When I was pregnant with my one and only biological child I remember people asking me what I think he’ll look like. Which characteristic would he have from me, and which from Michael? I was never one to dream about what my future child would look like and I remember staring at the 4D ultrasounds without any clue whose lips he has. A trait, as an adoptee, I never learned, practiced or inherited.
Discovering these commonalities has never come easy for me nor was it ever important to me. I’m so used to being detached from DNA that it used to be really hard for me to recognize it even when it is right in front of me. Growing up, I have always neglected to make correlations between personality traits and physical characteristics because they never stood out to me. I remember being in school and hearing classmates and parents talk about others shared traits and I never gave it much time to notice or even acknowledge the observations. I was actually envious that people could so easily pinpoint who was whose parent/child at school functions or school pickups. I’d go to birthday parties and people knew who were siblings and who were just family friends. For the 16 years my (adoptive) mom was alive, we would always get compliments that we shared the same smile or we both had the same curly hair and olive skin tone. We’d smile and thank them and pretend we were biologically related but we knew there was no genetic connection. My sister and I, still to this day, are assumed to be natural sisters because we “look alike” when in reality our most obvious characteristic is our height – where I am 5 ‘7 and she is barely 5 foot (she may kill me for saying this, haha).
I know first hand that we can take on each other’s characteristics simply by just nurture and being around one another for certain periods of time. But when it came to hair type, eye color, body composition, that is genetics.
When I finally got the privilege to see my genetics in front of me a year and a half ago, I was bewildered. I must have looked like a complete lunatic gawking with my eyes wide open, barely blinking and my mouth hitting the table as I sat in front of my carbon copy, my birth father. To compare rolly baby pictures with my biological dad, to see resemblances in facial expressions with my newest sisters, to hear my matching chuckle with my birth mom, literally took my breath away and continues to do so. Will this ever be something I get used to?
I finally see resemblances of myself in my son. When I look at him or hear the way he pronounces certain words, the way he chuckles, I am stunned that I actually created him; he and I actually share DNA. I can pinpoint every feature – eye color and even ear shape, the top half looks like his dad and the bottom half he gets from me. The delicateness of his hands comes from his father’s side and he has my smile.
I’ve never been blind about my adoption but now I see things completely different, with a wider lens; a larger spectrum.
It’s amazing what more I see now.
I get to see and hear and truly know my whole family.
WRITTEN BY KIRA MCSHERRY: Kira currently lives in the hot desert with her husband + two children. She is a an advocate for the adoption triad as both an adoptee and adoptive mom. Photography is her addiction and writing is her therapy.
