September 21, 2011

Will Love Be Enough?

We have never hid the fact of Adi's birth from him. I know it sounds very insensitive but one thing that I was certain of before we went in for adoption was that I would never hide this fact from my child. I would want him to know the truth from his parents before he starts guessing it or stumbles into his documents by mistake or overhear us talking about it or hear it from someone else. So when Adi was a little more than 2, we first told him about Ashraya and how we became his parents.

In the counseling sessions that we had to go through during the 'home study' phase, we were advised to start sharing about his birth details and his birth mother (somehow the birth father is never in the picture - I wonder why??) from the age of 2.5 or 3 onwards. We were told that we could break it to him in various ways - tell it to him as a story, use Krishna's story as an example, have a picture dairy recording all events right from the first day we met him, read a story book on adoption, etc. I did think a lot about how I should do it and what would be the best way but then when it actually came down to the day - we just told him the truth - as it was. Just thought it would be simpler this way and easy for me to remember as well (my memory seems to getting weaker by the day!!).

Although I had pondered about it for months and thought I was mentally prepared, the first time was very very tough for me and I had to try really hard to control my emotions and tell it to him very casually without the story sounding sad or shocking or abnormal. Adi, of course, was too little to understand the complete meaning of what we told him and had absolutely no reaction or questions. I would repeat the story every 3-4 months and again there would be no questions and I would let it be as it is. Until one fine day (maybe he was 3.5 years then) out of the blue I got a question 'Mama, do I have an older brother from my other Mama?'. And this while we were happily holidaying at Disneyland in France. I was stumped for a moment wondering what he was talking about and then I quickly realized and told him that I didn't know. That was it - he immediately went back to playing.

I guess from then on he thinks about this once in a while coz he asks me random questions out of the blue. I remember very few of them though. He's asked me if I was very sad before he came home and then did he made me very happy. He's asked me what his name was before we named him Manas (we had told him the first time). He's asked me what the name of the place was where we first saw him (he kept forgetting the name 'Ashraya'). Every time he asks me something I answer him truthfully but so far they have only been easy questions.

We take Adi to Ashraya every year on his birthday (except for the years while we were in UK). This year we had been there twice before his birthday and although he knew that he came to us from Ashraya, he never asked me anything out of the ordinary. He was just happy playing cricket with the older kids, going to class along with them and showing off the iPhone games to them. On his birthday (or rather on mine!) we went again and this time I took a friend of his along with us and I overheard a very interesting conversation they had.

Shloka: Adi, have you been to Ashraya before?
Adi: Yes, this is my second time
Me: No, you have been here many times before
Adi: Shloka, I was born at Ashraya
Shloka with a shocked expression: That means your Mama left you there (Shloka knew Ashraya was an orphanage and also knew what it meant - my heart stopped beating for a moment not knowing how Adi would react)
Adi: Ya, I was there when I was a baby and I had lot of fun times there. And then Mama came and took me from there. Any Mama can come and take babies from there.

Adi and Shloka went back to playing again and my heart started to beat again :) I was just glad that Adi treated this very normally and answered Shloka without any hesitation. This is also the first time he was sharing or talking about his birth with someone else other than his Dad or me. During this visit Adi also wanted to know which was his bed and pointed to the biggest one and asked if I took him from that bed. Although I didn't know, I said Yes just to make him happy :)

He still doesn't completely understand the meaning of adoption. All he understands right now is that he has not come from my tummy and that he has two mothers. I guess as he grows older he will slowly realize the meaning of it. I do not know what challenges lie ahead or how difficult the questions will get - but I do not want to think about it until they come. I have not yet used the word 'adoption' or 'birth mother' with him. I have been asked to by the counsellors at Ashraya but for some reason I have been hesitant. I guess I will when I feel the time is right. A couple of months back Adi said something that made my eyes well up with tears - as we were lying down sleeping he said 'Mama, I know I came from the other Mama's tummy, but I love you the most'. And then another day as we were having breakfast he said 'Mama, thank you for choosing me from the other Mama so that I could be with you. I love you.'. I feel he chose us and not the other way around. Maybe he does understand something - the love that we have for him. And I hope just love will be enough to get us through :)



3 comments:

Aparna said...

So touching Poornima.. You seem to be having a wonderful approach of keeping Adi in the loop from an early age. Even if the questions get tougher I'm sure you'll do great at handling them! All the very best and lots of love to all of you :)

poornima said...

Thanks so much Aparna :)

Chakri said...

I admire you guys so much .....thats about all I can say!!