I'm (not) sorry.

When he was four, my son announced with a puffed up chest and a proud grin, "I'm adopted!" to another parent on the playground. He knows the truth. He knows that to be adopted is special. The response was a wincing "I'm sorry."

My son, also when he was four, took to asking people if they were adopted. Most often the response was a surprised "No!" To which he would say, "I'm sorry." If they were holding a baby, he might add, "Did you adopt your baby?" Often the response was again, a shocked and surprised, "NO!" Oh, the look of utter pity for that baby that would cross my son's face.

What makes me angry is the assumption that to be adopted is less than. The assumption that somehow you are not "wanted." Simply enough, people who are adopted are often twice as wanted and twice as loved. All birth parents love their children desperately. Even if they choose to have their child adopted. Even if the choices they are making mean that their children aren't safe and need to be in foster care. This doesn't change the absolute pain and desolation any of us feel when we loose a child. And then, to be adopted. How glorious is that? A family goes through hours of homestudies, interviews, background checks, social workers in our home measuring rooms, giving us the once over, months and sometimes years of waiting. And then finally, our precious bundle comes home to us. Oh, to be adopted, you are most certainly wanted.

To be wanted. To be claimed. This is what children need. To know that no matter what happens you have a family to fall back on. This is what we all need to feel safe, to take risks, to feel whole. So, whether you are raised by your birth parents or your adopted parents, I hope that you get to feel adopted. You are the luckiest kid in the world if you do.

Learn What is Most Important

All human life is equally valuable. When it comes to relationships, time spent together is more powerful than genetics. Nurture is more powerful than nature.

I decided not to get pregnant. Even though my body wanted it more than anything. But the face of just one child waiting for a family smashed biological instinct. Genetics and bloodlines became the social constructs that they are.

We make far too many choices every day to consider them all. Most we make through habit. Most habits we make based on a value we were taught. We might prioritize ease, efficiency or familiarity. We base our decisions, without thought, on these values.

Is that which you were taught is most important still what you would choose for yourself now?

You are my son because we chose you. You are my daughter because I claimed you as such. And the moment I knew that, was the moment I would step in front of traffic for you. Because when you know what is most important, you don't have to think when you choose.

Don't Smoke Crack While You Are Pregnant

I went to my room tonight and changed into my pajamas. And when I turned around, a tiny girl with an impish smile stood looking up at me. She held her bottle in one hand and rocked herself up on her toes. She asked for her pj's in a language only intelligible to our family, refused her nighttime diaper, then agreed to put on her diaper, stuffed her little legs under the covers and pulled them up to her chin. I lay down beside her. My arm found her little body and awkwardly tried to find its place around her belly. She sucked on her bottle. The sucking stopped. She breathed heavily through her nose, imitating my breathing rhythm, held her breath for a moment and the sucking resumed. Her head turned away and she pushed my arm off her belly.

For the first twelve months of her life my daughter could not fall asleep unless she had darkness, silence, and a tight swaddle. The toxic substances coursing through her tiny body while her cells developed and her neurons made connections seemed to leave all sensory receptors frayed at the ends. A pin drop seemed to explode against her eardrums like a firecracker. A light touch to her skin was fire through dry leaves. My daughter could not snuggle with me. My daughter did not burrow into my lap like an overgrown kitten. My daughter was irritated rather than soothed by touch.

But tonight, after she had pushed me away, and after she had finished her bottle and chucked it across the room, she turned toward me, pushed her head under my chin, and pulled my hand around her back. She breathed deeply. She fell asleep.