The story

I figured after my last post it might be fun to explain my adoption story to you, the reader of this exhilarating blog! When I was about 8 or 9 I suddenly realized that there were hardly any pictures of my around the house. There were a couple of school pictures and then maybe 2 or 3 of me as a baby, mostly with my brother in the picture but no wall or shelf devoted to me, the little sister who was a whole 5 years younger than my brother. Instead the hall walls looked like a shrine to my brother, "the chosen one"! I began in typical dramatic girl fashion to inquire into the case of the missing pictures. I meticulously questioned each member of the family and a few family friends about my birth and babyhood. When I asked my then teenage brother he lead me to believe that I was adopted. Since I didn't look exactly like my parents and I kept wondering where I got my nose I started really thinking he could be right. I started analyzing each picture of myself in comparison to pictures of my parents and brother to figure out whose eyes I had, whose nose I had, etc. I was truly obsessed and would even ask my grandmothers if I looked like other people in the family I had never met. Finally after what seemed like forever I finally broke down to the point that my mother brought out the video of my birth. Now, you have to understand something about my mother, she is a free spirit, independent and not worried about what people think of her. When she gets an idea in her head, it is not easily changed. When I was born there was apparently a movement of women wanting to reclaim the birthing process and my mom was front and center. She decided after a very horrible birthing experience with my brother 5 years prior to my own that she would go through Lamaze classes and have a natural birth. Thank goodness for her that she has a high pain tolerance, that her labor was quick and most importantly I was relatively small! She gave birth to me in a hospital, probably because my Dad wouldn't agree to a home birth and video taped the actual event. So since there was actual proof of my birth my mother, in her infinite wisdom, decided to teach me 2 things when she showed me the video #1: Sex will do this to you. #2: Don't ask a question unless you really want to know the answer! As I watched the video, which I'm not sure I've ever seen since I realized that I wasn't really adopted or at least they loved me enough to show me the pain that my mother went through to give life to some baby. Even then I remember saying as I saw the video "how do I know that's me?" All my mom could do was sigh. My poor parents, if I'd been the first I'm sure I would have also been the last! Unfortunately I've always been WAY too analytical and even when I see proof I question it. But as I've gotten older and started looking more like my brother (you should see the male yearbook pictures I did, YIKES!) I finally came to terms with the fact that my parents are truly my biological parents and my brother only really psychologically tortured me once and after all he was only doing his older sibling duty! One day Emerson will be trying to convince Cullen that we found him on the side of the road (what my brother told me about myself) and that we felt sorry for him and picked him up. Of course that's when I will break out the video of Cullen's birth, which is G rated, for my son to learn the same lessons I learned all those years ago. However, the most important lesson from the whole experience that my parents probably didn't even realize that they taught me was. . .TAKE PICTURES OF YOUR 2ND CHILD!