Thinking About the Birthmother
By Anonymous

I've just finished reading the article in the Spring 2000 Alliance Family News, titled "In Her Own Words: A Birthmother's Perspective." This was one birthmother's account of placing her newborn son for adoption. This is a perspective adoptive parents so much need to hear, as heartbreaking as it is.

My oldest daughter will be four in July. She was born in Ecuador, and my husband and I adopted her when she was an infant. We know almost nothing about her birthparents, the people who gave her life. Those people are an integral part of her story, and she loves to hear that story. She also loves her little sister's story, the story of how that sister was born to us. She recognizes that these two stories are very different from each other - except the part where "Mommy and Daddy were so happy to have their little girl and loved her with all of their hearts."

My daughter has brought nothing but joy to my life. But my happiness is shadowed by a sadness that I am certain awaits her when she is older and more cognizant. I am the parent of a child adopted from overseas, a child who's biological parentage is and is likely to remain a mystery. The sadness she may feel some-day sneaks up on me already as I tell her and her sis-ter their stories. There is a blank space in her story where there is no such space in her sister's story. That space is not empty, but we can't see what's there. She has a birth family: a mother and a father, grandparents, cousins, maybe siblings. But no amount of looking is likely to illuminate that space for my daughter. I have started trying to come up with a composite story that is probably true about my daughter's birthparents and about other children adopted from poor, developing countries. I have yet to share any of these possible scenarios with my daughter because I am not comfortable with the extent of my knowledge about the situation of the average person in Ecuador, and I am not yet comfortable with the idea of presenting my daughter with mere possibilities. Fortunately she doesn't need the details yet, and I have some time to work on them. I sometimes find myself feeling a little envious of the parents who adopted girls from China. While each birth family's situation is unique, China's "one child policy" provides a heartbreaking shorthand explanation for so many infant girls becoming avail- able for adoption in that country. This policy makes possible a book like "When you were Born in China" - one book that works for many of the families adopting children from China.

When I think about my daughter's birth family and try to prepare for the "why" question that is sure to come, the explanation I always foresee myself giving is simply poverty. The birth mother who wrote for AFC's spring newsletter brought me back to that explanation too. It seems to be a common, if not universal, factor in birthparents' decisions. In Ecuador there is no large, thriving middle class, and precious few people there are wealthy. Chances are pretty good that my daughter's birthparents were poor. If they had not been poor, maybe they would have made the decision to parent our daughter. Couple poverty with issues of abortion access, and the unacceptability of out of wedlock births in many poor, developing countries, and it is clear that many women around the world have few options when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. I live with the knowledge that I have the joy of parenting and loving this wonderful child because of the misfortune of her birthparents. It can be an agonizing dilemma: if the problem of world poverty had been solved five years ago, I might not have my daughter. If I had the power to turn back time and end the hunger and suffering caused by world poverty, knowing I would lose my daughter, would I do it? Could I do it?

I avoid thinking about this and focus on details and unanswerable questions. I wonder at what point in her pregnancy my daughter's birthmother made the decision not to parent her child. Was it something she knew she would do from the moment she discovered her pregnancy? Was it a decision made only after her baby, my daughter, was born? Was the birth father involved in the decision? I wonder if they are together now, if they were ever together. I wonder about any other siblings my daughter may have.

But I also focus on the questions to which I know the answers. These comfort me. For example, I know, because I am a parent, that my daughter's birthmother loves her. I know that she struggled over the decision, no matter when or how it was made. I know she remembers and thinks about her daughter. Even if she never looked into her baby's beautiful eyes, she remembers the child she carried. These are the things I can tell my daughter with complete confidence. I hope they comfort her too.

Of course, I find myself praying that one day searches by international adoptees will be easier, and will present greater likelihood of success. I hope that circumstances in countries like Ecuador change so that birthparents are freer to identify themselves as such and open the process to search. In any case, we will be sure my daughter knows that someday she may s earch, as long as she understands that searching does not always mean finding.

For me, right now, almost as strong as my wish that someday my daughter will be able to find her birthmother, is my longing to thank her. But we can't even do that. I've heard some adoptive parents say that they think a lot about their children's birthmothers on their children's birthdays. I do too, because that is the one day that I can be certain she is thinking of our daughter. But I think of her almost every day, and I believe her birthmother thinks of my daughter, her baby, almost every day too. Every day I send a thank you south. A thank you, and an apology. I am so sorry for whatever it was that put you in the position you found yourself in almost four years ago. But please don't ask me if I would have changed it if I could, because I fear my answer will not be noble. You are in my heart, and I will do everything I can to insure you are in my daughter's - our daughter's - as well.

I am deeply grateful to the birthmother who wrote in the spring newsletter. Every birthmother's situation is different. Every birthmother's story is the same. As I read and re read the story in the Alliance for Children newsletter, I found myself shifting the details. I imagine that it is a young mestizo woman telling her tale. She has dark brown eyes, light brown skin and straight black hair falling down her back in a single braid. She looks like my daughter. She looks like her daughter. She cries softly as she recites her story. I am not stealing the story of the birthmother who wrote. I'm just borrowing it, because it is all I have.