Honey Grey Eyes

This kid, ya’ll. He’s pretty dang amazing. I love his personality, and watching him grow up, and laughing at his funny little ways of saying things. But my heart is so wistful from this weekend, when he was napping in the back seat of the car. The car was idling in the driveway, and I was reading my book, and when he woke up (scared), he just wanted a snuggle before going into the house.

In the clear afternoon light I got a real good look into this sweet boy’s face. And I was shocked. I’m sure I’d seen it before, but dismissed it until I was ready to face the truth. My baby no longer has blue eyes. He’ll be turning three, and while it might have been four or six or eight months that we’ve been living with this truth, I now cannot hide from the truth. He’s a honey grey green eyed boy (what, is that classified as hazel?).

They’re beautiful eyes. Clear and muddy at the same time. Speckled green and gray and seem to change in the light. But they aren’t blue, or blue-green like mine, and that’s where the wistfulness comes in. I knew it was inevitable. I knew that the blonde blue eyed baby that seemed miraculous odds against a dark hair dark eyed dominant gene pool. I have loved looking into a face that resembles my own so much, but this beautiful hard part about parenting is also letting him get to be the wonderful little boy that he is. And that means embracing the sweet honey grey green eyed toddler who says “pooperman” because he can’t pronounce superman.

How Fallopian Tubes are like Holocaust Cattle Cars

Trying to conceive is a strange experience. The more I learn about my body, the more I realize that junior high and high school health/biology class are severely lacking in the information department. Or maybe I was too busy doodling the name of my dreamy crush on my pee chee. Or both.

But seriously, it was only this week that I learned how…um…dumb (for lack of a better description) the whole getting pregnant thing really is. I mean, you have unprotected baby making sex, hopefully at the right time for the stars to align, and when you’re finished you go and get a drink of water, or take a shower or eat a sandwich. And meanwhile, if you’re the lady, there are are these microscopic swimming things just…oh you know….hanging out inside you. I mean, that’s like something from a B level Science Fiction movie…from the late 80’s.

So there they are, microscopic swimming things, who we’ve all thought of as swimming as fast as their little metaphorical hearts can go to get to the PRIZE of that glorious golden snitch bursting from the ovary. But in fact, it’s a lot less Olympics or Hunger games, and seems more like a really slow, drunken frat party. Because, according to one website’s description, the sperm (which can hang out for a few days inside, waiting…um…creepy…) just ‘bump into’ the egg and thus fertilize it.

Wait. You mean to tell me that my son was born because some sperm just randomly bumped into the egg? It wasn’t even like “oh hey baby, you’re so fine, come over here and let me fertilize you.” It was more like the egg stumbling on the way to the bathroom and being forced to marry the first dumb jock frat boy who bumps into her. Talk about fate. And kind of a dumb design if you ask me. Couldn’t they (being God, or Supreme Being, or hell, evolution) come up with a better idea than THAT?

Then again, it does seem to be working, as our Earth is teeming with human bodies.

But, all of this enlightenment about how the sperm that actually fertilizes an egg, got me thinking about the rest of the experience. Like, how sucky would it be to be trapped in the fallopian tubes for up to 3 days. It seems dark, and crowded if you ask me. And you’re surrounded by a bunch of millions of other like-minded microbes, who really just want to survive and meet that egg, but are most likely going to end up on the wrong side of Fate’s hand. And I’m not one to throw out Holocaust metaphors, but that dark, cramped fallopian tube, with millions of sperm that will eventually die, seems like those cattle cars the Nazi’s used in WWII. And I wonder, do the sperm know the chances that they will end up alive at the end of the whole ordeal? Are they blindly optimistic to the chance that they will somehow live on? So every time we have sex millions of sperm die…in my body….gross. It’s basically the Nazi regime all up in my lady parts.

Have you ever been surprised to learn something that you were supposed to have been taught in high school?

Adoption & Siblings

Do you have siblings in your adoptive family? Were they also adopted or not? What was your relationship like in regards to adoption? If you are in reunion, did you find siblings as part of your search? How you been affected by your sibling relationships? If you searched and found siblings, and had adoptive siblings, what has that been like? If you don’t have siblings, have you found any benefits to being an only child?

Yes, I have siblings, both biological and adopted. Our relationships are complicated.

My little half-sisters are biologically related to me, but there is such a generation gap that they function more like my nieces that I see a few times a year. My half-brother and sister on my biological mom’s side are the same age as my adoptive siblings, but it’s weird trying to get to know people that age who are family and yet not family.

They grew up a different religion, socieo-economic class and in a different area, so there is a  huge cultural difference that is hard to overcome.

My adoptive brother is most recently in my life in a close-way because we both have kids, though we would not really be friends outside of that, because of such a difference in philosophies on work, religion, politics, etc. We relate on a familial level because we are both, now, parents, but I sometimes find it hard to talk with him about much else.

I am probably closest to my adoptive sister.

Though, this weekend I did something dumb. Something super passive-aggressive and un-becoming of an almost-30-year old.

I unfriended her on facebook.

Sigh.

Yeah, I am that kind of person.

In my mind I have all sorts of justifications for it, but mostly I was hurt, and have been hurt, not as much by her actions, but by the actions of her live-in-boyfriend-almost-fiance.

It as triggered by a sequence of photos from their trip to see her biological family in Oregon. I wonder if my reaction would have been as strong if it hadn’t been a vacation there, though I am not inherently jealous of her other family. It was that he was in the pictures with her. And from previous conversations with her, I know that he “just loves them. It’s so easy with them. They don’t judge him, and it’s just relaxed, rather than when he’s around mom & dad he feels judged and they’re always asking them questions.”

So, in my head, I am annoyed because once again it seems like she is in a relationship with a selfish jerk who expects her to spend time with his family, and he can make time to travel 4 hours to Oregon, but can’t come to my parents house in the same town as them, or visit Seattle when my sister does…like…for Potamus’ baptism or say, this Thanksgiving. But he can make time to train to be a cage-fighter (un, he’s 32) and visit her other family in Oregon.

Major butt-hurt right here.

And I blame my sister because she has done this over-and-over-and-over with different guys. So I’m frustrated with her because she keeps choosing guys that treat her family like poop. But I’m also frustrated that he doesn’t love her enough to make an effort with us.

Wanting to change my relationships with my siblings is a challenge. Mutual adult relationships are difficult, and I often find it easier to hang out with friends because we have some of those mutual beliefs, interests, shared grown-up experiences together, that aren’t accompanied by the baggage of family.

Falsified Documents

Potamus has been around for almost a year, and I have yet to send away for his birth certificate. I know that I need to, and the paperwork really isn’t THAT burdensome, but part of me feels so much hesitation to do it. In some ways I am scared to get a copy of his birth certificate and to see mine and Boof’s name on it, listed as mother & father. In even stranger ways, I’m worried that I will get a copy and NOT see our names listed on it.

My emotional reaction to something so simple as a birth certificate stems from my very own birth certificate. Because, my birth certificate is fake. Well, amended at least. For most people, their birth certificates are an accurate reflection of their birth story. There are lines for mother/father, time of birth, attending doctor, hospital the birth happened in, etc. But, for me,the birth certificate that I am allowed to have is not a historical document. It is a government falsified document that was created to reflect a storyline from years ago that perpetuate the idea of adoption being ‘as if born to’ the adoptive parents. So, instead of reflecting what actually happened (being delivered from Mama E’s body), it lists Mama L and Daddy B as my parents.

“But, they are your parents”, is an argument that I get from the general public. Yes, they are my parents. But they are my adoptive parents. They have adoption decree that is a legal piece of paperwork showing that they are my parents. Their names on my birth certificate is a government way of trying to change the storyline. My mom did not give birth to me, she is not even there in the hospital when I was born, so why is she listed as such? Has our country gone the ways of 1984 and begun to re-write history? Because, no matter how many times you write it, or the government writes it, my mother did not carry me in her body, nor did she expell me from her body in a birthing process. Maybe I “grew in her heart,” but this is a birth certificate we’re talking about.

But my historical record DOES exist.  The original one, with Mama E and Daddy J’s name on it. My birth name. The factual events of my birth story listed.

And I can’t order it.

I can’t see it, by government law. Even though I am an adult, I cannot order my own original birth certificate. Not even a copy, one that couldn’t be used for anything.

But you know who COULD order a copy of this historical document? Mama E or Daddy J. Even though I am an adult, I have to have my biological parents order my birth certificate for me.

In that way, I am still considered a child under the government’s laws, which is why I have been working to get the law changed. Because, when Potamus is grown, he will be able to order a copy of his birth certificate, so why can’t I?

Potamus, the day he we was born, from my body 🙂 (he looks huge, but he was only 7lbs!)

Moses, the ultimate adoptee…right?

When Christians talk to me about adoption, they often cite Moses as the ultimate example of how awesome adoption is. I am always…shocked…by this line of reasoning, because I have read the Moses story a lot, and have yet to figure out how it fits with our modern day version of adoption.

So let’s recap the story, shall we?

Evil Egyptian Pharoah decides to kill all Israelite baby boys. Moses is born, but instead of being killed, his loving mama puts him a basket and floats him on the river. An ancient “safe haven hospital” drop-box, if you will. But loving mama doesn’t just leave him there to die, no, she has his older sister Miriam hide in the bushes and make sure he is okay. Because, after all, they dropped him off at what appears to be a strategic location and not the Egyptian-dumpster.

Evil pharoah’s lovely princess daughter went to the river to bathe and finds a helpless baby floating there, and takes compassion on it. Note this princess wasn’t looking for a baby, she just happened upon it (another point against modern adoption as a service to provide babies for people who want them, versus finding homes for children who need them.

Older sister Miriam sees princess with baby, approaches, and says she knows of a good wet nurse (Moses’ own loving mama) and asks the princess if she wants the services. Princess accepts because Gerber formula doesn’t exist.

Loving mama raises Moses in the home of Pharoah. Let’s say she was his wet nurse for the average weaning of 4-6 years. Maybe Moses wasn’t allowed to call her mama, but I am guessing he knew, even if he had to keep it secret. He knew he was in Israelite, which is shown later in the story.

At some point loving mama probably had to be separated from Moses as he was weaned and she couldn’t out herself to the Pharoah as his mother. Moses grows up, sees Pharoah treat “his people” poorly as slaves and ends up killing one of his adoptive clan people an Egyptian) and then hightails it out of town. He then hears from God Almighty and goes back, to rescue the Israelites…his biological family.

Plagues ensue, he helps curse his adoptive family and death comes to firstborns on the land in retribution for what the Egyptians did to the Israelites. He is reunited with his biological family and leads them to safety. Kinda the ultimate adoption-reunion story, and could be made into a Lifetime Movie.

And kind of a modern-day-adoption nightmare. I mean, how well would it go over in today’s media for an adopted kid to kill their adoptive family and then go back and live with their biological relatives as a hero?

So, perhaps, Moses should stop being held up as the gold standard for modern adoption.

Thoughts?

Self Soothing

I am always surprised at the genetic component to my relationship with Potamus. It’s sometimes hard to believe that he is the first biological relative I’ve known from the beginning, and I sometimes marvel at how much he is like me, or like Boof, in mannerisms and patterns.

For example, it’s something that I noticed about two weeks ago, but didn’t think much of it until tonight. I was driving to dinner with my mother-in-law, and Potamus was SUPER tired. He had a short car-nap on the way to her place and wasn’t necessarily out of sorts, but definitely needed to get some shut-eye. We’re driving along and she said to me, “what is that noise? is he scratching something?” Without thinking, I answered, “no, he’s self-soothing. he’s rubbing his foot against the car-seat fabric. It’s something he does when he’s tired. It’s something I’ve done since I was a kid, too. Usually my left foot.”

Sure enough, I turned around and there he was, heavy-eyed, mindlessly rubbing that foot back and forth against the car-seat.

She looked at me and said, “huh, isn’t that neat. Genetics sure are amazing.”

And they are. While nurture is also amazing, it’s fun for me to experience parts of Potamus that aren’t consciously mirroring things he sees Boof or I do. Somehow he got the left-foot-rubbing-fabring-to-sleep gene from me.