I n-e-e-d to apologize to the woman who was courageous enough to visit my infertility group and talk to us about adopting her daughter from the People’s Republic of China. She was my first exposure to international adoption. I thought there was no way I could still be trying to crack infertility when I was THIRTY! Thirty being the minimum age requirement for a Chinese adoption.
When she lovingly told us that she thought her daughter looked like her, I was certain that she was crackers. I even went home to my mom and relayed the story of this delusional woman. I felt that she was trying to rearrange history into a story where she did not have a daughter of another race. And truthfully, I don’t know what she was doing but now I know about the adoption phenomenon of “claiming”. Where an adoptive family finds similarities between themselves and the adoptee and “claim” them as their own.
My family needed only a single photo of my daughter to begin the process themselves. My grandmother decided she resembled my dad and my mother in law was certain she looked just like her eldest son-both provided photographic evidence. The truth ten years later is that my daughter resembles her birth parents and my husband and I.
My daughter loves words like me but she has her dad’s fun-loving sense of humour. This weekend she nicknamed him “loafer”. Which is funny because he has been producing baguettes in one way or another for about ten years. In turn, he nicknamed her, “Rufus” because she roofs her soccer ball on a pretty regular basis these days. It fun watching our eleven year old unfold before our eyes. She still likes us but she’s testing the waters of independence and launching her own character.
Sisterhood Rules 