birth family

Connection to biology …

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#adoption #openadoption not just about the love and connection to a birth mother or birth father it is the family connection to the whole family that is important #familylove

It has become more and more important to our family that the ties our girls have and keep are not just to their birth mother or birth father but through to their siblings, to aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents even to great grandparents.

The main focus started and continues to be with visits with their birth mother or birth father.  We have come to a time where we want to make sure that our girls know and have a deeper connection to the grandparents and  other family members and to have these ties and connections.  Get togethers are looked at now not to just include them but to have separate visits when we can.  Time spent with each other is time well spent.

Why you ask?  Sometimes in your life there may be times your connection to someone may fade in an ebb and flow way but doesn’t break and you feel the need to reach over that connection and strengthen the ties above and beyond it.  Our intent is to keep these family ties and not limit them to just one or two people.  To have our girls understand the width and breadth of the love that surrounds them and the love they can share on their own through their families.  Our hope and dream is that they never feel too separated from those they are connected to by biology.

(whispered) Do they know they are adopted?

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There are occasions when someone learns our family journey to parenthood, that this question happens in a whisper to us if our girls are present.  I understand there was a time that talking about adoption didn’t happen often and even still there were children who did not know they had been adopted. 

I’m never offended, I usually smile with a bit of a laugh and say they sure do!  You see we have ongoing in-person family relationships with each of our girls birth mothers and their extended family and their birth fathers and their family.  It would be a very hard secret to keep anyway!  When we changed our path from trying to have a baby to hoping to adopt for our family building we basically sat on our rooftop and shouted it out to the world.  SO a lot of people in our immediate world know how our family came to be. 

Our girls have heard their story pretty much from the time they were born.  Each girl was entrusted to us right after their birth from the hospital.  My husband created a song/lullaby that tells them their story about our family entwined with their birth families.  Each girl can now proudly and loudly sing their song 🙂  There are many story books that we incorporate into our night time reading that talk about adoption “Tell Me About The Night I was Born” by Jamie Lee Curtis, “How I was Adopted” by Joanna Coles, “We Belong Together” by Todd Parr, “Happy Adoption Day” by John McCutcheon, and “Forever Fingerprints” by Sherrie Eldridge. 

Our girls are 7 and 5 years old now and can understand their story, that they each grew in another’s tummy.  That their birth mother and birth father made them and that’s who they get certain features and some of their personalities from.  That we were chosen by their birth parents to be their Mommy & Daddy.  That they are loved by all of us.

So it’s okay to ask in front of our girls if they are adopted, they know and they may even answer you who they were born to and who they call Mommy & Daddy all by themselves.

 

uncharted waters … sort of …

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the definition:

Doing something that has never been done before.

In some ways living with a family created through open adoption is like making our way through uncharted waters.  Open Adoption is approximately 30 years old, having started sometime in the 1980s. Before then families having adopted lived in secrecy sometimes not even sharing to the children that they were adopted. Today there are so many ways to view and live what open adoption is that everyone’s journey is different.  In our immediate family there is no other family built through open adoption or adoption at all. Ours has its own pathway and we move forward with both of our daughters’ families that we have incorporated into ours. At the same time, we take along our families in our beliefs of how we want our daughters raised and how we want them known by all and loved by all.

We have met and know as friends other families also created with open adoptions. Their children are older than ours so we do have their experience to help us through our own family experiences; but yet we have our own experiences to help guide us onward …

At the time each of our girls turned 4, their respective birth fathers realized the importance of their knowing each other.  Something we had hoped for and had always left the door open to the possibility of.  In both cases, we had met and/or talked to each of these men during the adoption placement and then in each case both stepped out of the picture, although not completely.  Both men accepted the information for our family blog where I post regular family events and pictures.  This was a place they could anonymously watch their girls grow.

And so at the age of 4 our girls got to meet and begin their relationships with their birth fathers and siblings through this part of their family.  Needless to say our family continues to grow with these families!  Over this summer,  we have been able to meet up with both of our girls’ birth fathers and their families.  Both were amazing times spent together with fun, laughter, love and great memories!

Our girls are now 7 and 5 years old respectively.  Both of our girls have ongoing in-person and loving relationships with both their birth mothers and birth fathers and parts of their extended families. As we have learned and continue to learn, these relationships have ebb and flow, but we relish in the fact that we are a family together! Our open adoption families are young so to speak and so our pathways is still in its early stages.  What we do know so far is do not count anyone out from these relationships.

I want to be the shield to protect …

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“Not every lesson in life can be learned–some have to be lived” ~ Arianna Huffington

As a parent you want to be the shield and protect your child/children from anything and everything.  This is very true and especially when you want to save their feelings of hurt or disappointment.  And as a parent living in two very open adoptions you want to do everything in your power to make certain your children are always happy and not touched by sadness or disappointment.

Life is full of things that may cause hurt or disappointment things that you cannot control.  All parts of life become some sort of life lessons; but for my girls at their young ages I want them not to know how it feels when someone disappoints you.  However this is not something I can control…the actions of another causing disappointment to my girls.

Life is not perfect and neither are people.  It’s just that  J’s birthmom suddenly and without warning sent a text early in the morning of our get together to cancel.  I normally don’t get in a twist but it’s J’s birthday.  The situation gets complicated from there which I’ll leave for another time to post.

At almost 5 years old this relationship between J and S is theirs to develop and build together.  Disappointment shouldn’t be part of this autonomous relationship in my opinion, not yet.

We wiped away the tears after sharing the news, we talked about our feelings of disappointment, sadness and how it’s okay to miss someone when you won’t see them when you think.

When she was younger we didn’t share when plans were scheduled as they could change without warning.  So in protecting/shielding our children from disappointment we wouldn’t let them know too far in advance.  However, we learned it’s not for us to be this over protective.  Instead we realized we need to be there to help them through their emotions of disappointment when plans change.

So now we move forward with our family plans to help J celebrate turning 5!  And although we didn’t see S we do have separate plans to see her birthfather and his family.