Wow, here I thought I might be able to post all my alphabet adoption posts for Adoption Awareness Month in 4ish blog posts, but (not surprisingly) I talk too much. As I shared in the last few posts, I took on a challenge from a birth mom to come up with one word pertaining to adoption each day for the corresponding letter, and describe how it applies to adoption. I wanted to share my posts with my non-instagram following people, so I am sharing all of them through several (more than I thought) blog posts. Below is Adoption from J to O.
Jesus: I could not do life, let alone adoption without Jesus!
Kids: Kids are the priority in adoption and foster care, but oh we get in the way of this so often with our desperation for children, our desire for autonomy, our fears, and our prejudices. I am so far from perfect and I know I have been guilty of making it about me when it’s not. A child’s needs should come ahead of our insecurities and anxiety. We are so sadly mistaken when our pursuit of the so called “perfect” family gets in the way of our openness and willingness to do what is best for the child.
Loss: We cannot talk about adoption without talking about loss. I think that from the outside looking in, or from a naive perspective, it is easy to see only see the gains in adoption, what CAN be beautiful and redemptive in adoption. But is entirely too easy to forget all the losses when we only look at adoption from one side. No child is adopted without the loss if their first family, and often, in the case of international or transracial adoption, without the loss of birth culture, language, country, etc. No mother or couple places their child for adoption without missing out on many (if not all) the things that now the adoptive parents get to experience. Contrary to popular belief, a child is not born a blank slate. They have had 40 weeks, give or take, in the womb so even children adopted at birth experience loss. Every adoptee and first family experiences the effects of this loss in different ways at different seasons, but I think it’s safe to say that no one feels zero loss. There is so much that is unfair about this world. The life I was born into has placed me in a position to much more easily be on one side of the adoption triad over the others. That is not fair. It is broken and sad, and although beauty can come from ashes, it is hurtful to ignore the pain of the ashes.
Mom: This is how I refer to my children’s first/birth moms if I talk to you in person about them. Their position in my children’s life does not challenge mine. We are moms, and I refuse to reduce their role by constantly qualifying it. If you are talking to me, you know that I am their mom. And they also have another. They each have 2 moms.
Names: Naming our children has been complicated. I made a mistake when we were first meeting and getting to know Lucy’s mom by not talking about names. Then, Lucy was born 7 weeks early and we didn’t get that chance. I will not make this mistake again if ever we adopt a child whose mother chooses us before birth. In the end, we did choose all of Lucy’s name and her mom has been happy with our choice. With Cora, I had read a lot from adoptees about how they felt about names and the opinions were on 2 sides: 1. Don’t change a child’s name since it takes away what little they have left of their birth family and culture 2. Adoptive parents choosing a name fully welcomes the child into the family and shows belonging. I have also read the research done on discrimination in the work place over “ethnic” or feminine names. Lastly, many people who are not adopted choose an English name when they live in an English speaking culture. So, I have wrestled with all of this since I wanted to honour my children’s first moms and also show my children full acceptance by choosing a name from our hearts. I still have yet to legally change Cora’s name to add our last name because I just really want to get this right
Open: Open adoption is a term used to describe any adoption where identifying information is exchanged by the adoptive and biological families. This could mean weekly visits and daily texts, or it could mean occasional emails and a visit every few years. So, both of our girls have open adoptions. As we learn about the deep, primal loss of adoption and intense need to know ones’ own story, we understand the value of open adoption more and more. Knowledge is somewhat rare and precious in the world of adoption (not in each case but in many, especially international adoption). The more I learn and the more I listen to adoptees, the more I hold dear the information and knowledge we do have, even though it has its limits. Knowing facts about ones’ story cannot erase all of the hurt and loss, but it seems in many cases that it helps many adoptees in their life journey.
Lanaya – November 2017
