I didn't long for a baby who melted into me, who captured my hair between her soft fingers. I longed to be the type of woman who did.
It seemed as though this trait were woven into my biology as much as the fair skin and curly hair. As a child I played with dolls, but didn't fantasize about a real baby I could love, or dream of pregnancy the way some girls do. I never stuck a pillow beneath my dress to pretend I was having a baby. It scared me even then the whole idea of someone growing inside me, and having to push that little person out from between my skinny legs. The girls I played with shriveled their noses at me, then blithely offered to have the baby for me. Babies, with their hands like rose petals and their toes like creamy pebbles, were natural. My lack of maternal instinct was not.
The truth is I'd always wanted to adopt. However, I never wanted to adopt a baby. Not that I have anything against babies (I don't!). But when I spoke of adoption, the words baby, infant and birthmother were never used. I was more interested in adopting someone a bit older, a toddler or - gulp - a child.
When my husband and I eventually did adopt, we went further than that. Our daughters were 10 and 13 (almost 11 and 14, actually) when we got them from a Russian detsky dom, children's home: orphanage in 1999. A teen and a ‘tween--they were, indeed, not babies. Yet from the moment I saw them, during their brief stay as part of a dance troupe sponsored by the adoption agency, I wanted these grown children as much as any mother wants the unborn babies who swim silently in her womb.
I don't see adoption as better or worse than having biological children, stepchildren, foster children or no children at all. I do, however, see it as a different spin in the cycle of family. But I won't go around saying you should think about adoption the way people (often) tell women they should think about having a baby because biological clocks run out and you're not getting any younger.
I think often about how I made adoption real, but I'm interested in all the people who do real - ancestral lines from the past and future - and the relationships we share with one another. Which makes Adoption Stories for all of us. If you're adopted or have adopted, if you don't understand why anyone would want to adopt-or why anyone wouldn't.
If you longed for a baby or didn't.
