That headline to the right? Terrible. But I didn't write it. This isn't me showing off my editing.This is my story.
This story starts in August 1982, in Calcutta, India, where a young woman (yes, it's true, I have been lying about Mother Teresa being my birth mother; don't judge me too harshly) entered a "birthing center" (about as common as Starbucks are in Seattle these days) to give birth to a child that she likely hadn't expected and clearly did not plan to keep. She delivered a premature baby girl, put her in a shoebox and left her on a shelf.
Whether she left the baby there to die -- or so that someone would find her -- it's the best thing that ever happened to me, and I say that as someone who has seen Celine Dion in concert -- twice. Sometime later, the baby's fist shot into the air, maybe as a reflex; maybe as a signal for help; and someone discovered her.
She was taken to the International Mission of Hope's orphanage, where she named Shanti. She was nursed back to health -- and put on the list for adoption.
She is me.
Half a world away, a woman who had spent her 20s and early 30s skiing, traveling and climbing the corporate ladder as the director of advertising for a major department store, decided she wanted a child. She had the space, she had the money -- but she didn't have a husband.
But she wasn't the type of woman who gave up. Never.
She fought her way through government protocol and enough red tape to kill the ozone layer. She fought for a child who had yet to be born, who she didn't know, but who would become her entire world. And finally, she got approval to be one of the first single parents granted rights to adopt a child from India.
She is my mother -- and she rocks.
This story REALLY starts on Nov. 17, 1982. It isn't easy to adopt a young baby from India, but my being of low birth weight got me moved up on the list of available children, and I was placed with my mom before I was two months hold. Visa issues meant that I wasn't supposed to arrive until after Christmas, but we all know that I make a point of being early for deadline.
So that morning, while my mom was working away at her desk, she received a call saying that I was on a plane to Seattle out of Heathrow Airport and that I'd be landing in about 12 hours.
And with that, a mother was born.
There are countless photos of my poor, panicked mom trying to make formula, trying to get packed up for the airport -- and of her waiting, hoping, praying for the moment she would see her child. And The News Tribune was there to capture it. Talk about getting your start in newspapers early -- was my chosen career not fate?! Being in advertising meant that my mom worked closely with the local media outlets, and when she basically fled the office that morning, someone mentioned it, and sure enough, a reporter and photographer showed up at Sea-Tac to document my arrival -- and bust all of my mom's friends, who snuck out of work and ended up on the front of the Local section. Whoops.
(Side note: I actually have the original printing plates from the story, however, I will have to wrest them out of my mom's cold, dead hands to get them.)
I was brought into the international arrivals in a bassinet with two other babies. One went on to Massachusetts, and the other was never picked up -- and sent back to India. Heartbreaking, to say the least. My mom's first words as she saw me are the lead of the story: "Oh my God, she's so beautiful!" Smile with dimples, big brown eyes, soft black hair ... I was quite a catch.
And for every day of my life, I have felt beautiful, not only knowing that my mother chose and saved me, but that my birth mother left me there to BE chosen, to be saved. I'll never know who she was, or what her reasons were for why she did what she did, but if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be here writing this post. I would have died from a hole in my heart (discovered and repaired at 11 months at Children's Hospital) or even before that. It's hard to be -- and to raise -- a child. I never truly understood that until I was a mother myself, and I can't imagine doing it without money, support, a roof over my head, etc.
My birth mother gave me a chance at life -- and my mom gave me a life. For that, I am eternally grateful.
On anniversaries, people generally reflect upon how lucky they are to love and be loved by their significant other. Today, I celebrate the fact that I am the luckiest, pinkest girl out there; that I am able to love and be loved in return.
Today, I thank a woman born in India and a woman born in Pennsylvania.
Today, I am beautiful.
