I used to wonder if my desire for my children to know about their birthmother would diminish as they began to truly comprehend the circumstances of their births and early months of life. Was I just being open because I knew they didn’t understand what I was saying? Yet I find myself talking about her now more than ever; the way we talk about any family member we don’t frequently see. I’ve begun to consider this young woman my spiritual sister. I don’t have any biological sisters. Neither does she. Somehow this commonality solidifies my feelings of kinship toward her.
My children have begun to contribute their thoughts to my musings while trying to understand their birth story. Last spring several of our friends gave birth, and my children saw the transition from the “baby in the belly” to an actual baby in our friends’ arms. One night, out of the blue, my son (then three-and-a-half) asked me, “Mama? Did you borned me?”
“No, honey, I didn’t. Lee gave birth to you. You grew in her tummy.”
“Oh. So. You never grew a baby?”
“No. My body can’t make babies.”
Pause.
“Did that make you sad?”
“Hmmm … I was a little sad at first, but I knew that meant you were someplace else. I wouldn’t have you if my body could grow babies.”
My son then played giving birth to Mister Bear.
I want my children to feel comfortable talking about their birthparents and how they came into the world. Nothing is off limits, although sometimes they don’t get the facts exactly right. For example, even though my son knows his story, and will tell you he got his belly button from Lee, he often refers to his Korean foster mother (who parented him until he was placed with us at six months old) as his birthmother. And while visiting my mother’s grave this summer, my daughter wanted to know where Lee was buried. Which lead to the conversation that she isn’t buried, but still very much alive in Korea.
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