By Lee Ann Kim
Hardly a day passes that I don’t have to explain why my two sons are only seven months apart in age. Strangers usually mistake them for twins and then are genuinely baffled when I tell them Weston is just over 2-1/2, and Samuel recently turned 2.
“How in the world is that physically possible?” they always ask.
My canned response, “Samuel’s adopted. Weston is biological.” Maybe I should turn this into a button or T-shirt to save me from repeatedly having to explain it.
Many people would follow up with, “I had a friend who tried to have a baby for years, then gave up. But as soon as she signed up for adoption, bam! She got pregnant, and ended up with two babies, just like you!”
No, that’s not just like me. Fertility was not an issue. In fact, my husband and I timed out the adoption process so that our biological and adopted sons would be very close in age. As “virtual twins,” we hoped they would play with each other and grow up to be best friends. We promised ourselves we would do our best to treat them equally.
[ad#336]
My husband Louis says he thought about adoption long before we got married. But the idea never hit me until I saw a TV special on quarterback Dan Marino on ESPN, which profiled his four biological children and two adopted children. His story touched me so deeply that I turned to my husband and said, “I’d love to adopt, too.” He simply agreed, and that was it.
Louis and I grew up with Korean adoptee friends raised by Caucasian families. While I admire the hearts of their adoptive parents, I always felt a sense of regret for my friends who experienced little to no interaction with the Korean culture or community. Other than the souvenir hanbok and a picture book of Korea, nothing in their homes showed that a Korean child lived there. No big jar of kimchi, no rice cooker, and everyone wore their shoes in the house. Those memories planted the seeds that would grow into a “calling” later in life to adopt from Korea — a country I would learn was sadly not embracing its own orphaned children because of cultural and social stigmas that still exist.
The South Korean government has always viewed the low domestic adoption rate as a problem and an embarrassment. In recent years, the government has stepped up efforts by offering financial incentives to adoptive parents, incorporating positive information about adoption in school curriculum, and is even allowing single parents to adopt.
Our adoption process took two years through Holt International, during which we went through criminal, medical and financial background checks, a detailed home study, and parenting classes. I made sure to emphasize in our application that I worked as a news anchor for ABC in San Diego and that both Louis and I were Korean-born Americans. We were eager to adopt a boy sooner than later, and hoped those factors would expedite the process. They didn’t. Like everyone else, we waited many months for the adoption to be approved, and for the agency to choose an anonymous woman’s baby to be our son.
[ad#336]
Looking back, I’m grateful it took so long considering the amount of preparation and explaining we had to do with our friends and family.
As Louis and I shared our adoption plans with friends and co-workers, it was as if we had announced a pregnancy. Some would jump out of their seats, give us a big hug, and send us notes of congratulations. They couldn’t have been more supportive and excited for us. So I expected the same kind of positive reaction from my three younger sisters. I was a bit surprised when my second sister seemed less enthusiastic.
“Aren’t you worried the baby will have issues?” she asked, “And what about Mom and Dad? They’re not going to like this.”
That was one of my worst fears.
Even as a 32-year-old woman, I was having anxiety attacks on the airplane, flying from San Diego to my hometown of Chicago, worried about the reaction of my conservative Korean parents. Ironically, when I was a teenager, my own father was pressured to adopt an adult male cousin from Korea to carry his lineage on the family tree. After vehement protests from my sisters and me, he opted against it. Twenty years later, here I am about to do something unthinkable to most Korean parents — adopt for the sake of adopting.
When I dropped the bomb, my parents seemed more confused than upset, and launched into a storm of questions.
“Why don’t you keep trying to have your own baby?”
“What if the child turns out to be a bad person?”
“Can you really love this child, even though he’s not born from you?
“Do we have to call this child our grandson?”
“Are you going to tell other people he’s adopted? And are you going to tell him he’s adopted?”
[ad#336]
I learned even in the Korean American community, there is still a sense of shame associated with adoption. The few Korean Americans who adopt usually do so because of infertility, and interestingly, they often adopt a girl because adopting a boy would mean someone outside of the family’s bloodline would carry on their name. Sometimes these adoptions are kept secret from friends and extended family members. I’ve heard stories of Korean American women faking their pregnancies or staying away from public view for many months, only to emerge later with a “newborn” in their arms.
It’s also very common for these parents to keep the adoption a secret from the child out of fear it would hurt his or her feelings. There was no way my husband and I would ever hide this fact from our own children. We want them to grow up viewing adoption as a blessing and a source of pride.
During the adoption waiting period, just as we hoped, I got pregnant, and gave birth to Weston in July 2005. It was such a miracle to experience how this precious boy grew inside me. From the ultrasounds, first flutters, kicks, and even hiccups, each movement bonded me stronger with my son. I was in love with Weston long before his birth, and could never imagine carrying a child for nine months only to let him go.
The news of Samuel’s birth came to us in an e-mail from Holt International, with a color photo of a three-day-old boy named Gim Hyeon Wu. While the identity of his birth mother is kept secret, we do know that she became pregnant out of wedlock, like most Korean women who relinquish their babies. She was a 30-something waitress whose mother abandoned her family when she was a teenager. She left home before graduating high school because of problems with her father. And when the man who got her pregnant discovered she was going to have a baby, he skipped town on her, too.
Had she lived in America, perhaps she could have kept the baby. But in Korea, single mothers have no support system and are stigmatized to the point they cannot survive. I was profoundly sad for Samuel’s birth mother and often cried for her. But I vowed we would fulfill her dream of giving him a good life in San Diego.
Hyeon Wu, whom we renamed Samuel Hyung Won Song, came to us at the age of only four months on June 6, 2006. He was carried off the plane by an escort, who held him for the last 18 hours on the flight from Korea. She greeted us warmly, told us Samuel was a very happy baby on the plane, and then handed him over with a bag sent by his foster parents. I’ll never forget that first moment when I held him in my arms. He stared straight into my teary eyes and actually smiled at me as if he knew I was his mother. I was smitten.
Truthfully, the first few weeks with Samuel were difficult, emotional, and exhausting. At times, he cried incessantly because nothing was familiar to him. I’m sure he missed the smell and touch of his foster mother, who sang Korean songs and slept on the floor with him every night. But like new roommates, it took time for us to get to know each other and for him to realize this is his new home. It also took some time for Weston, understandably jealous as most older siblings are with any new addition, to accept Samuel as part of this family.
The biggest joy for us has been watching Weston and Samuel grow up as brothers these last two years. Weston is the typical older brother, hoarding his toys, bossing Samuel around, and even stealing his food. But we’ve also caught them chasing each other, laughing, splashing each other in the bath, and taking turns sharing a cup of juice. Every morning, Samuel goes to Weston’s bedroom to get him up so they can play with their trains. They have no recollection of life without each other.
There will be no secret, however, about where Samuel came from. The topic is unavoidable because of their close age. But as we explain that Weston came from Mommy’s tummy and Samuel came off an airplane, we will always emphasize that our love for them is the same. And, if one day as an adult, Samuel has a burning desire to find his biological mother, we will support him.
Even my own parents have come to realize that having an adopted grandchild is no different than having a biological grandchild. In fact, all of our relatives treat Samuel as their own, and they often comment how much he looks like me, Louis, and his brother. I just wish the same could be said for more Korean adoptees.
Hopefully, through our family’s experience, more Korean Americans (and Asian Americans, in general) will open themselves up to adoption as a viable way to start a family, rather than a last resort. The fact that most adoptees from Asia are not adopted into Asian families makes a clear statement about how Asians negatively view these children and their mothers. We can be the first generation to change that.
My other hope is that Samuel’s birth mother can live without shame and in peace. I thank her for bringing Samuel into our lives. I have no doubt that just as Weston grew in my belly for nine months, Samuel was born to be our son.
