Maybe it’s my “mom hair” (thanks, New York Times, for that label) or maybe it’s that I look perpetually tired that encourages near strangers to ask me how many kids I have. At my last dental cleaning, my hygienist (whom I had only met one time prior) asked this very question.

“Two,” I replied.

“Oh! That’s great!! How old are they?!”

“Seven.”

I tried to stick with one-word answers because A) she had her hands in my mouth and B) our kids’ entrance to our family is complicated, and I often don’t divulge the details to strangers because I don’t want my kids’ story to overshadow who they are as individuals. But this lady just wasn’t picking up on what I was throwing down.

“TWINS!” she squealed.

“Nope. We adopted them both from foster care. They’re two months apart.”

“Oh. [Pause….more pausing…some brow furrowing] Well, that’s just great. That’s so great that you can give those kids a home.”

Those kids is how many people refer to my kids. The phrase rings with an air of pity and a twinge of thankfulness that someone else was willing to step in and adopt those kids. It’s a phrase often used with no harm intended, but the connotations are heavy. My kids aren’t those kids; no kids are those kids…kids in foster care or available for adoption are simply, kids.

Unfortunately, the conversation with the hygienist continued as she casually scraped the plaque from my teeth.

“Ya know, I had a friend once…”

Oh God…there’s always a friend, I thought to myself.

“….she and her husband struggled to get pregnant. So, they adopted a child, and right after they were placed with a baby, THEY GOT PREGNANT! Isn’t that something?”

I wanted to tell the hygienist about our infertility. It’s hard for doctors to say pregnancy is impossible when they have two people sobbing in their exam room. Medically speaking, it is highly unlikely you guys will ever be able to get pregnant. Doctors don’t want to destroy anybody’s hope at having children, even when it’s a medical impossibility. I wanted to tell her that we spent much of our savings trying to uncover our infertility because insurance doesn’t deem exploring infertility as “medically necessary.”

“You see,” my hygienist persisted, “there’s still hope for you!”

It’s a good thing her hands were still in my mouth to prevent me from lashing out. I probably wouldn’t be so frustrated had it been the first time someone told me a similar well-meaning story. I can’t tell you how many times people have responded to my kids’ adoptions with stories about their friends who got pregnant after they adopted as if adopting brings a person good fortune and solves 97% of infertility issues. I can’t tell you how many times people have said There’s still hope…as if adoption is second best.

I wanted to tell my hygienist that, at one time, I wanted to be pregnant with every thread of my being, but over time, my desire to have a biological child disappeared. I wanted to tell my hygienist that even though I don’t want to be pregnant, I sometimes long for a birth story that would connect me to my husband and connect my kids to me and make me feel more like a “normal” mother in our society.

I wanted to explain that my experience is similar to a traditional mother’s experience. The attachment to a new child is not immediate but a gradual process as mothers move from the abstract idea of having kids to literally holding their children. I didn’t know this before I had kids. When my kids moved in after each having been in foster care for 2-4 years, I thought I was expected to love them right away as my own. I loved them, but my kids never felt like mine. It seemed more like an extended babysitting arrangement. When they wanted to share their food with me, I cringed a little because my kids still felt a bit like strangers; who wants to share a fork with a stranger? For a few months, I didn’t know how to help them fall asleep or what their favorite foods were. I couldn’t fill out paperwork about their medical history. I couldn’t trace their quirks back to any source. They called me by my first name; their mom was someone else.

Over time, though, they began to feel like my kids. I shared ice cream with them and did not cringe. I learned that J needed his bunny and a back rub to help him fall asleep, and K needed her polka-dot blanket and a night light. I learned that J has his birth mother’s curly hair and his daddy’s sense of humor; K has her birth mother’s eyes but my feisty personality. In family team meetings prior to their adoption, I disagreed with caseworkers as I fought like a mother to protect my kids’ hearts from disappointment. In our own time, we accepted one another. I wanted to tell my hygienist that I now love my kids as fiercely as if my husband and I made them.

But more importantly,  I wanted to ask this woman to refrain from telling me there’s still hope for me like my life isn’t already fulfilled. My life is complete with them. I don’t hope for a biological child; I hope for a healthy relationship with my two kids. The way I became a mother may not be preferred for some, but I wouldn’t trade it even for a biological child. I found my kids when I needed them and when they needed me. I wanted to tell this woman, a near stranger, that my kids: They aren’t second best; adoption is not second best. For us, it was the best.

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Order Now
So God Made a Mother's Story Keepsake Journal

Danielle Helzer

A former high school English teacher, Danielle now splits her time as a stay at home mom and a Writing Coach at a local community college. She is a wife and a new mother of two hilarious and resilient first-graders who she and her husband adopted from foster care. Danielle has a passion for writing and living purposefully. She enjoys listening to NPR, running, reading, music, sipping on coffee, making lists, and diversifying her collection of cat tchotchkes. You can find more of her writing about parenting, faith, teaching, and living at http://daniellehelzer.blogspot.com/. Connect with her on Facebook or Twitter (@DMHelzer).

3 Things We Learned While Waiting For Our Adopted Child

In: Adoption
3 Things We Learned While Waiting For Our Adopted Child www.herviewfromhome.com

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in the baby carriage. Remember that old nursery rhyme? I can still hear it playing in my head. Growing up, I had always assumed that would be my story. The love and marriage part certainly happened for me in an amazing, storybook ending kind of way. However, the baby in the baby carriage didn’t come as quickly for my husband and me. As a few years passed, we began to feel a little restless and disheartened. However, God opened up His perfect plan for our family by leading us to...

Keep Reading

I Chose Adoption For My Baby, But I Didn’t Let Go

In: Adoption
I Chose Adoption For My Baby, But I didn't Let Go www.herviewfromhome.com

  I am often asked, when people find out I am a birth mother, “Why did you decide on adoption? Didn’t you want her?” In the tidy nutshell version of my response it was the logistical factors of being pregnant at just 16-years-old that was my why. Being a junior in high school when I saw those two pink lines in October of 2004, I still needed to graduate, plus I wanted to attend college. I did not have a job to support us. In fact, I did not have my driver’s license or even the few dollars it took...

Keep Reading

Dear Mama Reading This Right Now, You Are Amazing

In: Adoption, Child Loss, Miscarriage, Motherhood
Dear Mama Reading This Right Now, You Are Amazing www.herviewfromhome.com

To the one with healthy children in your lap, YOU are a great mom. Whether you work full-time or stay at home, you are amazing and deserve to be celebrated every day, but especially today. You sacrificed your body and your own well-being over and over again and I know you don’t regret any of it. You are enough and you are appreciated even when you don’t feel it. To the one holding a child someone else carried inside of her body, YOU are a great mom. Whether you faced infertility, surrogacy, chose to adopt, or have biological and adopted children,...

Keep Reading

4 Things a Birth Mom Wants Adoptive Families To Know

In: Adoption, Journal
4 Things a Birth Mom Wants Adoptive Families To Know www.herviewfromhome.com

The minutes on the hospital clock dwindled as I swaddled my infant daughter one last time before she was permanently placed in the arms of her adoptive family. In those final moments, I thought my heart might shatter into a thousand slivers without any hope of being mended. I was broken. Scarred. Devastated. When I left the hospital without my baby, it felt like someone was pounding on my chest with both fists and I couldn’t catch my breath. The emptiness that followed was inconceivable. A piece of me, my daughter, was gone. I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of my...

Keep Reading

No Matter Life’s Season, God Provides What We Need

In: Adoption, Faith
No Matter Life's Season, God Provides What We Need www.herviewfromhome.com

When my husband and I adopted our older daughter Lilly 15 years ago, she was nine-months-old and weighed about 17 pounds. That might not seem like much, but she was a chunk of a little girl—so much so that people we met in elevators and restaurants in China often mistook her for a two-year-old. I had worked on my cardiovascular fitness in the months leading up to our adoption trip, and my regular runs on the treadmill prepared me to traverse the Great Wall with relative ease. My upper body strength, however, was a different story entirely. My arms and...

Keep Reading

Acknowledging the Loss in Adoption

In: Adoption
Acknowledging the Loss in Adoption www.herviewfromhome.com

  “Don’t do it! Adoption is the worst!” His voice echoed through my entire body, his words hitting every unprepared bone, and I clutched the full glass of ice water ready to plunge it in his direction. There were hundreds of people in the darkened bar room, on dates mostly, sitting in the crowd enjoying the comedy show. My insides twisted and lurched, I heard nothing but the reverberations of laughter, and my mind kept envisioning myself walking over to him and punching his face in. When the comedian began working adoption into her show, my body began tingling and...

Keep Reading

Adoption Is Love

In: Adoption, Journal
Adoption Is Love www.herviewfromhome.com

  I pull around in the car line and scan the group of kids for my daughter. Usually, I can find her easily, chatting it up with her friends as she waits for me to pick her up from school. Today, though, I don’t see her. I look again and I finally spot her. She is slumped on the curb, her head in her hands and her eyes downcast. My momma radar instantly goes off as I watch her slowly get up and drag her feet to the car and I can tell that something is wrong. She slides into...

Keep Reading

The Ache While We Wait to Adopt

In: Adoption, Faith
The Ache While We Wait to Adopt www.herviewfromhome.com

  There’s a persistent ache, but sometimes I can ignore it. I can turn up the volume of what’s around me and drown it out for a bit. I play hostess and invite the noise to come in: come fill up my heart, come fill up this empty nursery, come fill up this planner. I’ve got two kids, and they are experts at noise, so my days are full of it, and it works. The noise narcotizes the ache, making it manageable, day by noisy day.  In my former life as a teacher, I used to make my students write...

Keep Reading

How Being Adopted Made My Husband a Better Father

In: Adoption, Journal
How Being Adopted Made My Husband a Better Father www.herviewfromhome.com

My husband’s earliest memories of his adoptive mother are as blurry as the black and white photos he has taped inside a leather-bound family album. He recalls the gentle hands that tucked him into bed each night and the smell of her lavender scented soap, but these memories are intertwined with the last and most painful of all: sitting on the cold hospital steps, muffled whispers in the hallway, and the tight grip of his adoptive father’s hand as they made their way back to the car without his mother. Death was an abstract concept that he was unable to...

Keep Reading

Adoption Has Made Me a Better Mama

In: Adoption, Journal
Adoption Has Made Me a Better Mama www.herviewfromhome.com

I remember etching our family plans into a napkin at our two-year anniversary dinner. We were eating at Rio in Sisters, Oregon and I couldn’t wait to get back to the little cabin we had rented to watch Harry Potter and dream about babies. Weird combo? Probably. First we would conceive and carry a miracle baby in my actual womb. Then after a bit of time had passed, after we got “the easy one” birthed, we would enter into the adoption world. I think back to my barely 20-year-old self and think about how naive she was—I still only have...

Keep Reading