Versus

My son is 6, and recently, he asked my husband how babies are made.

Actual footage of what I would've looked like in that circumstance.

Our son asked his dad a question about "the bubbles under [his] penis," so, man of science that he is, my husband began to expound on human reproduction.

We've always used technical terms for all body parts, so the vocabulary wasn't completely new, but the heart of the lesson was in the mechanics. I wasn't privy to the conversation, so I don't know the specifics, but he got just enough information to be able to tell me later that:

1. the man's penis goes into a woman's anus vagina (imagine how difficult it was to correct him without dying of laughter on the spot)
2. women have eggs in their bodies (good job, son)
3. one of the man's sperm, if it's super strong, can break through into the woman's egg (he likened this to an episode of Bill Nye in which a pin pokes its way into a foam ball - thumbs up, kid)

Thanks for helping our kid learn about sex. Not even being sarcastic.

Practically since birth, we've been telling our son that he's exactly half me and half Daddy. Honestly, part of the reason I delight in doing so is because it's still such a weird novelty. I can definitively point to certain personality traits or physical characteristics and say, "Yep, that's from me," or "You get that from your dad."

As an adoptee, I can't do that.

Not knowing where I come from is both natural and weird for me. On the one hand, I have never in my working memory, laid eyes on any of my blood relatives, save for my son. (Which, again, is one of the reasons why his existence gives me miraculous joy.) But this is the way it's always been, so it's sort of my normal. I did, as a kid, observe parents and their kids closely to look for their shared features. I still do this, and it's still kind of wonderful.

If you're reading this and you weren't adopted, it's probably weird to imagine a world in which you never had access to progenitors. I get it. But imagine that life for a second. . . You never had anyone remark that "You have your mother's eyes," or that "Your dad was good at math, just like you." Comments like that were never be directed toward you. Ever. Strange, isn't it? Yeah, it is for me, too.

But.

Believe it or not, being adopted (from my experience, anyway) has a few perks:

1. I was chosen.

     2. You get TWO special days to celebrate - the day of your adoption AND your birthday.

Yesterday was February 2nd, the anniversary of the day I came to America.  Heart.

     

3. I kinda hate to say it, but adopting a kid seems to be a LOT of prep, more so than having a kid biologically. (More on this later.) When we had our son, yeah, there were doctor's visits, getting the nursery ready, all the research. . . But I'll tell you what we DIDN'T have to do: have strangers inspect our home for child-readiness, get background checks, seek out a lawyer, and the other miles of paperwork to PROVE that we were fit to be parents. And if you're adopting internationally, it's very likely that you'll have to do even more. I can imagine how exhausting this would be. In my mind, this amounts to the fact that many adopted children are wanted and cherished just for the sake of being them. I know this is not the case for many adoptees, but in mine, it feels true.

While it seems natural to dwell on the bad feelings that spring from being adopted, on the whole, I can't say that my life would be demonstrably worse had I stayed in Korea with people who looked like me. Does that make sense? 

My experience is my experience, and each adoptee has to grapple with their adoption on their own terms, in their own time. 

But for now, I take sanctuary in the fact that I know I was wanted enough to be flown halfway around the world to be loved by people who didn't have to know I existed.