The Adoption

Sooner or later the conversation comes around to the adoption. You meet people, you talk, you connect and pretty soon you are knee deep in birth mothers and birth grandmothers, and birth great aunts. All the details of this curious arrangement that is complex and basic as holding her small hand as we trudge up the driveway. We are not a regular family but somehow the irregularity of it is what makes it all work for us. My daughters birth-mother visits us a few times a year and we spent time meeting her whole family last summer. It's a strange thing to raise another persons child. To watch her from a slight distance turn into herself, to see her as an individual and to also have such strong protective feelings for her. I feel so lucky to be a part of her life, of her emergence.