Katherine Heigl Doesn't Want "My Own Children"

. . . so of course she's adopting from Korea:

RadarOnline, which first broke the news of Heigl's impending adoption, said it had been in the works for about six months. Heigl and Kelley were married in December 2007.

But the idea of adopting was planted long ago. The "Grey's Anatomy" star told USA Today two years ago that it was "always planned."

"I'm done with the whole idea of having my own children," Heigl told the newspaper.

Sigh. Typical rookie mistake of a prospective adoptive parent, using "my own" as a substitute for "biological." I would have expected a bit better of Katherin Heigl, though -- she has a sister adopted from Korea.

I'm not really the "adoption language" police, despite this post! This is just symptomatic of a particular way of thinking about adoption.

Take Out?!

I was looking around at a Q&A website for moms, Mamapedia, and came across a question asking if, when and how to tell a child she's adopted. Naturally, I was interested, and looked at the suggestions in the comments. One comment was from an adoptive mom, and she included this:

BTW, my first two sons are biologically mine. I like to say that we made the first two from scratch and did take out on the third!

I have to say, most of these jokes about adopted children should really be avoided. Yes, I know, most parents don't mean anything by it, they're just trying to be funny. And sometimes APs feel that it's OK for them to joke about it, but bad when anyone else does it.

Like the jokes that might work for biological kids being raised by their biological parents, but don't work for adopted kids. Have you ever had someone say admiringly of your adopted child, "She's a keeper?" Umm, actually, she's wasn't a "keeper" for her birth family. And maybe she worries that she's not a keeper for THIS family, too. So maybe that's not so funny, either.

I don't think anyone would ever call me humorless, and I am capable of joking about ANYTHING, even things I shouldn't joke about (ask my Criminal Law students!). But jokes, quips, one-liners about adoption leave me cold. The authors of The Psychology of Adoption seem to agree with me:

In our family, adoption was a joke. We older cousins would tease the younger ones by pretending to let slip the fact that they were adopted. In reality, no one was; it was simply a way of saying, “You’re different; you’ll never fit in.” We inherited the joke from our mothers, who have been recycling it on their baby sister for nearly 60 years. Since I have come to know adoptive families, the humor has been lost on me.

The home-made v. take-out quip is also a way to say "you're different." And here we're not talking to a child who isn't really adopted, but to one who IS.

I think it's part of human nature that once we recognize difference, we need to figure out what that difference means, and that means ranking it. Is being home-made better? Or is take-out better? Do you think that child is wondering?

And click here to read one adult adoptee's reaction to jokes about adoption.

Mei Magazine Addresses Infertility

In a helpful confluence of topics, the summer issue of Mei Magazine addressed adoption and infertility in their usual "Amanda's Place" column. The Amanda of "Amanda's Place" is Dr. Amanda L. Baden, transracial adoptee and psychologist.

I'm just going to put the briefest excerpt and encourage everyone to subscribe to Mei Magazine!

Dear Amanda,

I wonder sometimes if my mom wishes she could have been pregnant instead of adopting. . . . It isn't a secret that she and my dad tried to have children before going to China. . . .

It's kind of like I was my mom's "second choice" at how to have a child. . . .

Lily, aka: "First Runner Up"

Dear Lily.

Your question is challenging and insightful. As I thought about how I wanted to answer it, I realized that I couldn't just reassure you that your parents, or any other adopted child's parents, definitely chose to adopt as their "first choice. . . . ." I would even guess that lots of kids, like you, have realized that adoption may sometimes be seen as "second best" to having a child by birth and that can feel pretty lousy.

* * *

Feeling like you might be second choice can be pretty tough for lots of reasons, but looking at it as you described might not tell the whole story. . . . [E]ven if your mom wanted to have a baby by birth, that doesn't automatically mean she did not also want to adopt. That is, for women, wanting to give birth and wanting to be mom however that happens can both be strong desires.

* * *

While adoption may not have been many adoptive parents' first choice, I think you'd have a hard time finding any adoptive parents who would want to give up that adopted child for the chance to have a child by birth. Once you become a family, that bond is as strong as any other.

One of the best things about Mei Magazine, in my opinion, is that they don't sugar-coat the hard parts of adoption while still presenting a fun and upbeat magazine for children adopted from China. Subscribe to read the rest of Lily's question and Amanda's answer!

Infertility and Adoption Talk

A friend sent me the link to a May 2008 post at Anti-Adoption blog. The post discussed a comment from a blog reader who said, in part, "many, many infertile couples have NO desire at all to adopt. For us, adoption would only be a VERY LAST RESORT." (It's unclear whether the commenter is speaking as an adoptive parent).

Many adoptive parents commented most ably to say this person did not speak for them. What interested me the most, though, were the comments from adoptees who felt as they were growing up that they were their parents' "last resort" or "second choice:"

What adoptees know, what we grow up knowing deep in our hearts, the painful truth in that we ARE THE SECOND CHOICE. No matter how loved and cherished and valued we are in our adoptive homes, we weren’t the number one option…we were the consolation after fertility failed, after plan A fell through, after other options went bust.

It can be really hard for some adoptees to forget that for many of us, we were not our (adoptive) parents’ first choice. Because ALL THE LOVE IN THE WORLD can’t change the facts of how and why I came into my current family… and despite all the love in the world, there are still many days when I can’t help but feel like one big consolation prize.

I WAS second best. I WAS the last resort. I wouldn’t have come to them had their fertility treatments worked, had they been sucessful at having children of their own. As much as my amother tells me that she loves me, and has embraced me for my differences, as much as I love her, this isn’t something that love heals. This is my reality.

Infertility was not an issue for me; I adopted because I was single. I considered donor insemination for a short time, but really didn't think passing on my genetic blueprint would be doing the world or the child any favors! So we have the why-don't-I-have-a-daddy issue instead of the infertility issue.

I'm not looking to be inflammatory, or to suggest that adoption after infertility is in fact a "last resort" or "second best," or that any adoptive parent feels that way. But I've read enough to know that some adult adoptees feel that way. So, in the tradition of "Adoption Talk," I'd like some help from those who have discussed these issues with your kids. For those who did come to adoption after infertility, do you talk about it with your kids? How do you talk about it? At what age has your child asked questions about this? If you haven't talked about it, have you thought about how you will explain it? Please post in the comments, to build a reservoir of advice for those following in your shoes!

The nature and quality of love in adoptive families

I’ve been brooding for a couple of week about a conversation I had with another adoptive mom. She had two hard questions for me.

1) “Do you think an adopted child can love the adoptive mom like a biological child can?”

2) “If you had known then what you know now about pain, loss, primal wound, ‘angry’ adoptees, yearning for birth parents, etc., would you have adopted?”

I’ll address the first question now, and blog about the second one later. These are tough questions, and I guess I’m still brooding because I don’t think I did a very good job of answering them in talking to my friend. I’d really appreciate comments, since she reads the blog, and y’all are bound to do a better job than I did!

That first question is a real turn-around of the question I’m more accustomed to hear people ask -- whether PARENTS can love an adopted child as much as/the same way as a biological child. But can an adopted child feel the same love for the mother as a biological child can? Ah, those metaphysical questions about the nature and quality of love!

First of all, I want to clarify the question my friend asked. She was NOT asking whether an adopted child can love the adoptive parents like she loves her biological parents. That’s not the comparison she was seeking to explore, because while a child might love birth parents she doesn’t know, hasn’t met, hasn’t lived with, doesn’t have a history with, that’s very different from the relationship of biological children who live for a lifetime with biological parents. She was making another comparison – let’s suppose a 5-year-old who has lived for the past 5 years with the mother who gave her birth, and another 5-year-old who has lived for the past 5 years with an adoptive mom who did not give birth to her. Is the love the same?

My friend has been reading Nancy Verrier’s Primal Wound, a notoriously difficult read for adoptive parents. Verrier talks about the bond between mother and child, built in the womb, as “primal, mystical, mysterious, and everlasting.” And she argues that breaking this bond is the source of the primal wound. From this she argues that the adoptive mom and adoptive child can never have this magical, mystical bond (of course not, as a definitional matter, if you define the bond as something that starts in utero!).

Verrier writes: “I don’t believe it is possible to sever the tie with the biological mother and replace her with another primary caregiver, no matter how warm, caring, and motivated she may be, without psychological consequences for the child (and the mother). An infant or child can certainly attach to another caregiver, but the quality of that attachment may be different from that with the first mother, and bonding may be difficult or, as many adoptees have told me, impossible.” She goes on to say, “I believe it would be safe to say that most adopted children form attachments to their adoptive mothers. . . . Bonding, on the other hand, may not be so easily achieved. It implies a profound connection, which is experienced at all levels of human awareness.” At a later point, in summarizing her conclusions, Verrier warns, “We know that love is good for children, but in the case of adopted children, parents need to be realistic in their expectations of the adoptee’s ability to accept love freely or to return it.”

Is it any wonder that my friend asked whether there can be the same love between adoptive parents and the child they raise as there is between biological parents and the child they raise?

I think there’s a lot of value in Verrier’s book. But I think she isn’t terribly nuanced. She advances her premise as if it affects ALL adoptees in the same way and to the most EXTREME degree possible. I don’t think I’m in adoptive-parent-denial to say that different adoptees feel the loss of their birth parents in different ways! And while there might well be a “primal wound,” not all wounds are mortal as she might be read to suggest.

I know that the pain and loss and yearning exist and are real – I’ve seen Zoe experiencing it. I don’t know if it’s a “memory” of her abandonment at one day old, or a growing realization of her abandonment as she understands that she had to lose her first family to gain her current family. I’m also not sure whether it matters, so long as I acknowledge the loss as she experiences it.

And I believe that my kids love me, just like I love them. I don’t know if it’s the same or different from the love that starts with a biological link, but I know it is love and it’s enough. I think love is not a biological imperative, but a mutual, reciprocal process of giving and receiving care. Maybe the analogy is to an arranged marriage – you grow into love rather than fall into love?

Even Verrier isn’t quite as hopeless as it might first seem. In the preface, she talks about her adopted daughter and their relationship. She concludes, “Are we bonded? I don’t think that I would be able to write this work if we were not.” So she acknowledges the existence of that primal, mystical, mysterious, and everlasting bond between mother and child in her relationship, while also acknowledging that she can never take the place of her daughter’s birth mother.

I’ve never wanted to “take the place of” my children’s birth mothers. We each have a place in their lives, and those places needn’t be the same. I wouldn’t want to erase the bond they have with their birth mothers – why would I? I have the better part of the deal, since I get to see them every day, watch them grow and develop, enjoy their hugs and kisses, and listen to their “I love you’s.”

So how do you answer the the question? Can an adopted child love the adoptive mom like a biological child can?

China adoptee needs bone marrow transplant

Every time I hear a story like this, it strikes a chord of fear. When you have no information about birth family, no way to contact them, you have to worry about what would happen if your child needed a transplant. It's impossible not to personalize the story and feel overwhelming sympathy. Lydia's story also offers hope of finding birth family in China.

Five-year-old Lydia has leukemia and her American adoptive parents are looking for her biological family in China for a bone marrow transplant to save her life:

''We all knew that the chances of getting hit by lightning were probably greater,'' Mark said. ''It would be very unlikely for a child and a birth family to reconnect,'' Monica agreed. ''Very unlikely. Pretty much everyone said, 'It will never happen.'''

Everyone, it seems, except for one doctor-turned-detective at Akron Children's Hospital, who just happened to be from the same Chinese province as Lydia. Dr. Xiaxin Li, the new director of the bone-marrow transplant program at Akron Children's, was determined to find Lydia's birth family back in his homeland — and, in the process, to find a possible cure for his young patient.

''If they're a local family,'' he told Lydia's parents, ''they'll come forward.''

And now it appears possible that some of them might soon be coming to America to save her.

Read more here.

P.S. Here's a link to the family's blog.

Bio Kids and Adopted Kids in the Family

A reader asks me to post her dilemma to the blog in the hopes of getting suggestions and advice:

I have a lovely almost 8 year old girl adopted from China. I have an 8 month old little cutie, biological boy. I have dark hair and eyes, as does my daughter. My son has traits of my father (the grandfather) and my husband - light hair/blue yes. The recurring question is "WOW, he looks JUST LIKE your husband." In front of my daughter, of course. Now, having read numerous books/blogs from adoptees on the insensitivity of others' comments - I give my answer in a relaxed manner as I ponder. Lately it has been in the form of a compliment for my baby boy:

Inquirer: "OH MY GOD! HE LOOKS JUST LIKE YOUR HUSBAND!"

Me: "Yes, he is cute, isn't he?" (But that's not enough info for them.)

Inquirer: "Oh but can't you see it? (voice gets dramatic.) He is a carbon COPY of your husband!"

Me: "Oh, he IS adorable." (puzzled look, as if I don't hear what they are saying. I
can almost see their thoughts clicking that I lost a few neurons in pregnancy....)

Here's another one:

Me: "The guys in our family have blue eyes, the girls in our family have brown eyes."

Here's one I have thought but didn't use:

Me: Turns the other way and has a different conversation with someone else. Problem is, sometimes we aren't in a crowd!

Then I think - get real !! My daughter is much more observant than I. What makes me think that she won't catch on to my own shenanigans in time?

OK, do I just agree? Or do I tell them the truth - his face is a carbon copy of mine, it's just that they only see the coloring of the child? It's neither here nor there to me. We told our extended families before I delivered that we were going to remove the genetic focus from our family. Sure, heredity is a lovely thing and I am not minimizing it. Our daughter came to us from a larger tribe than our own. But, it's the "insensitivity" of others as it relates to genetic conversations. They aren't being mean, and I am sure I was one of those folks before I adopted. So, how do I answer?

I hope we can offer tons of suggestions to help out this mom! And if anyone else has questions you'd like me to post to the readership, I'd be happy to do so.

Article about families with caucasian birth children, adopted children of color

My Google News Alert just popped up another interesting newspaper article: Combining Colors: Blending Race and Biology is a Balancing Act for Parents. What it has to say about adoptive parenting and transracial adoption seems to me to apply whether or not there are biological children in the mix. But I bet things get much harder with "blended families." Would love to hear more about it from those who are saying been there, done that.

A few key paragraphs from the article, but click on "Combining Colors" above to read the whole thing:

But questions of identity can nag, even into adulthood.

John Raible and Lisa Gordon are grown-ups now, both raised by parents of a different race. With their “born-to” siblings, they’re part of a blend created through biology and transracial adoption.

“Even in adulthood, the question lingers, ‘Where do we fit in?’ ” said Raible, who is biracial and was raised by white parents in a predominantly white environment, in the documentary “Struggle for Identity.”

Raible, a transracial adoption researcher and multicultural educator — and himself the dad of two black sons — focused on the issue for his dissertation. He concluded after in-depth interviews with a dozen families that they “can minimize race and try to remain safe, oblivious and colorblind, or they can embrace racial and cultural differences and educate themselves about, and eventually take up in a principled way, anti-racism and multiculturalism.”

Gordon, 26, grew up in Fairport, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester. Her parents adopted her from South Korea at age six months after her sister Megan was born.

“It was a very cookie cutter, suburban white town,” Gordon said. “I was always very much a Twinkie, yellow on the outside and white through and through. I do remember feeling different and my sister thinking a lot of the time, ‘People don’t know we’re sisters. They think we’re friends.’ Today people ask me, ‘What are you?’ and I’m, like, ‘What do you mean what am I?’ It takes me a while to figure out what they’re talking about.”

* * *

Gordon advises families that are blended like hers to “be as open as possible. Really talk things through” when issues arise.

* * *

Experts urge parents to be prepared for the journey.

“The old school is, ‘I will adopt my child and keep going just like we gave birth,”’ said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and father of two adopted children. “Well, that’s not the case. It’s right there whether you as a parent feel like dealing with it or not. You have a big job to do. It requires more education for the parent, and in a sense more parenting.”