No More Gotcha Day??? So sad.....

Recently a blog posted an entry about adoption. First of all, I truly enjoy reading this blog. I have learned a lot about adoption from this blog, especially since when we adopted 8 years ago I did not have the resources that people have now. I did things really, really wrong compared to how things are done now and hope to God I have not ruined my daughter.

Secondly, I know many families in this community who use adoption as some sort of crutch for their child. For example one lady says quite often "You have to be nice to_____. She grew up in an orphanage." Well, she has been out of the orphanage for 10 years now and all she has learned from that line is that she should have issues.....IMO.....

Now some of the adoption community is ditching gotcha days because of a movie about Adoption. I have no desire to see this movie because I think it is going to be A) depressing and B) a focus on all the negatives of adoption.

Family Day, or Gotcha Day, is a day of celebration of when the family became a family. It is the day Mark became a brother, Mike and I became a mother and a father to a daughter and the day Jade became a sister and a daughter. It IS a day of celebration.....Because of something beautiful and amazing (adoption) we are a family.

As for the abandonment issue. No one knows what happened, so why assume it was a terrible, horrible thing. Why not assume that whoever abandoned the baby (In my heart I do not believe it was actually the mother, but a grandparent or close friend who loved the mother enough to spare her the pain, but did it knowing it had to be done) put that baby in a place where there was absolutely no doubt she would be found and taken to a safe place where she would stay until she was adopted. The Chinese people have to know by now that that is what is happening and that if they choose to abandon instead of say....kill...the infant then they are actually doing something out of love. They may even be watching from behind a bush (figuratively) waiting until someone picks up that baby. Once they see the baby is safe they can leave. Maybe they watch for hours....maybe if no one picks up they baby they do it themselves and try again the next day. The fact is no one knows and who are we to assume what it was. I think it's up to us as parents to make the story as positive and loving as possible while they are young and don't know any better. As they grow up and actually have questions when they realize what abandonment actually is, they have a base that is solid on only postive scenarios instead of the negative scenarios. Whenever Jade asks questions I tell her how lucky she was to be in a place full of other sweet babies.....it may not be true, but it's peaceful and not scary. It's something she can imagine and when she's older she already has the image of someplace sweet and comforting instead of cold and unloving.

When Mike and I got married, we were not related. We became a family through marriage.

Jade was not related until her adoption. I celebrate the day of my marriage, I celebrate the day

of our adoption. It is important that she knows that because of her adoption we are a family.

It is a special day for all 4 of us. We don't go crazy or anything!

If, in fact, they grow up and think that the abandonment was a terrible, horrible thing, do you

not think that having a family that celebrated the day they got you would be a positive, joyous

celebration to cancel out the horrible, rotten thing that happened to them?

I could be totally wrong about all of this. I just do the best I can with what I've got. I don't want

to be an "adoptive" mom, just a mom.

Now I sit and cringe to see what happens. I am not wanting to be the b*tch in this. I just feel I

needed to speak my opinion.....you can tell me to shut up now!

One other point: I can tell Mark about his birth story, which I can't do for Jade. On Family Day I

tell her all about that wonderful day when she was placed in my arms. Yes, Jade does have an

extra day that Mark doesn't have but that's life. Mark can say he looks like us, but Jade can't.

Life is not always fair but you deal with what you've got.