Second choice

My mother-in-law was overt with her feelings about adoption. When my husband and I decided to adopt a baby, we planned a trip to tell his parents in person. Our excitement was met with a pursed face and the statement, "Having your own children would be best." Best? What did she mean? She knew that I was adopted, and now she seemed to question my goodness. Love was supposed to conquer all. Adoptees are supposed to be blank slates ready to be molded by new families. But even my mother-in-law knew we came with unknown baggage. She was just being honest about it.

 Second choice. That's what I was. If my parents could get pregnant and have a child they created together, that would have been their first choice. And although adoption was already part of my husband's and my plan to build a family, we first tried to get pregnant without much success. We quickly turned to plan B, adoption.

 Second choice.

The saying "You get what you get, and you don't get upset" summed up my naïve and simplistic view of adoption. Of course, I am sure everyone hopes for the perfect baby with ten fingers and ten toes, but if the baby arrives with some genetic abnormality or disease, you love them anyway because they are your child. Right? So, I was surprised to find a checklist in our adoption paperwork about what type of child we would be comfortable parenting. Would everyone pick the near-perfect child? My husband and I did. Second choice gave us options, and we were going to be assholes. But because we didn't want to seem like assholes, we selected a few easy needs. Mild developmental delays? Check. Birthmark? Check. Minor heart defect? Check. We would be first-time parents with full-time jobs, and we didn't want to be knowingly burdened with extra work to care for a child with special needs. Our paperwork was approved. We were matched with the perfect child – our second, first choice. We can't imagine a life without her in it.

This experience caused me to reflect on my own adoption because I know had I been born with special needs, I could have easily ended up in an institution rather than a loving home. That thought unsettled me. We opened our hearts more for our second adoption and specifically requested a child with special needs. We were matched with a beautiful boy with a wide, bilateral cleft lip and palate, a child who was abandoned by his family and ended up in an institution on the other side of the world.

When we met our son for the first time, it was clear that his cleft was the least of his needs. He was two, couldn't eat or talk, and was unsteady on his feet. He flapped his hands when he was excited and banged his head against anything hard when he was angry. During our first day together, I found myself on the computer researching autism – a mother's instinct. Maybe we had taken on too much. We didn't check that box on our paperwork. We had 24 hours to decide whether we would proceed with the adoption. We could leave him behind in China. Our son was a choice. Can we imagine a life without him in it?

Second choice.