It is National Adoption week here in Australia.
How do you explain to someone who isn’t adopted, what it’s like to be adopted? I’m not sure you can. You have family, but you don’t have family. You fit in but you don’t. There is always the feeling that you’re different. There is no family resemblance, you have no history. Thinking you weren’t wanted, then finding out you were. Yes, I’m adopted and I’ve found my birth family, I consider myself lucky and blessed. I’m loved by them and I love them. I took my son to see the family a little while ago, for my grandfather’s 90th birthday. We flew across the country and while driving the car from the airport to their home, I told him this….. “Son, I’m always a mess when I leave here, I don’t know if I can explain this so you can understand but this is where I feel most at home, I just feel like I belong, the genetics run deep and I don’t feel odd or ill at ease, I’m a mess because even though I just slot right in, I’m not really a part of the family because I was adopted out and too much time has passed and I will never get that back and I am also very conscious of the fact that a lot of people would be hurt if I fit in too well. After the weekend and driving back to the airport in the early hours of the morning my son turned to me and said, “Mum, I get it. I just felt like I belonged that we just naturally had things in common, it wasn’t difficult to talk or fit in at all”. He enjoyed meeting all the relatives, especially his uncle (he’d met them before but was only little) and seeing all the things that he had in common with them.
In the end it’s about acceptance, not of others but of yourself. Accepting that this is what is and nothing will change it, it’s how you view it and deal with it that makes the difference, it’s not easy, you’re torn, you’re hurt and always will be, but in the end you know you are loved.

I found this poem years ago – 1993 to be exact it is titled Legacy of an Adopted Child
Once there were two women who never knew each other,
One you do not remember, the other you call mother.
Two different lives – shaped to make yours one.
One became your guiding star, the other became your sun.
The first gave you life and the second taught you to live in it.
The first gave you a need to love and the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality, the other gave you a name.
One gave you a seed of talent, the other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions, the other calmed your fears.
One saw your first sweet smile, the other dried your tears.
One gave you up – it was all that she could do, the other prayed for a child and God led her straight to you.
And now you ask me through your tears, the age-old questions through the years –
hereditary or environment, which are you the product of?
Neither, my darling, neither – just two different kinds of love!