My sons were adopted as babies; my twin daughters at six years old. When they were little, we had the mad abundance of birthday parties, at the pool, the soccer field, the grandparents’ front yard. The parties were full of presents, friends, family, ice cream, and cake.
Who was missing at these birthday celebrations? The women who gave birth to the children. The people (fathers, siblings, grandparents) who are biologically related to them.
I can’t help but wonder what those birth days were like for those family members.
Birthday parties evolve over time. Some adoptees have a rough time on their birthdays. In our family, we have all grown in our understanding of how a child’s beginnings can affect the child, and how powerful memories can be. We have seen how longing for what is not conscious can be quite deep. We have lived watching the ways that trust can be broken and losses felt, and how hard it is to heal that broken trust. My children’s birthdays are still celebrated, of course: they can count on receiving socks every year. And other stuff too. But they are in their late 20’s now. Still very young, but hardly children–except in the sense that they are always my children.
They are also the children–always–of their first families. Each child has had a different approach to connecting with their family of birth, and those stories are theirs alone to tell.
Today is the 27th birthday of my twin daughters, Adanech and Aselefech, adopted from Ethiopia in 1994. Aselefech has been actively involved with the adoptee community. She wrote a wonderful post today at Lost Daughters, a writing collective of women adopted in the US or internationally as children. In it, she celebrates her connections with other Ethiopian adoptees whose hearts are in the country of their birth, their mother land, their home country. These young people, part of the diaspora, are actively working to help their younger selves in Ethiopia: children who witness their mothers die, children who are deeply loved but whose families are horrifically impoverished, children who beg on the streets, children who are unable to walk or to see, children who never go to school.
Happy Birth Day. May all children know safety, love, education, and hope. May these adoptees bring light and healing to each other and to the children. May all the voices be heard.
My daughters, my granddaughter, and me. © Maureen McCauley Evans
Happy Birthday to your daughters! You have a beautiful family!
Our family normally celebrates each member’s birthday with gifts (of course) , activities of their choice, and a cake after supper. We celebrate our granddaughter’s birthday (adopted from birth in 2010) the same way including the cake and birthday song. We take pictures of the gifts we send and the dinner and cake we eat. Maybe one day she will see them.
Our daughter has only been invited by the adoptive parents to one of her daughter’s birthday parties. The rest of us (my husband and our other children) have never been invited. That’s why we celebrate the way we do. It is difficult and often very sad, but it’s also nice to have our own private family celebration. No one can take that away.