Medius Aevum

Today is my birthday! I turned 35, thus joining the 35-54 year old demographic group. Next step: senior citizen-hood. This morning we took the kids out to brunch at our neighborhood diner and a walk by the river. Now I get to curl up with a cup of tea and a new book (reading in the middle of the day!) before dinner at my parents' house.

I've been remembering back to ten years ago a lot this week. Twenty-five was the closing year of a certain phase of my life in many ways. At 26 I would marry, move, return to grad school, and decide that what was looking to be a promising career just wasn't what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my working life. I was 26 when the symptoms of a chronic condition started making themselves apparent and when it began to sink in that fertility wasn't going to be a straight, easy road for me. Twenty-five belongs to my "before" in so very many respects. And although the promise of that "anything is possible" feeling which belonged to that time was so exhilarating, I like being on the other side of it, too.

If you had asked me at 25 what I thought my 35-year old self would be like, what my life would look like, I'm not sure what I would have said. I know it would have included Todd. Beyond that, who knew? But, my word, has it played out in lovely and wonderful ways. I may be one step removed from retirement in the eyes according to the great gods of demographics, but it sure feels to me like there is an enormous amount left to be played out. And maybe we'll all still be here at this blog to find out what my 45 will be like.

Open Adoption Roundtable #13

The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It's designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. You don't need to be part of the Open Adoption Bloggers list to participate, or even be in a traditional open adoption. If you're thinking about openness in adoption, you have a place at the table.

Publish your response during the next two weeks--linking back here so we can all find one other--and leave a link to your post in the comments. If you don't blog, you can always leave your thoughts directly in the comments.

Note from Heather: I'm happy to turn this round over to the wonderful Andy of Today's the Day!, whose compassionate insight I've welcomed over the years. Andy knows adoption from two perspectives: she is an adoptive mom to six-year old Liam and an adoptee who reunited with her first mother in adulthood. Today she has us thinking about what to do when perspectives clash in open adoption. It's a hard topic, isn't it? I know I often hear of loved ones disagreeing about how much openness is too much (or too little). If you've experienced this in your open adoption(s), I hope you'll participate, even if you don't feel like you have any answers yet. Sometimes just knowing other people have similar experiences can be encouragement enough.

***
Andy:

We often hear about open adoptions where the two sides don't want the same level of openness. First mothers who don't get updates as often as they would like, or not as many visits each year. Or adoptive parents who want to include their child's first mother in his life, but she is not ready.

But what we don't often discuss is when people on the same side of the triad can't agree on the level of openness in an adoption.

• It could be a wife who wants a fully open adoption but the husband only wants to send letters once a year.
• Or a first mother isn't ready for an open adoption but the first father wants to be part of the baby's life.
• Maybe a spouse isn't supportive of their partner entering into reunion with their first mother.
• Or a partner who came along after the adoption and isn't comfortable with your relationship with your placed child.
• And the classic Hallmark movie of the year scenario: Your mother-in-law is convinced that the baby will be snatched away from under your nose if you have an open adoption.

How would/do you navigate these situations? Does your current relationship impact the type of open adoption that you have? How does this affect your current relationship?

***


The Responses:

• Thanksgivingmom @ I Really Should be Working shares with us how Open Adoption affects her current relationships with people in her life who don't even know about the adoption yet.



• Andy @ Today's the Day explores how 2 people with different life experiences can come together as a couple when discussing Open Adoption.



• Tammy @ You Just Never Know Where Hope Might Take Ya discusses how having her and her husband on the same page with their Open Adoption has helped their extended families build relationships with their child's first family.



• Jess @ The Problem with Hope looks at how it can be difficult to explain Open Adoption to people who have no experience with it at all.



• Susie @ Endure for a Night talks about how placing her child for adoption" has effectively ended my relationship with that side of the family" and that her husband (who is also the child's first father) isn't always ready to look at pictures when they receive them



• KatjaMichelle @ Therapy is Expensive shares how she navigated open adoption with her child’s first father, both while they were still together, and after they broke up. She also examines how subsequent relationships have been affected by adoption.



• Rebeccah @ Chasing a Child is disputing the level openness with a twist… she is disputing with herself.



• Robyn @ Adoption.com’s Domestic Infant adoption blog feels like she is hiding the fact that her son is a big brother because her family isn’t understanding of Open Adoption



• Spyderkl @ Evil Mommy has had “less then enthusiastic {response} about sharing identifying information” from both family and social worker. Go read how she has navigated that and has an open adoption today.



• Ginger @ Shattered Glass and her current SO, who is also the children’s bio-father, have “polar opposite” feelings about how to handle open adoption.



• shannan @ Joe And Sha Blog writes a post about all the wonderful things that open adoption has given her, her children and the children’s first mothers. She shares these stories to help the people in her life understand that OA isn’t something to be afraid of.



• Maura @ Adoption Journey expresses her frustration of always having to educate people that Birthmother’s are not all plotting on how to steal the baby back just because they have an open adoption.



• A @ A+A Adopt a Baby has an amazing community of friends and family, that may not fully understand or agree with Open Adoption, but they respect A+A’s choices.

• Meghann @ Adoption.com's Open Adoption Blog shares how she invites discussion about open adoption, even with those who disagree, to help "the person understands this life we’ve chosen a little better."

• Anonadoptee @ The adopted Feminist was one of the children in the first legally binding open adoptions in the UK. Now as an adult, she offers invaluable wisdom and thought into how her open adoption ended up being all about the adults, and not about the children. She offers this great insight: "I guess the point of this post is make sure you know what your children want."

For This Season

I'm pretty sure I've written before about the idea of relationships as potted plants. (Yep.) It's a simple image and goes something like this: Potting a plant takes a bit of thought and fussing the beginning. You need to select the right size pot, think about the soil mix, find just the right sunny spot for it. As it grows, you need to supply its basic needs: water it regularly, fertilize it every now and then, watch for signs it might be faltering. But for the most part, you need to let it be. Give it time to grow and thrive. If you're constantly pulling it out of the pot to study its roots, the plant will eventually die.

A relationship is the same way. It needs regular care and attention, perhaps at times a little extra love or some pruning. But most of all it needs to be left in the pot to grow. Constantly uprooting it in the name of analysis can do more harm than good.

Sometimes you just need to leave the plant in the pot.

As I thought about the latest Open Adoption Roundtable prompt about commitments for 2010, the potted plant kept pushing its way to the front of my mind. Our relationships with the kids' four first parents are in four very different places right now. With some, we have a good basis of honesty and mutual respect. We enjoy our times together and--most importantly--the kids are developing familiar, good connections with them. With others, frankly the past year or so has brought a lot of confusion, disappointment and frustration.

I'm an analyzer and thinker. I'm driven to understand why things happen, why people make the decisions they do, what motivates the words they say and write. That's certainly been true for me in our open adoptions. But lately my gut has been telling me to quit peering at the roots so much. That doesn't mean going passive or pulling back. We'll continue to initiate and interact, continue to value their important place in our children's lives. But, for now, there won't be much root analysis. The relationships that are flourishing will get room and time to grow; we'll trust the roots are there. With the relationships that are struggling, I'll try to accept that I may never fully understand why--and that there seems to be precious little Todd and I can do to change what's happening.  Whatever is going for them (and myriad possibilities have spun fruitlessly through my mind), it seems to be something they need to work through on their own. It's a hard thing for me to face, partly because I know I'm imperfect and worry that I'm blind to some shortcoming of my own that's causing the relationships to stumble. But the hardest thing about it, by far, is witnessing how it affects the kid(s). I want protect them from the hurt, and I can't. I can't even offer an explanation.

Imperfect as Todd and I are, we really tried our best to give each of the relationships a good start, putting a lot of thought and energy into the pots and soil, so to speak. That's just our job as adoptive parents. Some seem to be sprouting up beautiful and strong and others are having a tougher time. But yanking out the plants again and again to examine the roots isn't going to help right now.  All we can do is continue to nurture them as best we can, and see what grows or doesn't.