"I want my mommy"

Ryan and I have been and always will be very open about our adoptions with our kids. I am noticing though that even at an early age Anna and Gideon's capacity to be affected by their adoption experiences is very real. For the most part, Gideon couldn't care less. He is probably a pretty typical boy in that sense. I get the feeling though that it bothers Anna a bit. While we are very open about them being adopted it isn't like it is brought up all the time. We have 6 beautiful and amazing kids, I generally see no need to distinguish the biological from the adopted. I think there is potential there for half of my kids to feel a bit alienated. I try to be very honest but age appropriate with Anna and Gideon. I want them to be extremely proud of their heritage (Asher also) and I want them to celebrate the fact that they were adopted.

For the first time today though the topic of Anna and Gideon's birth mom's was really discussed. I get the impression that Anna feels a little bummed that she didn't come to us the same way Madeline did. She likes to reminisce about when she was a baby a lot and I just walk down memory lane with her. We talk about the first time I saw her and how I knew from that one photo that I wanted her to be my little girl. We just talk a lot about this. I have told her about our beautiful adoption experience with her and I have mentioned her birth mother before, but she must not have understood. We were in the car today waiting for Leah to get done with piano and the discussion went like this:

Gee and I were talking about babies and Anna chimes in....

Anna: "Mommy, like when I was a baby in your tummy, like the picture in your room?"

Me: "Anna, the baby in mommy's tummy in that picture is Madeline."

Madeline: "Yeah Anna, you didn't grow in Mommy's tummy."

Apparently and somewhat unfortunately Madeline was paying attention when Anna and I talked before about her birth mom.

My mind was sent reeling for a second. I want conversations about the adoptions with the kids to be very comfortable and very commonplace. I had to think really fast how to explain to Anna (and Gee because he was right there) about their birth mom's again, hopefully this time in a way they could get.

I will spare you all the details, but in the end both my little Guatlings seemed pretty happy and cool with things, to my relief. Probably one thing though in that conversation that I will never forget is Anna saying "I want my mommy," and she didn't mean me. I am almost crying as I even just post this. There was something in me that felt defensive and extremely possessive of my baby girl. I almost wanted to shout "I AM your mommy." But I didn't and I feel like God gave me grace in that moment and I responded, "I have a picture of your birth mommy Anna, would you like to see it?" I know Anna didn't mean she wanted to choose her birth mom over me, I think she was just so intrigued she wanted to meet this woman. Rightfully so. We got home past bedtime and this conversation was long gone by then, but I am going to find the picture's I have of Anna and Gideon's birth mom's and tomorrow we will sit down and look at them together.

May God protect my sweet adopted babies. I pray they never feel the pain or anger that can many times come with their amazing circumstances.

Julie