I learned in women’s studies that to name something is to have power over it. If you can name something, it no longer has power over you. As an adoptee all identifying information is forbidden. Anything that could potentially identify our origins…name them… is blacked out. Like it is too shameful for the light of day. It’s almost like they know a preverbal trauma needs words. Tell me again how adoption is altruistically in the best interest of the baby. We were babies. So we are denied names. Forever powerless. Like we were never meant to have the control in the first place.
I paid my money. I filled out my papers. Unnecessary reasons to know myself deeper. I answered their questions.
I got her name…