I really should be sterilizing things and making milk and then getting to bed. But I have to record this evenings exchange with Hana for my own remembering. I finally got the question I've been waiting for tonight.
Kai's coming has really triggered Hana's questions about her adoption, how she came to us, etc. Sometimes when I go upstairs to put Kai in bed after his last feeding, she is still awake and calls on me when I walk down the hall. I go in and crawl in her futon with her and cuddle and talk for a minute. She almost always wants to hear her adoption story. So I tell her all about how anxiously Mommy and Daddy waited for her, about the night we got the phone call and about the day she came home! She loves it. Tonight however, she started the conversation with a different question...
"Mommy, was inside your tummy?"
Wow. I've been waiting for this one. Thinking of how I will answer it for a while. Wondering how it's going to make me feel to hear the question and what her reaction to the answer will be like and how that will make me feel.
I just simply told her that no, Mommy's tummy is broken and can't have a baby inside so she was inside another woman's tummy. So she asked who that lady was. I told her I didn't know her, I'd never met her but that Tsujioka-sensei knows her (that is the director of our adoption agency and the man that brought both Hana and Kai to us, Hana knows him well). At that point I was expecting a string of questions, but she just kinda shrugged her shoulders and asked for the rest of the story.
Hmmmm, that was easy, almost too easy. I expected more. Somehow I'd worked it up in my head that it was going to be a big deal for her to realize that her adoption means that Mommy didn't carry her in my tummy. But to her, I guess so far, it's just the way it is and it's no big deal.
Her reaction being what it was makes facing that question for the first time so much easier on me. But at the same time, she is so much a part of me, so incredibly speacial to me, sooooooooooooooo much my precious daughter, even I can't believe that I really didn't give birth to her myself... I guess I just wish I could have carried her in my tummy. I missed 9 months and 9 days of her precious life (she came to us at 9 days old).
Don't even know really what I'm wanting to or trying to say here. It was just a big thing for me that she finally made that connection tonight and I'm wondering how much more will come in the future. But I'm thankful for the openess that we have established in being able to talk about it and her freely asking questions. Praying that continues!
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2 comments:
We've had that discussion quite a bit lately around here. Since I've become pregnant after adopting Samuel, it's been difficult to try and answer his "why." He knows his little brother grew in my tummy but doesn't understand why he didn't.
It's been hit and miss, to be honest. Sometimes he makes comments about "when I was in your tummy" and sometimes he'll remember that he was in someone else's. It's tough.
{{{hugs}}} to you. It's hard to answer, but I'm sure you'll do fine the next time it comes up, just like you did this time.
Thanks so much for posting about this, Marla. I showed Jun a bunch of pictures of the day she came HOME, and she has been talking and talking about Mama holding her so so tight when she was a tiny tiny baby. I've been thinking and thinking of how to explain the "tummy" part. Your post is so helpful! Thanks! And, I so understand wishing to have had contact with Jun those first 9 plus months of her life. The two weeks we waited for her haunted me often in the past. I wish I had been there for her!
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