Costs of Adoption: Knowing Your Children on A Cellular Level

I was thinking about the amazing bond between mother and child.

More than the “have a baby, ohh, it’s so cute..see it grow, etc”

The true genetic bond, said to be on a cellular level, that is so much more encompassing than even words can say. I can get real specific and find all the scientific research that supports this; how the mother’s and child’s cells continue to be entwined long after the birth process, but that has been done and it’s out there already, why repeat it.

I know from finding my own lost son; the feeling of pure recognition was overwhelming.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I remember trying to imagine what she could possible look like and when she was born and I saw her tiny face, my reaction was “Why, of course!” Of course that is her..who else could she be! Instant recognotion.

A Mother’s Instint; Knowing Your Child Even When Separated by Adoption

With Max, imagining what he had grown into from the two day old babe, the changes in his face..I couldn’t see it, Yet, when presented with a picture of him at 16, it was the same feeling, “Why, of course!” It was immediate and so obvious, this was my son and I knew then that I would have been able to spot him from a line up of 20 some odd teens. I could see myself, my family, my blood in every inch of him.

Even more unbelievable was how I knew him, without ever really knowing him. I understood his temperament, how he tested and did in school (in fact I told him how in one of our first correspondences..I think he was shocked), his interests, his musical taste, his unique oddities, tastes in foods, feelings about religion and spirituality, even they way we write and our common typos and misspellings. Granted someone could insists on coincidence, but there are just too many and the relationship is still pretty new. I know him and understand him because he is part of me.

I would say that we have a pretty amazing bond even without having ever yet met again. I feel like he has embraced this part of his identity because he can also see the connection. He knows where from which he has come. And I am not nearly the only mom or adoptee to speak of this.

And the crux of this, is that the bond did not need to have the years of nurturing to make it whole, or strong, or stable. We were separated, made legally strangers, kept apart though all formative years, yet, still..so very much part of each other, so very much one of mine.

This Instinctual Knowing Can Not be Replicated Though Adoption

I think that must be really scary to an adoptive parent. For the natural parents have the one thing that they cannot ever have; the true cognitive bond. No matter what they do, how many years, how many boo-boos they got to kiss, butts to wipe, diapers to change, sports events to attend..they can’t get that genetic mirroring and continuation, that deep understanding that comes from knowing a person because they are part of you.

You can know a person very well because of years of contact, love, and shared lives. I mean how many of us know what our spouse will say before they say it or how our best friends will react to something. You can understand that reaction because you love them and desire to understand, but it is very different then understanding because they are doing the same thing that you would do. Not because of learned behaviors, but because of our inherit nature as humans. It is a deeper understanding..not just logic, or intellect, or emotions, but on all levels.

The adoptive parents cannot get what we naturally have.

Now granted they have had what we lost; all the years, the memories, the shared history, the stories, the boo-boos, the diapers, etc. and we cannot get that back either.

When the Bond Withstands the Years of Adoption Separation

But that doesn’t wipe out the initial bond, and upon reunion, the initial bond will try to take up again where it was lost on birth and placement; hence, the intensity of beginning reunions, the obsessions, the falling in love, just like a new baby. So in essence, the bond is able to disregard what the adoptive parents have. The years lost almost don’t matter in the whole scheme of things when our children can be returned to us; we are still their mothers and they are still our children.

So how frightening is THAT..to think that no matter how great of an adoptive parent one might be, no matter how many years and tears and joys invested, it will almost matter not.

The child is still of the mother. They can get our years, but not our bond.

Disclaimer: I know that not everyone has great experiences on reunions. I know that not everyone feels every connection, but that does happen in pure traditional families too. Some kids related to their folks and some don’t, some people connect and some never will..adoption influenced or otherwise. The point is that it must be really scary to an adoptive parent when it does. And no wonder they don’t want to believe that the bond exists or that they insist that it is the hard work of parenting that really makes the parent “real”.

All I know is that I might have lost my son for 18 years, but when found..he is 100% my son*. I know him, I recognize him, he is me. I think he is a strong enough individual that they could have put him in a cardboard box in the middle of a dessert and he still would have been the same kid…and still so obviously from my body, of my blood. My son. Me.

* Understandably, not really 100% anymore. He has a whole other family and another set of parents. I have no need nor desire to upsurp them and their place in his life. But the amazing continuity of our selves cannot be denied, for them he must deny so much of himself.