The Velveteen Mother

The Velveteen Mother

By Kathryn B. Creedy
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, May 10, 1998; Page F01

"Now this is real," I thought, flexing my stiff hand as I finished stitching the numerous patches onto my daughter's Brownie sash. My mind had drifted back to an encounter on the train that morning, when a seat mate noticed I was reading Adoptive Families magazine. She had all the usual questions of someone unfamiliar with adoption. Where were my two daughters from? How old were they when they arrived? How old are they now?

Then the conversation took another typical turn.

"I don't know how anyone can give up a child," the woman offered. "I just can't imagine. Do you know why their real mothers gave them up?"

I've always met that question with a lighthearted response. "I feel pretty real," I said, leaving the next move to her.

Usually, when faced with that question, I try to discuss what it means to be a parent -- not an adoptive parent or a stepparent, but what it really means to parent a child. As families have changed in the past few decades, society also is struggling for a definition.

"I mean the birth mothers," she said. "Why would they give them up?"

I decided to answer her question by educating her on the etiquette of adoption, a speech I'd repeated many times.

"I'm so glad they made adoption plans," I said. "It was the answer to all my dreams. All I know is their birth mothers were very great women to do what they did, and I thank God for them every day."

I went on to gently explain that the girls' adoption stories were theirs to share, not mine. I also said that if Alexis and Brooks were with us, I was sure they would tell those stories. Because we are all quite proud of our family history, unusual though it is.

I've been a mother since 1991, when I brought Alexis home from Romania at the age of 14 months. Like many other women in this decade, I became a mother on my own. At 39, with no marriage on the horizon and my career firmly in place, I wanted children. But unlike some "Murphy Browns," I wanted parenthood without pregnancy.

Adoption was my first choice for many reasons, the most important of which was that pregnancy didn't look fun. Delivery looked even less fun. Second, I had no special investment in my own genetics. I knew genes provided no guarantees, because there are none in life or with children.

I knew how deeply I could love a child the moment I met my 2-week-old nephew, Matthew. He showed me what I was missing. I knew that any child I adopted would be my own regardless of how she joined the family.

As one of four children, I also knew I wanted to adopt more than one. And so, in 1993, Brooks arrived. She was 5 months old -- three years younger than her sister -- and came from the Bolivian plains. She has the golden glow and almond eyes of the Quechua Indians, descendants of the Inca.

During these seven years, the feeling I've always had is not exactly a feeling of being real. It's more like utter amazement.

I was amazed to be able to have two such wonderful little girls. If I had called Central Casting and asked for the perfect child, Alexis would have come marching through the door ready to party. I was amazed at the differences in Brooks, my shy, petite little one who curls herself into my lap whenever she has the chance.

I was amazed at my luck as I listened to them giggle and play while I stood at the stove cooking dinner. And I was especially amazed when I hovered over them each night whispering our good-night ritual and feeling them pull me down for a big hug.

Even to this day, I walk away shaking my head in wonderment, thinking, "Do people who birth their children have this much thankfulness for the gift they've been given?"

Others have described real to me in terms of chores -- as if quelling fights, toiling over homework, changing diapers, nursing sick children and coaching innumerable soccer games somehow grants us an entitlement to be called Mom or Dad. All that, like the Brownie patches and birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese's, represent our patches in this troop called parenthood, to be sure.

But what few realize is that our paths are not so different. While they grew a life within them, we grew a mountain of paperwork and researched the way we would build our families. We, too, went through endless medical checkups, but also had extensive home studies. We rearranged the rooms in middle-of-the-night nesting rituals. Our emotions rose and fell wildly as we waited. Waited the long months for our assignments, then months more before a precious picture or shaky video turned into someone who could fill our aching, empty arms and hug us back.

Even so, it is not persevering through the similar stages of pregnancy or adoption that make us real. There is so much more to it.

Real is a tiny hand in mine as we cross the street. Real is the whisper of breathing as Brooks naps in my arms. Real is as light as a baby's touch. Real is lying in bed reading stories with small bodies on either side interrupting with so many questions you think the story will never end.

It's planting flowers and jumping in puddles. It's tickling. It's catching a running youngster as she jumps into your arms when you pick her up in the evening. It's mastering rollerblading and ice skating.

Real is lifting a crying child into your arms and dabbing a bloody knee. It's letting go of the bicycle and little hands at the classroom door.

It's secretly watching a 2-year-old sing lullabies as she lovingly lines up her baby dolls and covers them for a nap. It's listening to kids pound down the stairs on Christmas morning, their feety-pajamas swishing along the bare floor toward the prizes ahead.

And it's passing on the family traditions, as your child takes your place at your father's side to become the official Thanksgiving turkey taster -- her small hand reaching up to remind him she's ready for her job.

Real is, quite simply, the thrills all parents get from just being a parent and loving their children.

Finally, around midnight, the once-bare Brownie sash was festooned with patches: the Troop 1351 patch, the theater, dancing and sleepover patches. As I turned it over and pictured it on Alexis, it didn't surprise me to discover that my rare and feeble attempt at sewing had resulted in all the patches being affixed to the back of the sash.

"Typical," I thought, shaking my head. "Well, it will just have to do."

As I readied myself for bed, I thought again of my favorite passage from "The Velveteen Rabbit."

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day -- .

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

Real is also when you get lucky enough to have a child to love.

And, yes, it's also taking all the patches off and sewing them back on the right way.

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