthfully, there isn’t much difference between Korean hair styles and American hair styles, but what I really wanted to see is what they looked like with Korean faces.

Perhaps my hair trauma comes from the fact that I spent most of my youth looking at hair styles with Caucasian faces and no real way to visualize how they would look with my face shape and coloring. If I had been blessed with the world wide web, I might have avoided a couple of pretty terrible mistakes – the spiral perm being the one that jumps right out at me.

Anyhow, I have made a decision and an appointment with the salon. However, I’m not telling anyone (including my mother) what I’m going to do. One negative sound (whether it’s actual or perceived) will send me back to the status quo. As my friend reminded me, hair will grow out.

The Ultimate Abandonment

I was having one of those deep thought-provoking conversations with my mother the other day. It always seems to me that we are either having the gossip catch-up conversations or the “oh my gosh” you’re going to make me think conversations.

Anyhow, we know a Korean adoptee who has an almost irrational fear of people dying. In particular, she fears her parents dying. The sight of gray hair or an occasional lapse in memory makes her assume the onset of Alzheimer’s or death. I have my own hang-ups, but I was having a hard time understanding why she had gone this particular path. My mother wrapped it up in a nice neat package. Death is the ultimate abandonment.

Abandonment issues are something that many adoptees go through. For adoptees who have not come to terms with the loss of their birth family, the loss of their adopted family must seem that much more terrifying.

So, once again, I have been forced to wonder what makes me different. Will my son be like me or will my son have his own abandonment issues. Perhaps some of the difference lies in the information. I was truly a found baby, left in a public place with no note or history. Therefore, to me, my birth family has little substance…they lack the reality that I attribute to my parents, sister, husband, son… However, Korean adoptees today are coming with information about their birth families. They are real people, with names, occupations and dreams. I suspect that this is why I am much more interested in my son’s birth parents than I am in my own.

My mother used to tell me about my birth parents all the time. Though we didn't know anything about them, she made sure that they were a part of my life. She used to tell me that she knew in her heart that they loved me and that they had done what they thought was best for me because they loved me. Maybe that was the key to why I didn't have strong abandonment feelings?

Once again, I am back to wishing there was a magic handbook for parents with adopted children. I really don't know how my parents did it. I suspect that I can analyze why and why not forever and I will never have a definitive answer. It all comes down to the individual. All I can do is watch my son, do my best and wait for the answers to hit me on the head.

I’ve always believed that parents have to be careful about attributing every problem to adoption. Adoption brings its own problems, but often growing up brings just as many. We have to walk that fine line of watching for adoption-related issues, but not always assuming that adoption is the root of all problems.

Growth Charts

Well, I survived my son’s four year doctor’s appointment. He had to get four shots and I’m not sure who was the most traumatized. I think it might have been me.

Anyhow, I was comparing the growth chart that I received from the doctor with the Korean growth chart and I was a little surprised to see that it matched. My son was 50th percentile on both charts. When I was little, I was always on the very bottom of the U.S. growth chart and my sister barely made the chart. My parents always wrote it off as a cultural difference. Both my sister and I grew to a pretty normal height by U.S. standards, but we did it much later in our lives than our friends.

Here is a link to a site that has growth charts for all different countries. It’s funny how your preconceived notions can be stomped on in a single moment.

Can We Protect Too Much?

We’ve been hearing a lot of bad things in the news lately – disrupted adoptions after seven years, a Korean adoptee killed by mother, etc…. I think there is a knee jerk reaction among parents to protect our adoptees from stories like this. When I heard about the disrupted adoption, I was telling my husband about it and I realized we were whispering so that my four year old didn’t hear.

We deal with a lot of different obstacles. Stories like these make big news. The fact that the baby who was killed was a Korean adoptee overshadows the larger issue – a child is no longer with us. On top of that you have the general insensitive questions and comments from friends and neighbors. There are adoptees that are avidly against adoption. There are people who are not even affiliated with the process who are avidly against adoption. It can make you want to crawl in bed with the covers over you head, but it’s too late now. You have to deal with it.

I don’t think that all children need protected. Looking back, I realize that my parents rarely did. Oh, I suspect that there were some things that I never heard about, but there were things that I did hear about. I knew that not all adoptions went well. I knew that some adoptees did bad things. Specifically, I remember hearing that a boy about my age burnt down his school for non-adoption related reasons.

Each one of these items can be a talking point. I think it’s important that adoptees know that their world doesn’t have to be candy and roses. Bad things happen and I think there is more insecurity if we hear about the bad things from someone else or from somewhere else. I can’t even imagine what a younger child would feel after reading one of the many articles out there right now about the Dutch diplomat’s disrupted adoption. I can tell you how I felt. I was unsettled.

If we as parents are not willing to face the issues, how can we ever expect our children to come to us when they have concerns?

Three Years Ago...

Three years ago today, my son arrived from Korea. I reminded my son about it this morning. He looked a little confused. I was trying to explain that today was the anniversary of his arrival, but we’re having some problems understanding the concept of yesterday, today and tomorrow. It’s really not easy to explain and close to impossible for a three year old to truly understand. Besides, he was too excited about a picture of race cars that I brought home from work.

I had considered taking cupcakes or something like that to school today for his class, but I decided against it for two reasons. One, I’m not sure how my son is going to react to adoption when he’s older. There is a chance that he won’t want his adoption broadcasted to everyone and their second cousin – it might be more of a private matter to him. We won’t know for another couple of years. Second, I’ve been doing my best to make sure that his arrival day doesn’t become another birthday. Arrival day should be about family and our goal is to do something as a family to celebrate. My husband is desperate to buy him a toy (because he wants the toy), but I keep reminding him to stay strong.

So, we’re off to the zoo again, tomorrow. We’ve celebrated at the zoo every year so far. Next year, he can choose where he wants to go, but this year he was picking some wild locations so I chose for him. The goal has been to keep it just us (myself, my husband and my son); however, this year he demanded that my sister come as well. My son worships the ground that his Aunt C walks on. It seemed right since my sister is also adopted from Korea and then she invited my parents. So, our small outing has gotten a little bigger.

Miss Japan is Crowned

I’m not much of a pageant watcher, but I did see this morning that Miss. Japan won the Miss Universe pageant. I am always conscious of the fact that it is good for our adoptees (especially girls) to see this happen. As much as I avoid the pageants, it is good for them to see that there is beauty in Asian features. Despite changing times, the media and the entertainment industry is still predominantly a Caucasian world.

Take note: Miss Korea was the third runner up. Not bad for the Asian continent.

Writing My Son's Story

I have a tendency to think too big. I’m pretty sure that if I learned to think on a smaller scale, I might actually get things completed in a reasonable time frame. Here’s an example. Before my son came, I went to the craft store and bought everything that I thought I would need to make an adoption story for my son. I bought paper, special scissors, special glue for photos… and I put it all in my craft bag. It’s still in my craft bag.

It’s not that I don’t have enough time (though that is a factor). My problem is that I planned to make my son a book – not just an album, but a book. I wanted the whole story there so that anyone could read it to him and he would understand about his adoption, who all the players were and how special he was. He’s been home with us for two and a half years and I’ve gotten a whole paragraph finished.

At first, I wrote it from my point of view and then I stopped because that didn’t seem right at all. After all, what if my husband was reading him the story or one of his grandparents? Then, I switched to third person narrative and that didn’t sound right at all. It was far too impersonal. I tried rhyme, but that didn’t work either. Poetry is not my thing and it came out sounding like a very twisted Dr. Seuss story. Right now, I think it’s going to be from the point of view of my cat. Yes, I said cat.

I think it’s important to get my son’s story down on paper. The problem is that I figure that he’s going to have kids of his own before I’m done. It’s all my mother’s fault. She had to be a writer and now I think in terms of long literary type books instead of short captions. I have seen lovely memory books that are full of pictures that have cute little captions underneath. They really accomplish the same thing and with a lot less stress.

There are a couple of things that I think people should remember to put in their children's story though:

1. If you know the information, you should make sure you put their birth information (weight, height, etc...).
2. Information about their birthparents
3. The day you met each other for the first time