As we continue to settle into our new neighborhood and school, I am finding that our family is not quite as unique as I thought we may have been.

You see there are more people/families tied to some form of adoption than I realized. Why do I say this? When I introduce the topic of how our family was formed I may hear from another parent “oh my sister was adopted” or “I had a child and placed them for adoption when I was a teenager” or still “my oldest daughter has a relationship with her birthfather even though my husband is the father that is raising her”. Not only have these people shared this but in our conversation I learn about the relationships that have developed in their adoption story which I find so awesome and something our girls can learn from these adults in our lives.

When this happens, I relax and realize we are not such a different family after all in this world we live in. I have always thought I needed to create a separate community for my family of like-families reaching out to friends we met along the way on our journey to parenthood through adoption. I felt that I needed to provide our girls with peers with families like theirs and for my husband and I a place to talk about our family without having to always explain the whole story. We still have that but at the same time in our everyday lives I am learning that adoption is closer to us in the circle of friends we now live among.

When I learn something about a person in our lives I do share with our girls, and in turn to them it’s like okay Mom thanks. I think somewhere in their minds it is registered but at the same time it’s no big deal to them. Adoption in our house is our normal. We have family through both our girls families on both their birthmother and birthfather sides. They have siblings that they know and talk about and for us this is our family and it’s never been any different and at the same time I am learning our normal is normal in other families too.