Joshua's birthday. in Part two.

This weekend, my son turns five. Four days after that it will be two years since he ran into my arms out of the elevators in Pleven and we took him home.

He is one of the most resilient children I know. He is a survivor in every sense of the word. Beneath the cuteness of who he is, and beneath the progress he has made (and it’s been a lot! Did I mention that he’s mostly potty trained now?) there is a pain. I know it’s there. It comes out in ways like how emotionally needy he is, for example. You think, “He was three years old when he left that place, how could it have really mattered?”

Oh yeah, it mattered.

What’s strange about his birthday (for me) is that it is one of the days that I think very hard about the fact that he is adopted.

Now, before I get some kind of preachy notes, let me establish the following:

1. He is my son; I never for a minute think he isn’t. In fact, I KNOW he is.

2. I am his mother - period.

But Joshua has two countries and two mothers. The mother who bore him and the mother who is raising him. This weekend, I can’t help but think of the mother who bore him. He was born in Levski Bulgaria, in a hospital I assume. Levski is in Pleven province - yes, that Pleven. He went shortly after birth to the Pleven Orphanage and he never saw the woman that bore him again.

I have no stories about his birth. Was it a long labor? Did he come out screaming? I have no baby pictures of him - and I never will. Was he a cute newborn or did he have a touch of the Fugly like Chelsea had? :) I can’t show him his picture like I have of Chelsea in the NICU. I can’t tell him how Daddy and Mommy pulled out of the driveway, clasped our hands together, and said, “Let’s go have a baby.” (like we did with Chelsea).

It is his birthday, and I get to celebrate it with him as his mother, but there is another woman who bore him and on this day, she delivered him. And I can’t tell him anything about it....because I wasn’t there and I don’t know.

It’s strange, honestly. It makes me sad - for him of course. And I feel some sadness for his birth mother, although in truth I don’t believe it bothered her a whole lot to give him up. We did some birth parent searches for Joshua’s benefit last year. She was interviewed. She has mental illness and it is obvious. I’m not saying she doesn’t remember him or anything…I’m not even saying that there isn’t some part of her that is sad or impacted…but she has clearly moved on and her mental issues don’t help the situation.

This weekend, I get to celebrate Joshua’s “second” birthday (with us) and I’m thrilled.

But it’s different. Not in a bad way. It just…is.