Four years ago, I made the courageous decision to find my birthmother. The details of that search could fill the pages of a book or the storyline behind a feel-good Hallmark channel movie. For now, I want to focus on the broader implications of the reunion and continued relationship in my life. God used the experience to completely turn my faith upside-down and change me for the better. I had to wrestle with Him in ways I never had before, ask questions I wasn’t comfortable asking before, and come to conclusions that would have devastated me earlier in my life when I was completely naïve and in denial about my identity as an adoptee.
The day I met my birthmother in person was completely surreal. We already established a connection from many emails we exchanged before picking a date and location to meet. I was so nervous I thought I would throw-up, which was completely out of character. I think my nerves kept me from bawling when we first saw each-other and hugged. We picked the backdrop of a Mexican restaurant to help lighten the mood. She was unlike anyone I had ever met before. She had no filter, and she immediately started sharing details about her life and her experiences. To some it might have felt like too much, but I was soaking it all up like a sponge. It was amazing to start a relationship with the hardest conversations first. It made me more comfortable to be my truest self. Here was a woman sitting before me, humbled by life, sharing her deepest regrets and failures with me like a true confidant. We laughed and talked for hours. She never talked down to me or treated me like a child. It was backwards in so many ways—no awkward small talk or slow progression. It was as if unconditional love and acceptance poured out of her immediately. She was giddy taking ALL of me in—the good and the bad. She welcomed the tough questions and emotions. To begin an adult relationship like this with the mother-daughter bond as the foundation was the most fulfilling thing I had ever experienced. I had no idea that I had something missing in my heart until I found it, and it was her love. She was to me, as late Howard Thurman puts it, “the sound of genuine.” I didn’t want our meal to end. As we walked towards our cars and locked eyes, her cheerful countenance changed. There was a sadness to her expression. I knew she was preparing herself to lose me again, but I couldn’t bear it. I told her this was not goodbye, and we drove our separate ways. I knew it may rock the boat with my adopted family, but I had to find a way to keep her in my life. Countless meals, emails, phone conversations, hugs, funny texts, and voicemails later, I can attest that not only was it not goodbye, but it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
With this new relationship came much heartache too. It caused my adoptive mother tremendous pain. She did not prepare herself that I would remain close to my birthmother beyond a one-time meeting. I rotated between feeling horribly sad, to angry, to guilty—the guilt was unbearable at times. It felt like I was cheating on my mom, which sounds insane. I got very angry at God for putting me in this impossible position. My actions were unintentionally hurting my mom, but if I said goodbye to Kelley, my heart would break even further. I expected the heartache to come from my birthmother. I was prepared for a worst-case scenario. As an adoptee, you hear all these horror stories about reunions gone wrong. I was blessed with an overwhelmingly positive reunion experience. However, I was not prepared for the pain to come from the one woman that was my constant security my entire life. It rocked my world, and it has taken years of therapy for the pain to subside. Thankfully, time has begun to heal those wounds.
This experience also stretched me spiritually. I’ve learned God is in the details, and things are not always black or white. He lives in the grey. He is not the God of “either/or” but “both/and.” Love is not a zero-sum game. Growth comes from pain, and I don’t mean that like a cheesy workout t-shirt. It’s the intense, raw emotional pain of exploring my core identity. The pain of peeling back the layers and asking myself difficult questions. What does it truly mean to be a mother? Does DNA matter? Does carrying a child in your body begin the connection? Does raising the child, staying up all night, changing diapers, going to the ER, taking them to school, sharing every single milestone of blood, sweat, tears and laughter….is that instead what makes a mother? Most discussions I see give greater weight to one experience over the other. My answer is all of the above makes a mother. Kelley is my mother, but so is Charlotte. Not until I became a mother three times over did I realize how amazingly miraculous everything is. The “nature” side of the relationship was something I never explored before. I was not in touch with my own body or femininity as a young adult. There was a disconnect. I subconsciously avoided talking about the miracle of pregnancy or breastfeeding because it was not a common experience I could share with my mom. I’ve become keenly aware that God created the bonding process to begin in utero. The infant can recognize the sound of the mother’s voice, and the mother is the only one that can calm a newborn. We are wired to be together in an almost symbiotic relationship at first. Becoming a mother was the first time I wrestled with my own adoption in a real way. It pained me to speculate what my newborn subconscious endured being separated from my only source of comfort. That’s not to say I wasn’t well cared for or loved, but it wasn’t “mother.” My soul had to grieve this process whether I was aware of it or not.
Why is the Christian community not working harder to keep mothers and their babies together? How about instead of a church bake sale to raise money for a young couple adopting a baby, we, as a church, put that money towards supporting birth mothers to keep their children? Why isn’t the church assisting women with child care, educational resources, or whatever it takes to truly support “life” to the fullest? Why aren’t we putting our money towards building infrastructure overseas, and giving international villages clean running water and proper medical care (all things that could give biological families a fighting chance of surviving and staying together) instead of the thousands being spent on international adoption? These are just some of the tough questions I have wrestled with as a Jesus-follower and adoptee, and they are not popular opinions in some circles. While I firmly believe adoption is a better choice than abortion, I think it is the preferred outcome in only a few dire situations where the child would be in grave danger or orphaned. This is part of what it feels like to open Pandora’s box. I cannot see things the way I used to, and I occasionally long for the blissful ignorance of my past where everything had it’s neat and orderly place in my head and heart.
Still, I do not regret this journey. God molded me into a more vulnerable, compassionate, and open-minded person. The process of reuniting with my birth family, most importantly Kelley, was the most wonderful and painful experience of my life. I dealt with grief, confusion, anger, overwhelming love, elation, peace, depression, anxiety, and the list goes on for the entire spectrum of human emotion. It reminded me of this quote from A Severe Mercy, “[if there were] a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths, and on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, [s]he for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths.” The heights and depths of these identity struggles are not a phase where I will magically wake up one day on the other side. It’s a journey not unlike salvation itself. Despite my frustrations with the industry, I still advocate for adoption with a more holistic view. I have a wonderful adoptive mother who raised me, and I have a birthmother who recently came back into my life and is my best friend. Even though it’s complicated, I am uniquely blessed to have more motherly love than most will ever experience. God has His hand over me, and I have faith that “He who began a good work in [me] will carry it on until completion.” -Philippians 1:6
Sarah Grace