Aftershocks

Ev woke up this morning and made a mad scramble for my bed, she climbed in and settled in for a longish, quiet cuddle. She has told me about a hundred times today that she loves me. This happens after we have big emotional talks about her days in China alone and her Birth Mother. I never quiet know if she is trying to reassure me or herself  but I take the hugs and snuggles where I can and try to let the day go on. You see my girl does not like this sort of thing. There isn't a sentimental bone in her little body. That's not to say that she is unfeeling or that she doesn't feel things deeply, she is a very deep child, it's just that she is very practical and does not allow sentiment to govern her.

I, however, am a screaming hot mess today. My hands are shaking, I am nervous, I can't get my mind settled. I just keep reviewing our talk and wondering if I said the right things, if I held her enough, was it ok that she saw me cry, will she ever want to talk about this again...

I think the thing that makes me the most sad is that even though her pain and grief are profound, even though we will most likely need to help her with this for her whole life- she is not the only child that deals with the pain of abandonment. We are not the only adoptive parents to have to sit there and state awful facts and watch them strike the heart of the very children we want so desperately to protect. There are countless numbers of children out in the world that face abandonment.

I also keep thinking about how an abandoned child must build a "relationship" with the birth family. I think that because we will never know the ONE truth that led to Evelyn eventually coming  home with us, she must learn about ALL of the stories and possibilities and process each one as if that is the truth. She must work though these things so they will not hold her back, so that she can get to the other side.

Leslie and I believe that it's important to be honest with her, that it would be damaging to embellish the story, to assume things about her Birth Mother's life and state of mind. I will never be that woman and so, I will never be able to say why she did what she did. I will never get the chance to meet her and ask. I have to look at China and the possibilities of her life facts and make deductions. And so must Evelyn. And I think the key to healing is allowing our children access to those possibilities so they may work through the emotions that go along with them.

I have had to go on my own emotional journey with the Birth Mothers of my children. I have had to face my own anger and grief, my own incredulity at a system that allows this sort of thing to happen to families. I have gone from denial, to anger, to sadness, to a very deep and mournful respect and love for these women. And I must be ready to help my children go through this very same journey. The difference is that it didn't happen to me- so whatever I feel or have felt pales in comparison to what they must feel.

I have also been thinking about the nature of love. How a mother's love for her children may change and evolve. I have to look at how a child sees things only through their very own hearts. I have to believe that there was love for them as they lay in the wombs of their birth mothers because THEY need to believe that. I can't SAY your birth mother loved you, but I can believe it in my heart and have respect for it and my children will see that. I will, one day soon I think, have to talk with Ev about love and how it can change and be different. And that scares me because I am not good at this.

Some days I long for the simplicity of "you grew in my tummy". Not for me- but for them. But then, we wouldn't be the family that we are.