This Made Me Cry ~ by Jay

From Motherlode - two essays by teenagers who found their first mothers and bio families on Facebook. The whole thing is worth reading, but this statement really got me. From Alexander Dorf, who discovered that his biological dad also loves reptiles, and that at 6'2" he is a foot shorter than his biological brother, and then reflected on the influence of his adoptive parents:

I may not have inherited their body type or facial features, instead I have inherited their values which they continue to teach me everyday.

I'll take that.

I Can't Believe I Said That ~ by Jay

I read Isis's post about the American Heart Association, which will allow you to register as an individual or as Dr. and Mrs., but not as Dr. and Dr. or Mr. and Dr. That reminded me of my outrage when we joined the JCC 12 years ago and they listed us as Dr. and Mrs. Sam Samslastname, erasing me completely in the process.

And that reminded me, with some humiliation, of what I said yesterday. Eve and I were looking at pictures of the last Chanukah party, and she pointed to an older couple and said "Who are they?". I replied "Dr. and Mrs. Shapiro".

It took me a few minutes to realize what I'd said. It's true that one of them is Dr. Shapiro - Ruth Shapiro, who started out teaching preschool and then went to medical school when her children were small. Ruth retired from practice 15 years ago. Her husband worked as an accountant. He's a wonderful man, but he's not a doctor.

Ruth probably doesn't mind being called Mrs. Shapiro, but I was - and am - mortified to realize that my own assumptions and prejudices still make me assume that the man is the doctor. I can't believe I said that.

Conversations With my Daughter ~ by Jay

I saw an article in the New York Times today about some kids who were adopted, and their birth moms found them on Facebook.

That's so cool!

You think?

Yeah. They must be happy.

Sure seemed like the kids in the article were excited, but not all the parents who've adopted kids think it's a good idea.

They're probably worried that their kids will get too connected to their biological families - maybe they think they'll lose their children if they get in touch with their real families.

I bet they are.

{rolls her eyes} Like you could ever forget the parents who raised you.

So you won't forget Daddy and me?

{Does not dignify this with a response}

I think sometimes parents see that connecting with their birth families makes kids feel sad, and it's hard to watch your child feel sad.

They were sadder before.

You were sadder before you met Laura, weren't you?

Yes.

One of the moms in the article said she realized her son thought about his birth parents every single day, and I was thinking that's how it is for you, isn't it?

Every day. All the time. Not as much now, but still every day.

In Which I Nod Vigorously and Say Hell, Yeah! ~ by Jay

I may have injured myself nodding and shouting while I read this from Historiann.

She writes in response to a piece by Nicholas Kristof, who wonders just why it is that women don't breastfeed more when breastmilk is a "miracle cure for childhood malnutrition...{a} protein-rich substance that doesn’t require refrigeration...that is free and is available even in remote towns like this one in Niger where babies routinely die of hunger-related causes". He wonders "why a human instinct to nurse went awry. Does it have something to do with the sexualization of breasts? Or with infant formula manufacturers, who irresponsibly peddled their products in the past but are more restrained now? Or is it just that moms worry that their babies need water on hot days? Nobody really knows."

Gee, maybe it's because breastfeeding isn't really free, and women might need not have the social structure and support they need to focus on feeding their baby. And I'm glad Kristof thinks the formula manufacturers are restrained and oh-so-ethical now, but I can tell you that babies are still being sent home from US hospitals with formula samples.

Historiann covers most of the reasons I can think of far more eloquently than I can, but if you don't have time to read her whole piece, I'll quote the last part, which really made me wrench my neck:

My question is, why doesn’t anyone ever assume that women are rational actors whose choices might make sense given the (often desperate) economic, social, political, and cultural conditions in which they live? If outside experts decide that women should be making different decisions they ought to consider a wholesale reform of said economic, social, political, and cultural conditions rather than lecturing women as though they’re the ones who created said conditions.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it's not the mommy's fault.

Not A Tree ~ by Jay

A flower.

I am a Sunflower What Flower Are You?

What, you expected actual blogging? Don't be silly.

One Other Thing Was Up ~ by Tigermom

Jay left out my favorite thing she did last week.

When I found myself detained in her neck of the woods with Tigercub #3, too late for us to return home, she gave us access to her house.

We cooked ourselves dinner, found the guest room and sleeping bag, showered, I put the cub to bed for the night, fit in some adult conversation with Jay and Sam, then we left in the wee hours of the morning to head back to our previously planned adventures.

Serendipity rules.

What's Up? ~ by Jay

So much has happened since I last posted here.

- Eve finished fifth grade, which in our system means she finished elementary school and is headed to middle school next year. She's staying in public school, much to her relief and the astonishment of many of our friends and neighbors. I don't usually bother to explain to people that we considered moving her because middle school is a vast intellectual wasteland, not because we're trying to keep in a richer, whiter environment.

- We had to put Growler to sleep. She'd been not-quite-right for a while, and then she had a seizure and we realized (with the help of our wonderful vet) that she had cancer with metastasis to her brain. Sam had the hard part of all of this - he had to tell Eve, he had to watch Eve say goodbye, he took the dog to the vet and he brought Eve home that evening to a house without her favorite puppy. Eve lay down on the carpet in the living room and said 'This is the place I saw her for the last time".

- I spent three days last week covering the Palliative Care inpatient service and trying to do my own job at the same time. I managed to get home at 5:00 one day, with only 90 minutes of computer work to do that evening; that was more than balanced out by the first day, when I left the hospital at 7:30 PM and the last day, when I went to work at 7:00 AM hoping to get out by 5:00 and didn't leave until 6:30 PM.

- My mother-in-law came to visit. You do the math.

- Sam purchased and assembled one of these and is filling the house with small plastic objects. The other day he came upstairs and handed me a pink plastic frog. He also made Steven Colbert's head. Just because he can.

- Summer weather arrived and we have been swimming! and picknicking! and grilling! and swimming!

- On average I'm doing twice as many home visits in a month as I was doing a year ago.

- Our inpatient hospice census, which had been distressingly low for months, has rebounded. This is good for the organization. It is good for the patients. It is reassuring for the nurses. It adds about an hour to my day.

Watch this space. There will be blogging again, eventually.

Oh, Maybe That's It ~ by Jay

I was a little late to the Glee party. OK, maybe a lot late, especially for someone who spent so much of my youth on risers and on stage and leaning on pianos. I downloaded the first season and watched it early last fall, and then subscribed to the second season on iTunes, figuring I'd catch up and then start watching in real time.

That didn't work, but hey, it was still fun - until I got to the episode called Grilled Cheesus, in which Kurt's father has a heart attack and is in a coma, and Kurt's friends try to help by praying and singing songs from their religious traditions. I watched the first ten minutes and I got distracted. Weeks later, I came back and watched more, and then Rachel and Finn were out in the park and she was starting to sing a song from Yentl and I thought "gee, this show has gotten boring". That was months ago.

For some reason, I hit "play" again last night, and realized that it wasn't boring at all. I turned it off because it hurt so much to listen to that song that I couldn't even see how painful it was. I sobbed through the song, and through the rest of the episode, so overcome by grief that I didn't even count the ways they screwed up the medical stuff.

Papa, I miss kissing you.

Who Dat?Open Adoption Roundtable: Talking About Siblings ~ by Jay

After just over four years, I may finally be getting the hang of this blogging thing. I just realized that the Open Adoption Roundtable is, duh, open. I don't need an engraved invitation; the invite and instructions are right there in Heather's post. This roundtable asks "How do you talk about siblings in open adoption"?

At two, Eve would open the book and point at the little boy in the picture. "Who dat"? That's Marky, your brother. "Where Marky?" He lives with Laura. She'd nod and smile, and turn the page. While she was looking at the pictures of us, I was thinking someday you will ask me why Laura kept Mark and didn't keep you, and I think my heart will break into tiny pieces.

By the time she was four, Eve had been presented with a baby brother and a baby sister, and both had then been taken from her. We told her that the babies had to go back and live with their other families, and that Mommy and Daddy were sad but we would be OK. And we told her, over and over, that she would never have to leave, that she was ours forever. After the first day, when she said "But I want to see them!", she never asked where Rose and Jesse were or when they were coming back. Every now and then, she talks about "when I was a sister", and she's made it clear that she wanted to be a sister again. We'd tell her that we understand, but that we're not going to have another baby, and we'd remind her that she was a sister to Mark. "But I never see Mark!".

Eve started asking to see Mark when she was about six. This was usually at bedtime, and we'd say "You really love Mark, and we want you to see him. We'll arrange that when you're older". She'd smile at us and roll over and put her thumb in her mouth. Sam and I would go downstairs and pretend she hadn't asked.

When Eve was eight, she put Mark's school picture on her bulletin board with a note saying "MY BROTHER" and a big pink heart. She started asking more often - not to see Laura, but to meet Mark. We were stuck with the same response because we couldn't get past our own fear and anxiety about opening the adoption for real. We stalled. We equivocated. We kept saying "Someday". Finally, when she'd just turned ten, Eve looked at me and said "Mommy, you always say that you're going to do it, but you never do. I want to see my brother".

It took us nearly another year, but we finally arranged the meeting. At ten, Eve got to meet her brother. They hugged awkwardly, and didn't say much to each other. Marky's a quiet kid, and Eve takes a while to warm up - but it's a start. Now she has a picture of herself with Mark and Laura on her bulletin board, and an album started with photos of the three of them and her cousins and aunts and uncles, and the grandparents she never met.

Eve did ask why Laura kept Marky and not her, and my heart did break into tiny pieces. I said "Laura loves you and Marky both, but when you were born she couldn't take care of you both, and so she made arrangements for you to be adopted". I have never used the words gave you up or gave you away - not with Eve, and not with anyone else, either.

It's been relatively easy to talk to Eve about Mark; we try to honor her feelings and be as honest as we can, and now she has her own relationship with Mark and we're not in between them any more. We're having a harder time talking with her about the other half-siblings she has on her birth father's side. From what we can figure out, there are at least three or four other children in the community where Laura lives who are (or might be) Eve's siblings. Nick doesn't have contact with any of them; he's now married and living in another country (we think) and may have children in that marriage, too. We've told Eve that we think she has other siblings and that we can't take her to meet them. She's upset that she can't meet Nick, but so far, she seems satisfied with the brother she has.

Who dat? That's Marky. He's your brother.