In the Best Interest of the Child

It's been so long since I had the time or energy to blog that many, many adoption-related happenings are all jumbled up in my head. Since I last wrote, I have watched the adoption world wrestle with the Anita Tedaldi fiasco (bleh), the news reports of adoption fraud and outright kidnapping cases in China (heartwrenching), scandals involving Ethiopian adoption and US agencies "mining" children from intact poverty stricken families (despicable), and now the disturbing tale of the 10 Americans charged with child trafficking and kidnapping in Haiti.

There is such a long and troubling pattern of Americans swooping into less developed countries after tragedies such as war and natural disaster and "saving" the poor orphans that it is difficult for me not to feel that we collectively take what we need while we can get it and we do it for our own selfish reasons which have little to do with the children whose destinies we are altering. "I want a baby, or I want to save someone, or I want to build my family this way with a child from that place." As is often the case, many of the 33 children taken from Haiti were not orphans and the Americans in question had spent some time convincing parents to give their children up so that they could have a better life. But what, honestly, is a better life? I know that for me, if I was given the choice between losing my siblings, parents, extended family, language, culture and country in exchange for material comfort and a chance an education...well it just wouldn't be worth it.

All of that combined with my growing awareness of the harm done to my own child because of the way his adoption was processed with complete lack of concern for his best interest both in Korea and in the US has left a really yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach. It's hard to see it as a beautiful thing.

I think about Tae's first Mother, and how she signed the relinquishment papers just 48 hours after he was born. Did she even get to hold him? Nurse him? Tell him she loved him? Memorize his tiny face? Stroke his soft skin and memorize every inch of him? Did Tae get the motherlove from her that newborns need during the short time they were together after his birth or was he taken away quickly before she could change her mind? How long was he alone? Did she really want to relinquish? Was she pressured to make the decision? Does she regret it now? I'll probably never know the answers to these questions, but they still haunt me sometimes.

Did we do the right thing by participating in this seriously flawed system? The truth is, we weren't allowed to adopt Tae because someone thought our family was a perfect fit for him. We weren't allowed to adopt him because we are well educated or because we are experienced parents. We weren't allowed to adopt him because God preordained it. The simple ugly truth is that we had enough money and we weren't outright criminals. That's all the adoption industry really required of us. So now that we have fed the adoption machine have we perpetuated these problems? Have we caused another child to be relinquished in the future because there will still be no social & financial supports for single mothers in Korea? It makes my head hurt.

Then there is me. Just me, without thinking of anyone else. I think about the overwhelming, exhausting, all-encompassing love I feel when I hold my son. I close my eyes and I can smell the sweet scent of his baby skin, feel the soft curve of his dark lashes as they brush my cheek, feel the weight of his small head on my shoulder as he dreams. I can't imagine my life without him. I can't believe that he isn't my child. I still feel (as I do with my biological children) that we belong together. I guess I just don't know.