Saturday, November 26, 2005

More birthfamily musings

As I was giving my son his usual nighttime routine - hugs, go get water, drink water, toss cup into trash for 2 points, more hugs - he wanted to know if his birth parents thought about him.

"I know you're never far from your birth mom's thoughts, kiddo, and I know she's not far from yours. Plenty of room to love all your moms (including the transitional foster mom before he joined us.)

"How old would she be now?"

"Around 30 or so."

"She still couldn't raise me?"

"No, honey. She was a young, scared single woman when she had you. Korea makes it very hard for unmarried moms to raise their babies. But she'll always be a mom to you because you carry a piece of her inside you always. But I'm the lucky mom because I got to raise you and watch you grow every day. When we visit Korea in a few years we'll check out your file and see what else we can find out."

"We won't know Korean."

"We'll get a translator to help us."

-- I focused on his birthmom because we have more information. At this point, I'm not sure if birthdad ever knew about the pregnancy. More and more it looks like many time the adoptive parents get a sanitized version of the family history; the harder stuff remains in the file. At age 8 I'm not ready to reveal that part of "I don't know" regarding birth dad.

But I know for sure that no woman who ever gives birth ever stops thinking about her baby. I always want to be honest in the information I have and what my best guesses are, just delivered in an age-appropriate fashion.

During teacher conference, she remarked how relaxed and comfortable my son is in his own skin. Sociable and helpful, friendly and sensitive to others -- she never would have know he was the new boy in school. She also noted his insatiable need to know about people - how they were when children, their favorite shows, foods, etc.

There's no question this "need to know" is reflected in his own musings about who he is.

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