I really want need this baby to look like me.  I pray every night for blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair. For the sake of this child I also pray that it does not have my complexion. But the eyes, and hair….Please God!!  Dave has brown eyes, as do his parents…so I know the cards are stacked against me having a blue-eyed baby, but I’m holding out hope.
I know all mothers feel this way to some extent, it’s why we always tell the mom “Ohh she looks just like you” even though we know, in reality her little red-haired freckle faced daughter looks EXACTLY like her mother in law.   But for an adoptee, who has never looked like anyone in her family, it’s all the more important.

My dad is Italian (and Norwegian) He has dark, wiry hair, and deep-set eyes, he’s tall, he has the ability to tan in the sun. He looks exactly like Chef Boyardee. (seriously)  My Mom comes from a mixed background of German, French, English and Irish with some Native American thrown in for flavor. She’s also tall, with dark hair, and so tan in the summer you’d think she bathed in coffee.  Then there’s me. Average height, strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, and skin so pale that I’d be lost if nekkid in a snow storm. (My mom used to say it was “peaches & cream” The cream may be accurate, but there ain’t no peaches here. My skin is white as copy paper) I have a little “pug” nose and some barely there freckles. In other words, I look absolutely nothing like my mom and dad.

I can’t say this really bothered me as a child, or even as an adult. I have cousins who look enough like me that people often thought we were sisters. People always commented that I looked just like my Nana. But it was different for me, while I do have the same nose as my nana, and I do have the same eye and hair color as my cousins, I still looked different. Especially from my mom and dad.

This baby will be my only blood relative. I have a very strong desire to have a family member that looks like me, who is clearly “mine” who is clearly a part of me.

Do your kids look like you?  Your spouse? The mailman?
–