When the girls were around 2 and 3, I bought them a wooden “Sandbox Bible”. It consists of figurines that were cut out from wood, that you can use to play out all the stories in the Bible for children. In there were of course two mom figurines with a baby in the belly. Naturally, one would be baby Jesus and one baby John that we would play out over Christmas. And I realised that this is not going to work as it is.
I cannot recall the age they were when they asked the first time where they came from, but they were still very small. When they asked me, I explained that Alley was born in my heart and Zoe was born in my belly. They would lie on me and play and share how they put daddy’s ladder from my heart to my belly, and Alley and Zoe would take turns climbing up or down the ladder to go and play with each other before they were born. (This answer held good for the better part of 3 years.)
So, I emailed the lady who made the kit, if it would be possible for her to make me another figurine like the Mary, but instead of a baby in the belly, a baby in the heart. A heart-mom in the place of a belly-mom. So that I had a figurine that would represent our family setup for the girls. I explained the story behind the concept of the heart-mom, and Annalise graciously took the challenge. About a week later I received the most beautiful and custom-made heart-mom figurine for my baby girl. It was of me holding her in a big heart of the same mom figurine as the other two.
The girls were overjoyed with their mom and baby figurines. It put a symbol to their story and gave it legitimacy. After this, I expanded our family story into a children’s story book.
Nicholas and I had to attend a three-day adoption preparation course in Pretoria as part of the adoption process. We used a private adoption agency who truly take their work to heart, and it was an incredible course. We learned a lot, and I will refer to this course more than a few times in future. In the course they taught us how to tell your child that he or she is adopted, because we (the group attending) are adopting kids from a different culture. We had to write an animal story that explained the process of the child being adopted into a family different for herself, so that we had a baseline to answer the questions they might ask as they grow up. In playgroup and daycare, it was not much of a thing, as kids play together and they don’t see colour or sex. The first time Alley was confronted with her “looking different” than her sister and mom, were when she was already 5 years old, and overheard adults talking about it at school.
You think you will have the opportunity to guide your family and your story as you see your child develop, but unfortunately it would only work that way if you were isolated from other people. Adults especially do not think what they are saying and they also do not consider what damage their words can do to a 5-year-old heart. The storm of insecurity they cause in a child’s heart. Before then, we often had the sense that the comments are just flying over Alley’s head that she does not even hear it. If friends ask something, she just said she was born in her mommy’s heart and her mommy’s heart had a ladder and…and… and not be bothered after that. On occasion when the kids asked their parents if they were born in their hearts and if they too had a ladder, it was often insensitive answers that were reported back to Alley. She didn’t understand it yet, would ask us what it means, and we could guide her back to our family story and she’d have peace again.
Nicholas and I had the agreement that Alley’s protection and security take precedence over everything. If we are in a store shopping, and he tells me to go to another isle, I just move us out of the way and let him deal with it. If I picked up something from friends at playschool, I would speak to the teacher. For years there was only one answer to any question anybody may have about Alley or Zoe: I don’t know, but let’s ask Alley and Zoe’s mom. I would give the appropriate answer to the teacher, adult or child and then the dust settles again for a while. I must add, we truly had excellent teachers for our girls since the beginning. People who were open to our way of handling our family dynamics and wanted the best for our girls. I was very much on the fore-steering of how I want our family dynamics handled, and I was graciously accommodated. Yes, we did lose some friends and family in the process, but it was not negotiable.
So, by the time Alley started to understand some things she could hear adults say – not necessarily to her or about her – I made our family story into a little booklet that I sent to school, so that the teacher had something to use should something happen at school and she needs to deal with it immediately. It was an animal story that explained our family’s story, from my infertility, including our son’s story, Alley’s story and Zoe’s story, that the teacher could read out for the class and they had pictures too that they could look at explaining everything.
I did however change my approach to the story from what we were recommended. I did not see myself as a mommy elephant telling my little zebra baby that she was not mine biologically. It seemed cruel even for a children’s story. Alley knew she looked different – she had different skin colour, eye colour and hair than me, where Zoe was the spitting image of me. With wisdom I chose an animal species that had more than one kind in the group, so we became a cat family. Nicholas and I and Zoe were leopards. Our son was a cheetah and Alley our little caracal. Nicholas has two sons from his previous marriage, and they too feature in the booklet, even though they were adults before our three children came along.
My kids love our family story. It is called “The Wonderful Story of the Swart Family”, but only in Afrikaans for now. Even on holidays when the girls ask me to read it for them, our son also likes to listen to his story. That children’s story was a big building block in our children’s security, identity and place in the family. Because we all had a story, it seems we all were special, and nobody stood out.
My name is Yzelle, and I became a mom later in life. I was 35 when our son Simon came, 37 and 38 with our girls. My husband’s name is Nicholas, and we make up the characters of the Swart Family Story.