this woman’s work

You are browsing the archives from 2004 May.

I met Short North Mama yesterday. I brought along one of my L. friends for kicks and it was fun. She’s smart as heck and “one of us” politically plus she has really beautiful green eyes. We talked adoption, we talked motherhood and then she and L. compared notes on working in abortion clinics. The only downside is that my friend B. was sick and couldn’t make it.

I was virtually talking to Magicpointeshoes yesterday and she told me that many adoptive families in open adoptions end up closing the adoptions around the time the kid turns three. I want to know why this is. What is it about preschoolers that makes people want to shut down their open adoptions? Is it because the child is then more cognizant and any insecurities the adoptive parents might have start cropping up?

I talked to our social worker about hooking me up with some other local families who have open adoptions to be our mentors. I want to be sure that Brett and I are doing our part to support J.’s presence in our family and in Madison’s life. If there’s something about 3-year olds that brings up conflict, I want to know about it so we can prepare ourselves to muscle through it.

Magicpointeshoes was also telling me how very scary it is for birthmothers in open adoptions because all of the power is in the hands of the adoptive parents. I guess I took for granted that J. wouldn’t feel this way, which I now think was naive of me. I don’t want J. to ever worry that we would take Madison and run but how can she not?

I kind of think that we need to have some sort of conflict just to show her that we’re not going to bail on her if things get testy. Oh well, there’s no rushing things. You hang out with people long enough and sooner or later there’s an opportunity to mend a rift or two.

I get uncomfortable when people say that Brett and I are generous in our relationship with J. Listen, if anyone is generous it’s her. As far as how things are working out, it’s just the obviously right way to do things here. I feel that our match with her was made in the same heaven in which my match with Brett was made — it was meant to be. And if it’s meant to be, then it’s all going to be good, even the hard stuff.

I have long thought that the reason we’re adopting was not just to bring Madison to us but to bring us together with J. In my more new age-y self, I believe that J. has been a part of our family forever and we have been a part of hers. This is how we came together in this lifetime, that’s all. But it feels like destiny to me.

Someone asked me if it’s hard to see J. hold Madison and it’s not. It’s not at all. It looks absolutely right. It brings me peace to see it. We have a framed picture of J. holding Madison and I like to show it off.

I don’t know if it’s hard for J. to see us with Madison so I’ll have to ask her. So far the one piece of advice I have about open adoptions is that it’s ok to bring up the awkward stuff. You can even do it like this, “I feel so awkward asking but…” I find that everyone is relieved to get things out without any runaround. It’s a little like pulling out a splinter. The hard thing for me is that I assume that everyone else is pulling out splinters, too, and I’m finding that — like my marriage — in this relationship I have the job of splinter-puller. Fortunately, I am pretty good at pointing out elephants. So good, in fact, that I often ruin dinner parties by announcing their presence inappropriately.

Thanks to all of you who weighed in on the post below. I have to ‘fess up now about my poor blog behavior. I am absolutely terrible about commenting. I’m even worse about answering people who comment on my blog.

If my stats are any indication most visitors don’t comment, which is fine by me. I understand about time crunches and also that sometimes it’s hard to know what to say besides, “Hey, hi! I read this!”

For a long time I didn’t have comments and in many ways that was easier. I felt like I was writing into a void, which was a nice easy way to write and I didn’t need to feel bad about saving comments to answer and then finding them again a month later still waiting for a reply. On the other hand, comments are nice because they often continue a conversation, inspire a new entry or just give me impetus to write more. That’s why I feel bad about not having a lot of time to comment on other people’s blogs. But know whatever you do, beloved visitor, be it to comment or not, I appreciate your presence. [insert annoying smiley face and/or virtual hugs here]

Yikes, baby stirs and I still haven’t showered. Damn siren call of movabletype!!!

thus no capitals.

from a local mom, thought some of you might find it useful: Karen’s Adoption Links & list of adoption listservs Russian
& Eastern European Adoption Information

Holly is suffering with blog blockage and I hear her screams, sister. I get that more than occasionally but I’m committed to updating once a day both because this is a project-in-progress (my blog itself) and because I like it when my regular reads update often, too.

I know that it’s easy to become very stats focused when writing a blog — worrying about visitors and getting comments. I’ve been blogging now for, what, a little more than three years and my hits have been all over the place during my tenure. I’ve also been able to see that my readership changes over time. The people visiting last spring aren’t visiting this spring and I don’t get hung up on that because it changes as my life changes.

Our build-up to Madison was interesting hit-wise. I know there were people who were following that story line particularly and the day we brought her home, my unique visitors skyrocketed. Now I know that people will lose interest as my blog becomes less issue-minded (adoption) and more ordinary again. Same thing happened when I was struggling specifically with infertility — I gained readers interested in fertility and then lost them when we decided to adopt.

When I visit other people’s sites with categorized links, it’s interesting to see where they put me. Mama blog, homeschool blog, adoption blog, infertility blog… I think of this as a writer’s blog period. My reasons for blogging center around practicing as a writer and having a safe place to try out topics and ideas.

I do keep an eye on my audience, however. I am aware of you guys reading and it does impact how and what I write. I try not to let myself get caught up in whether or not I’m disappointing you all because I know it’s inevitable that I’m disappointing someone. For example, people keep requesting more pics of Madison and I’ve just been really lazy about uploading any. Actually, I’m surprised people want to see my kids since they’re just kids. Spectacularly adorable, true, but no more spectacularly adorable than other people’s kids. I like gazing at them but it pleasantly surprises me that some of my visitors do, too.

I’d be interested to know more about the bloggers among you: do you get hung up on visitors?

And for those who’ve been nicely nagging: Madison up, Madison down and Noah (the robotic alien)

We ran by the thrift store after Noah’s gym class and they were having a nice sale. I spent a tad over nine bucks and got a bunch of Gymboree clothes for the future little girl Madison, a pair of shorts for Noah, a pair of shorts for me and several books (natch). The best buy was a pair of like new size 110 Hanna Andersson tights for a quarter.

The women who run the shop are sweet but busy bodies. It’s a Christian-oriented thrift store and I think they think that I am one of them. You know, kid with a biblical name, homeschooler. When Noah was smaller, they made a fuss over how great it was that I was home with him and wasn’t I such a smart, frugal mother. It was a good ego boost to visit on my truly “what the hell have I done to my life” days. Anyway, they locked right on to Madison and started asking questions.

In adoption circles there is much discussion about adopted children having a right to their own story and being able to choose themselves when they come out as adopted. (I don’t see how Madison will get around it really, especially if her hair gets curly.) These particular women have seen Noah and me come into the shop for the past four years and watched me head straight to the back where the $.25 baby clothes are stored in the dresser and I told them that we were adopting. Still, I felt awkward especially as they started asking questions about the birth mom and how we did it, etc.

Part of me wants to talk about the openness because I really want to share that open adoption can work and be beautiful and happy and all of that. Also, I feel like I have the opportunity to talk up birth moms. Sometimes people will make kinda subtle disparaging remarks about birth mothers as if they have to take sides in the adoption for us. I think it’s important to make it clear that we have nothing but respect and admiration for J., that we don’t assume that other women in similar situations should make the same choices (people also occasionally launch into stories of people in their lives who “should” place their unborn babies for adoption), and that we don’t resent the openness.

On the other hand, I know that it isn’t really anyone else’s business how Madison came to our family or who her birth family is or how we arranged it or anything.

I’m hoping that it will make sense to me as I go.

And yes, I appreciate the irony of my struggling with this when I have this blog. What can I say. I’m a paradox.