There’s a lot I’m not writing about adoption-wise these days. Pennie’s pregnancy has opened a whole new chapter in our lives and really (stretching the metaphor) it’s more of the prologue to a whole new volume to our adoption library.
There’s so much we’re talking about and so much I wish I could share because 1) sharing makes me understand things more; and 2) I know so many of you have trod or will trod the same path.
Adoption is hard. Good adoptions are hard. Good open adoptions are hard. And so much of what makes them good also makes them hard.
I am very very grateful for the relationship that Madison has with Pennie and I am very very grateful for the relationship that I have with Pennie. I am grateful that she can be honest with me and that we can talk about the hard stuff but man, I wish the world were an easier place and that all the fables I believed about adoption were true. I don’t ever wish I could keep my head in the sand but I understand why some people choose to stay there.
Sometimes people tell me that our story — our open adoption — doesn’t matter because Madison is still so small, like journeys don’t matter as much as destinations. They’re missing the point. In adoption, there is no happy ending — it’s all journey. And every part of it is a story unto itself. I don’t know how Madison will feel about her open adoption in twenty years and I don’t know how Pennie will feel about it either but that’s not what matters right now. What matters right now is the relationships we share at this minute and the way we’re writing our story and they way we’re struggling to make sense of our family.
It isn’t easy but it’s good. It’s hard work but it’s good work. I believe in this so much even though I don’t know what we’ll do or say next. I have no idea how things will arrange themselves — I’m just taking it one step, one day at a time and trusting that love will out and will see us through.
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Dawn,
You’re right – it is hard, as hard as you thought it could ever be at your lowest of lows and then some…and it’s easy – easier than you ever thought it could be, on the best of days.
As you said, it’s a journey and you’re right, the journey is just as important as the destination, especially since the journey never really ends.
There is so much I don’t or can’t say about my situation as well and sometimes, it makes things so much more difficult, because I keep it hidden and bottled inside.
I know I find strength in your posts and always look forward to reading what you have to say…
B
Thinking of you all as you navigate all of the changes and new parts of this journey.
And looking forward to reading the parts that you do share.
With love from Portland,
Meg
Well said. A strange and enlightening journey. A journey that challenges ones thinking and preconceptions about what it means to be a parent.
As you say though it’s all good. I only hope I can be a helpful guide to my daughter’s journey.
Absolutely true, Dawn.
Let me just add that sixteen years later, we are still finding our way. Never a destination, always a road we all travel. Well said.
Congrats to Pennie on discovering she will be having a wonderful baby boy this time around. Boys are fun – Madison will enjoy him more than she knows!
Adoption is never easy.
Anyone who refuses to acknowledge will just find themselves in an even bigger mess of “What was I thinking?”
Did you hear the StoryCorps story on NPR where the first mother and daughter talked? It made me cry.
I wish you could write about it, too, because I learn from your processing even when it’s not about something I’ve experienced. You write about feelings very clearly!
I always tell myself, “All we have is the present moment.” At first I rebelled against this idea, but it really helps me focus on the fact that it’s not twenty years from now that matters, but what I have in front of me this moment. (This also really helped during childbirth, because if I thought of the whole process I panicked, but I could get through whatever was going on right then.) Anyway, this sounds similar to what you are doing with your relationships, and I have found it very helpful. Although sometimes I add, “And the present moment sucks.”
My thoughts are with all of you. My situation is so different, my son’s adoption, the number of years between my children. But having my daughter, some 15+ years after my son’s adoption, it changed everything, in ways I could never have imagined. Some of it I did imagine, that it would bring up memories of being pregnant and giving birth, things I had tried to avoid thinking of for more than a dozen years. Some of the flashbacks startled me with their intensity. I didn’t anticipate that I would sometimes feel guilty for loving my daughter, as if I were being disloyal to my son by loving her, or that in the early days this would sometimes cause a disconnect from her that would make me feel ashamed. But these things, and more, are filtered through a coerced, closed adoption, they’re just mine. It seems clear that you will meet whatever challenges and hard parts are here, and ahead, as you have all of it, head on and full-hearted.