Dancing With Maddie

When I write I try to sit in a quiet place and let the words come to me after having rolled my thoughts around in my brain for the entirety of a day. By the end of the day I have my topic, my thesis, and I just roll it out without stopping long enough to consider if I split infinitives. It’s come too easily for me thus far and I sort of hate that right now because trying to form sentences about what is going on with me is nearly impossible. It’s the most intensely personal and even shameful thing I’ve kept close to my heart, so putting it out there for others to read about and experience as I’m going through it is thorny and complicated.

First, there are all the people involved to consider. My daughter has her own parents, her own brothers and her own life absent of me. She is as raw as I am and, while we hold tight to one another as we navigate this unchartered territory, it is our story. I would never want to hurt anyone, whether they are an adoptive parent or birth parent, and I don’t have all the answers. All I have is what we are doing as we get to know one another.

In 1986 I gave birth to my first daughter, Mallory, and by the time she turned 1 in 1987 I was already pregnant again with Maddie*. It’s safe to say that at the crossroads of fertility and fidelity I was caught in a trap that wouldn’t release me even though I walked right into it. The hardest thing about not being able to blame anyone else is that it allows for shame to set up camp and put it’s feet up on the ottoman as if it’s going to stay awhile. Maddie’s birth father and I placed her for adoption and resumed our lives as normally as we could. If people knew, they didn’t say anything to us and if they did it’s because they were friends close to us. But even some of them couldn’t begin the conversation at times. Her birth father is not Mallory’s birth father and for my other children this has been something which they’ve needed to come to terms. My youngest, trying to process this simply asked, “So you did it with three guys?”

Well, not at the same time.

The story is a simple one. It’s easy to find your birth parents if only you know their last name and the dance begins. Slowly, at first, wondering which foot to move. Do I answer this request to be my friend on Facebook? Do I return the missed phone call that I know is her? Your feet begin to move and the dance cannot be undone, though your life surely feels like it slowly unraveling and you’re coming undone before your very eyes. Shuffling along, you grab onto your partner and breathe in their air, taking the words of their life story and listening as you wait for them to spin you around again and again until you’re completely dizzy. You pull your dance partner in closer and try to stay in sync with the steps and pray the other doesn’t pull back because this is the sweetest dance of your life. Is there even music playing anymore? Was there ever any rhythm in what you were hearing or was that just your brain buzzing?

For us, we are getting acquainted and we are laughing and loving. We ask, “Is this ok?” and “How does that make you feel?” and “What do your friends say about this?” It isn’t right for everyone in these situations, but for us it is. It’s uncomfortable at times and others, it feels so perfectly normal that we don’t question it. What she knows to be true is that I couldn’t raise another child and do it well because everything was simply messy. That’s what it always is, messy. But it’s the fact that we know it’s ok to be messy and be in a mess and still commit to figuring this out as we go along. If there’s a book written on the topic of reuniting with your adopted child then I just haven’t found it.

Our dance continues. Tomorrow we are inviting the rest of my family to the ballroom to be swept up in this waltz. I know that there are lots of strong feelings about that, but I’m not going to apologize or stop dancing or hope for happy endings for everyone. My other children are excited about having another sister, but they’re apprehensive, too. It’s risky and complex and all I can do is facilitate what is best described as an invitation to love another human being both as they wholly are and as they are wholly a part of their biological makeup.

Love, as far as I can tell, is an unusual beast with new dance moves every time you come into contact with it. A friend gave me this advice about it: You don’t love your other children any less just because there’s another person with which to share it. You don’t spread it thinner when you spread it wider.

I’m gonna dance this dance. There’s no way I’m sitting this one out.

*Maddie is not her real name, but a nickname of hers. She has given me permission to write about her as I see fit and she is a writer in her own right. Nature totally won out on that issue.*

Tagged as: adoption, daughters, family, mothers, reunions