i should think about *her*

I should think about *her*, - especially today. Her being Sam's first mom. But i have to be truthful, i havent much thought about her. I have not been the emotional adoptive mom that has wept for the first mom, the mom Sam missed, the mom that was forced to give him up. I do know she was seen by the nuns at the indigent children and mothers/expecting mother's center. She sought care there while pregnant....she ended up delivering there out of an emergency, apparently Sam was breach, there were complications. The nuns delivered him. I was able to speak with one of the nuns, she followed him and a group of children to Addis. Sam was left at the medical clinic near the center....and they kept him ....for 18 months before seeking adoption (his first adoption efforts were to European agencies) He was abandoned but at this center they often housed and treated ill/disabled children who were never able to be adopted for various reasons. Families would visit their disabled children, it was almost like a foster group home for children in need of round-the-clock care....but no documentation of any mom, or family visiting Sam.. The little boy with the very twisted legs/feet. I empathize with what she must have gone through, and still somehow question why no one visited or came....even after his first surgery- when might have been "fixed".....but the nuns were quite upfront about him, and how their center works (much different than the traditional orphanages that work with American agencies)....and they said no one ever came. These are European nuns, the ones that helped name him.

Maybe i do not think of her because i just feel no connection to her. Sam feels like *mine*,...the love i feel for Sam is as strong and intense as the love i feel for Gabe, my biological son...i usually just never even fathom that Sam spent his first 3 years elsewhere...he is so connected to our family- although we do keep many Ethiopian connections. Maybe i just shelter myself from getting wrapped up in the emotional toll of having to identify and invest my heart in what his first mother must have gone through.
When we went to court I sat by a birth mom, ...well she ended up sitting by me. It obviously wasn't Sam's birth-mom- since he was an abandonment case....but it was someones birth-mom. My heart trembled for her...she was called back before I was....i wondered about what she had to say, agree to , and try and understand.....there was a man that retrieved her along with a few other moms, but i was so nervous about my own proceedings (which did not go well)- that i didn't catch this group of women again, ...i had meant to try and watch them as they walked out...to say a little prayer for them...wish them well, somehow, in a silent way ....i think about them more than i visualize Sam's first mom. Did something horrible happen to her? Was she unable to bear having to formally relinquish him? Could she not stand the sight of him because he was handicapped? Part of me thinks that she felt he was defective and lesser than....and that just hurts my heart so much- so maybe that's the reason i do not connect with her....Whatever her reasons for sacrificing her son into the fate of the disabled care center's clinic, it paved the way for Sam to be my son.... so i must be thankful for that...and for him saying in a very deliberate way (he practiced with my husband) "Happy mudda day momma! Have a birthday cake?" - sososo adorable,...too bad there was not cake