I have now been refining my St. Patrick’s Day meal for a whole decade. The corned beef has come a long way from the early, dry years; the potatoes remain a classic; the dessert has moved from pistachio pudding to pistachio bundt cake, per the youngest’s request; but the cabbage still lacks the right seasoning. Despite its traditional menu, this meal is a very special tradition in our house, as it honors our daughter’s birth mother. We have a closed adoption and know very little about our birth mother, outside of little notes like St. Patrick’s Day being her favorite holiday. We made our first family corned beef when our youngest was just a few weeks old. Dressed in itty bitty green clothes, as she arrived many weeks early, she didn’t so much care about that initial meal, but since then, she has come to love the holiday for more than just the pistachio bundt cake.
Like many adoptive parents, our story started long before we met our little one. After welcoming a biological child, we faced secondary fertility and realized expanding our family would be complicated. Many winding roads later, we decided adoption was our next step. Through our in-depth training with A New Beginning (ANB), we learned the importance of openness in adoption, building connections with a birth family in hopes of keeping an open relationship throughout the child’s life. We could see the value of this connection, allowing our child to have a sense of where he/she came from. But honestly, in those early days, we remained a bit unsure of how prepared we were to embrace this openness as there were so many unknowns.
The wait for each adoptive family is different, though few will tell you it was easy, predictable, or their favorite part of the experience. Most of us saw the good days and the bad days, a roller coaster of emotions that few outside adoptive families can really understand. Our wait was long, nearly three years, and with some very emotional moments. Waiting for a match (the time when a birth family selects the adoptive family) requires a fully open heart, even if that means more than a couple heartbreaks. We navigated the highs and lows, trusting the process.
In late January of the year our daughter was born, after opting to have our profile shared with a birth mother, we got the most important of calls: she didn’t need to meet us because she knew we were her match! I can still feel the emotions of that phone call a decade later. When opting in, we knew that the birth mother wanted a closed adoption. While knowing and respecting her decision, we maintained hope that things might change, and we might have a brief chance to meet the woman who had selected us to adopt her child.
I am pretty sure no baby’s arrival is predictable, so cue the urgent, midday phone call telling us to drive to Pocatello that night, three weeks earlier than expected. The next morning, we held in our arms a five-pound, five-ounce miracle. Her birth mother opted for us to be “banded” as her parents in the hospital, directly caring for baby right away. As we enjoyed tiny baby cuddles and cries getting closer to leaving the hospital, we continued to hope that our birth mother might meet us briefly. Instead, she sent us the next best thing: a list of her favorite things, including that special connection to St. Patrick’s Day.
From her birth, our daughter has known about her birth mother and her adoption. We always answer her questions, with age-appropriate details, and maintain a strong connection with the adoption community. We are open about adoption. Our daughter’s adoption isn’t a secret, though we allow her to decide if and how friends and teachers find out. Her adoption doesn’t define her, but it is a part of her story that she shares proudly. While still nine years in the future, she’s decided her senior family trip will include Ireland, so she can learn more about her birth mother’s heritage. She finds that she doesn’t love listening to her birth mother’s favorite song, but she knows it is important to me when it comes on the radio. Her birth mother’s list of favorites has a
very special place in her drawer of memories, a place she can go whenever she feels the need to make that connection.
To honor our birth mother, we advocate for healthy adoptions, where all parts of the adoption triad (birth parents, child, and adoptive parents) are supported. We take opportunities to teach others about adoption, especially tackling misconceptions gained from old adoptions or from TV and movies. Adoption has changed for the better, and we want people to understand that. For nearly a decade, I have sewn bags for birth mothers who choose adoption for their children. Each bag is different, just like each adoption is different. Plus, since she could walk, my youngest gives each finished bag a test run, carrying it on her “runway walk” across my sewing room. Yes, we have a closed adoption, but that doesn’t take away the importance of our birth mother in our lives. It just looks a little different.
We will forever honor and respect our birth mother’s decision.
This woman, whose face I never saw and who I know only by her first name and a list of favorites, made a decision that changed my life. I will forever hold a piece of her in my heart, the brave and beautiful woman who wanted to provide a different life for her daughter and trusted us to
do that. I will never lose sight of the fact I could walk by our daughter’s birth mother on the sidewalk and not know it was her. She is part of our family because we choose to honor her and keep her present in our daughter’s life.
And that is why I continue to refine my St. Patrick’s Day meal. I know that if my cabbage still doesn’t hit the mark on attempt #11, I will have many more years of this very special meal to make it better.