We learned early on during our journey to parenthood through adoption that the truth always comes out.  As parents through adoption, we have learned that we can tell the truth to our girls about their stories, but it needs to be age appropriate allowing them the ability to digest what they are being told.

Our younger daughter has lots of questions and feelings lately about her and our family.  Her questions relate to why she is part of our family but her younger brother lives with her birth mother and her husband.  Why did S make the choice of us to be her parents?.  At 7 years old she is working to figure out her place in ALL of her family.  Luckily not only does she have us to speak openly about how she is feeling and ask us questions, she has her birth mom to go to and ask the whys?.

Earlier this year she asked S directly about her placement with us.  S was honest and shared the truth about how hard it was to make that decision.  She also shared the hard truth of where she was in her life with struggles. That she had to learn to take care of herself and didn’t feel she could also take care of her daughter.

Today our daughter helped her brother celebrate his 6th birthday.  It had been sometime since we had spent time with him, her birth mom S and her husband.  A lot has transpired in the last 9 months.  S has been struggling and we had to step out of the picture.  It is a hard decision for us to step out as we love and want to support S.  At the same time, our girls are young and we don’t want them to create an impression of S when she is struggling that will leave a lasting impression that could harm their later relationships.

The party was fun and the kids had a blast.  It was near the end I saw S sitting with our daughter and could see they were talking. I know J had her questions of S as she is seeking answers that we can’t fully answer.  I could hear part of their conversation and knew that S was being her honest self as she tried to answer our daughters questions.  I could see she was upset and I moved in closer to see if I could be of help.  They didn’t need me to enter the conversation I just wanted them to know I was nearby for support.

It was in the car ride home that J shared their discussion and asked some more questions but this time for me to answer.  We talked about the early decisions S made when she was still pregnant with her.  We talked about our love for S and our support for her.  We talked about what has been happening and the outcome also being that S and her husband are separating.  We spoke about how that doesn’t affect our relationship with S, her brother and her husband that we are family and although it may look different it doesn’t change our relationship with each of them.

We continue to be here for our young daughter to answer her questions and always be truthful.  We know that honesty in her story is what she needs to understand.  The truth isn’t always easy and we have learned in giving each of our girls a safe place to talk and ask questions, that they continue to seek us out at these times.

Open adoption is hard at times like being a family can be hard at times.  But the hard times do not outweigh the easy good times and we know we will make our way through this always truthful.

Day 15, #NaBloPoMo #BlogHer