The Memory Keeper’s Son

Kristen Howerton — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:00:55 +0000

I just looked at my oldest child’s baby book for the first time since we finalized his adoption. I hadn’t really thought about looking at it – one of the kids just pulled it off the bookshelf and plopped it in my lap. As I sat there flipping the pages, I was flooded with memories of assembling it. Making a baby book is something that should be a labor of love for a mom, especially a first-time mom. Choosing memories for a baby book should be a beautiful thing. But for me, compiling this book was an EXTREMELY painful process. In fact, I could barely finish it, and it took over a year to complete, because I had to walk away from it so many times.

There was so much uncertainty about my son Jafta’s adoption, because he was placed with us as a fost-adopt placement at six months of age. His birthmother won an appeal and attempted to reunify for several years, until the court terminated her rights. It was three years of uncertainty about this child I dearly loved. The baby book, to me, seemed like a huge symbol of the potential loss. As I chose the pictures, I couldn’t help but think about his future. I would wonder what I would do with the baby book if he was taken from us. Would I send it with him? Would I keep it? If I gave it to his birthmom, would she even keep it? If I kept it, would I ever be able to look at it again? Every time I tried to work on this book, these thoughts would fill my head.

Making his baby book also brought up other fears. What if he never remembered us? What if all of these memories I had with this child were never known to him? Who would he become apart from our loving family, and what would that separation do to him? It was even painful looking at family portraits back then. The questions about Jafta’s future lasted well into India’s first year. I used to wonder if, someday, India would look at these pictures and not recognize or remember the boy sitting next to her. I even had the awful thought, during those years, that perhaps we should be taking seperate family portraits without him, just in case. So we would not have a three-year string of photos that had to be stored away in case he wasn’t a permanent member of our family. What a terrible thought for a mom to have.

Looking at his baby book brought back all of these memories for me, and I felt a huge sense of grief for the joys of first-time motherhood I missed out on, for the magnitude of stress I lived under when Jafta was a baby. I found myself sobbing as I thought of the tightness in my chest I felt making that book. But then, I felt relief. I allowed myself to look at all the pictures in a new light. I gazed at the family photos as just a happy, PERMANENT family. I allowed myself to feel grateful that I will be the keeper of this baby book. I will be the one who adds to this catalog of memories. I will be the one who shows embarrassing baby photos to high school sweethearts. I will be the mother watching these photos in a wedding slide show.

I am glad that I will be the memory keeper for Jafta’s life. I am humbly grateful that his memories will be made with me.

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Feeling Guilt as an Adoptive Parent

Michelle — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:00:42 +0000

Adoption entered our lives in a very personal way five years ago this month. Five years ago, my husband and I walked out of our RE’s office for the last time. He had handed us a huge packet of information, outlining the procedures he recommended to give us the best chance at reproducing. We had talked with him for a good long while, and when we left, I knew we weren’t going to return. I knew we weren’t going down that road.

After we knew what we weren’t going to do, we explored what we were going to do. We had always planned on children in our marriage, we just now needed to figure out how that was going to happen. When we attended the informational session for the agency we eventually worked through, things felt right. As we filled out paper work and prepared for our home study, I did have doubts, and I did feel, for lack of a better word, guilt.

Guilt? Guilt in becoming a parent?

I remember as we were filling out a particular form, the form that states what you are willing to consider in a match—alcohol use by mother, alcohol use by father, cases of rape, cases of incest, etc. As we were filling this form out, I was hit with a realization—we were only going to become parents because something bad was happening somewhere in the world. Something bad was happening either before, during or after the conception of a child. Something so bad that the mother carrying this child didn’t feel like she could parent said child. Oh my-what were we getting ourselves into?!?! I started to feel this guilt-why was I equipped with the desire and the resources to parent, and not someone else? Why did I think I was so privileged as to “pick” my child? Just who did I think I was, anyway?

And then, as always, my husband talked me off the edge. Those babies? Are going to be born whether we are home studied approved or not. Those mothers? Some of them will place for adoption whether we are home studied approved or not. Those bad things happening? Bad things have happened since the beginning of time. We had the intense desire and the ability to parent a child. Surely that could counterbalance some of the bad things in this world.

So we filled out that form, and countless others. And in a few months time, we were matched, and eventually had a successful placement. We were matched with an expectant couple whose journey in adoption started at almost the same time as ours. And now we are in this journey together.

Michelle is the adoptive mama to two children. She writes about their everyday adventures at Gotchababy.

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The Memory Keeper’s Son

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