open adoption

looking from the outside in …

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i·ro·ny (r-n, r-)

NOUN:
pl. i·ro·nies
1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
2. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.

We’ve been home from our trip for a couple of weeks now and I have been reflecting on what became a regular occurrence from our time away …

It seemed almost everyone who saw us, whether they were other vacationers, or staff particularly at the resort, the common question to us was “are the girls twins?” The irony of this as you know is that our girls came to our family through adoption and they were born to different birth families and they are two years and a month apart ….

Why have I been thinking about this since our trip? Our girls know they were adopted, they each have a relationship with their birth mothers and extended family … and they know they are sisters because of our family.

But I wonder if their understanding has matured to see the irony in these pleasant comments. We are a family that blends in … all of us are Caucasian and that just happened … we did not know what background our future child might have … we were not specific to ‘caucasian only’ when we began our journey to parenthood through adoption…it just happened.

I do see that there are some resemblances of our girls to each my husband and I … each of their birth mothers resemble us … so it would seem the girls would somehow resemble us at some point too. This just happened it wasn’t something we tried to do … we took this journey understanding that without a genetic connection our future children would resemble the families they were born to and not us ….

When these pleasantries were shared I had a thought “Do I just smile and let them know that they are two years apart?” or “Do I educate that our family was formed through adoption and how they couldn’t really be twins?” I realized now that our girls are 6-1/2 and 4-1/2 years old it really is up to them to share their story and not me or is it at this age? We’ve always felt their adoptions are our families business and not necessarily for the world’s opinion BUT am I wrong to think this way?

after a visit …

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How do we feel after a visit?

Last night C left to return home to her home state she left with eyes brimming over with tears and I saw A was looking sad about her departure as well. So I started a conversation with our girls about our family and their birth families. I asked each of them how they feel after we have seen C and S. Each of them enthusiastically said they are happy when they see them and they feel sad after they have left.

Now at 6-1/2 and 4-1/2 these times together mean more to our girls then when they were babies. We see them developing their own independent relationships and with these relationships come the emotions for them of happy and sad. We talked about it’s okay to be sad when someone we love leaves after a visit.  That shows us how much we love and miss them when we are not together…

We realize that this is not something we can wipe away or hug away. These are their feelings, even now when they can’t put it all into words… but we see it come out as anger, disobedience and quietness (which if you knew our girls you would know something is up). My husband and I have shared with our daughter’s birth moms that the girls do feel sadness when a visit is over so that they know too it’s not just them (both women have shared their feelings of sadness after spending time together). As our girls get older and their understanding of being adopted is more fully understood, I think we will see a variety of emotions before, during and after visits. It is something we have learned to be watchful for to be there as support in the best way we can.

I know both my husband and I each enjoy and look forward to our visits with our family. Some of our get togethers need to be planned, as one family lives out-of-state and the other although close to us, busy schedules have made it that we have to plan a date or days we will be together somewhat in advance. Sometimes these visits include all family and a mix of family from Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and Grandparents including our sides of the family as well.

We are prepared to be there as the emotional support for our girls for whatever and whenever the need arises. We are here to hear what they are feeling and sit and listen allow them the comfort and space to feel what they are feeling … for now they allow us to be and sit with them and talk about it and our hope as they are older they will continue to do the same, allow us to be their emotional support.

Visits together are fun and we all enjoy them, it’s when the time has come to leave that we all feel sad. What helps is we know we will be getting back together and spending time together another time sooner than later.

OAR #44 What Openness Means to me

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Open Adoption Bloggers has created a new prompt through the Open Adoption Roundtable.  It’s designed to be a showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community.  SO here is the prompt for OAR #44:

What is “openness” to you?

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To us openness equals family.  What do you mean by family you ask?  Well I looked up the definition and found many but none that completely fit what we believe to be the definition except this one from the “Your Dictionary” found on the internet:

Family means a specific group of people that may be made up of partners, children, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. (noun)

This definition didn’t define family by DNA, just by relationships.  That’s how we perceive our family.  It’s not just your connection by DNA makeup but by the relationships we have together.

We can share milestones and discover when members of birth family had theirs, we can see nature vs nuture at work together, being family means we spend time together, we visit, we do things together, we talk on the phone when we want, we share pictures, we send gifts, we do all of that and more not just for us but for our girls to know where they came from and who they are …

Our girls each entrusted to us at birth, know their families not by happenstance, but because that is how we wanted our family to be.  We embraced all of our girls’ families that include their birth mothers, birth fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents as our family and in return they have embraced us.

Our girls know no better they just know who is their family and they love them and are loved by them.

 

 

spoken or unspoken promises …

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prom·ise (prms) n.

1. a. A declaration assuring that one will or will not do something; a vow.

b. Something promised.

2. Indication of something favorable to come; expectation: a promise of spring in the air.

3. Indication of future excellence or success: a player of great promise.

v. prom·ised, prom·is·ing, prom·is·es

v.tr.

1. To commit oneself by a promise to do or give; pledge: left but promised to return.

2. To afford a basis for expecting: thunderclouds that promise rain.

v.intr.

1. To make a declaration assuring that something will or will not be done.

2. To afford a basis for expectation: an enterprise that promises well.

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As you know our family was built through domestic adoption. Along the way of our journey to parenthood, we learned what it meant to parent a child entrusted to us. The promise of placing a child to you to become a mother or father comes from great love of the child by the parents who made that child and for whatever reason cannot parent and care for that child. In return to promise whether spoken or unspoken to the birth parents an ongoing relationship is a selfless act as it is really to the child that this promise is made.

Not everyone has had the opportunities that my husband and I had along our journey. The opportunities to become informed and seek education. The community we found and maintain as friends of other families like ours, built through adoption. We sought this out because we did not know what it was to become parents through adoption. We knew we needed to understand what it was before we took the leap onto the path that would make us parents. I wish for so many who take this journey to parenthood that they become informed and educated before becoming parents to better understand what the relationships can be like and to choose if that is how they want a family.

Looking back we can say that this is what helped us become the family we are today. We were able to decide what path was the right one for our family to be; that we wanted an open ongoing relationship with our child’s birth family … not just for us, but for our child and what it would mean to them.

Over the years I have met both in person and through cyberspace, many women who have made the loving decision to place a child born to them to be raised by another. But for these women the promises spoken or unspoken have been broken. The families that they met and chose to parent their child have walked away or at least closed the door just enough not allowing a relationship between the child and birth parents to grow and blossom. It is so sad to watch from a distance to see the affect this has on these individuals. And to think what will become of these children kept from their birth family not by their choosing. When they are older will the have to secretly seek out their birth family?

We met many young people and adults who had been adopted in a system that did not allow an ongoing relationship after the child/baby’s placement. Those in charge thought it best for the birth mother/family and the child to not know each other for a variety of reasons. What did we hear from these people? How much a piece of them was missing … they loved the families they were raised in but somehow couldn’t find their whole selves … some were able to try and reach out to birth family with the help of their parents and some had to do it in secret because they knew their parents were afraid of what would happen when a reunion happened that choices might be made to love birth family more than the family they knew.

In today’s world or at least where we live, it is more common in a domestic adoption to have met and create a relationship with the birth mother/father and extended family and become a family as one with the child as the link to all of them. It is this belief that our family was made.

And so it is with a heavy heart that I read or hear how an adoptive couple close the door just enough not to allow an in-person relationship between the child and their birth family. I have seen and heard the fear of adoptive and hopeful adoptive couples at conferences or in chance meetings. I don’t understand their fear … how can you turn your back on the family that chose you to be the parents of their child? How can you close the door to your child and not allow them to know all of their family?

As we are learning as our children grow from babies, they begin to understand more and more of their story when you talk about it (and hopefully you are sharing with them their story of their life). There will be questions of why this or why that? You will see the strong physical resembelance of your child to their birth family … relish in it! Our daughters now 6 and 4 years old brighten and smile when you share with each of them some action they’ve done or said that resembles their birth mother or father. Don’t steal this from your child it will help make them whole!

I have no answers for these broken-hearted families who have no or very limited access to the child they so desire to know and have in their lives.

I wish for all hopeful adoptive parents and adoptive parents to think twice before they speak or infer a promise to get a baby that the ramifications will be great and the hurt greater. If you cannot fathom an ogoing relationship don’t pretend that you will, be honest with yourself, be honest about your family. Don’t hide your true feelings to get the end result… a child … in the end you will be doing harm to this child who may never understand why you kept them from knowing their family.