My dearest Noemi,
I think about it a lot.
I wonder who gave you that round forehead or the kissable dimple on your
left cheek. I wonder whose laugh has that same joyfully bumpy rhythm.
Surely there must be someone in your lineage with a scream that reaches a glass-shattering pitch.
I think about it a lot.
I wonder who gave you that round forehead or the kissable dimple on your
left cheek. I wonder whose laugh has that same joyfully bumpy rhythm.
Surely there must be someone in your lineage with a scream that reaches a glass-shattering pitch.
I assume there is someone who can run like a gazelle and is a natural narrator, just like you. These characteristics—your physical and temperamental characteristics—were born of someone.
And it wasn’t me.
It’s not to say that I don’t think you mirror me. You know how to give a good stink eye when annoyed and you prefer music with a leading beat. You have mushy nails that peel off like mine, so I have already begun the task of teaching you the essential life-skill of knowing how to sandblast and paint those suckers so that you have a chance of getting asked to the prom someday. You have a fierce BS radar and an equally sharp tongue that occasionally needs to be tamed. Just like your mamma.
But one thing is for sure: your newly formed body did not float inside mine. My womb did not house your little beauty of a person and gift you to the world with a mighty push. I grew and birthed you in other ways, but not with my body.
I’ve struggled with what to call her, your first mother. Some feel that “birth mother” is too clinical and that it infers she was simply a machine that spit you out for my benefit. In one foul swoop it can negate that there was any emotional connection and grief involved with the loss of you. But I do refer to her as your birth mother, in part, because she bore you.
She is also known as “Enat” in our house, the Amharic word for “mother.” She is a woman of many names because she served many roles before I entered your life. Not knowing all of the details of your early story, I do not wish to romanticize things. It can be harmful and misleading to fill in empty spaces with wishful fantasies. But I cannot deny that, even if you
spent no more than 9 months in utero with Enat, you are forever bonded to her.
The thing about adoption is this: I will always share you.
I will never be your only mother.
You will always have a connection to a family beyond ours.
I could be threatened by this (and no, I have never, ever, had puffy mascara face as a result of ugly crying over this one before) or: I could embrace the complexity of our coming together, say a Hail Mary as I beg for grace and get working on an emotional merger. This does not mean that I will co-parent you. But you will forever have two mothers. I am your forever mommy, but Enat is your first mother.
Your soon-coming baby brother or sister will also have a birth mother with whom we may or may not have an open relationship. But whatever the external relationship, your birth families will be honored. It is our responsibility to give them a face so that others stop making assumptions about their character or pretending that they don’t exist. Their struggles will not be made public, only to be debated and smeared in casual conversation around the punch bowl. I will strive to respectfully navigate
questions about your birth family (especially in the Costco check-out line with nosy strangers—believe me, I wish this wasn’t true) and I will not tolerate anyone speaking about them as if Daddy and me did them a favor, or as if your life is better with us. Life is more complicated than that. How dare I simplify your multi-layered story for my own comfort.
You were given to us for reasons far more complicated than I have ever experienced. Without them, there would be no us. We have been entrusted with each other as a result of great sacrifice. Period.
And for this reason, your birth mother must always remain present in our
hearts and words as an immediate extension of you. After all, she may be smiling somewhere with that same dimple.
I will always wonder. I will always look to the heavens and ask God “who” and “how” and “why.” But just as my questions bring me closer to my first father—the father of the mysterious heavens, I trust that your questions will bring you closer. Closer to your maker. Closer to Enat. Closer to me. Closer to yourself. We’re in this together, baby—let us wonder on our knees.
Now let me kiss that sweet little dimple of yours.
I love you forever,
Mommy
Julie Roberts Witmer lives in Lancaster with her husband, Donovan, and their stinkin’ adorable nearing 5-year-old daughter, Noemi Sosina, who was born in Ethiopia. They are currently in-process of a domestic newborn adoption.
And it wasn’t me.
It’s not to say that I don’t think you mirror me. You know how to give a good stink eye when annoyed and you prefer music with a leading beat. You have mushy nails that peel off like mine, so I have already begun the task of teaching you the essential life-skill of knowing how to sandblast and paint those suckers so that you have a chance of getting asked to the prom someday. You have a fierce BS radar and an equally sharp tongue that occasionally needs to be tamed. Just like your mamma.
But one thing is for sure: your newly formed body did not float inside mine. My womb did not house your little beauty of a person and gift you to the world with a mighty push. I grew and birthed you in other ways, but not with my body.
I’ve struggled with what to call her, your first mother. Some feel that “birth mother” is too clinical and that it infers she was simply a machine that spit you out for my benefit. In one foul swoop it can negate that there was any emotional connection and grief involved with the loss of you. But I do refer to her as your birth mother, in part, because she bore you.
She is also known as “Enat” in our house, the Amharic word for “mother.” She is a woman of many names because she served many roles before I entered your life. Not knowing all of the details of your early story, I do not wish to romanticize things. It can be harmful and misleading to fill in empty spaces with wishful fantasies. But I cannot deny that, even if you
spent no more than 9 months in utero with Enat, you are forever bonded to her.
The thing about adoption is this: I will always share you.
I will never be your only mother.
You will always have a connection to a family beyond ours.
I could be threatened by this (and no, I have never, ever, had puffy mascara face as a result of ugly crying over this one before) or: I could embrace the complexity of our coming together, say a Hail Mary as I beg for grace and get working on an emotional merger. This does not mean that I will co-parent you. But you will forever have two mothers. I am your forever mommy, but Enat is your first mother.
Your soon-coming baby brother or sister will also have a birth mother with whom we may or may not have an open relationship. But whatever the external relationship, your birth families will be honored. It is our responsibility to give them a face so that others stop making assumptions about their character or pretending that they don’t exist. Their struggles will not be made public, only to be debated and smeared in casual conversation around the punch bowl. I will strive to respectfully navigate
questions about your birth family (especially in the Costco check-out line with nosy strangers—believe me, I wish this wasn’t true) and I will not tolerate anyone speaking about them as if Daddy and me did them a favor, or as if your life is better with us. Life is more complicated than that. How dare I simplify your multi-layered story for my own comfort.
You were given to us for reasons far more complicated than I have ever experienced. Without them, there would be no us. We have been entrusted with each other as a result of great sacrifice. Period.
And for this reason, your birth mother must always remain present in our
hearts and words as an immediate extension of you. After all, she may be smiling somewhere with that same dimple.
I will always wonder. I will always look to the heavens and ask God “who” and “how” and “why.” But just as my questions bring me closer to my first father—the father of the mysterious heavens, I trust that your questions will bring you closer. Closer to your maker. Closer to Enat. Closer to me. Closer to yourself. We’re in this together, baby—let us wonder on our knees.
Now let me kiss that sweet little dimple of yours.
I love you forever,
Mommy
Julie Roberts Witmer lives in Lancaster with her husband, Donovan, and their stinkin’ adorable nearing 5-year-old daughter, Noemi Sosina, who was born in Ethiopia. They are currently in-process of a domestic newborn adoption.
