You Came From My Heart

As many of our friends know, our son Tommy is adopted. We adopted him at birth, we were there with his birth mother during the delivery, Bertie was her coach. The delivery doctor handed Tommy to me for his first cleaning. He was supposed to be a girl so I was still getting used to that news. What a wonderful day that was!

My Mother's Day story is about one of Bertie's explanations to Tommy about being adopted. The two of us decided before he was born to make the fact that Tommy is adopted just that, a matter of fact. Much like having brown hair and eyes and an extremely handsome and intelligent father, being adopted is just one part of who Tommy is.

So, from the time he was very young we talked about his being adopted and having a birth mother that loved him so much that she wanted the best possible family for him and she knew that our family was best for him and that is why she chose us. I'm sure we were telling him things that he was still too young to fully understand but waiting until we thought he was old enough to understand seemed to be a type of procrastination that would make the event a watershed in his life which we didn't believe it should be.

As Tommy got older the conversations became more pointed and he asked more insightful questions. During one of these conversations I overheard Bertie explaining to Tommy that "Many children come from their Mommy's tummy but you came from my heart". This is the essence of being an adoptive parent and one of the most insightful things my sweetheart could have told our beautiful son.

Happy Mother's Day to all Moms.