Most everyone has read Charlotte’s adoption story and some of the other adoption posts (here, here, here, here, here, here, here) on the blog. We are very open with both of our children on how they joined our family. I don’t know what I ever expected with the idea of an open adoption, but because ours is a kinship adoption, I knew absolutely that it would be an open adoption. It has only been in the last 6 months I have learned what the reality of open adoption looks like. What is most surprising to me is how very normal it is.
I am proud of my sister and the work she is doing in her life. When Charlotte asks for contact with her birth mother, my sister, I try to give opportunity for it to happen. Charlotte is doing fall soccer (and is an impossibly awesome sweeper/goal tender) and she asked if my sister would be coming to her soccer games again. So I invited my sister and now we see her about once a week, and sometimes also have lunch with her.
I expected it to be awkward, or strange. I expected there to be pregnant silences and lulls in the conversation. I expected to feel jealous that Charlotte was excited to see her birth mother. And somehow it’s none of those things at all. It’s my little sister, needing a big sister to listen to her. It’s a strong woman figuring out how to continue making mature decisions about her life, no matter how broken her heart is. It is me learning how to forgive, and trust and be vulnerable with someone who could hurt not only me, but also my daughter. It is my daughter feeling impossibly loved by two very important women in her life. What else could I ask for in this wholly, very normal, open adoption?
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