Adoption Resolutions

November is National Adoption Month. This month there will be abundance of blog posts about adoption facts, and etiquette, what not to say to adoptive parents. Happens every year, all this readily available education and yet, people are still dumb. They are ignorant and rude. They care only about satisfying their own curiosity on how my family came to be. I'm thankful that my children are still too small to understand, but I know that in a matter of years I'll not only be talking with my children about their adoption story, but about how the stupidity of others impacts them. Not only will there be questions about how they are adopted, how they are black with white parents and where they are from, but there will be the all important questions about their "real" Mom and Dad (or just Mom and Dad, but not referring to Mike and I), the questions about how much they cost, why their "Mom" gave them away, and if/when she is able to come back and take them from us. Yes, people are dumb. I've found too many people to talk first and think much, much later, if at all about the feelings of the children and people involved in the personal questions they ask. So this November, I invite adoptive parents everywhere to make their Adoption Resolutions. Here are mine:

My sons are brothers. (Period)
My sons are MY sons. I am right here, I have not given them away. I don't need to come back because I'm already here. (Period, I will not engage these people to teach them proper adoption language.)
I am real. My husband Mike? Also real.
I did not pay for my children. Paying for children is illegal.
My children are black and I am white. This happened because God makes people who are all different colors, not just one color.

Finally and most important, I WILL say calmly and sanely: "I do not discuss the details of my children's adoption with anyone but our close family. There is a lot of adoption information on-line if you are interested in researching adoption."

Lastly, these answers are OK. They do not mean I am not proud of my sons, or their adoption and their story. They do not mean that I hide from the truth. They mean I have respect for my family, our story and how we share it. They mean that I can acknowledge that it is not *MY* job to educate everyone. My only job is my children. They will come first. Until they tell me otherwise, I will respect their privacy and that includes their story. It is not mine. It is theirs.

When it's not a triangle...

The three "sides" of adoption are the Birth Mother/Parents, the Adoptee, and the Adoptive Parent(s). This is often called the "Triad" and depicted and thought of as a triangle with equal sides. Unfortunately for both my sons, we don't have our promised triangle. We have more of a line. Our third corner in each triangle seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. We keep our side of things going, for the most part, and would welcome a return to our triangle shape, but for now, we're a pretty comfortable line.

Anyone that knows me though, knows that I think ahead. I fully believe in mentally exploring all potential future scenarios, worst case to best case until I'm a quivering, shaking mess. This would clearly be no exception. I can't help but fear that despite what we've done, and the contact we've maintained (us sending letters and pictures) that the lack of response from birth parents will be emotionally blamed on us. Either by the birth parents when/if contact is initiated as the kids get older, or by the boys if they have a hard time dealing with their loss. I can't help but feel that in this new era of open adoption where birth parents are guided into a choice they are not educated about, that we are all creating a new generation of adoptees who will not have lost their birth families once, but twice. Who will be forced to face down not only their own placement for adoption, but their emotional abandonment by their birth families. I can't imagine how my children will feel when they know that their birth parents had options for full and open communication and in Matty's case 1 guaranteed visit per year, and they haven't bothered to make that effort.

I think either of their birth families could have stretched their lives and finances to care for another child. That was not why my boys were placed. My boys were placed because their birth parents could not emotionally raise another child. They chose not to parent. Perhaps with that knowledge, we should not be surprised that they have not maintained communication. That they have not asked for their visits or sent pictures so my sons could have pictures of the people that look like them.

I'm so angry.

My sons were first emotionally placed by their birth families, and now they have been emotionally abandoned by them as well. No one should make promises they can't keep to children. Open adoption is not for a birth parent only if they need it. Open Adoption is for the child, the teen, the young adult and adult adoptee. I realize it is not easy for their birth families. It's not easy for me either. I do it for my children. I can't imagine a better reason.

We three....

So now that we're a family, we clearly needed new vehicles...two of them? I don't know....so Mike got a new Honda Element (I'm so jealous, it's wicked cool) and I got the "Mom" car. A new Honda Pilot...not shabby to say the least, but at the same time, not quite as cool as Mike's, but WAY cooler than the minivan.

Tyler and Mike are both doing great. Mike is getting stronger everyday, but he still naps sometimes. Both boys are napping now actually. Ty is getting so much bigger. I know how fast the time will fly, so I'm not at all anxious for each milestone. I'll be happy when they get here, but they can wait a month or so. We have heard from Ty's birth mom a few times since we've been home. It sounds like they are getting the counseling they need, and that with the help of the social worker will tell the older children about Tyler. They had no idea that their mom was pregnant or anything. I do not know when they plan to tell the rest of their family, but my guess is that once a 5 and 6 year old know something, it's really not a secret anymore. She did ask me to send her a picture of Mike, Ty and I together so she would have something to show them visually. We made sure to include that in the photos we just mailed along with a letter about what Ty has been up to, and how much he weighs etc. It's hard writing a letter to your child's birth parents. What do you say? How can I explain how amazing having Ty in our lives is and how much we cherish each smile and squeak without sounding like a jerk? I believe she does want to hear all about him, so I tell her. I know reading it may make it more difficult for her, but it will also give her some peace.

Everyone expected us to have a hard time since we were adopting transracially. To be honest, I'm sure at SOME point that will be tough. We've gotten looks already. What is the hardest is the terminology and casual conversation with people I care about. Terminology is so hard. To hear my own parents or friends refer to Ty's "parents" and what they do for work, and what their situation is in life. WE are Ty's parents. Do I correct EVERYONE? Do I just hope the discussion regarding birth parents will die down and I won't have to hear about and answer questions about Ty's "mother"? I'm Ty's mother...right? How can people not see that and understand? Typically I do try to answer back and use the term birth mom, and some people pick that up and grasp it. I know they mean no harm, I know they just want to support us. Hopefully with time, and education, people will get it more.