Look at that lil’ beefcake. He knows he’s got me right there, in the palm of his tiny hand.
Love him so much it drives me up a tree. Did so from jump. Can’t begin to figure out how the lack of my biological connection is diminishing this love. Can’t begin to figure that. Would I lunge in front of a truck to snatch him from danger any faster if he issued from my loins? Dunno! Don’t want to have to find out. Would the loss of him feel greater? Again, don’t want to have to find out. (But since our innocence in those matters has been lost, it’s not like the thought doesn’t skitter across the brain. I try to keep it skittering on past.)
Would my joy at his happinesses taste sweeter, had I carried and birthed him? I’ll never know. Or wait, here we go: would our bond be more true, if, say, though I didn’t birth him (no father ever has), I knew he was carrying the story of my family in his cells? If I looked at his face and saw my own reflected back?*
As if. Ask every adoptive parent. Ask every step-parent. Ask me.
Look at him. Every baby makes you love them. They’re masters at it. Like the lack of biological connection is going to be any shield. Smell their skin! Programmed to drive you crazy nuts! How do people go about hypothesizing that malarkey, biology über alles? Have they met people like me? Have they seen what babies like this can do?
*Instead, I look at his face and see my love reflected back. That’s the thing.
I carried both of our children and, from where I sit, I see no difference in the love my partner and I feel for our kids. Biology schmiology, I say.
Mmmm, baby smell. Especially if the baby got to go outside in the sun for a little while. And just ate. And has an unsoiled diaper. The most perfect smell on earth.
Thanks for giving me such a yummy moment in the middle of a hectic day.
here here
My pleasure!
And Vikki, thanks.
And Trista, yeah sister! Scoot, the rest of you, and peep this what she wrote: Advice for Bio Moms.
He. Is. Absolutely. LUSCIOUS.
Not everyone can make me talk. In. Periods.
Sister, I know. What. You mean.
Seconding Vikki. I’ve seen the look on my wife’s face as she holds our daughter and I know that comparisons are not only odious, they’re stupid. We both love her like our own souls.
Ohmygoodness, I need to see and touch this boy! We have a photo of Zbopp that looks ever so similar to this wildly cutie one. Missing you muchly! –Sybil
People who opposed to same-sex couples having kids need to read this blog and maybe they will understand..that’s of course if their heards are not to far up their *sses… the way you describe your interactions with your children is wonderful…you are treasuring every moment you get because you never thought it possible and sister is a beautiful thing.
And Im still reading 2007, maybe by next week I’ll making a comment on things that are actually happening xD
Sick and reading a parenting mag in the doctor office. Recommended your blog, and I see why! Hence the newer comment in an old post: I am catching up in a slow and savoring type of way. Anyway, we just (6 months ago) had our first, and were talking today about perhaps adopting our second at some point, and I couldn’t agree more with all you have said here. While TTC I think it was made painfully clear that children need loving parents, and loving parents need children. Gift me a child in whatever way and I will love them. How crazy lucky are we, to be the recipient of the glow that you photographed so well? Blood and biology just has so very little to do with love, from my perspective.