The Elephant in the Room

Throughout the adoption process I associated an elephant with being a symbol of Richa's birth country. We even have a beautiful tapestry of this majestic animal in her room to give her a visual reminder that India will always be her home. I've noticed lately that another elephant seems to always be in the room with us as well....her birth mom. Homegirl is like the ghost of motherhood past and no matter where I go or what I do she's always there....haunting me. Today I decided that the only way to get ole girl to go away is to actually (gasp) invite her into our lives.

After some bits and pieces of wisdom from a couple other adoptive moms I decided ever so gracefully to insert India Mom into our conversation today in the car. As we pulled out of the hair salon parking lot I casually said, "Richa I wonder if your birth mom gave you that beautiful thick and curly hair! Do you ever wonder?" Her response was no, head towards the window, and then awkward silence. ABORT MISSION ABORT MISSION! (insert panic attack)

I quickly realized whether it was due to a breakdown in communication or just lack of life cycle awareness that Richa didn't know what the word birth mom even meant. After explaining that lovely concept to her I was pitting out and praying for someone or something to beam me up. An alien abduction would have been welcomed with open sweaty arms. I then continued to ramble on for about 45 seconds until waving the white flag. If she learned nothing more from my attempt at introducing her to the concept of India Mom other than I'm a terrible public speaker (is one person considered public? What about if my other 3 personalities are present?) than I guess that's ok. The majority of my speech was a babbling blur but I tried to wrap it up with an emphasis on all her feelings (even bad ones towards me or missing India) being OK, and that out of all the million of children in India we chose her to be our daughter. Thank God for my AMM (adoptive mom mentor) literally standing by via text to verbally rescue me when necessary. Feed me my line Susie!!

I love India Mom because she gave my daughter the beautiful gift of life and as a result I get to be her mom! What an honor. NO life is created by chance or without purpose and she created this little girl to impact our world for the better. Totally opposite of her thick unruly hair, Richa has a sweet sensitive soul that deeply cares for the feelings of others. She got into the car Thursday at pick up and told me (to my surprise) that one of her friends cried at school that day. I asked her how she reacted to this, and she told me she wiped her tear and told the teacher that her friend was sad. Her empathetic nature could be a result of her life circumstances up until this point, but it could also very well be genetic. Neither she nor I may ever know, and if that causes my eyes to well up with tears I can't imagine the impact it has on her little heart. I also have to choose to believe that India Mom was doing the best she could with the tools/resources she had available to her at the time Richa was surrendered to the state.

Richa can't have peace with her past unless first and foremost I have peace with her past and that includes her birth mom. I read somewhere a long time ago that the easiest way to love someone who is difficult to love is to start praying for them (from experience I know this to be true...it's seriously like magic), so I think that's where I'll start. My hope is that one day we can pray for India Mom together, celebrate her on Mother's Day, and bring her into our conversations naturally with joy and gratefulness for all she has given BOTH of us. I would give this first birth mom bombshell a 4 on the Richter scale, but Richa will need something to talk to her therapist about one day right??