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I didn't feel that way with our first, domestic adoption. Though at twelve days old, she felt much more like a little "stranger" than the typical getting to know your bio newborn in those first days. The love is there, but the "knowing" takes a little more time. I didn't miss going through labor again, but rather was in just as much awe that we could be given another mother's child to love and call our own as I was at seeing our bios in those first moments of life. I did try to nurse her with a suplimental system, which wasn't very successful nutritionally. I was glad I tried, and realize now I wasn't given as much info as I could have been told to make that work.
Our boys from Guatemala both came home at four years, after waiting 18mo and 14 mo for their homecomings. Knowing there were much older children at the orphanage, we honestly didn't consider that we were adopting an older child. Sounds naive, but at that point, with three bios and one domestic (ages 15-7 by then), we weren't asking for the baby experience again. Since it was our choice, I just didn't think much about what we had missed, though there was always the curiosity of what they were like as they grew to that point and what their lives were like at the orphanage. We did have a lot of answers through continued contact and photos in their Life Books.
When our last two daughters' adoptions took even longer than the boys' (two years and more for either one), and they came home at 10 1/2yrs and 11yrs, I've been well aware that we missed out on a significant part of their childhood. But once again, we chose them because they were older and needed families, so we knew what we were "sacrificing" in terms of not being more part of their childhoods. I recently looked at their Life Books, and was reminded how much they experienced without us. But again, we have photos of their time in the same orphanage, photos from other APs with kids from the same home, continued contact with the director in Guatemala, and many friends we keep in touch with. I do feel blessed to know as much as we do from those sources, knowing other APs have so much less information about their child's early life. And the great thing about adopting older children who remember their time in Guatemala, after all that we missed, is they can tell you about it, share their feelings about it all. I love that part about adopting older kids. My biggest prayer is that the girls feel as much a part of our family when they leave home in the future, and don't count the years we had with all our other kids, the photos and memories, and feel any less a part of us because their time will have been shorter. I sometimes catch our newest daughter looking over family albums and wonder if she isn't feeling the loss of time with us. Of course, I treasure the earliest photos we have of all four, the boys as very young infants, the girls as young toddlers, their first photos at the time of placement in the orphanage. A friend reminded me to have those out as I do some childhood photos of our other kids. Even though they weren't home yet, it's good for them to see their own photos as young children placed around the house. We talk now and then about how much I would have loved to have them home, hold them, kiss those sweet little faces at that age. We all just recognize that God's plan for them was to spend those years in Guatemala and to come home when they did, even though we don't understand the purpose of them not being with us until they were older. As others have said, they would not be the people they are today, if we had raised them. I value what their caregivers did for them, what they know and remember about their first country, their memories of times spent with friends there. All four were in the same orphanage at one time. How could we have ever known, that as we were leaving with our first, three others behind those doors would be waiting for us to return for them, one day? If I had known, how could I have ever walked away? When we went for our second son, DH met our first Guatemalan daughter, but it was still only my dream to return for a girl. And when we went for her, we both met our last daughter, knowing we were in process for her and were leaving her behind. Thankfully, she wasn't told until her paperwork was further through the process. I treasure that they were once all there together, even if it never means as much to them as it does to me. I have photos that include all of them, and no one but God ever knew that they would all one day be here together again, as brothers and sisters. I marvel at how and why God has blessed us in such a way! Mostly, we're too busy "dealing" to spend much time thinking about our losses. We're working hard and praying we meet our goals with this second wave of kiddos!
edited to add: As I was thinking more about this, maybe what moms sometimes think of mostly as grief, might also be a mother's guilt (though unfounded in our cases). I wonder if as mothers, we don't feel guilty for not being there for our child from their very beginning. Only a mother knows the kind of love that takes the blame for needs we can't meet or hurts we can't stop in our child's life, and the guilt we take on for the mistakes we make along the way. It makes me wonder when Mary, the mother of Jesus "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart", if she kept them to herself because she knew Joseph was never going to understand her mother's heart. But as I fold the 5th load of laundry today, consider the rages we went through occasionally with the girls as they adjusted to having a mom who told them what to do, think of the efforts I go to with the school to make certain the girls receive the services they need, love them at their older ages, in the many ways a mother loves, wanting only the reward of seeing them become their best (OK, a little thank you now and then and a smile would be nice)...maybe I'm doing some things to "make up" for our lost time together. I have less time and had less history to show them the depth of my love for them, but since they are older, we can talk out more deep, emotional issues of their hearts. What a privelege to be on this journey of challenges and blessings.
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