JOURNAL - 9/6/1992 - First Adoption

They sent us another photograph before we ever saw our first son’s face. The first photo was of a beautiful five year old little girl grinning widely. She looked bright eyed and healthy. It was painful to send her picture back. We sincerely thought about it but decided felt that, by the time she got here, she would be six or seven years old. That was a little too old for us, and least the first time around. There were no repercussions for not accepting a child offered, except within our own minds. I can't explain why, but I didn't "bond" with the picture. I felt that I would know our child when I saw him or her, and hoped that this was true.

An author of one adoption book I read said that you shouldn't need to see pictures. That you would be able to parent any waiting child. However, the picture was very important to us. With a biological child, you have some idea what he/she is going to look like. Why shouldn't the same be true of an adopted child? We weren't aiming to rule out racial differences, or looks, but felt that something had to click.

The minute we saw him, we did know. A dark photocopy of a photograph with his name written underneath, and that he once had a "blackout", was all it said. My first glimpse produced an almost physical sensation. I don’t know how or why. This boy in the photograph was the child in our imagination. I just knew that this had to be our son.

It is hard to understand the connection that took place with his picture. I just knew we could love him. It was very real to me. I wanted to have him home, to protect him, to nurture him, to rock him, and watch him be happy. It is immediate, having the picture. How much is fantasy, and how much reality.... I do not know.

We are a little afraid to put all of these feelings on this single picture, but we can't help it, we are hooked. We called the agency to accept the referral immediately, fearful that somthing would happen, that it was a mistake, that he was already matched wtih another family.

Now that we have accepted the referral, we think of this little boy as our son. It is just an image of a little boy on a piece of paper. It could have been photocopied from a newspaper or magazine, but it wasn't. He is the one! He is our son! Of course upon that photo we are projecting a whole person of our own imagination. We try to figure out what he was thinking when they took the picture, what he was feeling. We gleen how intelligent he is by the twinkle in his eye. He looks very sensitive and fragile. He is so very handsome, so beautiful, this son of ours. The picture was only a single moment in this boy's life, but it is very real and current to us. He has a presonality, reality based or not, represented by this photo. The longer we wait the more and more traits we attach to our little boy in the photocopy of a photo.

We made photocopies of the photocopy of the photo, now getting very creased and a little worn. We put the picture in a frame and put it on our mantle. We taped copies to our lockers at work. One is plastered to the refrigerator. I cut one to wallet size and pull it out of my wallet when others pull out photos of their kids, or grandkids. I carry it with me everywhere.

All of this has made child very real to us. He is not just a dream any more. We are familiar with his eyes, his face, his stance. We did get a real photograph the other day that was not so dark and we were surprised to find that our son had lighter skin and hair than we had imagined. We have quickly incorporated the new photo into our child's image and he is even more real.

All this time I am on pins and needles fearing that we will never get him home. We are taking a huge risk getting so attached to photos. If somethinggoes wrong, I will grieve as if my very real child has died. One of our friends had a picture of a little boy from Bulgaria, and they were all set to take him into their lives. The submitted all the paperwork. At the last minute the child was adopted by another family from France. Their grief was all too real.

But we had taken that gigantic leap of faith. We no longer had any control, but it felt right.