One Woman Army

Where lies the child?

For some reason this has been swirling around in my head as of late, and it keeps rising in my life as a symbol in various places.

I know how adoption is a wonderful thing for many people – I am absolutely fully pro-choice, and that for me means supporting women in whatever she chooses to do – whether it be giving up a child for adoption, having an abortion (clinical or self-medicated), or keeping a baby. It is HER CHOICE, whatever it may be.

Yet for myself, I can’t imagine that I might ever adopt a child as I have such mixed feelings surrounding it. It stems from my mother’s own adoption, and her sisters as well. My grandparents are the most amazing people I know. Summers at their home in rural British Columbia are filled with memories of my grandfather strumming his guitar in the twilight while singing in his lovely mumble and whisper. Or my grandmother, gone now, buying me Harlequin romance novels, playing puzzles and solitaire with me, and teaching me about how to treat yeast infections.

My mother’s multiple issues with adoption had so much more to do with her birth parents than with her adoptive parents – but it was something that caused her turmoil her whole life and so that is why my mixed feelings.

The other day I read a lovely novel by Joanna Trollope talking about adoption issues; then tonight finally watched Grey’s Anatomy where Izzie encountered her own given-away child. I found myself sitting there with tears streaming down my face uncontrollably and I wondered if her reaction was ever mirrored in my mother’s own birth mother.

So many mixed feelings and thoughts.