- A Question of Trust
- Intro: The Birth of a Blog
- You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance: Part I
- Bad Romance, Part II: The Couch
- Bastard Package #1
- Hallelujah
- Born This Way
- Baby Girl X
- Another Victim of Love
- True Life
- The Girls Who Went Away
- Love and Other Drugs
- 11 Things Adoptees Love to Hear
- Uh, Never Mind
- Adoptee Kid Lit
- Bastard Princess and the Search for the Holy Grail
- MYOFB
- Awkwardness
- Baby Steps
- Faith, Hope, and Catholic Charities
- Special Delivery
- Green-eyed Monster
- !@#$
- Pandora
- Fantasyland
- Adoptees You May Have Heard Of
- Big MAC Attack
- Material Girl
- VISA and Mastercard Accepted
- Don't Hold Your Breath
- Our Love is Like a Constipated Cat
- A Question of Trust
- Adoption, Hollywood Style
- All in the Family
Bastard Package #1
Today is Mother’s Day—her 40th. Is she thinking about the day she first became a mother?
My three young children, like lots of kids, are utterly fascinated by their baby photos, ultrasound videos, and birth stories (especially Emma, who was born underwater). They love to hear where and at what time they were born (all were brunch babies—not a big surprise, as they already eat like linebackers), what I’d worn to the hospital, what the weather was like that day, what their midwives’ names were, what food I’d inhaled afterward, and what our first reactions to them were. I envy them the tiny diamonds of minutiae that are forever an undeniable, lovable, loving part of who they are, like their fingerprints and DNA.
My proud adoptive parents, being naturally and overly sentimental, used to occasionally haul out their old movie projector and make my adopted younger brother and me sit through grainy home movies of the choppy story of what I can only describe as our homecomings, in which my parents mysteriously emerged from a nondescript building, beaming, carrying a newborn version of us and taking us home. In my mind, this hated screening was tantamount to waterboarding--psychotorture of the most heinous variety. I usually reacted to these surprise showings with mortification and outright hostility, and my parents somehow never seemed to care or even notice, because they just kept doing it. Were they consciously ignoring my feelings or truly oblivious? Or was this their method of integrating the adoption concept into our idea of where babies came from? Back then I couldn’t understand my own rage—it hurt too much to even consider. How could I respond to such a happy event with such negativity?
There’s a gaping logical hole in my baby photo albums, as well. There are no photos of me on slimy, triumphant display moments after my big debut. Did the doctor even bother to announce my sex? Was my mother allowed to see me or hold me? Was I a c-section baby or a vaggie? I’m not allowed to know. No shots of me wrapped like a giant human burrito and nestled contently in my mom’s arms as she reclined in a hospital bed wearing a faded, shapeless cotton gown and a delirious smile. No photos of me chilling with the other newborns in the nursery. Those awaiting my birth did not celebrate me with cigars, champagne, or giddy phone calls; rather, in the grand traditional birth ceremony for unwanted babies, I got Bastard Package #1: I was torn from my mother, handed over to strangers in a state of panic and physical shock, and left to mourn alone, while all involved were curtly advised to forget the entire thing and move on with their lives.
From my research and personal experience, I know that forgetting just isn’t possible for us, no matter how hard we try to bury our pain. In fact, the bastard brain guarantees this, even though it’s really just trying to protect us; scientists have learned that its amygdala region, normally tasked with fear and social anxiety conditioning, becomes alerted to our abnormal distress and goes into overdrive at a very early age, such that we went on 24/7 red-level alert for rejection, abandonment, and tragedy before we even left the hospital. Think about that. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? My exhausted amygdala could probably use some time off, an oil change, or at least a decent massage. Until then, some really good therapy is the best I can do.
My three young children, like lots of kids, are utterly fascinated by their baby photos, ultrasound videos, and birth stories (especially Emma, who was born underwater). They love to hear where and at what time they were born (all were brunch babies—not a big surprise, as they already eat like linebackers), what I’d worn to the hospital, what the weather was like that day, what their midwives’ names were, what food I’d inhaled afterward, and what our first reactions to them were. I envy them the tiny diamonds of minutiae that are forever an undeniable, lovable, loving part of who they are, like their fingerprints and DNA.
My proud adoptive parents, being naturally and overly sentimental, used to occasionally haul out their old movie projector and make my adopted younger brother and me sit through grainy home movies of the choppy story of what I can only describe as our homecomings, in which my parents mysteriously emerged from a nondescript building, beaming, carrying a newborn version of us and taking us home. In my mind, this hated screening was tantamount to waterboarding--psychotorture of the most heinous variety. I usually reacted to these surprise showings with mortification and outright hostility, and my parents somehow never seemed to care or even notice, because they just kept doing it. Were they consciously ignoring my feelings or truly oblivious? Or was this their method of integrating the adoption concept into our idea of where babies came from? Back then I couldn’t understand my own rage—it hurt too much to even consider. How could I respond to such a happy event with such negativity?
There’s a gaping logical hole in my baby photo albums, as well. There are no photos of me on slimy, triumphant display moments after my big debut. Did the doctor even bother to announce my sex? Was my mother allowed to see me or hold me? Was I a c-section baby or a vaggie? I’m not allowed to know. No shots of me wrapped like a giant human burrito and nestled contently in my mom’s arms as she reclined in a hospital bed wearing a faded, shapeless cotton gown and a delirious smile. No photos of me chilling with the other newborns in the nursery. Those awaiting my birth did not celebrate me with cigars, champagne, or giddy phone calls; rather, in the grand traditional birth ceremony for unwanted babies, I got Bastard Package #1: I was torn from my mother, handed over to strangers in a state of panic and physical shock, and left to mourn alone, while all involved were curtly advised to forget the entire thing and move on with their lives.
From my research and personal experience, I know that forgetting just isn’t possible for us, no matter how hard we try to bury our pain. In fact, the bastard brain guarantees this, even though it’s really just trying to protect us; scientists have learned that its amygdala region, normally tasked with fear and social anxiety conditioning, becomes alerted to our abnormal distress and goes into overdrive at a very early age, such that we went on 24/7 red-level alert for rejection, abandonment, and tragedy before we even left the hospital. Think about that. Explains a lot, doesn’t it? My exhausted amygdala could probably use some time off, an oil change, or at least a decent massage. Until then, some really good therapy is the best I can do.