Not Flesh of My Flesh, Nor Bone of My Bone
There are so many hard things about adoption. The people it bring are not one of them.
Not flesh of my flesh
Nor bone of my bone
but still Miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute
You did not grow under my heart
but in it.
Fleur Conkling Heyliger
I did not give birth to three of my children. I forget this sometimes (as ridiculous as it might sound) and find myself straining for memories of things that never happened. Why can I not recall when Babita lost her first tooth? What did we give Phin for his first birthday? Why didn’t I breastfeed Jemmy? All of these things were before, and we, our family, came after.
You lose a lot when adoption is the way God chooses to bring you your child. Firsts, yes. But bigger, invisible things, too. Things like the answers to casual questions (“How tall will I be?”) and things like family histories and stories. These things sneak up and ache from time to time, reminding you of what was lost on the way to something new being found.
I’ve lived for a long time on the growing end of adoption, that place where the whole process felt like it was more about my husband and I, rather than our children, the adoptees. This is adoption math: the child you gain changes everything, and the number of lives changed by that simple act of grafting is increased with every new sibling, every marriage, every birth.
I realized this in March, as I sat in the waiting area of a mother/baby clinic in Kathmandu. An older Nepali woman was eyeing me as I soothed my granddaughter, Rahel. My daughter, Babita, was in another part of the clinic with her newborn son, Caleb. Rahel was getting close to her snack time, and though she is nonverbal, she was doing an excellent job communicating her needs with her body— which is to say that she was writhing and making the distinct grunting noise that accompanies her hunger cues.
I realized that to the woman across from me, I looked out of place. A western woman. A Nepali child. What was going on?
I was out of place, of course. Had you asked me when I was newly married if I’d have a Nepali daughter, I’d have been flabbergasted. But if I’m telling the truth, I didn’t see this future coming even when Babita joined our family. Four pieces of my heart— Babita, her husband, and her children— four people I love with every ounce of my being, four people whose lives are entwined with mine… they share nothing of my DNA.
How great is God that He writes a story so painful, so rooted in loss, and turns it into a legacy that binds together people who share nothing but the commonality of love? How perfect is His plan that He writes chapters where the main characters in our stories step into someone else’s book and begin to play a role there, too?
These mysteries never fail to leave me in awe of His lovingkindness. In His grace and mercy, God allowed me to adopt children. In His continuing gentleness towards my mother’s heart, He is showing me the true value of that gift, day by day.
In Christ,
Heather