Luke Kim & Lia-Mee's Story
By Jon & Lori B
I imagine that we’ve all gotten the same questions with slight variations to each. Are they really brother and sister? How much did they cost? Do they speak English? Do they know they’re adopted? Do they feel like they’re really yours?
Huh?! Some questions still take me aback. Although I’ve heard them over and over for just about 7 years now, I would have thought that our diligent quest to educate society on "proper or appropriate adoption lingo" would have been a little more far-spread than I’ve noticed.
I’d like to address the… "Do they feel like they’re really yours?" I think the question comes from not being able to imagine the intensity of emotions involved in the adoption process which begins at the very first thought of adopting. Can I love a child that isn’t part of me/us? Will the child bond to me/us? Will the child be "whole" emotionally because of the adoption? Then you dive into the mind-boggling paperwork and the adoption takes on a new form. A child becomes "real" and not just a fantasy you’ve had over and over at work, while driving, while waiting… Each and every step of the way, this child feels more real and you haven’t even seen a face yet. How cool is that!?
Now, the really cool part comes. The social worker calls you in, tells you a bunch of stuff you’re not really listening to because you know there’s a picture in the file and all the while you’re saying to yourself…. "I’m going to grab the file if that picture doesn’t come out with her next sentence!" Out comes the picture you’ve awaited for a year or more. All those emotions you’ve successfully kept bottled up come out like a flood. Some of us cry, some shake, some cry and shake, and some are just plain stunned. But it doesn’t stop there. You come home, try to figure out what’s taking place in your life, try to remember a thing the social worker even said and decide if this is the child who was truly meant to be yours.
So, you accept your referral and an entirely new set of emotions begins in your body that you never knew you had. They’re all rolled up into one, and try as you may to sort them out and deal with each separate emotion, sometimes it’s all too much. So you call your social worker, have a chat and she says something to you…..you felt it but you just didn’t know it was possible. She says, "Did you know that the emotions a pregnant woman feels you can feel as well?" Well then, that explains why I’ve been feeling nuts lately doesn’t it!? Several times I felt as though I should have paid a co-pay for the visit! Now I ask you…. Is this child beginning to really feel like yours yet? You haven’t even held it yet! But wait, there’s more...
The long-awaited time comes for the moment your child is placed in your arms for the very first time. I can’t speak for anyone else but myself, but I paced back and forth, I was sick to my stomach with anticipation, I was shaking, teary-eyed and way past anxious. I felt like screaming for an epidural! Just when I felt like I couldn’t take the pressure anymore before the top of my head blew off, my baby came around the corner and was placed in my arms for the very first time. The flood gates opened and every maternal instinct I didn’t know existed in my non-pregnant body poured through my veins from my head to my toes to my fingertips and my heart grew 10 times its normal size, like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas! Do I feel like this child is really mine? Sort of, but it gets even better.
As I look back in my mind, I see a merge between two movies but only one of them I’m playing in. I carry my baby to the nearest bathroom and strip him down. I check him out from head to toe; counting fingers and toes, watching his eyes move back and forth, listening for sounds, listening to his breathing and his quick little heart beat, moving his legs and arms around, checking out his entire anatomy as if I just delivered this child and we’re in the O.R. I give him the best sponge bath I could in the airport ladies room and we take our baby home. We’re greeted by family and signs with a stork holding a baby indicating "IT’S A BOY!" Pretty cool, huh?
From this point forward, life becomes normalized as every other family with a new infant becomes. A routine is etched out, baby illnesses occur, doctor’s visits. With every single daily event, albeit routine or not, my heart grew, my maternal instinct that had been suppressed for so many years has encapsulated my body and I felt a metamorphosis taking placing within my entire being. I was becoming a woman… all over again. But this time, I had a very different purpose… I’m a mother!
Each immunization injection, each boo-boo, each milestone, each bath, each nightmare, illness, smile, cold, kiss, bottle, each late night or early morning cry or coo, etc. This child felt like he is really mine. In fact, it wasn’t just me that felt this way. Our entire family had gone through a little metamorphosis of its own. I recall two distinct events that solidified this theory. The first was when our son had trouble moving his bowels. My mother responded immediately to my statement and told me to "take him to the doctor right away; you know it runs in our family!" I still smile when I think of that. The second event was after our daughter had been home more than a year already. My mother was folding some of our laundry while babysitting. She came to a pair of sweatpants and said, "Why are my old sweatpants in her laundry? She must have worn them when she was pregnant with her daughter." She never thought twice about it.
The reason for me responding to WHFC’s call for an article such as this is an event that took place most recently and it’s the reason I chose to write about the question, "Do they really feel like they’re yours?"
Our daughter has had her little share of challenges. The challenge that brings me to write this is her dysphasia. She lacks muscle tone and swallowing is difficult for her without always washing it down. As a result, she pockets food, which has decayed her precious little baby teeth. She’s now 4 years old and has recently undergone 5 fillings without Novocain. One tooth in particular was so decayed, we had to make a determination whether to do a root canal and cap with the hopes it won’t abscess down the road, or extract it. Ultimately, the dentist and I thought based on the x-ray, its degree of decay and the least chance of abscess, it should be extracted. The vision of my helpless baby girl, in that chair with needles being forced into her gums while she screamed for me to pick her up still brings me to tears even right now. But the heart-wrenching continued. I know my baby girl well enough to know the sound she was screeching was her pain cry. A strength bubbled up inside me and out my mouth came words of authority. I told the dentist to stop. I told the dentist to re-Novocain her, she can feel that. She’s in pain. The dentist tried to convince me that the pressure frightens them and she’s okay. I reared up again and insisted to give her more Novocain and she did. For 20 minutes they pulled on this decayed, infected, soft baby molar while my daughter screamed, squeezed my hands and curled up into the littlest fetal ball she could with her knees up to her throat. As I continued my songs and conversation to distract her, I shook from head to toe. I wanted to vomit and grab my child from this monster causing her pain and fly out the window. Finally, the tooth let go and my baby girl was in my arms in the same little ball while she hyperventilated and became part of my body while I engulfed her with my protection. It took one-half hour to calm her down and I wouldn’t move until she was calm. I asked the dentist for the tooth, they put it in a "treasure chest" and I clutched it in my shaking hand. As we walked out of the office with her mouth packed with gauze, a four-foot long colorful balloon for her bravery and the tooth, she asked if she could hold her treasure chest. We walked through the parking lot, up the street and to the car parked beside someone’s lawn. As I helped her step in, I noticed she was fumbling with the treasure chest that held her tooth… it was empty. Most of you reading this would probably think I may have had a nervous breakdown, an over-reaction, a justified purge of emotion… whatever. I dropped to my knees, held my face in my hands and just sobbed. As I cried, I kept thinking that this monster caused my baby girl so much pain and it’s lost. For a total of 3 hours, I moved every single blade of grass, parting it like hair, looking for this tooth so my daughter would have it for the tooth fairy that night. What happened next was angelic. My daughter who just turned 4 took my face into her tiny hands. She looked me in the eyes with the gauze hanging out of her mouth and said to me, verbatim, "Momma, it’s okay. Be happy you still have your children."
I collected the pile of small rocks that resembled a tooth that I found in between the blades of grass, put them in my pocket and drove away.
These two children couldn’t be any more mine than if they were delivered from me. I say this statement with conviction and authority. I say it with such pride. I would rise up to any mighty force that would do them harm or injustice. I would give them my last breath if it meant saving them. The next time anyone asks you a question such as that, regardless if your child was just placed in your arms that day or 25 years ago, just simply answer them, "He/she IS mine!"