open adoption

adoption themed books at storytime …

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Our girls chose “The Mulberry Bird” recently as part of our night time story time … although it was long for reading that time of night we read the entire book at one sitting …

For those not familiar with it’s story here is a review and description of the book:

Kindergarten-Grade 4-Relinquishment is the hardest part of adoption to talk about and is often glossed over in children’s books. Brodzinsky has chosen to tell the story using birds to represent the people involved. A young mother bird feeds and protects her baby, noticing that other mothers have mates to help them. Her baby’s father has flown away. Then a storm breaks her nest, and the baby falls to the ground. She goes to the wise owl for help, and he says the only way to solve her problem is to find a family to love and care for her child. She refuses at first, but then relents, and the owl carries the baby to the chosen shorebird couple. The young mother sees that her child is safe and loved, and sadly flies away forever. The baby hears from its adoptive parents the story of its first mother’s love and care. This revision of the 1986 story is longer, newly illustrated in watercolors, and reflects changes in adoption practice. Language has been made more inclusive: the baby’s need for “a mother and father” becomes its need for “a family.” More of the youngster’s feelings are included: anger and confusion as well as happiness and sadness. Still, the book is sure to prompt discussion.Nancy Schimmel, formerly of San Mateo County Library, CACopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.>

The conversation that followed is what I found interesting … J made an innocent comment and told us she wished she had two families to love her … well we chimed in YOU DO AND A DOES TOO! We then went on to talk about who were part of their two families … and both girls helped name out who their families are … afterwards J seemed excited to realize that she indeed has two families that love her ….

Words are just words or are they?

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definition of word
noun \ˈwərd\

: a sound or combination of sounds that has a meaning and is spoken or written

: a brief remark or conversation : something that a person says

: an order or command

Overheard as our girls were preparing cards for J’s brother to go along with his gift he is MY BIRTH-BROTHER, not YOURS!  J’s brother was born about 15 months after her and S along with her husband are parenting him.  Our girls have known him from inside S’s tummy and when he was born.  We see him as often as we see S.

My husband and I sat and listened to our girls speak about who has sisters and who has brothers that don’t live with us but are still our family.  We wondered when voices rose should we step in to calm the fighting down?  Or should we just let them figure it out on their own?

They had it right in knowing that A has 3 sisters through her birth father and J has one brother from S and one from her birthfather.  It was interesting to hear them assert who belonged with whom to each other claiming their own brothers or sisters.

It is just words that they were using with the prefix of “birth” to claim their siblings.  What was so great about this discussion they had was how natural it was for them to talk about these siblings that live in other parts of our family like it was nothing out of the ordinary.

The words we have used to explain our family story are something they have taken in and processed themselves.  They know their siblings they know what part of the family they are part of, and to us that is what is important.  It is our girls who add the prefix “birth” when talking about their families when claiming their territory.

So while they fought over the wording and logistics it was comforting to us they understand who their family is, all of them.

Dealing with changes …

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Life changes are hard for anyone and when I think of our girls, I think changes are harder for them at their ages.  I received a text this week,  J’s birthmom is moving to Arizona later this month.  Currently we both live in California about one hours’ drive from each other.

Parts of our family are already separated by geography.  Both my husband and I are transplants from the East Coast.  We have visits with our extended family whether we are the ones travelling East or they come here to stay with us on the West Coast.  Our eldest daughter was born in Minnesota and her birthmother, birthfather and each of their extended families live there still.

We as a family are familiar with far away family. This is normal in our family.  This is how our girls are being raised so it is not new.  It is something we can do, travel to a new location.

But it is new, this change will affect J and all of us.  The difference in our girls open adoptions until now has only been geography and the amount of time we get to spend face to face with our loved ones who live out of state.

As our girls have gotten older we have had discussions about the difference in time spent with each of their birth families.  We have explained that geography/distance plays a significant role in our ability to travel and see family.  To help lessen the miles we have added Skype as a way to communicate with our family between in-person visits.  There are still times, however,  when S is visiting that there is a level of jealousy that J gets to spend time with her more often.  So now I think how will this change affect both girls?  Already having her birthmother live out of state is not new to A,  so will she be able to make J feel better about this change by sharing her own experiences?  My hope is that as we support our girls through this news and changes that we will be able to hear A’s voice to her sister on how her experience has been.

S and I have talked, we have asked her if she is prepared to share this news with both girls and she says she is.  We will be there to support her and them during this conversation, but we feel it is from her that J & A need to hear about this change.

The dreaded school Family project, or is it?

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Our eldest daughter is in second grade. This seems to be the school year where the curriculum moves to tracking/tracing/sharing your Family Tree and/or Family Ancestry.

As a family built through adoption this could go one of two ways, we either dread it or look at it as a learning lesson. You may recall our family is living in very open adoptions so our family is looking at this project as a learning lesson one where we don’t hide who we are and use my husband and my ancestry but reach out and have our daughter learn more about herself by seeking this information on who she is.

How you ask will we approach this school project then? Good question. Our daughter (and her sister) obviously know that they were adopted, know who their family members are and how they are related to who and how so digging deeper into her family roots through her birth family is the best way to approach this project in our opinion!

We have reached out to our daughter’s birth mom and told her about the project and who else we would like A to interview which would include her Aunts and Grandparents through C. We are setting up a Skype call for all of them to interact and assist A with this project!

We believe this will further connect A to her birth family by learning her ancestry giving her a deeper understanding of where she came from. Our intent is to reach out to her birth father as well and have him contribute since she is part of both of them and their families are part of A.

It will be interesting for all of us to learn the ancestry of where A’s families come from!