Choice

As I have shared we are pursuing a special needs adoption in China. On Thursday night we received the file of a beautiful little girl to review. Without getting into specifics this child’s particular condition was more than we felt we could handle and we did not accept the referral.


We declined the referral approximately 36 hours after first seeing this beautiful little girl’s picture. Not a particularly long time but enough time to imagine myself with a baby girl on each hip, mentally rearrange furniture in the “girl’s” bedroom, check to see if the double stroller was still in storage and review my calendar for estimated travel dates. Really 36 hours is enough to change an entire future-it almost was.

It occurred to me this morning as I lay in bed retracing the events of the past two days that losing a referral is heart wrenching but refusing one dredges up emotions that are far more complicated. Beyond sadness, disappointment and loss I feel guilt, shame and more than anything a sense of disloyalty as an adoptive mother.

When I adopted Nina I was pleasantly surprised how the emotions of the adoption process mirror the feelings in pregnancy. While I knew I could love a child who did not share my DNA, I hadn’t realized I could love her exactly like I love my bio kids. I know we all said we could/would but I didn’t KNOW until she was mine. At times I physically ache for her. I love her so much, she is so intrinsically part of me, there are times I simply can not reconcile that fact that she was born to another woman. She is mine and  like any good mother I would walk thru fire, lift automobiles, donate a kidney and generally go to the ends of the earth to keep her safe and healthy- exactly the same that I would do for my bio kids. But then we were faced with accepting or rejecting a special needs child and it was clear that this is where bio and adoption parenting differ; adoptive parents get to choose.

There is no doubt in my mind that if I were pregnant and gave birth to a child with the same medical condition as the child we just declined or if God forbid, Nina or the boys developed a similarly serious condition I would do everything possible to make them well and give them everything they needed for as long as they needed it. There would be no choice, none. As a mother that’s just what you do. But in adoption I don’t have to do this, I could choose to take a pass, “thanks but no thanks, I’ll just wait for a better one”. The more I think about it the more it sickens me. A mother accepts and loves and fights for her children. What happened to walking thru fire? If adopting a baby is the emotional equivalent to birthing a baby (which I do believe), than a lost referral (I am guessing) would feel much like a miscarriage. What then is a rejected referral, an abortion?

Now I am not unaware of the morbid and dramatic tone of this post and I am not even going to pretend that I’m not still mourning this child but I just can’t shake the question: How can I claim adoptive love to be the same as bio love when I am permitted the unnatural luxury of choice?

I know I am going to be OK. This too shall pass and all. Logically I am certain that we made a choice that was in the best interest of our family. I recognized my own limits and our family's needs and I believe I made a good decision based on practical, unemotional facts. I don’t think anyone would fault me on that but, I can’t avoid the reality that I did get to choose and I am far less certain of the ethical, moral and emotional consequences of this. Well perhaps that’s not entirely true; I do know the emotional consequences.