Saturday, July 19, 2008

Thoughts I Ponder When I Can Not Sleep

For a variety of reasons, I haven't been sleeping all that well this summer. It's OK. I'm working on it. But anyone who has had this trouble, presumably everyone, knows that sometimes your brain will just not shut up. Your internal voice will annoy you for hours with infinite combinations of information from the inane to the profound, from the funny to the panic inducing.
Not surprising to anyone I am sure, my internal voice is rather obsessed with adoption. And oddly, the stories it likes to make up are more about the birthmother than the baby. I guess because she will be the first solid breathing person who will be involved in this process. My brain (I say this, because I truly do not seem to have control over it.) makes up backgrounds for the birthparents, mostly mom, and their situations and what about them would make them choose us. Here's my favorite. Please remember, I have no control.
The mom is a Greek exchange student who hooks up with another black student and gets pregnant. Of course she can't go home to her really strict Greek Orthodox parents with the baby, so her very understanding and somewhat guilty host family helps her find Adoptions From the Heart. And of course, here is the perfect couple! They want a black baby, and they are Greek. They will raise the baby Orthodox. She has to look no further!
See, no control over my own mind.
Seriously though, I do think there is more to the obsession with the birthmoms. For us to have the family we want and experience the joyous and insane phenomenon of parenthood, someone else or several someone elses have to be sad. Sad is a more profound word that it is given credit for. Ultimately, our happiness has to come from someone else making a major sacrifice. It doesn't mean that they are making the wrong decision, but no matter what it is not an easy decision. "Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right." -Albus Dumbledore. No matter what else they have done in their lives to this point or what they will do after, at this moment they love that baby enough to know that they are not what is best for their own child. That has got to be a very hard thing to face. They say that birthparents go through the grieving process, and I can understand why.
I guess this is why I am so in favor of open adoption because love like that deserves acknowledgment. I believe that a child who grows up with an understanding of his or her birthparents will be better adjusted and feel more accepted especially if the birth family members involved share a race with the child that we will not.
It might not work out that way, but remember, I have no control over my own brain.
And I promise more light heart posts as soon as the nursery is done. The puppies are too cute for words.

1 comment:

Barbara Batzer said...

I have to settle for 3 dogs and 1 cat while you get a lovely vacation. And my brain imagines they are litlle people sent to Nanny for a ma/pa get away. Are quads a possibility? Love Nannywannabe