VOICES OF KCCNYC ADOPTEES: CHI-NA’S STORY

Voices of KCCNYC Adoptees: Chi-Na’s Story

By Chi-Na Stoane

Photo Credit to Chi-Na Stoane (Kim) with her adoptive son Asher, Chi-Na wrote: “Asher and mommy!” under the photo.

I’m watching my son. I’ve been watching him for days.  It’s like that sometimes.  He becomes paralyzed, then becomes semiconscious, and cannot move until this monstrous disease lets go of him.  I wait, helplessly, praying for him to be released.  Not knowing, just praying…

Photo Credit to Chi-Na Stoan, photo of Asher. Chi-Na personally told the editor that she named her son Asher because he was called 복덩이, which means the “blessed one,” when he was in a foster care.

That was and is my life from the time he was five years old. He is 21, and I never know when he will fall ill with this ghost of illness.  Because it’s unpredictable, I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I never know when he will be seized by this monstrosity.  Every morning before I get out of bed, I pray that today will be a good day, and he does not succumb to his illness. 

My son was found unconscious in the bathroom at school when he was five years old.  We then went through a series of laboratory tests and radiologic imaging and diagnosed him with a rare disorder called Moyamoya.  Even after three brain surgeries, he continued to have these mysterious symptoms where he would cry in agonizing pain, becoming paralyzed or sometimes seizing and sometimes going into respiratory arrest.  It was like I was fighting a ghost, a faint image of a nightmare that would fade away in fog.  I was lost, desperate, and I felt despair for my son. 

It turns out that my son has a multitude of syndromes, all culminating in not one diagnosis but several complicated diagnoses.  All are genetically driven.  There was and is nothing we can do to ameliorate his illnesses.  I became despondent.  I needed to know information from his genetically related biological parents.  In order for me to save my son, I needed blood samples from his biological parents.

That’s when I decided that I needed to let my son know that he was adopted, and that we needed to find his biological parents.  Unfortunately, my cry for help went unheeded.  Holt Institute of Korea held up their hands, told us that under no circumstances would we have access to his biological mother.  When he was eight years old, we traveled to Korea, went to Holt, made our case, arguing why we needed to be in contact with the birth mom, hoping that they would understand and connect us to her.  But they did not take pity on us, and we left Seoul devastated. 

We still went to my son’s birth place, Busan.  When we stood on the ground where he was born, my baby fell apart, and somehow he was in my arms, and I was cradling him.  His abject sadness was unbearable.  I couldn’t see because my eyes were blurred by my own tears.  Somehow, my other son caught the scene on his camera.  When I saw the photo later when we returned home, I was shocked.  I didn’t know who took the photo.  I wondered if it was an angel, or a spirit that captured the moment, because I had no recollection of that scene. 

Photo Credit to Chi-Na Stoane, Asher at six months old. When Asher finally came home.

We live in a small little town in Washington state, where the population is extremely homogeneous, and my son stands out like a sore thumb.  He has always been on the Shaquil O’Neil growth curve, always measuring 150% above the highest percentage on the growth curve.  He was taller and bigger than anyone in his class growing up.  Being a very big  Asian boy, with three brain surgeries, and being neurologically impaired and incapacitated every few weeks made him stand out in a sea of white, normal children.  The white, normal kids didn’t understand my giant Korean boy who was lumbering through the school yard.  Needless to say, my kid did not have an easy time.  Despite all my effort, he always felt different and now, knowing that he was adopted, it was the nail in the coffin. 

Because he was still a child, he was so wrapped up in the silo of his own misery and anxiety, he could not understand that there are many kids who are adopted for various reasons.  All he knew was he was abandoned, thrown aside because he wasn’t good enough.  He had no self worth, he felt and knew in his heart he wasn’t good enough and would never measure up.  As his mom, I am watching my baby suffer in ways no human being should have to endure.  I did everything under the sun to explain to him that he was not abandoned.  I told him that I love him, and I told him that his birth mom did the best by giving him to me, so that I could help him survive his medical hardship.  Both my husband and I are doctors, and it took everything we had to diagnose him properly.  I essentially became his personal doctor.  But, none of that helped my baby. 

When he was 16 years old, we reached out again to Holt to officially initiate the search for his birth mom.  They found her in six weeks, but told us that she had just gotten married, and our attempt to contact might endanger her and her place in her family.  We immediately backed off. 

Photo Credit to Chi-Na Stoane, Asher with his Adoptive father and his adoptive brother. 

Meanwhile, my baby is going through high school, then to college, but everything is a mess.  He is absent in his own life.  He only seeks immediate gratification.  There is no tomorrow for him.  Nothing is worth the effort in his life.  He does not care what happens to him.  When I challenge him, when I tell him he is worthy, he deserves everything in this world as anyone else, he looks at me with vacant eyes.  His soul has left.  He gave up living a long time ago.  My heart breaks.  I love him so much.  I would do anything for him, and Holt will not do anything to help me, help him.  I decided I would hire a private detective to find her, and we will find answers.  We needed to find her, so that my baby can come back, and live again.

Now he is 20 years old.  Of course, the only person Holt will respond to is my son.  They will not communicate with me.  “Legally” speaking, I have no right to his private information.  So, my son initiated a second search for his birth mom.

After two years of agonizingly waiting, we are told that they found her.  And it would take months before we had any communication from my son’s biological mom.  She was loving, kind, sweet, open, and wanted to connect with my son.  She told him that she loved him, and not a day went by that she didn’t think of him.  She repeatedly said that she was sorry for giving him away, she told him that she wanted to get to know him, and tell him everything about his life when he was with her, and about her life after he left her.  This was the exact opposite of what Holt had reported to us about my son’s birth mom. 

Photo Credit to Chi-Na Stoan - “Despite my brain surgeries, my mom still made me compete in science fairs and math olympics.  I brought home a few trophies.”

We now have direct contact with her and regularly communicate with her.  However, this isn’t as simple as it looks.  There is so much to unpack, for my son, for his biological mom, and for me and my husband.  My husband is falling apart.  He was my son’s favorite person in the world.  He doesn’t know how he will fit in this world of our son, where there are two moms.   I am determined to keep my chin up and be brave, because I have to be the strong one and be the buttress of support for my baby.  But, my son isn’t sure how much he can trust his birth mom.  What if she changes her mind?  I don’t think he can handle a second rejection from her.  That would completely destroy him.  What if she is trying to take him away from home?  What if I’m trying to give him away, or give him back to his birth mother? 

Does he feel guilty that he has found his birth mother?  Does he feel like he is betraying us?  He doesn’t understand why I am so happy to be in contact with his birth mom.  It is very confusing for him. 

I consider us lucky.  Our story is a good one, even though it  is complicated and full of holes that might trap us in emotional binds.  However, that is the story of adopted children and families with these complicated story lines.  There are no simple situations.  A child is born, then the child is handed off to another family.  This child who is in the middle of this triad holds two families and must somehow process and digest the ecosystem of both families. He is my child and I love him with all my heart, but his story of origin belongs to someone else, and I do not belong in that space with him. 

My son came to me broken and traumatized.  I tried to reach him in this thick fog, reaching and yet never quite long enough to reach him.  It is this recurring nightmare, where my son has fallen into an abyss, and I’m at the top of the cliff reaching, but my arm isn’t long enough.  It was never enough, until we found his birth mom.  She made up the extra distance that I needed to reach my baby.  The story doesn’t end there, but that is where we are.  I have finally reached him, but only with the help from the woman who gave birth to my son.  It takes a village to raise a child, and sometimes that village has two mothers.

Photo Credit to Chi-Na Stoan. A family picture in Denver, Colorado.