Meant to Be

The chances of one single ancestor of yours not dying while growing up is one in several billion . . . you have been a millimeter from death billions of times, Hans Thomas . . . Each time an arrow has rained through the air, your chances of being born have been reduced to the minimum.  But here you are, sitting talking to me, Hans Thomas!

. . .

What about the unlucky ones?

They don't exist!  They were never born.

The Solitaire Mystery, Jostein Gaarder

There are reasons to choose open adoption, and then there are your reasons, as the person choosing it.  There are pros and cons, and then there is what makes you feel good about it, what makes it feel right, a line of thinking that doesn't fall into the objective lists we make as we come to a decision.  I first read the quote above when I was 17 years old.  Earlier that same year, a boy at school, a casual friend, committed suicide.  When I read those lines, the real tragedy of his death came to me.  So much has come together in each of us, so much has been at stake, so many have fallen by the wayside or never existed to rise or fall at all.  How could anyone not feel special just for existing?  I recognize that there are mediating circumstances in the reality that belongs to each of us that can lead a person to end his own life, but I never fail to return to this passage where a father teaches his son how miraculous each of them really is.

What does all that have to do with adoption?  To connect the dots, I have to go back even further than reading Gaarder's book to those afternoon talk shows that have given so many of us most, if not all, of what we know about adoption.  As I listened to the stories of adopted children and birth parents, I wondered how each of their lives might have been different if the dice had not come up with adoption.  I have read stories of both sides, adoptees and birth parents who feel that life would have been either significantly better or worse had adoption made only a cameo in their lives rather than taking center stage.

It's no wonder they imagine.  I wonder if adoptive parents ever imagine those things.  I hear all the time things like "This child was meant to be ours" and the like.  Was he?  For those of the religious persuasion, this is where faith conveniently swoops in to point out that whatever happens, good, bad and neutral, is part of a larger plan.  In this way, I imagine lots of adoptive parents learn to feel entitled to their adopted children.  It can never be forgotten that this child was born to someone else, that she could also have raised this child, that she will hurt as a result of your joy.

For those of us who don't adhere to the greater power story (and I know I'm in the minority here), how is it that we find ourselves with this child?  In the MauryMontelSallyJessy story, a couple signed up to become adoptive parents.  They may or may not have been able to specify certain things about the child they desired, like health, gender and race.  They were put on a list.  We (and they) can only assume the governor of that list did things the way he should and offered each available child to the next waiting couple with matching criteria.  Eventually, our couple's turn came and they got their baby.  Days, weeks, months later, we heard that familiar refrain "It was meant to be."

Ironically, this is also the refrain we sing when our attempts to have a family don't work.

Do they ever imagine, though, who the next child was?  Or the previous one?  What if the couple just ahead of them in line had dropped out a month prior?  What if a couple who decided never to start the process had done so, a year ahead of them?

Children raised in their birth families have the advantage of knowing that no one else could have created them as they are.  If they had a different mother or father, they would be a different person.  It's a false sense of security (or, rather, a false sense of being made purposefully.)  Indeed, if they had been conceived but a month later or earlier, they could have been a substantially different person.  If their mother had not miscarried that earlier pregnancy, she would already have the baby she desired and not had another so soon.  Or, if that older sibling that was born had not survived to delay the arrival of the next child, that next child would have been someone different.

Then you throw into the mix the reality of not just genetics, but of individuals' life choices.

My point with the quote from The Solitaire Mystery is not that we have no purpose.  Rather, it's that each of us should feel special simply for being alive.  An additional purpose is not necessary.

For children raised in their birth families, we already feel that specialness.  For those of us creating families through adoption, knowing the heartache that goes hand in hand with realizing our dream of being parents, how do we feel that specialness ourselves and foster it in our adopted children?  For me, the traditional process of closed adoption, waiting on a list and being bestowed a random child simply doesn't make me feel that specialness.  Knowing that our child could have just as easily been the baby before or after this one doesn't make me feel like this is "meant to be."

This is where the birth parents' choice in open adoption plays such an important role for me.  In a life full of near misses and unconscious choices, a conscious choice to place a child with us makes me feel that specialness.

When Eric and I were discussing whether we would be open to adopting a child who was not white (as we both are), Eric asked me what I would say if we adopted a black child and one day in public a black adult approached me and told me I had no business raising that child.  My response was this: "This child's mother chose us.  She didn't have to choose us.  She could have raised her child herself, she could have placed her child with anyone else, but she chose us because she believes we can give her child what he needs.  I believe that, too.  Who else should have more of a say in who raises a child?"

It's not just about race, though.  It's about all of parenting.  Imagine if all parents, adoptive and biological, had to apply to become parents.  Can you imagine the worry they would feel, and the sense of entitlement when they were approved?  The agency has approved us, true, as will the social worker.  The ultimate approval, however, comes from the birth parents.  When they give their child to us, they give us the right and the permission we need to really create the family we all want.  They believe in us, so we can believe in ourselves.

Okay, okay, so that's a rosy picture to paint.  It is certainly an ideal, but since we haven't actually done this yet, the ideal and the worst case scenario are our new best friends.  "She chooses us" has become one of my mantras for this adoption.  Ultimately, it's very comforting.  It's also comforting to know that we will, ideally, have some time to get to know her as well.  We want her (and him, too) in our lives as well.  All too often, I read outrageous true stories of adoptions where things did not go well.  So often, in a desperate quest for a baby, any baby, adoptive parents do things that aren't legal or ethical.  Those parents leave a bitter taste in my mouth.  It turns the baby into an object and it's with these parents that, all joking aside, talk of "buying a baby" becomes a very real risk.  I understand the impatience adoptive parents feel, especially those who have already "waited" through infertility only to wait again.

The thing is, I don't really think it's about the baby as much as the whole family.  When a couple adopts, everyone in their family does, too.  We want to find the right birth mother.  When we meet her, when we connect with her and want to welcome her into our lives, then we'll know.  When we find her, we'll know we've found our son or daughter.

Not every birth parent is someone with whom we'll want to be best friends.  That really isn't what I envision.  The truth is that when a couple adopts, not only does everyone in their family adopt, but the baby isn't the only one being adopted.  Whether they're known or not, whether they're acknowledged or not, the birth parents become a part of our family, too.  Their presence will always be felt.  I would much rather know who they are and involve them to whatever degree we're all comfortable than to have only fantasies, good or bad, about who they might be.  They don't just give their child a new family; they don't just give us a child; they make it meant to be.  I'd like to be able to say thank you.