Navigating the Emotions of Adoption: Conversations with Grace

Grace came home to us from an orphanage when she was ten months old, and is now nineteen. She agreed to have this discussion about adoption and has read what I am posting. I’m so grateful for her vulnerability in sharing these things publicly! 

As I look back on how Grace processed adoption, I think she instinctively knew something was wrong in her life even when she was a toddler. 

At eighteen months old, she became obsessed with a book where Dora the Explorer helps a baby bird find his mommy. She wanted to read it again and again, becoming agitated or even crying each time the bird was lost and rejoicing when the mama bird was found. 

At first, I thought it was cute and nothing more, but then it became a pattern in Grace’s life. I discovered that many toddler books have the theme of a child losing his mother, and Grace became increasingly upset by these books. As she got older, she wanted nothing to do with them. This was before she was old enough to understand adoption at all.

Me: Do you remember any of this? 

Grace: As a little kid, I remember reading the monkey book [a board book called Hug]. I remember crying every single time. Bobo [the monkey] lost his mama, and I did too. 

Me: You eventually hated that book and would run away if I brought it out to read to your siblings. But also, you named your stuffed monkey Bobo. What are your earliest memories of understanding adoption? 

Grace: I knew the word because we talked about it all the time. You never hid from us that we were adopted (not that you could!). 

I think I first began to understand on the first day of kindergarten, because people came in with their parents, and all their parents looked like them, and my parents didn’t look like me. That’s when I realized that I wasn’t in a normal situation, that this didn’t happen to everybody. 

Then I missed the second and third day of kindergarten, because we went to pick up Lily from the orphanage, so that also helped me to understand adoption. (I also remember being disappointed to miss the second and third day of school. But it’s okay, we like her now.)

Grace began grieving the loss of her biological family when she was six years old. From about age six to around age twelve, about twice a year, she would break down and weep over what she had lost. I could do nothing but hold her and cry with her. I felt so helpless, but I also knew this grief was healthy. 

Me: Do you remember anything about these times? 

Grace: Only by the time I was about ten. I remember wondering about what features I had from my parents. Watching Annie [the 2014 version] wrecked me. 

My childhood was happy, but middle school was really hard. I felt excluded and bullied a lot of the time, and I blamed it on being adopted. 

Middle school was when I felt different from my peers. In the eyes of my Tanzanian classmates, I was American. For that, I was different. They excluded me. 

I remember being laughed at in 6th grade in Swahili class because I said something with a Swahili accent but it didn’t sound natural. I remember pinching myself to not cry. I fell apart after class. I didn’t feel completely Tanzanian or completely American. 

Me: This is new information to me. I knew your middle school classmates weren’t kind to you, but I didn’t know that you connected this to your adoption. What did they say? 

Grace: Anything I did wrong, my classmates would say to me, “Oh, it’s because you didn’t have a mom to teach you.” Swahili class reminded me of another way I was different from everyone else. 

If I did something or said something that didn’t fit in, they would say, “We can tell that your parents are wazungu [foreigners].” It gave them one more reason not to like me.

It was around this time that I realized that I looked like the people around me, but I was nothing like them. 

Me: Remember, there were other things besides Tanzanian culture separating you from your classmates, though. In many ways, your Tanzanian classmates had significantly more exposure to American pop culture than you did, thanks to cable TV [which we didn’t have]. You weren’t interested in the same things that they were. 

Most middle schoolers go through a period of figuring out who they are, and often feel excluded. It’s interesting that adoption became your scapegoat. 

Grace: Right. I work with middle schoolers and can see this in them. 

Looking back on that time, I was kind of a weird kid; I wasn’t into the same things that the other kids in my class were. I wasn’t on social media, and I wasn’t into talking about boys all the time. I was into books instead of pop culture. I had a lot of self-confidence and I was my own person, and that’s probably why I was being excluded. But at the time, I blamed it on adoption. 

Being adopted was the part I didn’t like about myself, because it made me different. I have always liked being unique, but I didn’t like the adoption part of being unique, because I felt that was the part that was bringing on the negative comments and the way I was being treated. 

It was totally irrational; the dots don’t line up, but at that time, it was so real. 

Me: Well, it wasn’t totally irrational. But it also wasn’t the only thing that made you different.  

Grace: In 8th grade, there were a lot of things that made me angry. Having to leave Tanzania the way we did, the pandemic, not having closure, and I remember thinking that “If my birth parents had just kept me, if I had just been wanted, then I wouldn’t have had to be dealing with this.” It felt really selfish, which made me mad at myself. 

Around sophomore year, I think I had gotten to a point where I was able to stop blaming myself for things I couldn’t control or change. 

Me: What were you blaming yourself for?

Grace: The way that I thought I was being treated for being adopted. I couldn’t change this. 

I blamed myself for her death, because maybe she had died in childbirth. I would go into a spiral, where I thought it was all my fault. 

Because my mom died, and if it’s my fault that she died, then that’s why I’m being bullied. 

I’ve never been mad about being with you guys, but you just happened to be part of the equation. 

I’ve come to the point now that I genuinely understand that I am a full and complete mix of Tanzania and America and I have embraced that. I know what it means to be a Third Culture Kid, and that there are more of them out there than I thought. 

Me: When you think about your biological family, what do you think about? 

Grace: I think about my biological family often, probably monthly. I talk about it a lot with [my close friend who is also adopted.] 

I wonder if I would have had other siblings, what they would be like. (I do love the ones you got me though!) I think about what my parents looked like, and what their dispositions are. What parts of me did I get from whom, and that sort of thing. I wonder if any of them are still alive. 

It’s weird to think about what my life would have looked like if it had played out the way it was supposed to. Every single day, I thank God for the opportunities that I have now. Being able to work, go to school, for my little green Fiat, to live in a place where I can praise him freely. 

What spooks me the most when I think about what my life would have been like if I had stayed in my family.  I would definitely have kids by this age. I probably would be doing back-breaking work for less than a dollar a day. Even simple things like getting my hair done wouldn’t happen because there would be other things I would have to do just for survival. 

I feel very guilty, especially knowing that there are other kids in the orphanage you could have picked. There are other kids who could have been chosen instead of me. 

Me: That’s called survivor’s guilt.

Grace: Yeah, when we watched Les Miserables last week and Marius sings “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” I can relate to that. 

I feel guilty when I complain. Because I’ve seen what my life could have been like. 

Me: We’ve talked a lot over the years about how you can hold gratitude and grief at the same time. What is the loss you feel as an adoptee? 

Grace: I’ve lost something that I can never get back. I used to watch The Donut Man as a little girl, which always talked about the holes in our life. As much as there are other things that could fill my hole, and how sweet those things are, there was something in the deepest part of me that was taken from me. Yet, the hole has definitely gotten smaller as I’ve gotten older. And that’s because of Jesus.

Me: What would you say to your biological mom if you had the opportunity? 

Grace: I might cry when I say this. Probably I would tell her that I’m okay. And that even though I don’t get to be with her, being adopted is the best thing that has happened to me. (And I’ve gotten Hamilton tickets, so that’s pretty crazy.) I’m trying to make her proud. And that I love her even though I don’t know who she is. 

I also want to tell her about Jesus, so that I can see her someday. And tell her how, because of him, I can have joy even with all of the terrible things that separated me from her. And that even though I cry, I get sad, and I still don’t like reading books where kids are separated from their parents, that it’s all okay because even though she’s my mama, God loves me so much more than anybody ever can, and that’s all the love I ever need. 

Me: What would you say to your middle school self? 

Grace: Have courage and be kind. I love that movie! [2015 Cinderella]  But it’s so true. Courage is what helped me to play sports at a higher level in middle school [she played on the U18 basketball team when she was 13] and what helped me to get through middle school and high school. Being kind is so needed in this world and I know that especially because I experienced so much unkindness. 

And also, I would tell myself, “You will write a lot of crappy poetry until you get good.” 🙂

Me: What would you say to a family that wanted to adopt?

Grace: Do your research on your child’s case. Know for sure if there’s any family the child could go back to. As much as you could love this child, scientifically and emotionally, it is better for a child to be with their biological family. If your case is so certain that there is no other place for this child to go, then be very open about adoption. 

Don’t keep anything from your kid. Especially when they ask questions. Don’t shove it to the side. Knowing more is better than not knowing anything. Even if it does hurt, knowing the truth is better than not knowing anything at all.

Me: Anything else you want to add?

I would love to talk to any of your readers or their adopted kids about adoption. I wish I had had someone older than me who I could have talked to when I was younger. I would love to be that person for other kids. 

(Email me at contactamy@amy-medina.com if you want to take up Grace on this offer!)

Related posts over the years about adoption. It was fun to go back and revisit these!
The Birds and the Bees 
Progress
Behind the Smiling Photographs There is Adoption Trauma
When the Adoption Horror Story Doesn’t Happen
Today was 10 Months Exactly, and We Had Miracles Today
I Hate That There Has to Be Adoption

And the other two conversations I’ve had with Grace:
American Sprinkled with African
Black History Month