Heather has once again asked a thoughtful question for the open adoption roundtable. And I opened her email in the middle of writing another post on adoption, but this one was much more appealing to answer. Thanks Heather! Here's the question...
Share your wish list for your open adoption(s).
Wish lists are scary things to me. At Christmas time, I still want to do what I used to do the few months before December 25, and that is thumb through the catalog (or now, internet sites!!!) dreaming of the possibilities, making my wish list. But I don't do it for many reasons. One is that in the end, I rarely get what I want, but truly and often something better. Sometimes not, but the fact is, when expectations are put into perspective, it makes life a little easier.
You see, I don't admit it to many people (ha!) but I'm quite a hopeful and optimistic person, expecting the good and great to always happen even when it seems impossible. That often leads to disappointment, but I refuse to bow to pessimism in order to protect myself. But maturity (or old age, call it what you want!) has forced me via a wide array of experiences to temper my idealism against the reality of what is. And that in the end, is not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all. The fact is, that it is much easier to survive with a hopeful spirit if it is in fact, mirrored with some measure of realism.
That means one thing in my relationships with my kids' other families...
I don't live with expectations of them anymore. I won't force and wish something on them they either aren't capable of being a part of at this time ~ namely a healthy, mutual relationship with the other family of their child ~ or that they don't want (which I refuse to believe but that's another post) regardless of what they have said or how they have acted at any time.
I will, however, live with expectancy. When I consider the future possibilities of what open adoption is and can be when all the families are invested and doing the hard work of the relationship that is open adoption, I can't give up on the dream, of living with hope and expectancy at some time down the road, we will be able to experience with our children the possibilities of living in a healthy relationship with their other families.
I realize this still may sound idealistic but really isn't that what a wish list encompasses? What is ideal. What would be a good thing for my children, for me, for our family, for our children's birth families.
My ideal wishlist includes...
1) Regular (as in not forced) communication via all the ways we communicate these days. I would love to get past what feels like "forced communication" where I struggle to know what to say to them in our quarterly (or as by request for Si's other mom... annual) letters. I would love not to have to go through developing a bunch of pictures just for the sake of sending them. But rather I'd love it if, when something cool or exciting happens in our lives, we'll just do a quick email to talk about it, to share life that way rather than trying to tell them what I think they might want to hear.
2) Regular and frequent visits that would give us time to really get to know each other and share life rather than just tread lightly and share a meal. I would love to spend a few days together at a time in order to build the relationships, and yes, to even experience the possible tension of a relationship that is growing to the next level. Just as in any relationship that is developing, when you have a "date" you put your best foot forward... and then when you get closer, you start digging into the areas of life that aren't as easy to see or talk about in the beginning.
3) Celebration time together that is meaningful. I would love to be a part of the good things in their life, and for them to be a part of the good things in ours. I would love to have them at birthday parties and to get together around the holidays.
But even more than these specific things that are at least the beginning of a health relationship, the only thing that is really on my wishlist is a healthy start, and then, one step at a time to get where we need to be, which is mostly centered on making sure my children have all the answers they want and need to have to know who they are as a complete person. I don't know what my kids will need... maybe they'll be okay with not knowing as much, I don't know... but I want to have every possible relationship available to help them know who they are, to fully understand themselves as people. That is really the only thing on my wishlist. Whatever that looks like!
I live in a real world of open adoption where they other families of my kids are right now, not capable of the relationships I wish for, or thought we would have.
So my realistic wish list is more like this...
1) I wish for the other mothers of my kids to find health and peace and joy in their lives.
2) I wish for them to find healthy relationships in their present life so they have the support to overcome all they have been through. For a long time, I have wished that I could be one of those people, but at this point, it isn't so.
3) I wish for my kids to understand with time that they come from beautiful people regardless of the struggles in their lives, struggles that led to their other moms choosing another family for them, and that they will know that even though things might not be as I wish, they are worth all the effort we've put into trying to make it so.
And even in and among all this wishing there is a glimmer of hope...
this weekend we anticipate a visit from
Shari, Bug's sister and her mom Coley!!! This is definitely a dream come true!!! In all the frustration and struggle to keep things open with Bug and Si's other families, this Shari and Coley have become a part of our family in the "idealistic" sense of my wishlist. Coley and I talk via email several times a week. She and I rely on each other to work through some of the hard stuff going on... it's a shared experience, parenting our daughters who are sisters, that no one else shares. And we dream together too, about the possibilities of what might happen if our daughter's birth family finds healing and what the future might be like.
Shari is excited about a sleepover with her sister Bug, and I'm excited to have another mom who loves our girls as much as I love these two girls, and to dream in person. And to chat, and walk, and talk... and well, go to that deeper. I admit to have a hard time believing this will really happen, but I am certain when their RV pulls into our yard, it will all be real, and I can hardly wait!!!
So there. I can wish, and sometimes wishes do come true even if they look different than I thought they would look. I wish that this time together could include ~K~ (Bug and Shari's first mom) and ~A~, their big sister, but maybe...maybe...wishing and hoping it will maybe, someday happen for all of us. Still hoping in all of this... because you just never know!!
