Further to yesterday’s post, I thought I’d share a bit more about my worry about our son’s birth mom.
Also, please note I may be slightly politically incorrect as I dive into this, but I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone. Rather I am simply being honest about a transition from some of my initial adoption feelings/fears to my existing real feelings.
When we first began investigating adoption to grow our family, we had a lot of questions and concerns. Ultimately, when we chose open-adoption, I will fully admit that this adoptive parent/birth parent relationship is one of the things we feared the most. We had no idea what to expect. In fact, one of the reasons we chose international open adoption is that just in case our future child ended up having a crazy birth mom/family we wanted distance. Simply, we were scared of what open adoption meant, and no matter how much our local adoption agency told us our fears were probably not realistic, even the amazing family we met with very early on told us they understood this fear but also know from their experience that we wouldn’t need to worry about this. But, neither the agency or the adoptive family could promise us that none of our fears were wrong so we continued to hold onto the fears. Our local agency even told us most adoptive parents eventually wish for more contact with the birth family, to which we basically laughed at them. In stead, we just held onto our fears, as if somehow by holding onto them we’d be better able to face bad stuff when it happened, because in our minds it was probably going to happen eventually.
Even with these fears, in the end, we decided open adoption was best for our future family, because the research points to open-adoption being best for the child, and at the end of the day our emotions on this were secondary to our future child’s. But, we also decided international adoption was also best in part because we thought that distance would give us more control over the relationship, and it helped us feel more comfortable with open adoption (we chose international open adoption for other reasons too, but this definitely factored into our decision).
But, none of this happened. Our local adoption agency was right.
We were wrong.
Today we know our son’s birth mother to be a delightful person who we welcomed into our family with open arms. (I know this isn’t the case for all open-adoptions, but I can only share based on our experience). And so, today we are surprised because:
- We see her a part of our extended family.
- We treasure her as part of our family. She gave us the greatest gift ever, a life with Little MPB, and we cannot ever overlook this.
- We wished we had more contact and that we lived closer together.
- I worry about her non-stop, especially when she’s overly quiet.
We honestly didn’t expect this. In fact, we spent so much time worrying about the possible problems with this relationship that we didn’t even really contemplate these positive things that might happen.
So, now when we look back we realize just how unfounded our original fears were.
And right now, while all is quiet, I am trying very hard not to be utterly consumed with worry imagining all the worst-case possible scenarios.
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As much as I want to dive into sharing about our travel adventures (and I have lots that I do plan to share), I have something else on my mind today that I need to get off my chest first.
Our son’s birth mom has gone silent again. And this has been our longest stretch without communication so far – as in, it’s been more then a few months. We have absolutely no idea why she’s not responding, which means we also have absolutely no idea if she and her baby are okay.
This has happened before, so I should be getting more equipped at handling it. Or at least more used to it occurring. But the truth is, I’m not getting better at handling it. And I’m consumed with worry.
In the face of the unknown we are still reaching out to her frequently enough, but also not so frequently that we feel like we are nagging. Ultimately, we want her to be part of our son’s life and our family, we want them to have a relationship with each other, so we will always reach out. We see her and her family as an extension of our family – in many ways just like another extended family member. And I think for me the best way to explain my feelings right now is that it’s very similar to when any family member or friend might vanishes – I am just naturally worried.
This worry is something I struggle with because I so desperately want to help in any way I can, but I also know it’s not my role to help unless she asks for it. I realize the adoptive parent/birth parent relationship is different then most. I also realize that more people outside of the adoption world do not understand this relationship and are unable to provide constructive advice. As in, most people outside of the adoption world cannot relate and don’t understand because it’s something they have never had experience with. In fact, if I were to talk about this in real life (which I tend not to), people assume that no contact is best and make judgemental comments which make my blood boil. People still tend to assume adoptions are closed, which means I spend a lot of time explaining open adoption. Honestly, sometimes it gets tiresome explaining why open adoptions are healthier for everyone involved. I don’t enjoy being a broken record. As I’ve mentioned before, we also believe this stuff isn’t necessary for most people to know – we want Little MPB to be able to choose what to share and when to share as he grows up. We are always aware of the fine line that we don’t want to cross when it comes to respecting his personal story.
Anyways, I feel like I’m rambling.
All I really mean to say is that once again I’m worrying. Once again I’m not in the position to solve the problem (if there is even one to be solved). And, once again I am simply left to give her space and hope that she is okay.
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My Perfect Breakdown 