Dear Adoptive Parents,
I sometimes wonder how many of you stumble across my blog. Are you out there? I think some of you must be, besides my Beat Cats friends and the ladies on my blogroll. All those views can’t be spammers. Maybe 75-80%, but not all.
Do you come across my entries about adoption where I’m kind of mad or sad and run, convinced I’m a demented, angry harpy? Do you come back for more but feel afraid to comment, thinking I may jump on you, attack you? Are you annoyed at my use of “daughter” and “mother” in reference to K and I?
Or perhaps I ascribe too much power to myself. Perhaps I’m simply worth a look, and not much more, except to people who already “know” me. And that is fine with me, too. Not every entry or blog has to be earth-shattering, or inspire devoted cult-like followings. That’s what we have I Can Has Cheezburger? for.
I just wonder.
I don’t explain my relationship with K’s parents very often, mostly out of privacy concerns for them, and me. But these are people I love. They have done so much more than adopt a daughter. Back in the days when “open adoption” only meant letters and pictures through an agency, these two people welcomed me. They embraced my family. They gave me their names and address and phone numbers, trusting me with their identity and location. I suspect more than one well-meaning cousin or grandma questioned them, albeit gently, about the wisdom of that choice at the beginning, fueled by the early slew of “evil, crazy birth mother returns to steal our child!” movies that Lifetime used to love.
They didn’t listen. With no handbook, no online support groups, no guides whatsoever, we all stumbled and baby-stepped and then finally, gloriously, ran headlong into a fully open adoption. In a time when I would not have trusted myself with a goldfish or even a cactus, in a time when my life was a near-fatal wreck, these two people stood by me. They saw the me I was underneath that mess, the potential in me, and they offered me love and trust, a real relationship with the child who was their daughter now, when I was convinced I deserved nothing. I have never had to ask or beg. They have just offered me everything. I have pictures and mementos and stories. I have visits and gifts and…I have seen my daughter grow up. When I talk about the pain I sometimes feel, I know it’s hard to also see that I love what I do have with them, and with her.
But I do.
Of course, now I have grown up and away from the mess I was; I fulfilled their trust in me and turned myself into a functioning human being again. Not that I’m perfect. I do think I’m someone my daughter can be proud of, though. I think I succeeded there.
When I talk, and others talk, about pain in adoption, or what’s not working that we’d like to change, it isn’t an automatic sentence against adoptive parents. It’s not meant to say “don’t ever be happy about your family, because you caused this pain”; not from me, not from many. We only want to explore our feelings, too. Validating them doesn’t mean you have to hate yourself. Recognizing that there are unethical practices in adoption in many forms doesn’t mean you shouldn’t feel joy in your baby’s first smile.
I am close to many wonderful adoptive parents. I very often cannot imagine their children in any other families, but the thing is: they can. These ladies and gentlemen recognize that there is some loss inherent in adoption, big or small, “needed” or no, and they still find joy in their kids while they do their best to keep communications open with first parents, honor their childrens’ expressions of hurt at the loss, and every other thing that consists of the work of adoptive parenting. They are some of my dearest friends and I can only hope to be the kinds of parents they are. They hold me up when I cry for my relinquished child. How could I automatically attack adoptive parents, when so many of them support me through every single thing I deal with?
So. If you’re out there at all, lurking, I hope you’ll continue to drop by and read. I hope you’ll check out the adoptee blogs and the first parent blogs and the adoptive parent blogs I have links to. Some of the things are hard to read, at first. But if you step away for a moment, many of the hard things start to make sense, I’ve found. If you take a break and read again, you can see what lies beneath all that hurt, you’ll sense the truths there, and use it to help you and your children on your journey.
Merry Christmas, everyone. And please, a little peace in blogland.
This was an incredibly generous thing to write. Thank you, from this adoptive parent.
Hi! Another adoptive Mom here saying Thank You! You have been my rock and source of inspiration to help me plod along this thing called “open adoption”. Without you to turn to for advice and wording and just support, I don’t think I would have the great relationship with our “K” that I do.
Thank you!
A prospective adoptive mom saying thanks.
I read so I can learn, and I learn a lot from you.
Coco,
You rock!
An emotional day today as I posted elsewhere.
Thanks!
Regardless of the circumstances, our kids need to be able to express their love for all of their family and all their parents. They also need to be free to express any negative emotions too and I suspect we will see this more as they get older.
The important thing is to be able to acknowledge those feelings and validate them.
what you have with K is great and that she feels completely comfortable and confident with herself is awesome!
Another Amom here, but I am sure you know I read here often, and as a First Mom too, identify with a lot you go through. Since my adoption was a closed one, I need to read you, Nic, Jenna, to see what has worked for all of you, and what hasn’t. There have been many Ah-Ha moments for me with all of you.
Merry Christmas Coco!!
Jenn
I read you too, and am glad you’re out there with your voice.
Tina
You are the awesomest … that’s all
Coco darling, I sent you an e-mail to say more of why I read, but Plareb said it. In short, you are the awesomest!
I love that you call her your daughter and embrace your role as her Mother. We have had to encourage our daughter’s Mother to accepting her role wholeheartedly. She felt she wasn’t good enough so much of what you said struck a cord with me. She will tell anyone that will listen that my DH and I are her first example of unconditional love and she strives to be the parent we know she can become. She is just now after 6 yrs understanding that her numbness is turning to pain and we will do anything to support her. We talk everyday again and are anxiously awaiting Sunday when she and 2 of her 3 other dds will be spending the night with us.
You help many of us see the other side of things and I would love for you to share more on how your relationship has developed and what has helped or hurt you along the way. We didn’t use an agency and had no real guidance on open adoption or that it existed, it just felt right to us. So many people tried to talk us out of it for the same reasons you described, including her. We are all forever thankful we pushed through the tough stuff.
I came upon your blog by accident and I just wanted to say how helpful I think it will be to any other adoptive parents that stumble here. I am an AP (my children are from China and Vietnam) and I hate to say the reason I originally adopted internationally was due to my (probably irrational) fear of birthparents changing their minds and taking the baby back. Of course (like many AP of IA children) I have the guilt of knowing I chose a country that birthparent information is virtually impossible to obtain and my children will never have the opportunity to know their birthfamily. Anyway, all of this is just rambling, but I wanted to say I think your blog is wonderful (especially your letter to April). If I had read your blog prior to having children it probably would have scared me to death, but I think if I had considered domestic adoption it would be blogs like yours that would have given me the other side of the story (birthparents side).
Tracy
Thank you to all who replied here, and a special thanks to those of you who de-lurked to comment.
I know it can be very intimidating to dig in to someone’s thoughts when they seem so sad, depressing, or even angry. But that’s part of the reason I posted this. Sometimes I feel those things, but it doesn’t mean I’m mean or bad or out to get anyone. It just is what it is. Does that make sense? And in that same line of thinking, when adoptive parents post their happy stories of adoption, I don’t sense it as an auto-slap in the face. All we can do is read. Take a deep breath. Think it over. Maybe we can learn from each other and maybe we just have to disagree.
But I continue to hope it does not have to be “all or nothing”. It’s part of why I keep writing. Why I keep reaching out to new people. Why I do it at all.
Happy New Year, everyone.