Second best

I don’t believe that my position as BE and BC’s mother is the result of destiny, fate, or anything else. If the world were as it should be, my children would still be safely with their first parents. I won’t glorify my children’s pain and loss by saying that J and I were ordained to be their parents. We are only BE and BC’s parents because something went horribly wrong, and we  were chosen as option number two. We will always be second best, because ideally, children should be with their first parents.

I recently read an article in The New York Times that expressed my feelings about this perfectly. The author, Matthew Hutson, begins by saying that he doesn’t believe in destiny. In fact, he’s currently researching a book on what he calls “magical thinking.” During the course of his research, he spoke with many adoptive parents who explained that they felt something like destiny brought them together with their children. However, Hutson quotes one adoptive parent who didn’t feel this way. She said:

“I don’t know if I’d say my children were ‘meant’ to be mine — it does seem like a slap in the face to the sacrifices of their birth parents, as well as turning a blind eye to the loses my children may (or may not) feel about being adopted as they grow up. But am I in awe of the amazing alchemy of timing, chance, life paths intersecting and a thousand other intangible happenings that made these children mine? Do I think about the small changes in those random happenings that could have brought other children into my family, whether biologically or by adoption? And do I gasp in wonder at how lucky I am that these are my children? At the alchemy that created my family? Yes, yes I do.”