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I will be revisiting and reflecting on my experience of the adoption roundtable for a long time, unpacking how I've been affected by Melissa, Kelly, Roger, Alan, and Eleanor. They have given me much to think and feel about as their voices have stayed with me. And I am grateful for Ken and Kim's thoughtful and gentle guidance in creating a space for us to grope our way through complicated terrain. I am left with thoughts about the creation of narratives, the ways that fantasy might intertwine with them, and the meanings of birthparent absence.
Life, however, rarely stops for moments of reflection on intense experience—which the roundtable very much was for me, as a parent and as a clinician. The day after the roundtable, as I tried to parse out themes of mourning and longing (among others), I left with my partner and 7-year-old son to vacation with our extended birth family (my son's birthmother, her siblings, her nieces, and her parents). As my son and I chatted, he asked me suddenly, “Why does Ron call his mother ‘Mum’?” referring to Harry Potter's best friend. We spoke about British expressions (as the Harry Potter series takes place in the U.K.), but before I knew it—and it's always before I know it—we were having a conversation about what my son wanted to call his birthmother. Up until this point, he had always referred to her by her first name, as my partner and I do. I asked, “Do you think about calling her ‘Mom’?” And he replied in a matter-of-fact way, “I don't know. She's my mother, but she doesn't live with us, and I only see her a couple of times a year.” This was all new. I ventured, “Would you like to see her more often?” His reply reassured me of his resilience and,
perhaps, my own: “Well, duh! She's my mother!” Okay. We talked about ways we could see her more, and he decided he wasn't yet sure how he wanted to refer to her. Later, I managed to have a moment alone with his birthmother to describe our exchange and to let her know I wasn't sure what he