My parents brought me home when I was 6 months old. They drove to the big JFK airport in New York City to greet me. I love watching the VHS video of our meeting because, all of a sudden, the airport floor fills the screen, only hearing my mama squeal with delight. In watching this video or in looking through pictures of my childhood, along with their emphatic and progressive parenting style, I am reminded that adoption was always a beautiful and open way to be a family.
Fast forward 20 years later. When I met this boy, who in so many ways matched me. His keenness to creativity and beauty had my head spinning. We both know, I fell for him first 🙂 But his intensity, being up to par with me, he told me on our first date, “Love is choice, B.” and I quickly responded well “I am a lot to choose”. Maybe it was our third date, when I told him choosing me, meant adopting kids. With his wise blue eyes full of tears, he responded, “Yes, if it wasn’t for adoption, I wouldn’t know you”. Our deep talks lightened up after we got through all the non-negotiable. A few years later, we had an epic wedding and settled into life together. We starting a business and our love for kids started to bubble up. Thankfully, we had a front-row seat to friends of ours adopting their 5th child. When that little bundle was placed in our arms, we just knew.
We wanted the fabric of our family to be adoption ‘first’ not ‘second-best’. Not that my parents ever made me feel that it was less than. But when you are a biological child, it is never questioned- why you are with your parents. In choosing adoption first, it did not erase the ‘why’, but we wanted our kids to know how consciously, we choose it. At the start of our journey, I had a very naive view of being an adoptive parent and had not been prepared for all the ways it would trigger my own story. I then thought in someway adopting made more sense for me or would be easier.
So we started the process of domestic adoption. With those young puppy eyes of twenty-somethings, we took the adoption classes, started a fundraiser and began dreaming of our family. Little did I know, all the classes and books, would begin to unpack some of my own questions like ‘Where is my birth-family? Are they thinking about me? And were they cared for?’ These questions began to grow a deep passion and prayer life surrounding perspective parents. And as we finished our home-study, I told our social worker, our hope was a very open adoption, and she told me “ that’s awesome and that the wait is going to be long”. So as anyone would, I wanted to distract myself. So why not re-open my adoption case. My purpose for wanting to meet my birth mother or family was to tell them, how much adoption has meant to me. In my “Peter-pan” eyes, I hoped my birth mother could find some healing in seeing, I had gone on to adopt a baby. I also knew I needed closure– I did not want to be one of those parents that lived vicariously through my kids. Sent the paperwork out also thinking this is a shot in the dark.
Nothing went as planned. Our home study went live and within three weeks, we were matched with a young girl, who was fierce and brave. We all cried during our first phone call and to our surprise, she was adopted as well. We spent the next two weeks texting with Mama T, preparing our house for a baby girl and packing our bags to head to Texas. We felt this unexplainable ease and connection with Mama T and had the added bonus of our shared adoptee experience. We eagerly jumped on a plane, arrived and were getting settled in by wonderful strangers, that had generously opened their homes to us, when I received yet another surprise.
I received an email stating they had located my birth mother. WHAT! I then quickly remembered my fumbling through the paperwork weeks prior. I was too far into the “maybe” mama blur to really be affected. But, I did see the extraordinariness of these two events happening simultaneously. With one unsuccessful search under my belt, I stayed in the maybe-baby-open adoption zone.
Meeting Mama T was one of the sweetest days of our lives, we ate burgers together, got our nails done and day-dreamed about the little girl growing inside her. She gave us the honor of being in the room when she gave birth and after a long labor allowed me to be the first one to hold her, baby. One of the hardest moments of my life was when Mama T left the hospital without Vera-lou. At that point, I had fallen more in love with Mama T and her pain was extreme, not to mention this clear touchpoint to my own story. Mama T wanted us to be a family and we made a commitment to finding a way to be together forever.
Six months later, Vera-lou was crawling and laughing, we had connected to her birth-father and were enjoying the summer sun when I got an email stating my birth mother was not responding to my tried contact. And with my ever determined and distractible personality, I was sad for a day and threw myself into parenting.
Now almost 6 years later, I have had a front-row seat to birth-parents grief and hardship. I have a little girl, who wonders with me about my birth mom and asks “Why we can’t go visit her too?” And a little piece of my birth mother and I–my son, my first known genetic relative. I cannot tell that naive-first-time-adoptee parent that, I have not lived vicariously through my little girl’s wondrous story. Or these past few months have been dark and stormy over our foster-son’s closed journey. But, I am ready to be brave and share as I continue to grow. It cannot be hidden that the silence is still painful, 30 something years later. In my busy season, between cleaning-up spills, I am praying and pull out all the old documents in hopes to retell the story once more. I am working hard to imagine a trip to Korea, just to experience the culture and accept it might happen without any biological relatives. And my hope is to invite you into this reality.
If you are an adoptee, also looking and longing. Listen that story can still grow even without those big pieces.
And if you are an adoptive parent get every possible detail you can and honor that biological history every step of the way. I know your job is not easy but I promise they will thank you.
And to the birth-family members reading this, they will wonder and want connection. They will hope for healing and want you not be guilty or ashamed, I promise. Who knows maybe they will even adopt a kid of their own.
Brandi is a transracial adoptee, adoptive mama, foster mama, you know just a mama… Brandi lives on the North Shore of Boston. She loves LOVE, people and strong coffee. She feels the weight of balancing many hats with her partner in crime and true love, Daniel. The two of them own a business together and relish filling their days capturing love behind their lens in all different settings. They also have three incredible kids, the first of whom came to them via adoption. She’s their passionate, bright, and spicy Latina daughter. Her story has brought so much healing for Brandi, not to mention this daughter’s amazing birth-parents, making their “extended” family quite the tribe. Their second child, a son, is currently Brandi’s only-known blood relative and his joyful, and charming ways are making it easy for Brandi to love her Korean heritage. And most recently added their foster-son “honeybear”, a full and mighty personality in a tiny brave body. Brandi is excited to share from her many crossing roles in the adoption triad and believes as the many stories of this blog wash over each other, we are growing stronger. You can find Brandi and what all her “Tribe” is up to at www.ebersoletribe.com along with on Instagram @ebersoletribe .
