Jess asked: “Is Madison the only grandchild in J’s family?”

Yes, she is. I thought about this a lot because I know that in my own family, the impact of grandparenthood didn’t really click (couldn’t really click) until the grandparents got their hands on actual Noah. (He was also the first grandchild for three out of four of his grandparents. My dad started earlier.) I remember how my mother-in-law would talk about how familiar his little body was because he’s built just like Brett. Madison is built just like J was when she was a toddler. I wondered how much he was flashing back when he held her. I don’t know if our visit made things easier for him or made them harder.

Jody asked: “[B]ut where is Brett on some of these issues? Does he feel differently about the birth father than you do about J? How much of that is about fathering, and how much is about Madison’s particular birth father? What, if anything, has your experience with Madison’s birth families (especially given that you don’t have any contact with her birth father) taught you about how we in the USA think about mothers and fathers? Or is it unfair in the extreme to generalize in that way?”

Ok, Let me take these bit by bit. First off, neither of us get to think much about the birth dad because he is so adamantly not in our lives. He knows — vaguely — about the adoption but doesn’t care (Ohio law doesn’t require that he care). What little we know about him is that he’s not a really great guy so we haven’t pursued it. The way I figure it is that we’re lucky to have J in our lives and so we shouldn’t get greedy. But sometimes we all (Brett, J and me) feel angry that his life hasn’t changed at all since Madison’s arrival and that he hasn’t had to take any sort of responsibility. The other thing that makes me nuts about this is that we believe Madison may have some half-siblings out there. So the lack of birth dad talk on this blog is totally about the way things have played out in our own situation.

As to how Brett feels about it, the birth family issues are much harder for him than they are for me because he’s a very closed-in type of guy. Emotional confrontation (by which I mean confronting emotions and not emotionally confronting someone) is really hard for him. There were two reasons he didn’t come out with Madison and me. The first was that we knew that Noah shouldn’t come — we were too unsure how it would be and I was afraid that I would put too much pressure on him to “prove” our parenting abilities — so someone had to stay with him. And the second was that the thought of it made Brett’s knees start knocking together.

Brett and I have talked about how it would be if Madison’s birth dad did choose to be involved. We both feel committed to openness and Brett’s convictions on that issue are as strong as my own. However he feels that he’s gotten off pretty easy since he’s never had to deal with feeling competitive or threatened and also he laid claim to his daddy-role earlier than I was able to lay claim to my mommy-role. He has always been the only father Madison has had in her life. (In the hospital J didn’t let any non-medical men hold Madison until Brett had held her first. Stuff like that has made things easier for him.)

I’m not sure what I’ve learned about the cultural roles of motherhood and fatherhood by our adoption experience. I have very mixed feelings by the different ways the states handle birth father rights. On the one hand, as its the woman who carries the baby, I feel like most of the adoption decisions should be in her hands. And there are so many birth fathers who can and do walk away from their responsibilities so when states force potential birth moms to jump through birth father hoops in order to make an adoption plan, this pisses me off. Why make a difficult decision even harder? On the other hand, I’ve read enough grieving birth father experiences (mostly online) that I understand the need to formally give potential birth dads some power.

I don’t know. I feel really divided about it.

But there isn’t much about birth fathers out there. There’s not as much research and there aren’t as many narratives. Is this because birth dads care less? Are less aware when adoptions take place? Or is it because as a society we don’t give the same weight to their experiences? Probably all of that. Perhaps if we did give more weight, more men would take responsibility. I think it’s all very circular and complicated and I don’t think I have much intelligent to say on it since I’m still working it out.

If Brett had come out on this trip, he would have likely had to think on some of this because J’s dad is the closest we’re all going to get to a paternal birth family experience. And since J’s dad and Brett are only a couple years apart in age, it would likely be even more interesting.

Maybe Lisa (who has a good relationship with her daughter’s birth dad) or Laurel (whose husband is a caring, involved birth father) would have more to say about this. I would be interested to hear their thoughts.

And homeschooling (since you asked)! It’s going fine and yes we do feel some change in summer because some of Noah’s formal activities disappear and new ones crop up. We start seeing more of our schooled friends, too, which is great. Most recently my mom signed Noah up for a science club and Noah has announced that he no longer wants to do the activities with Brett; now he wants to do them alone but with one of us around. Specifically he said, “I want to do this at the kitchen table while you’re doing the dishes.” Between that and his sudden enormous, grown-up looking feet, I am feeling all nostalgic for small Noah.

Also career stuff (since you asked again)! I just got a nifty new assignment from a well-paying market that y’all may have actually heard of. I won’t give the name because I’m jinxy that way. It’s just a short filler (350 words) but that’s how you break into these things. And my little sister called yesterday (finally!) and will start Monday so if Madison allows (Meagan warned me to start her before Madison got all mama-clingy and I didn’t listen), I will have childcare soon. I think we’ll give the first week over to breaking in but then I have high hopes for a more productive work life!

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