Feeling Like an Imposter
On a spring day many years ago, Crystal was about to leave the hospital after giving birth the day before. We’d recently met through an adoption agency, and we’d suddenly bonded when she went into labor two days prior. She spent the morning teaching me how to change a teeny-tiny diaper as her four year-old son looked on. I was full of excitement and self-doubt. Tessa, this precious newborn, was clearly Crystal’s baby — you could see it in the bow of her lips, the shape of her eyes. I was about to leave the hospital with another woman’s baby (with her permission and blessing, of course).
Two years later on another spring day, Michele placed her baby boy, whom she was not in a position to care for at that time, into my arms during an Entrustment Ceremony in the conference room of the adoption agency that we’d both consulted. His tuft of fine blond hair, the same color as hers, emphasized the fact that Reed was hers. Would forever be.
Continue reading What if I’m Raising Someone Else’s Children?
