“Gotcha” is a word I have never liked for a few simple reasons – I don’t like the way it sounds coming out of my mouth AND I don’t like the way my mouth has to move in order to say it! The more I hear it or say it, the worse it gets.  Have any of you ever had a word like that?  I used to have a similar reaction to the word “scrumptious.”  My Grandma always used the word “scrumptious” to describe every meal.. and it drove me crazy!  Now that she has passed on, I don’t mind hearing it, because it makes me think of her.  But the word “gotcha” has no saving grace.  I cringe every time I hear it! Am I the only one who feels this way?

The answer is “No.”  While researching for this post, I learned that a lot of other people don’t like the word either, but for different reasons.  But I’ll get to that in a minute.

First of all, what is “Gotcha Day?”  This is a day adoptive families celebrate the day their child came home.  It is often on a different day from birthdays or the day the adoption became final.  For families who have waited a long time for a child to be placed with them, it is easy to understand why they wish to commemorate such a joyous day!  It is the day all their wishes came true!

 

 

There are many ways families choose to celebrate Gotcha Day. Some celebrate it like a birthday, with a party and/or gifts, while others choose to spend the day with birth parents.  When I first learned about Gotcha Day, I thought it was cute, a sweet way to commemorate a momentous day.  And I didn’t think anything else about it.

But like I mentioned above, there are quite a few people who have thought about it, and they don’t particularly like it.  They find the term and the celebration very insensitive to the adopted child and birth family.  Even the word “gotcha” has a negative connotation.  Merriam-Webster online defines it as “an unexpected usually disconcerting challenge, revelation, or catch.  An attempt to embarrass, expose, or disgrace someone.”

Excuse me, what!?!? That’s not good at all!  How did a word with such a negative connotation ever get associated with something as miraculous as adoption?

The first time “Gotcha Day” was used was in 2001 in a book called Primary Care Pediatrics.   It recommended a celebration in addition to the child’s birthday, because the adoptive family are not usually present for the child’s birth.  That day is ‘gotcha day’.”  Then in 2005, Margaret Schwartz wrote a book called The Pumpkin Patch.  In it, she declared September 15th International Gotcha Day specifically in reference to international adoptions.  She felt that this was necessary because with international adoptions the legal adoption often occurs at a separate time from the day the children physically join the family.

 

 

It seems to me that Gotcha Day was founded for all the right reasons.  After all, who doesn’t want to celebrate the day they “got” their child?  With biological children, you celebrate the day as the child’s birthday, but with adoption it could be any day of the year!   So even though it came from a good place, Gotcha Day is now riddled with controversy.

One reason people are against Gotcha Day is because it is parent-centered.  You are celebrating your good fortune of adding a child to your family, without considering how it can potentially stir up feelings of hurt and loss in your child.  This is especially true if the child struggles with the idea of being adopted, or already experiences feeling of abandonment and loss because of his adoption.

Judy Miller describes the memory of her daughter being placed in her arms for the first time in China.  They were strangers to her.  “At 9 months, she was so frightened,” remembers Miller. “She was shivering and shaking, and my husband and I knew we would never celebrate this moment of visceral pain for our daughter.”

Recently, adoptive father and poet Patrick Hicks wrote:

 

“Gotcha Day is a beginning — this is undeniably true — but it is also an ending. A door home has been slammed shut forever, and the child has been removed from their ancestral home, their blood ties and their language. These are no small things, and as we go about remembering Gotcha Day in our house, I’m aware that somewhere in Korea is a young woman who must wonder what part of the earth her son landed upon. For this reason, Gotcha Day is charged with emotion. There is joy and sorrow, belonging and longing, home and away.”

 

Ok, wow!  I really had no clue there was such a controversy surrounding Gotcha Day.   I was looking at it through the eyes of an adoptive parent, and didn’t really think too much about it from other’s perspectives.  To me, it just seemed like a harmless way to celebrate a special occasion.

Sophie Johnson was adopted from China.  Her family chooses to use the term “Family Day” and not “Gotcha Day.” Here are her thoughts,

 

“…sometimes while adopted kids are processing it, their feelings of loss override their feelings of happiness. Gotcha Day is one of those times when we think about our past and how little some of us actually know about it. We think about our biological parents and wish we knew them and could ask them why they didn’t keep us. We think about what our lives would be like, where would we be, what our futures would look like, had there been no Gotcha Day….

“… It’s been said that adoption loss is the only trauma in the world where everyone expects the victims to be grateful and appreciative…. Gotcha Day feels like a day of fake smiles if we don’t acknowledge that it’s also about loss, not just gain.”

 

There are many other examples of people who dislike the name and/or the idea of Gotcha Day.  I could write a never-ending list!  But as I read through all of them, my eyes were opened.  I would never want my boys to experience feelings of pain, loss, or loneliness on a day that I was trying to celebrate!  It would break my heart.

I found it interesting that there were many people who, although they had negative feelings about “Gotcha Day”, still liked to commemorate the day their children joined their family, but preferred to call it “Family Day” or “Adoption Day”, both of which I like much more than “Gotcha.”

Even though we adopted our first son almost 4 years ago, we have never celebrated a Gotcha Day or Family Day for him.  There are two main reasons for this – the first is that I didn’t really know what it was, and the second, and most important, is because we brought him home from the hospital two days after he was born.

We were with him just a few hours after his birth.  We held him and gave him his first bath.  We spent time with his birth mom and talked about names for our baby boy.  The next day we didn’t see him, but we signed all the adoption papers and finished preparations for his arrival.  The following day we brought him home from the hospital.  Birthdays are kind of a big deal at our house, and they usually last a week (if not the entire month!).  The idea of having a big celebration for Gotcha Day just two days after his birthday seemed redundant.

So I never spent the time to learn about it, until now.

 

 

 

But it is very different with our new little addition, Alexander.  His birthday is in August and he came home to us in March.  While I love any reason to have a party and celebrate, I haven’t decided if Gotcha Day is something that we are going to celebrate.

First and foremost, I know that my 4-year-old would not be too keen on the idea of Alexander have 2 “birthdays” in a year, while he only gets one.  It really wouldn’t be fair to him.  On the other hand, it would be pretty easy to  celebrate both boys on Alexander’s official Gotcha Day.  Especially if we were to call it Adoption Day or Family Day.  In all honesty that is what we would be celebrating – adoption and family.

Additionally, Alexander’s adoption was very unusual.  The unique circumstances involved loss for a lot of people. (Read Alexander’s story HERE).

Don’t get me wrong, I will always remember March 14^th as one of the happiest days of my life, but I will also always remember the pain and sacrifice others experienced that day.  My joy came only after much pain experienced by others.  Many tears were shed the day we took Alexander home by many different people, and only half of them were happy tears.

So now what?  Should we celebrate Gotcha Day for one, or both of our boys, and just hope they never experience negative feelings?  Should we celebrate the day, but call it Family Day or Adoption Day?  Should we not celebrate?

I am not ready to decide if our family will choose to celebrate Gotcha Day or not.  There is so much to consider, and as a mother, I really do want to put my children’s needs and feelings first.  If we do decide to celebrate, I hope we can find appropriate and sensitive ways to approach it.

Please, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!  I would love to know what all of you think and feel about “Gotcha Day.”  Do you celebrate Gotcha Day in your families? Why or why not? Do you call it Gotcha Day, Adoption Day, Family Day, or something else?

Thank you, my lovely friends!