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I'm thrilled to have Amber sharing her family's experience with open adoption! If you are on instagram you can following her family @amberhasfavorites
We were unsuccessful in ever getting pregnant again. I had a hysterectomy about 2 years later and
we tried a few rounds of IVF with a gestational surrogate. The failure of this was devastating. We tried to tell ourselves that we felt our
family was complete with just our son.
The three of our hearts just couldn’t be convinced. A few calls were made and we landed with the
agency that led us to our daughter and her birth family.
Adoption was not a part of our plan. Our plan was that
things would be “simple” and “normal”. We certainly don’t see adoption as
second best… it was just something so unfamiliar to us both. Neither of us had any friends who had adopted
or knew anyone that had been adopted actually.
We knew some people from back in school that were adopted, but really no
one we could talk to. Moving forward
with the adoption agency was very intimidating.
We had no idea what we were in for!
Our first encounter was an informational meeting where we
learned about the agency, they briefly described the process, the types of
adoption, and gave us some stats. One of
the things I remember being asked is, “What is your picture of a birth mother
look like? Who do you think a birth mom
is?” We didn’t really know
actually. Young? Still in school?
Pregnant by a boyfriend or a one night stand? We speculated but really hadn’t
ever thought of WHO a birth mom is. We
were informed that the average age of a birth mom is actually quite a bit older
than what we had guessed. Sometimes they
are married. Often times they are parenting other children. They could be
finishing college. They might be this. They might be that. We had a lot to learn.
She also discussed with us the types of adoption. While researching online before this meeting,
I had seen the phrase “Open Adoption” a few times. I really wasn’t too sure about that. Seemed a little much for me! After all, I wanted a baby! I didn’t want to
share my baby with the birth parent! She
gave us brief info on closed, semi-open, and open adoptions. It definitely gave us something to think about.
Our agency provides 4 long days of training over 2
months. We walked in to day one of
training after having discussions with each other and more online reading about
others with semi open and open adoptions.
We had decided that we were fine with a semi open adoption. We would like to have information on the
birth family and medical history. We
would be fine to meet the birth parents at the hospital and send updates on how
“our” (as in “my”) baby was doing. I
could write a letter a few times a year telling about the great things they are
doing and stick in a few pictures and call it good. I might even be up for a meeting once a year
with birth parents on neutral ground somewhere.
Yeah… I think we could handle that.
I really never thought that I might like to know how they are doing
through out the year. I just assumed that
they would be waiting for my letters to come and would have our annual meeting
marked on their calendar as time passed.
And then our training happened. We heard story after story
about how GOOD open adoptions can be on day one. We learned who can benefit from open
adoptions. We listened to and role
played some scenarios. Day two of
training was more of the same. We ended
the night with the birth parent panel (which happened to be all birth
moms). God broke my heart for these
mothers. Right then and there. There was
no other way I wanted our adoption story to be.
My husband and I were on the same page after our days of
training. Both of our hearts were in it
for an open adoption situation. Of
course, the final say goes to the birth mom if she wants contact, but we prayed
that this would be the case. We had
fallen in love with the idea that our baby could know where she came from, how
much she was loved, who she looked like, what her history was and more. Gone was the fear that we would be “sharing”
our baby. We didn’t worry that the baby
we were going to parent was going to be confused on who his or her parents are. We didn’t have a fear inside us that she
would want to/ could take the baby back.
We knew that if we embraced open adoption, all of us would benefit. Our birth mom can see first hand how our baby
girl is growing up. She doesn’t have to
live with the pain of wondering how her baby is doing or if she is being taken
care of. Matt and I benefit because we
will be able to answer questions that will come up that we might not have known
if we didn’t get to know our daughter’s birth family. Since we are now a
transracial family, we also benefit from the knowledge they can share with us
on issues we didn’t previously have experience with. I don’t hesitate to ask
them anything I’m unsure of. Our daughter will benefit because she will grow up
knowing who she is, where she came from, and how many people she has that love
her.
One of our favorite parts about our open adoption is that we
have a relationship that stretches beyond the little girl that ties us
together. Similar to when someone joins
your family through marriage. We now
have a bigger family. We are committed
together and life involves more than just our daughter. Our conversations are about more than just
our daughter. She shares what she is
doing in her life with school, family, work etc. We share about our extended family is doing,
things related to our jobs, and things going on in our town etc. Because I am blessed to be able to stay home
with our daughter, I am often the one to see some of the “firsts”. Besides my husband of course, the first
person I want to share these things with is her birth mom. I remember when she took her first
steps. I was literally so excited to
send the video immediately to her because I knew how excited and proud of her
she would be!
The best part of all this openness? We are just a
family. We do things that families do together. We meet for
breakfast, lunches, dinners, we go roller-skating, to sporting events,
church, plays, parks, music concerts, shopping, etc.
Normal things. This feels normal. We love each other. I am
her mom and they are our family. Once while meeting our daughter’s birth
mom and grandma for breakfast I was filling up my drink and I heard someone
speaking to our birth mom. They were asking how old my daughter was (she was
following her around while they waited for me). As I heard her giving an
answer, I didn't even turn around to be part of the conversation. I didn’t
need to be. It was a normal question
that has nothing to do with adoption or who is her “mom”. Does my daughter look like she would be my
daughter? No. I'm white and her birth mom is black. Do I care
if these strangers thought they were speaking to her mother? Absolutely
not. It doesn't matter what strangers think of our situation. She is
perfectly capable of answering questions like this without me butting in to
help prove my "identity" or role in our open adoption.
Doing African American hair has been quite a good experience
for me. I was overwhelmed with the
thought of this so I have read and researched as much as I can. As soon as I try a new style, I usually send
a picture to her birth mom to get feedback.
She has always responded in ways that make me feel so good and tells me
often she is so proud of me and that I’m doing a great job. That has been one of the most rewarding
things for me to have her telling me I’m doing good. I always want my daughter to think she is
beautiful. Even though she looks different from the other 3 of us in her
family, I want her to be able to see the beauty she gets from her birth
family. Each year we have started the
tradition that the two of them will get pictures taken together around our
daughter’s birthday. I know it means a
lot for her birth mom to have a set of these pictures, and I hope my daughter
treasures these as she gets older and can see how she is growing into a
beautiful young woman like her birth mom.
I don’t have fear or stress about our relationship but I
know at first I was unsure of how to handle some situations. I can tell you that every time something came
up, I knew the answer from what we had learned at our training. However, I loved being able to call our
caseworker and ask her how to handle it or what to say in a particular
situation. I just needed reaffirmed a
few times. At first everyone wants to be
perfect and of course we wanted to make our birth mom happy. One example of this is when our daughter was
about 2 months old she asked me if we could pierce our daughter’s ears at 5
months of age because that was when her and her sister and her cousins got
their ears pierced. My husband and I had talked about this before and decided
that we didn’t want to do this until our daughter was old enough to decide for
herself. I felt like I hated to say no
because I didn’t want to upset her, but we were now in charge of those
decisions. I talked with our caseworker
and she reassured me that I don’t have to do everything she requests and that
we are her parents. I practiced my
answer in my head and actually never needed it because it was forgotten as
quickly as it came up. I called our
agency a handful of times during that first year of other similar examples and
holidays etc. and just got my little bit of reassurance on what to say or how
to navigate through certain situations. I was proud of myself for organizing
her first birthday party with all of our families together again and didn’t
need to call for any advice and sailed smoothly through it. It was so nice to have all sides of our
extended families together to celebrate this little girl.
Our adoption journey has definitely taken us through the
lowest of lows and highest of highs. It has brought us closer to our Heavenly
Father. I have never felt his love so
deep for us even though there were times of heartache along the way. He has had a plan for us all along like He
promised. I have found that by putting my trust in Him I have seen my faith
grow. He has taught me to love others,
even when they are hurting you, because we might be the only saving grace they
have. We went through a failed adoption
6 months before becoming parents to our precious baby girl. Nothing could have prepared us for that. We were completely heartbroken to have had a
wonderful 2 months of attending doctor’s appointments, lunches, dinners, and
being in the delivery room the day that beautiful angel was born. As hard as it was though, we couldn’t hate
her when she told us she was going to parent.
We knew that we had to show her grace that has been bestowed upon us
time and time again by our Father. We
thanked her for choosing us in the first place and told them they will always
be in our prayers as we said goodbye and walked out of the office with a little
bit of our hearts left behind that day.
Expecting moms and birth moms are making this decision with
all of their heart. I don’t think you could find one that took this decision
lightly. They have given this baby life and are giving this baby love. I’m asking you to return this love and love
big. You might not like everything they
have done or will do, but love them for who they are. There are many people (from strangers to our
own family members) who are often surprised at how much contact we have with
each other. They don’t seem to “get it”
on why would we want to have a relationship like this. I have always wondered if they think people
run out of love and that our child won’t be able to love us completely if they
also love their birth family. Open
adoption has blessed us in ways we never thought possible. We never intended to be on this path, and
wouldn’t trade one bit of it for a different chapter in our story.
See part 1 of the series here
See part 2 of the series here
See part 3 of the series here
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