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All Grown Up
Adoption Stories of Adults By Teri Brown
ive Americans. "We celebrated adoption in our home," she says. "Mom and Dad would buy a book of Indian culture or something special to commemorate the day our adoptions were final."
In September 2003, Medicine Horn and her adoptive parents went out to South Dakota to meet her birth mother. "I have a picture of all three of them, as well as ... my two moms holding hands," says Medicine Horn. "My mom who raised me had tears in her eyes and my birth mom has a smile on her face to rival the brightness of the full moon."
When Medicine Horn's adoptive mom came down with breast cancer, she always joked that her daughter had a back-up mom in South Dakota. Medicine Horn laughs now, because her birth mom feels the same way and had always told all of her siblings about their lost sister. "They always knew about me!" says Medicine Horn. "My mom in South Dakota considered my mom who raised me to be the back-up mom!"
As far as adoption in general goes, it is hard for Medicine Horn to be objective because of her own experience. "Adopting a child or putting one up for adoption requires an incredible leap of faith," she says. "It is gut wrenching on some level for everyone involved. When my own birth mom realized what happened, she tore her hair out. For 37 years all she could do was wonder if I was safe, loved, happy, alive? For us it turned out well in the end. We continue to get to know one another."
Adoption stories from the perspective of adults can be both inspiring and painful. The hearts of the birth parents and the adoptive families are so intertwined it is hard to distinguish whose love belongs to whom. The point is to keep the stories alive and remember to love the children involved.