In My Daughter’s Eyes

By Amy Shore

“Mom, why didn’t you send my birthmother money so she could have kept me?”

Those are the words I imagine hearing somewhere down the
line when my daughter, Lucy, begins to really understand international adoption and the reasons why her birthmother may have relinquished her. Extreme poverty is the main reason why so many Guatemalan birthmothers decide to place their children for adoption. Sometimes one more mouth to feed is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I like to think that Lucy’s birthmother, homeless, illiterate, uneducated, single, and poor, decided that she wanted basic necessities and a myriad of opportunities for her daughter that she herself couldn’t provide. But what if she did relinquish her daughter just because she didn’t have enough money to raise her herself?

It wasn’t an option for us to discuss why Lucy was placed for adoption when she was relinquished as a newborn. I’ve never met her birthmother nor have I talked with anyone who knew her. Sometimes I look at Lucy, so happy and full of life, and wonder if this is the life Lucy’s birthmother wanted for her or is it the life she wished she herself could have provided for her.



Lucy is wearing a Guatemalan skirt and
blouse at heritage camp.

It made me think. What if my Lucy wasn’t relinquished? What if she was living with her birthmother in a cement-floor shack without electricity and running water? What if she didn’t have enough nutritious food to eat? What if she had little access to medical care? What if education was never an option for her?



Sisters Miranda and Lucy are wrapped in a tallit.		 I didn’t adopt Lucy to “save” her. However, I knew that I was able to love her and provide for her shelter, clothing, medical care, education, and so much more. I wanted to be her mother as much as she needed a mother. Yet it’s impossible not to think about how difficult and bleak her life could have been had her birthmother made different plans.

There are thousands of children all over the globe who live in poverty. For every needy child who is adopted, there is another who stays in her homeland. I want to think that my Lucy would be financially helped by the kind generosity of others who were able to help her mother make
a difference in her life had she remained in Guatemala.

So I decided to act. I knew there must be a little girl in Guatemala who was born in the same month of the same year as Lucy who was living with her parents in her birth country and needed financial assistance. With resources and opportunity, she could thrive right there with her parents in her own home in her own village in her own country. And I found her online.

At the Children International website, www.children.org, I clicked a few times and found myself looking into the eyes of Naomi, born five days after Lucy. Both girls were three years of age, two pounds apart, and both liked the color pink, painting, and playing with dolls. In Naomi’s beautiful black eyes I saw my daughter. I was hooked. And with another click, I became her sponsor.

I like to think that as both girls grow in the coming years, I will see many similarities between them despite the miles that separate them. I hope Naomi’s parents feel a sense of relief that their daughter will have opportunities; she will have access to medical care, education, clothing, and nutrition right in their little Guatemalan village. Perhaps late at night, when they listen to her sleeping soundly in the bed next to theirs in their one bedroom home, they will know in their hearts that they didn’t make a selfish mistake—that deciding to love Naomi and raise her within their means was the right decision for them. If Lucy’s birthmother did the same, I would want her to feel the exact same way.

Our sponsored child, Naomi,
from Guatemala.

There are many ways to love children and support them in a world that isn’t always fair and safe. When one adopts, she realizes that any child in the world could be her child. In the eyes of Naomi I see Lucy; in the eyes of Lucy I see Naomi. Both Guatemalan girls, as they travel different paths in life, deserve the very best that life has to offer. I want to help make that happen.