During our first visit with our Social Worker, she said that for many adopted children, their story of "how we all became a family" becomes one of their favorite bedtime stories, they want to hear it over and over again. I've often wondered what we will tell Cady, when we tell her "her story".
I'd asked our social worker several times, "How can we create her story without knowing anything about her past? We won't know if she was loved by anyone, we won't know the circumstances as to why she was abandoned....How can we tell her
her story
?"Our Social Worker's main response was usually in the manner of, "It will just come to you. Every story is different. Be honest with her, but let her feel connected to it, in a positive way".
I still don't know how we will concoct the
story that Cady will want to hear over and over again, but I do know these things;
I have a lot of admiration for the birth mother of our daughter. In China it's legal to have an abortion, but illegal to abandon a child. So, Cady's birth mother carried our child in her womb to full term, then secretly left her at the entrance to a community village, knowing Cady would be found in an open and well traveled area, and only hoping that Cady would be one of the fortunate ones to be adopted.
I've been told by other adoptive parents, that most likely, Cady's birth mother was from a different village, because it would be too risky to leave a child at the entrance of her own village. Hearing that, I realized, her birth mother (parents) traveled, possibly by foot, to a neighboring village, away from their own village...All the while, knowing that they were on the path to the most difficult task they could ever partake in.
I wish there were a way to ease her birth mother's heavy heart. I'm certain that she thinks of Cadence daily, and wonders what has happened to the bundle she left, only 4 days after giving birth. What strength this woman must possess.
There are still pieces of her story that are kept with our daughter in the SWI. After 15 months, surely there's a favored nanny or a treasured memory that we'll hear from one of the caretakers to incorporate into her story for her. We hope to gather those pieces of her story; her history, while we're visiting Anhui, the SWI and her finding spot.
I'm sure also, her story will evolve as we evolve with her.
Tonight, Scott showed me a 7 minute video that he had downloaded to the iPod, earlier today. I had actually seen a while back, but that was before we knew who our daughter was. I was so touched by the video that I wanted to share it with those of you that read our blog.
Click on the "7 min Version" then choose "play"
http://www.bringmehope.org/dvd/index.html
