Archives for 8.31.11

Despite the busyness of filling backpacks and nesting (Oh, I’ve been nesting), I’ve been thinking a lot lately about birth families–the posting online of a baby found, a journalist and adoptive mom’s retelling of her experience of finding a little one, the posting I read of a mother who regretted leaving her child and hasn’t slept well since. A lot to consider. And, sometimes, it’s hard to consider. And, frankly, I hope I never “feel done” considering.

I conjure up images. I don’t really want to do this. I know I’m creating a story from the skeletal pieces of a story we have. But, for some reason, the images come. And, maybe I should just not fight them and let them come and morph as time passes.

I know I’m not the only adoptive mommy who has felt this way.

When one adoptive mommy faced the fact that her daughter’s whole first year of life would forever be a mystery for her as a mommy and for her daughter, she created a story of her own, a fairytale, to inspire her daughter’s imagination. That story about a perfect baby girl’s journey down the Pearl River to her forever family struck such a chord with her little girl that she shared her story for everyone–a brave step I wouldn’t be able to take. Karen Henry Clark took her version of an adoption folktale and gave us all Sweet Moon Baby. Using beloved items in her daughter’s life, she tells the tale of a Chinese man and woman who release their baby girl because they cannot care for her as they would want. She floats in a basket over the river guided by a turtle, a peacock, a monkey, a panda, and even some fish until she is welcomed into the arms of her new parents on the other side of the river.

The images. The illustrations are perfect, like I-need-two-copies-so-I-have-one-to-read-and-one-to-cut-up-and-hang-on-my-wall perfect. The final illustration = the perfect wordless ending. The little girl no longer a baby, sleeping with a smile while snuggling her stuffed panda with a goldfish and peacock feather on her night stand and stuffed monkey and turtle by her feet. The sweet goodnight tale for this little girl.

Some families have fallen in love with the story. But, some critics have hit this book hard — It’s confusing. It’s too scary that the birthparents sent their baby off in a basket into the river. It will lead to too many questions. I’m uneasy with all the fantasy. One adoption therapist even sent the book back to the author saying she couldn’t even display it because “it lacks plain honesty” and adopted children need facts, only facts.

Really? If that were true, we wouldn’t be able to read any adoption related kids’ books. None of them are just like her story. The only story factual for her is her story, the one God wrote for her life. And, there are no children’s books with her story.

So, I have read books with kangaroos and fox, books that tell about two Chinese babies going home together and becoming sisters forever, a single mother bringing home her baby, families adopting healthy baby girls all from the same orphanage, and babies adopted domestically. None of them are factual–for Lydia. But, they make “adoption” not a word that is whispered but something we talk about freely.

Sweet Moon Baby is Karen Henry Clark’s dream of a history for her child. And, you know what, some of those reviewers got it right.

It is confusing–adoption can be. It is a little bit scary that the baby was sent off alone–abandonment is sad and scary. And, it did lead to a lot of questions from my older children, questions that led to some really good conversation about why Lydia’s birth parents may have made choice they did. It’s not true, not true at all. It’s a fairy tale of sorts Karen Henry Clark used to encourage her daughter–and Chinese daughters adopted into Western homes all over–to keep wondering and keep talking.

And, I guess it serves to encourage adoptive mommies to keep wondering too.