Jenna asks…
Jul 27, 2007 Adoption
From The Secret Life of Bees:
I wish she’d been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don’t give up their children.
Then Jenna asks,”Adoptive parents: have you had to field a question like this from your child about his/her biological parents? How did that go? How did it leave you feeling? If you haven’t, are you preparing for something like this?”
I haven’t yet but yes, I’m bracing myself for it. I know that most of this discussion is Madison’s to have with Jessica but I also know that I will be a part of it, too, and that what I say will influence how open Madison is to talking about it.
When I think about it I think I’ll say something like we were all doing the best we could at the time. And that knowing what we know now, there are things we would have done differently.
I have to be careful here — I don’t want to get into Madison’s story more than I need to but I will talk to her about the way the world looks at women in Jessica’s situation as well as circumstances specific to Jessica’s life and specific to our adoption that helped contribute to her decision.
Another thing (thinking as I type) is that I want to be able to convey that she can experience and address her sadness/anger/confusion but she can also look ahead to what she wants to build with Jessica now. I’m not talking about an “open adoption cures all wounds” mythology here. I’m talking about helping her grieve but not dwell. Helping her see a way to process ongoing (because living with adoption isn’t a singular event) but in a way that feeds and nourishes her. I want her to be proud of her survivorship and to learn to appreciate and accept Jessica’s survivorship.
Jessica’s little sister is up and spent the day with us yesterday. In the evening Jessica and Nate ran home for a bit (they just moved and have much unpacking) and D. stayed with us to play with Madison. D. isn’t happy about the adoption — I’m not sure how much she’s reflecting back how her family feel about it but I know there’s some of that, too.
I wasn’t really expecting the specifics of this conversation. When it comes to kids, you just kinda fake it when they ask the hard questions. There was a slew of them yesterday. D. with her questions (and opinions!) about adoption and her very apparent grief over it. And then Madison said, “Do I have a baby in my uterus now?” so that was a chat. (Also our first introduction to “the woman has an egg and the man has a seed”.) I usually don’t know what I’m going to say until it’s time to say it but I’m fueled by my belief that talking about things moves us forward, no matter how painful it is to say or hear. I don’t think it’ll be easy for any of us but I have high hopes.
[...] About my last post. [...]
Winging it is key to most things in parenting, no? (I just talked about that on the bp/fp blog this morning. We’re all equally clueless.) Denise and I have done our own share of winging it with certain conversations because kids throw curve balls at you when you’re not even playing baseball!
My answer to Jenna is that that question is the selfish part of why I want an open adoption. I want their moms to field that question as much as possible. Mainly because I don’t know the answer, but also because it’s a tough one.