I have two mothers: my mom (adopted mom) and my birth mom. When I interviewed my mom for a school project about her story of becoming a mother to 4 Chinese adoptee daughters, I thought about motherhood as an underlying theme in my life. There are three perspectives of motherhood: my birth mom, me, and my adopted mom.
First, my birth mom’s story is unknown. I imagine she lives across the globe probably continuing her daily routine like brushing her teeth, petting her dog, and saying hi to her neighbor. She probably thinks about me on her way to work and holds her stomach in the shower when she misses me most.
My story begins after getting my period at 14 years old and learning that I have half the parts of becoming a mom. Honestly, it scared me every single month I bled. I questioned how my body could change and deliver a baby. Who would want to go through all that pain and take care of a screaming baby?
After getting prescribed the pill at 22 years old and the Mirena IUD at 23 years old, every year is another chance of accidentally becoming pregnant. I don’t know if I want to become a mom. Maybe I will want to one day. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will raise my own child, adopt a child or foster a child.
If you ask my mom (my adopted mom), she will happily tell you her story …
(interview begins)
Emma: If you had one moment to choose that formed you, made you who you are, what would that be?
Mom: Well, I think the general moment that formed me was becoming a mom. Your dad and I had been going through fertility treatments for a long time. One day I was getting in the shower and I reached over to pull the shower door open and I caught sight of a mole on my arm. And I remember looking at it as my hand drew the shower door open and thinking about that mole.
And it made me think about myself, the dna, and what was so special about me. That mole made me realize that none of that mattered and that I just wanted to be a mom. And it's what took us away from continuing with fertility treatments and pursuing adoption instead, all cuz that mole <laugh> .
Emma: At that time, did you feel a change when you realized you couldn't have children?
Mom: Our focus had become on getting pregnant instead of becoming parents. So that moment made me realize that we were doing it wrong and it was time to refocus on the ultimate goal. So we started looking into adoption back in the mid nineties.
The internet was pretty new and so I would do a lot of research about adoption on the internet. I was getting kind of excited about the idea of adopting from China cuz I was reading about it online, and there were all kinds of really neat stories about people adopting from China. It was kind of new back then. I was getting so excited, and I hadn't felt excited in a long time because fertility treatments are not fun. It's a very awful thing to go through. This just gave me so much hope. But to be honest, back then it seemed kind of like a cool idea to adopt from China.
Emma: When did you start looking exactly?
Mom: Shortly after I had my mole incident in 1996 and started researching China adoption that spring. I just didn't know how to tell dad that I thought that our baby was in China, because I thought he would think I was absolutely crazy.
So I'm trying to figure out how to tell him that’s what I think. And he came home from work one day and he said, “what do you think about adopting from China?” And I was like, “what?” And it turns out that his father had seen something on the news. Hillary Clinton was at a women's meeting in China that year, and she was talking about orphaned babies there. And his dad saw this on the news, and he knew that Philip and I were wanting to have a family. And so he suggested to Philip, “what do you think about adopting a baby from China?”
(Read more in part 2 - coming soon)