Home Sweet Home

I am home! I am so glad to be home where it is familiar and safe, but I will miss my new-found family and I hope to see them again soon! I haven't seen Cameron yet, as he is taking some summer classes this morning but we are getting together for lunch. I still don't have my appetite back -- I am missing that "taste" sense, which is really annoying. I sure hope that comes back soon.

My visit with my natural family was fantastico! My little sister and I baked British scones (with a touch of good 'ol American!) and British tea, and sat down for a tea party. I loved every moment that I spent with my siblings. They are brilliant, beautiful and full of goodness.

I did get to meet my oldest brother and that was a really interesting and intense meeting. We share the same biological father, and I actually believe I look like him the most. It is such a crazy feeling to sit there with someone who shares the same biological ties. Obviously I have never experienced that and it kind of threw me for a loop. We talked for most of the night last night, about everything and anything. I really feel like he's a special presence in my life now. I am finding myself already missing him.

Now for my mother -- what can I say? She is smart, pretty, vibrant and full of kindness and goodness. I am in awe of the person that she is in this world and I now feel as though I actually know the person that I strive to be. She's just absolutely amazing! Of course I knew she would be special, I was taken aback by truly how special she is. Inside and outside, she just defines the word beauty.

The only person who had tight reins on his heart and a little wall around his life was my 14 year old brother. However, he was pleasant and welcoming; he just preferred not to spend too much time with me. I think it's possible that he has some issues of insecurity -- his world as he knew it, with 3 siblings, has changed. I barge my way into his life suddenly and want to become his "sister," it's a lot to handle, especially at that age. So I respected his need for space and time, and hopefully someday we'll get to really talk and get to know each other.

I got to do a lot of different things while I was there and go a lot of places. One place we went to was Build-A-Bear Workshop. I have never been there and I am totally hooked. It is the cutest thing. Being there made me think of all of my tiny friends with cancer and I got a little bit emotional. I made 4 bears that I will hand out when I go to the hospital. 2 girl bears and 2 boy bears. =) My sister made me a bear that I will keep and cherish forever.

I think my emotions are finally beginning to stabilize (maybe, we'll see) It was very difficult, emotionally, to incorporate this entire new family into my identity of who I thought I was all of my life. It is life-altering, but hey so is the original act of my adoption, right? I mean the act of adoption changes who a person is. So I began this life as Sarah, the daughter of Lisa and Eric, but that identity was brief -- one day to be exact. Then I was taken into foster care where I was called "precious" for 6 weeks, until I was brought home by my adoptive parents who made me Nicole.

Thinking back to Erik Erikson's stages of psychological developement, I was in the stage of Trust Vs. Mistrust. Infants are brought into this world with a clean slate. No worries, no cares, and no fears. (Child Life for Families) So what happens when something as major as losing your first mother, then going to foster care and losing that mother, to a new family with a new mother, happens? It makes me start to analyze my life, my insecurities, my fate, my family and even my identity. It makes me begin to try to piece together who I would have been - where I would be - my life would be drastically different. I wouldn't have been raised as an only child, I would have been raised with 4 siblings, in another part of the country. What an incredible and scary thought. It really makes you reevaluate your life and your destiny. It brings up a world of questions and doubts.

Of course there are many routes to take my thoughts through. What if I'd been kept instead of adopted - would my mother have had her other 4 children? Would she be the absolutely amazing woman she is today or would she be resentful that she kept me when it was so difficult on her. Would I have changed her life in a negative or a positive way? The questions are truly endless. I will probably spend the rest of my life with unanswered questions regarding my adoption. For now I will try to wade through the emotional mess that occupies my brain at the moment, one step at a time.