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The Adoption

ConstellationA Publication of Adoption Mosaic

Anthropology:Revealing New Perspectives onInternational Adoption

Mother’s DayBalancing Act

Signing Time’s Rachel Coleman Finds Her Happiness

ETHICA PRESIDENT RACHEL WEGNER SPEAKS HER MIND p. 17 * NAME CHANGE? p. 19

Spring 2011 volume 1 issue 3

2 The Adoption Constellation Spring 2011

Publisher: Astrid DabbeniChief Editorial and Creative Director:

Tara KimEditorial Director: Livia Montana

Executive Editor: Kelly JeskeSubscription Manager: Shelise GiesekePhotography Director: Troy Folsom

Copy editor: MereAnn Reid

Send letters, submissions or questions to

tara@adoptionmosaic.org or mail to: The Adoption Constellation

PO Box 18102, Portland, Oregon 97218 USA

SubscriptionsThe Adoption Constellation is published quarterly

Yearly Subscriptions: USA $25.00, Canada $30.00, Other Countries $35.00

Subscribe by mail: Address aboveSubscribe online: http://www.adoptionmosa-ic.org/the-adoption-constellation-magazine/For subscription questions: info@adoptionmosaic.org or call (971) 212-1108

Please allow 4-6 weeks to receive your first magazine.

SubmissionsThe Adoption Constellation welcomes article and photography/art submissions. Please view writer’s guidelines at (http://www.adoptionmo-saic.org/the-adoption-constellation-magazine/) prior to submitting your work.

E-mail submissions to tara@adoptionmosaic.org or mail to address above.

All rights reserved. Reproduction (whole or part) without permission is prohibited.

Contributors

Laura Willard is a Southern California-based freelance writer who has proudly and successfully avoided using her law school education for many years now. She and her husband have a three-year-old son from Vietnam and a two-year-old daughter from Ethiopia.

Erin Raffety is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Princeton University. Her research explores the significant growth of Chinese domestic adoption and foster care over the past two decades, and considers the intersection between traditional practices of Chinese kinship with the modern, global processes of international adoption. Ms. Raffety also holds an M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a B.A. in Anthropology from Davidson College. You can find her at littlesacredspace.wordpress.com.

Kelly Jeske lives with her family in Portland, Oregon. Kelly’s writing appears in the anthologies Who’s Your Mama? The Unsung Voices of Women and Mothers and Storied Dishes: What Our Family Recipes Tell Us About Who We Are and Where We’ve Been. Kelly is the executive editor of The Adoption Constellation magazine.

Rachel de Azevedo Coleman is the host and co-creator of “Signing Time!” (www.signingtime.com) a DVD series and public television show that teaches American Sign Language to families. She has also founded The Signing Time Foundation (www.signingtimefoundation.org). She is the mother of three remarkable girls; Laura was placed for adoption in 1992, Leah is deaf, and Lucy has spina bifida.

Dawn Friedman lives in Columbus, Ohio. Her work has appeared in Utne, Ode, Salon.com, Parenting and in Rebecca Walker’s anthology, One Big Happy Family. Dawn maintains an open adoption with her adopted daughter’s mother. You can find her at www.DawnFriedman.com.

Jenna Hatfield is a freelance writer and professional photographer. She currently writes for BlogHer and maintains two popular personal blogs, one of which is her ongoing account of the open adoption relationship with her daughter’s family. It can be found at http://thechroniclesofmunchkinland.com.

Special thanks to the Spirit Mountain Community Fund for their support of The Adoption Constellation.

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4 From the Editor & Letters Our Families Today—What does it mean to be family?

5 MultifacetsAttorney Facilitated Adoptions, Culture Camps, Social Media and Adoption Reunion.

6 Columnists Maureen: Adoption and Birth Rights - A consideration of politics and the resilience of the human spirit.

Catherine: Adding Tree to the Family - Filling in the spaces of Marcel’s family tree.

Shelise: Fitness - Adoption requires a certain level of fitness to maintain flexibility; Shelise gets in shape.

8 No Choice But to LaughLiving adoption with humor and a grain of salt.by Laura Willard

10 Mother’s DayFor adoptive families, Mother’s Day is not always so straightforward. Both an adoptive mother and a birth mother tell of their day. By Dawn Friedman and Jenna Hatfield

contents

Page: 8

13 Professionally Speaking Should parents of transracially adopted children live in areas where many people of their child’s race/ethnicity live? Does it matter?Beth Hall and Dr. John Raible weigh in.

14 Adoption and Anthropology: CulturalPerspectives on Parenthood, Adoption, Childhood, and BirthWhat anthropologists can teach us about adoption.By Erin Raffety

17 The Adoption Constellation Interview Rachel WegnerThe president of Ethica speaks out about adoption reform, advocacy, and her own plans to adopt.

19 Ask Astrid An adoptee considers changing her name to her original birth name.

Book ReviewChosen: A Novel by Chandra Hoffman

20 Happiness It’s never too late to be happy.By Rachel de Azevedo Coleman

22 Our Own WordsThose Eyes—A mother celebrates her daughter’s individuality and keeps her family intact.By Kelly Jeske

Page: 20Page: 14Page: 5

10 Th e Adoption Constellation Spring 2011

For many constellation members, Mother’s Day can be a balancing

act. An adoptive mother and birth mother learn how not to fall.

By Dawn Friedman and Jenna Hatfi eld

Jessica, Dawn, and Madison Jenna with her two sons and her daughter’s photo looking on

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A t the beginning of April, seven years ago, we brought Madison, our second child, home from the hospital. Two weeks later we had our first visit with her mother,

Jessica. It was a careful, tearful visit. We were working hard to honor each other and figure out our roles. I think of us back then, about how fragile we all felt, but how committed we were to the idea of open adoption even though we weren’t quite sure how to live it.

Jessica and I planned our second visit for Mother’s Day weekend, a holiday that loomed large for me although not as large, I’m sure, as it loomed for Jessica. I was insecure and fumbling, worried about openness and trying to make my way with very little support from our agency. I didn’t know how to bring the topic up, but my hope was that instead of having her over to celebrate Mother’s Day, she could come the day before and we would celebrate Birth Mother’s Day.

I had recently learned about Birth Mother’s Day. Mary Jean Marsh, a birth mother activist and one of the women who originated the day, explains it this way on Brenda Romanchik’s OpenAdoptionInsight.org page:

“Birth Mother’s Day was created to help birth mothers move through this torrent of memory and feeling. It is a way to take back our rightful name of Mother and to celebrate ourselves as birth givers—the ones who give life.” Marsh went on to write that Birth Mother’s Day comes before Mother’s Day in part to symbolize the fact that my daughter’s mother became a mother first, which in turn allowed me to become a mother.

I decided that this made sense and talked myself into giving Jessica a Birth Mother’s Day celebration so I could save Mother’s Day for myself. However, I did not frame my thought process this way. Instead I told myself it was a more profound way to honor Jessica’s experience and to acknowledge the uniqueness of her role as Madison’s birth mother.

I am not proud of this now. I had little support and everyone warned us against making Jessica feel obligated and unable to “move on.” We were told that for the sake of our daughter, of Jessica, and of ourselves, we all needed to delineate clear roles and firm boundaries. Celebrating Birth Mother’s Day seemed like a good way to do this, and being able to keep Mother’s Day to myself, well, that was just a bonus.

The longer I am an adoptive parent, the more I realize that our language of motherhood is diminished when we rely on qualifiers to do more than explain. It makes sense to differentiate mothers when my daughter is talking about one of us and the listener isn’t sure who she means. However, it makes less sense when we’re talking about the holiday that was created for our daughter to honor us.

Several years before Madison’s adoption, I spent Mother’s Day grieving another miscarriage. I was living across the country from my own mother and I told my husband that I wanted to do something totally unrelated to mothers on that day. I don’t remember what we did but I do remember it didn’t work and that evening found me, again, crying in the bedroom. What I didn’t

Dawn

know, at the time, is that I was already pregnant again and that this time the pregnancy would last and I would have a son. If I had known, perhaps I wouldn’t have had so much grief associated with the holiday. Perhaps I wouldn’t have tried to hold onto Mother’s Day so fiercely later with his sister.

That Saturday Jessica came and we celebrated with a brunch. I think I made egg casserole and blintzes although I am not sure. I gave her a pink and green tea set to symbolize the tea parties she would have someday with Madison, the daughter who had made this awkward holiday possible. We sat at the table outside in the sun, Jessica and her friends, passing Madison back and forth and listening to my son, Noah, tell us about his toys. It seemed ludicrous that I had been afraid of this, afraid of sharing.

It was the first and only time we celebrated Birth Mother’s Day.When Madison thinks of Mother’s Day she thinks of both of

her mothers. This is because whatever my mistakes our first year together, the commitment symbolized by that pink and green tea set thankfully outlived the insecurities I had. Mother’s day is a holiday I am honored to be able to share.

The longer I am an adoptive parent, the more I realize that our language of motherhood is diminished when we rely on qualifiers to do more than explain.

Jessica and Madison

12 Th e Adoption Constellation Spring 2011

I was barely pregnant on my very fi rst Mother’s Day. I was still healthy, as my kidney had not yet stopped functioning. I was working, living in my own apartment and preparing for the

birth of my fi rstborn. Her presence in my womb wasn’t planned, but from the moment I learned she existed, I wanted the very best for her.

I went to see Fleetwood Mac in concert that Sunday in May. I remember being taken with Stevie Nicks’ performance of “Landslide.” Th ere was no way for me to know at that time how deeply the lyrics would continue to touch me over the duration of my pregnancy, how a landslide was really the best way to describe what was about to happen to me. My hand occasionally fl uttered to my still fl at belly. I imagined creating a tradition of great music on Mother’s Day with my child. Despite being upset about various things related to the pregnancy—my parents’ reaction, the father’s reaction, fear of the unknown—it was, to date, the happiest Mother’s Day I have ever experienced, because no one questioned my title of mother.

One year later, I was alone. I didn’t rise on that May morning to tend to the beautiful little baby I had given birth to just under fi ve months earlier. Th e mom I had chosen for her was doing that hundreds of miles away. I forced myself to get out of bed, get dressed

and go to church. I should have known better. I should have just stayed in bed. Of any day that spring, it was the most appropriate day to wallow. Instead, I found myself weeping openly in church as they recognized all mothers—except me. I had no child that they knew of; no smiley, gurgling baby girl spitting up on my Sunday best. I avoided church on Mother’s Day for the next few years.

I fi gured that the fi rst Mother’s Day on which I had a child in my arms would solve all my problems. I could stand up in church when it was time to honor the mothers in attendance. I was a mother. However, I hadn’t factored in postpartum depression and my compounding grief. By the end of the day, I collapsed in tears.

I missed my daughter more acutely than even the year before as I now understood everything I had been missing. Every time our baby boy accomplished some milestone, I realized I missed it with my daughter. At this point, I was giving up hope that Mother’s Day could ever be a day of celebration for me.

Mother’s Day continued to be a diffi cult day for me until the year our family was unexpectedly completed. Following the birth of our second son, my husband and I were informed by my doctors that another pregnancy would likely kill me. We decided that we were done; we would be the four of us, plus our unique open adoption family, and that was that. I had wanted more children. I expected to feel a heavy weight of sadness and I

prepared for Mother’s Day to be diffi cult yet again, a reminder of loss and sadness and perceived failures.

If I’ve done anything right over the years, it was choosing a partner in life who understands how my mind—and my heart —work. My husband has always known that Mother’s Day was a diffi cult day. He also knew that my initial devastation regarding my health was still raw. Th at year, he bought me a Mother’s Necklace with my children’s birthstones dangling from a sterling silver heart. All of my children. It is the type of necklace that you can’t add to later on in life. As such, it should be given to a mother who has already completed adding to her family. He knew that and he gave me the gift with the silent hope that I would recognize it for what it truly was.

And I did.As I touched the three dangling birthstones, I felt a quiet

peace wash over my soul. I wasn’t a perfect mother. Sometimes I yelled at my two-year-old because he was too loud when the baby was sleeping. Sometimes I felt so touched out from nursing my hungry-hungry newborn that I longed for a weekend away with absolutely no one touching me, asking me to wipe their nose or interrupting my silence. Sometimes I got too caught up in my everyday life and didn’t make enough of an eff ort to nurture the relationship with my daughter and her family. But as I stared at the necklace, I allowed myself to settle into the diff erent roles of motherhood that I own.

It was that Mother’s Day that I vowed to go with the fl ow. It remains a diffi cult day for me, as I try to balance the happy sounds of my sons racing around the house with the sadness of the missing voice of their sister bossing them around. My celebrations will always be bittersweet; the loss will always be real. I have learned, however, to own my own defi nition of motherhood. I’ve learned to embrace my imperfections and acknowledge the journey that has brought me to this place each year. Th e truth remains that I have always been a mother—even that Sunday I wept in church alone.

It was, to date, the happiest Mother’s Day I have ever experienced, because no one questioned my title of mother.

Jenna