Production, Not Reproduction

Set the DVR

2010-08-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

Beginning tomorrow evening, the PBS series POV is airing three documentaries looking at transracial/transcultural/transnational adoption. I'm tuning in!

I had the chance to preview Off and Running (which airs next week) this past winter and definitely recommend it. Not just to those involved in transracial adoptions, but anyone thinking about the complicated topic of identity formation (which should be all adoptive parents!).

I've read mixed reviews of Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy, so it will be interesting to watch it for myself. The full slate is (synopses from the POV website):

Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy (8/31)

What is it like to be torn from your Chinese foster family, put on a plane with strangers and wake up in a new country, family and culture? Stephanie Wang-Breal’s Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy is the story of Fang Sui Yong, an 8-year-old orphan, and the Sadowskys, the Long Island Jewish family that travels to China to adopt her. Sui Yong is one of 70,000 Chinese children now being raised in the United States. Through her eyes, we witness her struggle with a new identity as she transforms from a timid child into someone that no one — neither her new family nor she — could have imagined.

Off and Running (9/7)

Off and Running tells the story of Brooklyn teenager Avery, a track star with a bright future. She is the adopted African-American child of white Jewish lesbians. Her older brother is black and Puerto Rican and her younger brother is Korean. Though it may not look typical, Avery’s household is like most American homes — until Avery writes to her birth mother and the response throws her into crisis. She struggles over her “true” identity, the circumstances of her adoption and her estrangement from black culture. Just when it seems as if her life is unraveling, Avery decides to pick up the pieces and make sense of her identity, with inspiring results.

In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee (9/14)

Her passport said she was Cha Jung Hee. She knew she was not. So began a 40-year deception for a Korean adoptee who came to the United States in 1966. Told to keep her true identity secret from her new American family, the 8-year-old girl quickly forgot she had ever been anyone else. But why had her identity been switched? And who was the real Cha Jung Hee? In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee is the search to find the answers, as acclaimed filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem returns to her native Korea to find her “double,” the mysterious girl whose place she took in America.

You can also watch them online for a limited time, using the show links above. Off and Running is now on Netflix, too. Are you planning on watching any or all of them? Do adoption documentaries interest you?

Our Time With Kelly

2010-08-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

We spent the afternoon of our last day in L.A. with Kelly, meeting up at a park with an interactive water feature where the kids could cool off and be entertained. We ended our time by eating dinner together on the grass (the kids and Kelly chose McDonald's; Todd and I ate the fast food of the gods).

Puppy was comfortable around Kelly, despite not having seen her or really heard from her for over a year. He smiled and went right up to hug her legs when we first arrived. Earlier in the day he had come up with some questions he wanted to ask his first dad ("What was your favorite thing when you were four? What did you do for your fifth birthday?") and later in the afternoon he posed them to Kelly, too. He looked at pictures of his younger sister (Kelly's daughter) and declared them funny. Everyone says Puppy looks a lot like Ray--which he does--but Puppy and sister-baby really look alike.

Kelly spent a whole lot of time tapping on her phone, often a ways away from where Puppy was playing. I freely admit to some very minor meddling this time to encourage interaction. Just small things: Puppy would ask me to push him on the swings and I'd suggest that Kelly push him instead, for instance.

A few hours together every year or so is hardly the stuff of a close relationship between Puppy and his first mom. I have no illusions about that. We're hampered by living in different states, of course. But there are ways the connection could continue to grow between our trips down south, yet for the most part our attempts to communicate by email, phone, and post go unacknowledged. Talk of visits up our way doesn't materialize into actual plans. This is all Kelly seems to be able or willing to offer to Puppy right now. So we do what we can to maintain an atmosphere of openness and see what grows.

Picture Password

2010-08-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to share the picture password with all and sundry. But I have to have a way to send it to you! If you don't have a Blogger profile with an email address, please email me with your password request instead of leaving it as a comment. Thanks!

This Is What Open Adoption Looks Like

2010-08-24T03:48:00.000-07:00

Click below to see photos of the kids ~~being forced into visits before they're old enough to decide for themselves~~ enjoying time with ~~birth~~ family members

Enter password to view pictures

Out of Office

2010-08-20T09:35:00.000-07:00

Still on the road! Only have internet access in brief spurts! My kingdom for a smartphone! Lots to share when we arrive home!

Opadoptapalooza

2010-08-14T02:58:00.000-07:00

Methinks the Adoption: Visits label is about to see a lot of use.

I've had a business trip down to Los Angeles later this month scheduled for ages. A couple of weeks ago we decided to turn it into a quick road trip with Todd and the kids, setting off a flurry of planning and packing. The three of them will get to spend a few days with Todd's parents in L.A. while I am off at a work retreat. And then Puppy will lead us all on a pilgrimage to Legoland.

Since both kids have birth family in California, it's also turned into Open Adoption Tour 2010. An Opadoptapalooza, if you prefer.

We're going to see Ray, Puppy's first dad, who last visited a year ago. I can't wait. It's always such a joy to see him in person, and to see Puppy and him together. It looks like we'll taking on the zoo together. If it didn't mean missing out on our chance to catch up as adults, I'd just plant myself in the shade with an iced tea and let Ray--with all his youthful energy*--take Puppy around in the melting heat to see the animals.

We'll also get together with Kelly, his first mom, who we last saw at Christmas 2008. I'm bummed that Puppy won't get time with his younger sister (who doesn't live with Kelly right now), but happy that Puppy won't have gone two years without seeing Kelly. She seems to have had a harder time being an active part of Puppy's life since her daughter was born. He's definitely been aware of the shift. But we've kept up with the occasional phone call, pictures, emails and such on our end, even when they mostly went unanswered. That whole relationship is somewhat of a mystery to me right now, honestly.

And we reached out to one of Firefly's grandmothers, Kevin's mom, who lives at the midway point on our trip. She's still unconvinced of a number of things, including the idea that we're not on opposing teams in this open adoption. She's never met Firefly, much less us. I can't say my thought process went much further than, "We're driving through That City, we should try to meet her." But there is definitely a part of me that hopes being together face-to-face will take the tension down a few notches. I often say to people that open adoption seems strange when you're on the outside looking in, but makes a lot of sense when you're in the middle of it. I think she is still in the position of feeling like she's looking in from the outside in many ways. Hopefully this will be a step toward changing that.

And! We get to spend some time with the fabulous, insightful Luna on our drive down! I think I'm going to come away 30% more grounded and compassionate just by being in her presence.

Stay tuned...

* He's actually not even a decade younger than Todd and I. But I've been feeling old lately!

On Vacation

2010-08-10T03:25:00.000-07:00

I spend the late afternoon in the corner of a couch, book in my hand, a sleeping Puppy tucked under my arm. He leans into my side, cozy under his blankie. When I gently extract myself to take care of something in the kitchen he stirs just enough to murmur, "Mama, please snuggle more."

In that dreamy, hazy sideways light that arrives at twilight, I chase a giggling Firefly down the beach. She laughs each time I catch her, her tiny legs moving furiously, so light that she leaves just the slightest hint of footprints in the sand. As the sun sets we climb the steep sandy hill toward home, the little girl proudly determined to walk to the top on her own.

Love is an everflowing gratefulness for moments you know you did nothing to deserve.

A Saturday List

2010-08-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

Thirteen things I didn't know ten years ago:

That $160,000 Los Angeles bungalow was actually a steal.
The crusts aren't any more nutritious than the rest of the bread. (Oh, the lies my mother told me!)
There are worse things than being overweight.
I'd never grow out of my inner slob.
Changing diapers isn't that big of a deal. You do it so much you just stop thinking about it.
Brushing kids' teeth, on the other hand, is a remarkably annoying chore.
It's easier to brush a resisting child's teeth if you make them laugh.
It would turn out that I wouldn't be my children's only mother.
That wouldn't make my experience of family any less meaningful.
The strongest memories often come from the smallest, quietest moments.
Few things suck the joy out of life faster than giving into envy.
The internet--at that point just a source of information, email and mid-workday diversions--would also be a place where I would find real friends.
Blogging isn't just for writers.

Open Adoption Roundtable #18

2010-07-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

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. The prompts are meant to be starting points--feel free to adapt or expand on them.

Publish your response--linking back here so your readers can browse other participating blogs--and leave a link to your post in the comments. Using a previously published post is perfectly fine; I'd appreciate it if you'd add a link back to the roundtable. If you don't blog, you can always leave your thoughts directly in the comments.

A quick note before we dig in: you can follow @OpenAdoptBlogs on Twitter to find out when new roundtable prompts go up. You can also browse all of the old roundtable prompts on this handy page.

I try to find prompts that are broad enough for the whole adoption constellation to participate. I'm afraid this one is very parent (first and adoptive) focused. As always, please feel free to adapt it to fit your own experience if you're in a different role.

We each interacted with at least one professional during the adoption process (agency, lawyer, facilitator, consultant, hospital social worker, etc.). What was one thing that they did that was most supportive of open adoption? What one thing was least supportive?

***

The responses:

Ginger (first mom) at Shattered Glass recalls a counselor who helpfully encouraged her to be direct about her fears with her daughter's adoptive parents, but was inflexible about what she thought Ginger should need post-placement.

Jenni (first mom) of Confessions of a Mean Girl Turned Mommy contrasts one agency's pushy approach with another who gave her space to develop a relationship with her daughter's adoptive family at her own pace.

Sustainable Families (first mom and adoptee) at Austin Holistic Parenting On a Dime shares how an agency failed to show her the support she most needed in her moment of crisis, offering adoption as the only solution.

Barely Sane (adoptive mom) at Infertility Licks remembers a birth mother panel that was instrumental in their acceptance of openness and a lawyer who told them outright to lie about their open adoption commitments.

Cindy psbm (first mom) says she found an agency worker who listened to her and tried to understand what she wanted, but didn't encourage her to look at many prospective adoptive families and failed to offer post-adoption counseling.

Dr Spouse (prospective adoptive mom) at Who Am I shares how social workers in the UK have been surprised by their embrace of openness and asks for help figuring out how to talk about openness in their profile.

Elly (adoptive mom) says an adoption counselor helped them understand that open adoption is about doing best by the child and notes the differences in the how the two agencies they worked with addressed openness.

Rachel (adoptive mom) of Henry Street appreciated the many ways their Massachusetts adoption agency supported openness, but was frustrated by the Florida attorney who showed no respect for placing parents and refused to set up anything more than annual semi-open communication.

Skyderkl (adoptive mom) at Evil Mommy credits their agency with encouraging her to see things from the expectant parents' perspective, but wishes they had stopped cautioning them against anything more than a semi-open adoption.

Jenna (first mom) at The Chronicles of Munchkin Land tells how a national law network center did nothing to encourage openness or prepare or her daughter's adoptive parents for the legal or emotional realities of open adoption, leaving her to have to seek out a supportive therapist on her own.

HerOtherMother (first mom and adoptee) at Quietly Mothering recalls that, while the agency did educate her daughter's prospective parents about open adoption, there was a total lack of information and support for her.

Rachel (first mom) at The Great Wide Open says that not a single professional that she encountered was not helpful, from the midwives to the agency workers.

Sara (adoptive mom) at Unofficial Mom says they encountered nothing more negative than mild surprise over how open the adoption was.

I am (first dad) at Statistically Impossible recalls a pregnancy counseling center worker who was only interested in her own agenda and an agency social worker who seemed to do everything right.

Lavonne (adoptive mom) at Eyes Wide Open: "Both of our agencies knew that we were very open and willing to be involved in a fully open adoption. Yet, each in their own way questioned us and our motives".

KatjaMichelle (first mom) at Therapy Is Expensive: "I suppose the most supportive act was the facilitator allowing me to fill out a preference form…and the least supportive thing would have to be letting that form be the only word on openness I got (that I remember)."

Thanksgivingmom (first mom) at I Should Really Be Working: "During the course of Cupcake’s adoption, I really only dealt with two professionals: the hospital social worker and the agency social worker. Though I didn’t necessarily recognize it at the time, looking back it felt like one should have been wearing a 'Team TG' shirt, and the other a 'Team Dee.'"

Robyn C (adoptive mom) at Adoption.com contrasts the respect a lawyer showed for everyone involved with a faciliator's lack of tact and compassion.

Amy (prospective adoptive parent) at Beanie Baby Blog realized not all agencies were as professional and caring as theirs when they had a negative experience with one representing an expectant couple.

Susiebook (first mom) at Endure for a Night: "[P]robably the worst thing that the agency professionals did was encourage Ruth and Nora not to file our open adoption agreement with the state. That would have meant that while all along I was being told that I would have a legally enforceable open adoption agreement, that wouldn’t actually have been the case."

Deathstar (adoptive mom) of A Woman My Age: "What I really needed was just to have someone to help me deal with my emotions, my fears, my doubts."

Assorted Things Internet

2010-07-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

Did you know I have a veggie blog? Because I totally have a veggie blog. Not just vegetables--it's more of a seasonal produce/recipe sort of thing. Feel free to come tell me what to do with the overwhelming contents of our weekly produce box!
Thanks to the very helpful Alyssa, our Open Adoption Bloggers list/roundtable will soon have a Facebook presence. Apparently some people (you know who you are) prefer to do all their talking over there instead of on a blog, so I'm caving. We need your help before it can go live, though. This Facebook group needs a name. Part of the point of setting up shop over there is to bring non-bloggers into the conversation, so the name Open Adoption Bloggers doesn't fit. But what to call it instead? It's important to me that it be broad enough include a wide variety of experiences (so nothing like "We Love Open Adoption"). Any ideas?
The Open Adoption Bloggers list has a shiny new web address! Click on OpenAdoptionBloggers.com and see what happens...don't we seem official now? The old (looooooong) address exists, too, so if you have a button on your blog it still works. But now we have something easy to pass on to anyone who wants to check it out.
I've also gathered the open adoption roundtable prompts and links to the responses on one page. Hopefully it will be an easy way to browse through the different topics we've discussed in our seventeen rounds.

Don't forget to help us brainstorm a Facebook group name in the comments...

Seven Links

2010-07-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

Via Carolyn comes a fun Friday timewaster: The 7 Link Challenge. It's harder than it looks!

1) Your first post: Like Mother, Like Daughter
This is from 2005! Puppy was a mere two months old. Don't be fooled into thinking I've been blogging since then, though. I didn't really start in earnest until 2007. Five years ago, the blog was called Unproductive Reproduction and I thought I would have a lot to say about (in)fertility. Turns out, not so much. Then I discovered I could prattle on for quite awhile about adoption (and actually needed to get some things out to stay sane). Production, Not Reproduction was born.

2) A post you enjoyed writing the most: 25 Things I Said Today
I wavered between most fun and most cathartic. Fun won. (Oh, look at that. I snuck in an eighth link. One of my all-time favorite posts.)

3) A post which had a great discussion: My T-shirt Today is a Solid Grey
Commenters building on one another, folks offering opposing viewpoints. Good times.

4) A post on someone else's blog that you wish you'd written: Before Sleep at Journey Mama
"I sit and think about small regrettable things."

5) Your most helpful post: Supporting Family Members Who Are Adopting
Self-explanatory, yes? I'm curious what post all of you would have answered is post most helpful.

6) A post with a title of which you are proud: Doing Some Unpacking
Not that the title itself is anything to write home about. (I very much dislike thinking up post titles. Ugh.) But it captures exactly what I was doing in that post: beginning to tease apart my privilege as a non-adopted person, in order to be a better adoptive parent. I don't know if proud is quite the right word, but that post means something to me.

7) A post that you wish more people had read: What's Your Damage?
Pretty much anything from 2007? Go read the archives! I have a soft spot for that particular bit, though.

Different Perspectives

2010-07-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

Beth's new apartment is decorated in a style she and I affectionately dubbed Firefly Shrine. Pictures of Firefly are everywhere you turn and there is a small bookshelf filled with framed photos and mementos. Personally, I can't understand why anyone wouldn't want to surround themselves the faces of either of my fantastic children. (I may be a wee bit biased.)

Firefly typically takes a long time to warm up in unfamiliar places. But she settled in on Sunday in no time at all, kicking off one shoe, climbing up and down the couch, and testing how far her demands for crackers would get her. I wouldn't be surprised if all the photos that she very seriously observed when we first toured the apartment played a part in her comfort level. What better way to win over a two-year old than to surround them with themselves?

It's been interesting to observe the differences in how Firefly and Puppy organize their thinking about adoption and family. At their tender ages they are both still very much concrete thinkers, of course. But by the age Firefly is now, Puppy had a definite, strong sense of Ray and Kelly as his people (and Beth as Firefly's). He already paired Kelly and Ray with each other in his mind, even though we interacted with them separately. And he paired them with himself, talking about my dad, my birth mom, my Ray. Firefly's birth and adoption, in particular, marked some steps ahead in his adoption processing when he was just two.

Firefly, on the other hand, is hyper-focused on the people who live with her. We are her world at the moment. Her favorite person is her brother; she always needs to know where he is and what he's doing. While she talks about other key people in our life, if she views them as connected to her in any special way she hasn't articulated it yet. I've yet to hear her talk about adoption or use any adoption language. And she doesn't display the sort of regard for Beth that Puppy shows his birth parents. (I know that has been hard for Beth, as much as she understands that every child is different.)

All that to say that when Beth asked Firefly at the end of they day if she liked visiting the apartment, she just sleepily said that there should be some pictures of her brother, too.

At the Intersection of Transracial and Open Adoption

2010-07-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

We'd been saying that we needed to get together again with Beth, Firefly's first mom, for ages. This past Saturday we finally all said let's just do it already. And so on Sunday we did.

This recession has been the proverbial wolf at Beth's door. It has been an incredibly hard year for her, especially the past several months, and while we've stayed connected by phone she hasn't always felt up to seeing Firefly in person. So while there was nothing particularly significant about our day together, it felt significant in a way to know that enough good has re-entered her life that she felt eager and able to meet up.

Beth brought up the question of a younger sibling for Firefly, which sent us sent us tumbling through a whole conversation about transracial adoption. It's a topic we visit a lot: the ethics of transracial adoption in our particular locale, the racism of so many race-based adoption programs, her own life experience. Beth was herself adopted by white parents, growing up here in the Northwest after being born in the South. (Beth identifies as biracial; Firefly's birth dad is African-American.) She is the youngest in her family, adopted so that her sister wouldn't be the only brown face in the family. (They also have two white, non-adopted brothers.) Her parents embraced colorblind parenting with a passion, something her stepfather once talked to us about with a certain amount of regret. She shares often about some of her anger and sadness about how her childhood unfolded.

Beth keeps us honest in our transracial parenting and I love her for that. If ever we're tempted to slip on the rose-colored glasses, even just for a spell, I know she would be there with a seemingly casual observation or a telling anecdote. We were talking about some pictures from Firefly's birthday, a party attended by three white, blue-eyed two-year olds. "That was one blond party," she observed with a laugh and a raised brow. "I know, I know," I groaned, biting back the excuses my mind immediately wanted to toss out. (I'm biting them back now!) "The next one will look much different, I promise."

Becoming a mother to a Black child has changed her, too. (I've heard her talk about this with people she just met, so I think it's okay for me to share it here.) She loves her daughter unconditionally, sees beauty in every inch of her. And over the past two years she's begun to turn that love back on herself. For the first time in her life, she says, she's embracing the curl in her hair and the hue of her skin. I overheard her telling Firefly at lunch, as she held her tanned arm up to hers, "Look, our arms are the same brown color in the summer! I used to try to wash this off when I was little because I wanted to be white like my family. But we're such a pretty color."

I'm humbled that Beth has been chosen to open herself up to us like she has; she's under no obligation to be a resource to us, after all. And I'm grateful that she's committed to being there for Firefly, too, as she grows. There is nothing tidy or simple or even commendable about the choices the three of us have made, and continue to make every day, on Firefly's behalf. But if Firefly is ever able to consider Todd and me as allies as she grows (when she's not rolling her teenage eyes at the whole lot of us, of course), she'll have Beth to thank in part for that.

Wordless(ish) Wednesday

2010-07-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

The photo quality is terrible ~~and I'll password protect this tomorrow~~, but I couldn't resist sharing Puppy's absolute joy at the fireworks show Sunday night. Oh, to be four years old again.

Enter password to view pictures

Of Bananas Past and Present

2010-07-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

Puppy and I made chocolate covered frozen bananas for the first time yesterday during Firefly's nap. He took the initiative to cover his with sprinkles of many colors. When I gave Firefly hers after dinner was finished, she eyed it warily for quite some time, then turned it horizontally and nibbled at it like an ear of corn.

I went to college a thousand miles from where I grew up. Same time zone, but far enough to experience a different part of the country. After my first year I stayed at school for most of the summer with some of my friends and worked in an office on campus instead of going home. I was glad I stayed, but also missed the familiar summers of home, a little homesick for the quiet shade on my parents' patio, my mom's cooking, and, I suppose, for childhood in general.

The campus was very different in those hot, hot months. Empty and subdued. There were no classes; the students on campus were either working or doing research. Nothing was ever crowded. Walking into the uncrowded dining hall one day I spotted a small suggestions box on the wall I had never noticed before. It looked little used and a tad incongruous; the kitchen rarely strayed from a fairly set rotation of dishes in its quest to feed a couple thousand folks three times a day. But figuring I had nothing to lose, I fished out a pen and scribbled a request. If it is possible, could we please have frozen chocolate covered bananas? I had loved them since I was very small and hardly ever got to eat them; they reminded me of Disneyland and the state fair, sundresses and lazy days. They were the quintessential summer treat to me.

The next day--the very next day--I walked into the dining hall and there they were. Frozen chocolate covered bananas. In my memory, they are laying out on the line on a tray in tidy rows, but that can't be right. They must have been in the creaky chest freezer that we passed on our way out the door, tucked in next to the paletas and push-up pops. Clearly made there in the kitchen and slipped into wax paper envelopes, not purchased from a supplier. I remember turning to my friends with a gasp, saying, "These are for me! They made these for me!"

I was surprised at the time by how moved I was by those bananas, what an emotional impact they made on me. Some real person had read my scrap of paper and taken the time to make them. I am sure they didn't know that it would make me feel rooted in a way I hadn't felt in months. That I would remember these bananas, those silly little bananas, sixteen summers later when so much else from that time has been forgotten.

As Puppy and I made a chocolate mess yesterday afternoon I was thinking (clumsy Carrie Bradshaw segue alert!) back to that moment in the dining hall and how much it meant to feel noticed and heard. The fact that it was for something so seemingly inconsequential was what made it meaningful, I think. We expect people to respond what we say something important or do something significant. But the small things, the mundane things seem less worthy of sharing or noticing. People sometimes mock personal blogs and general social media for feeding on life's minutiae. But I think they're wrong. I write about my inappropriate feelings for my books or my love of frozen bananas and perhaps some of you respond, "Me, too!" and I smile. And maybe several weeks later a friend tweets to say, "Saw frozen chocolate covered bananas today and thought of @hedra" and I smile again. Does any of it need to be said? Not really. But those tiny sensations of being heard, the wee threads it creates between us each time are real. And I think it makes the serious things we say to each other in between the frippery all the more meaningful.

Open Adoption Roundtable #17

2010-06-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

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. The prompts are meant to be starting points--feel free to adapt or expand on them.

Publish your response during the next two weeks--linking back here so your readers can browse other participating blogs--and leave a link to your post in the comments. Using a previously published post is perfectly fine; I'd appreciate it if you'd add a link back to the roundtable. If you don't blog, you can always leave your thoughts directly in the comments.

From Heather:
The prompt and response roundup for this roundtable are from the fabulous Susiebook! She writes about open adoption, pregnancy after placement, and being a first mom to her one-year old son at Endure for a Night. If you're not reading her thoughtful, honest (and well written) blog already, I definitely recommend it.

We realize the prompt--about the things we hope never to share/never to hear in our open adoptions--might be a little awkward if you don't blog anonymously. We hope you'll still join in. You could write about something you thought you didn't want to share/have shared that ended up being said, and what that experience was like. Or you could leave an answer in the comments section here. (Please use the "Name/URL" option to comment--you can leave the URL box blank--so we don't have multiple Anonymous-es.)

From Susiebook:
Are there any things that you don’t want the other members of your triad to know—or that you don’t want to know about them? I’ve heard first mothers talk about not sharing their birth stories with adoptive parents because those are for the adoptees and for themselves only. I've also heard of adoptees concealing their reunions from adoptive parents so as not to cause them pain. What don’t you want shared in your adoptive relationships?

***

The responses:

Dawn (adoptive mother) at This Woman's Work: "I have no desire to define Pennie’s adoption experience, ok? I said that and I mean that. But I do desire that Pennie know that she is one rocking woman and a fabulous mother and a survivor (not a victim) of her circumstances.... I also want her to know that regardless of how she feels about her surrender of Madison and my adoption of Madison that there are still things that were wrong."

Brandy (first mother and adopted adult) at Our Life in the Desert: "I guess, the basic answer is that I don’t talk about the bad stuff – or stuff that could be confused as bad. I find I’m not often honest about my feelings related to certain topics, like never getting pictures…"

JNBJourney (adoptive mother) at Our Story: "So far, we have been very reserved as our relationship is starting. I truly pray that as time passes, we will continue to grow our relationship and that we never encounter something we feel we need to not share with Dom’s BPs."

Cindy.psbm (first mother): "Anyways, the thing I currently wouldn't want my sons adoptive parents to really really know about would be that I do share some pictures of him on a private forum(for first/birthmoms only)and that I share about my frustrations about them there as well."

Jess (adoptive mother) at The Problem With Hope: "We share pretty much everything from our end...we've been honest with how I GOT pregnant (IVF) and why we were pursing both (cause we wanted both!) and we see them often enough that they know how we parent and what goes on around here."

I am (first father) at Statistically Impossible: "I don't want the other triad members to know how the adoption plan and current adoption relationship effected the relationships I have with my immediate family."

Andy (adopted adult and adoptive mother) at Today's the Day!: "For me the very first obvious thing that came to mind was coming out to Iris, my first mother. We had not been in 'reunion' very long, she had been very hesitant to have any contact with me at all and I wasn't sure how she would take to finding out that the little baby she placed for adoption had grown up to be a lesbian."

Spyderkl (adoptive mother) at Evil Mommy: "School Girl’s life before she met us is really none of my business. It sounds a little callous, and it’s a hard thing for me to say, but it’s not my story. It’s School Girl’s, and I hope she gets to hear it when she can truly understand and appreciate that story. All of it, from the day she was born to the day she was placed with us. But as her parent, it’s none of my business. I really don’t need to know."

Rredhead (adoptive mother) at Adoption.com: "There are things we don’t tell Jack. We will someday, when it’s age-appropriate, but he doesn’t know them now. I won’t tell anyone else before I tell Jack, so you don’t get to know either. These are things like why his birth father didn’t meet him – he knows that K didn’t meet him, but doesn’t know why that is."

Alyssa (adoptive mother) at A+A Adopt a Baby: "But there is a part of my story that sometimes I wish I could hide, and feel quite private about. It is the part where we sought medical help to get pregnant. I don't like to think about those experiences very much, and I struggle with feelings of regret that we even went there."

DrSpouse (prospective adoptive parent) at What Am I?: "We don't have our adoption yet but one of the things I've thought about a lot is how much to share with future children about our miscarriages. And if we have an open relationship with our child's biological parent(s) then this is something we'll need to share, or decide not to/how much to share with them. "

Thanksgivingmom (first mother) at I Should Really Be Working: "I suppose that I don’t really share any of the ugly parts with Dee. How hard it can be leading up to a visit, after a visit, in general. I do this not because I choose to keep that side from her, but more because I’ve taken her hints that she’s not into hearing about that."

Susiebook (first mother) at Endure for a Night: "Originally I planned to say that I don’t want Ruth and Nora to know that I regret placing Cricket, but I’m not actually sure that that’s true. I don’t want them to know if they don’t want to know, but I do kind of want them to know—more than that, I want them to want to know."

Sara (adoptive mother) at Unofficial Mom: "There aren't things I purposely hide from my daughter's birthparents. There are things, however, that I don't feel compelled to share."

Deathstar44 (adoptive mother) at A Woman My Age: "I’m not proud of the fact that we check out K’s birthmom’s social page from time to time to see how she’s doing; or more accurately, to find out if she’s told us one thing and she’s doing something completely different. Mind you, there’s a reason for the distrust."

Sarah Buttenwieser (adoptive mother) at Standing in the Shadows: "I don’t want to compromise the love and trust we share. At the same time, I want to put this idea into the world: that adoption comes with inherent challenges and inexorable sadness and huge gifts. I can’t do that without sharing the why of believing all this to be true."

Ginger (first mother) at Shattered Glass: "You can’t unbreak an egg. And so I’ve reaffirmed for myself why I should keep secrets secret. Keep my inner thoughts to myself. Here on the blog, it will do no harm. In the safety of the counselor’s office, I can feel free to say what’s on my mind, even if it’s jumbled. Beyond that, I should keep my big mouth shut. It’s safer."

Jenna (first mother) at The Chronicles of Munchkin Land: "But really, I’m otherwise an open book. My daughter’s mom knows things about me that most people do not. I trust her with my firstborn; surely I can trust her with my inner most secrets."

The Kidlets

2010-06-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

Some recent pictures of the kids, who are growing like weeds. Same password as always. My email has been a little wonky lately, so if you asked for the password and it seemed like I never responded it wasn't because I was shunning you. That actually goes for any email to me.

Enjoy!

Enter password to view pictures

Patrēs

2010-06-21T01:42:00.000-07:00

Going about the day--making pies, washing dishes, fixing hair--on Sunday, I kept thinking about the fathers in my family.

I thought about a great-grandfather run out of town by two steely great-great aunts after my great-grandmother's death, never to be heard from again. And about my maternal grandfather, the one who by age four had lost his both his parents, one to death and the other to the efforts of the steely sisters. A special needs parent before the term existed, he doted on my uncle with tenderness and pride, giving him as much of the world as he could in what ended up being a too brief life. When taking my uncle's casket to the family plot, the family story goes, he couldn't bring himself to travel in the same train car as his body, so devastated was he by what he had lost and what he still had to do.

I thought of my paternal grandfather, a man so selfish and distant that his son--my dad--would decide he never wanted children, for fear of that he would be like him. And of my own father, who when faced with an unplanned baby (wee me), wrestled those fears to the ground and became a loving, devoted dad. He was in grad school when I was born and spent many, many hours with me snuggled up against his chest in a baby carrier while he studied. When I woke crying in the middle of the night as an infant, it was my dad who would come cradle me his arms, taking me back to my mother so I could nurse.

I thought about the blank space on Firefly's first birth certificate where Kevin's name should be. Remembering Beth interrupting the hospital social worker briskly moving through form to say no, wait, I want to add her father's name. I thought of how incredibly strong she was in that moment, the culmination of so many months with her counselor working through Kevin's very real wrongs against her until she came to a place in which she could ask to give his name the same standing as her own: I want his name there for my daughter's sake. I remember how swiftly the social worker snatched that bravery from her: Are you two married? Is he here to sign? There's nothing I can do. The law is very clear. Men need to be protected, because women could lie.

I thought about Puppy's first dad and the love Puppy has for him. About how he has had to stand up against all the people who think that his consenting to the adoption automatically puts him in the category of men who bolt from responsibility. What ignorance that is, how utterly blind to the commitment Ray has made to staying part of Puppy's life no matter how hard it can be for him at times. I wish they could see the two of the together and the easy way they have with each other, the pride Puppy has for "my Ray," as he often calls him.

I wrote something this year that ended up in a magazine (I'm still shocked), something I started thinking about a year ago today. It was about Ray, Puppy's first father, and the love I see in him for his son and how that love grounds Puppy in a deep, real way. If I never publish anything again (which, let's face it, is likely) I am proud that was the thing that I put into the world. Something that said that birth dads need a seat at the table in open adoption, because adoption is about them, too, and because their presence offers something unique and vital to their children. Fathers are important to us and influence us, both in the ways they are present and the ways they are not. And I bet the reasons they are absent are often more complicated than we expect.

Book Club: Lifegivers

2010-06-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

Book club time again, this time organized by Lori! This time around I read Lifegivers: Framing the Birthparent Experience in Open Adoption by longtime social worker and open adoption advocate James Gritter. I've found him to be one of the best at giving a basic philosophy of open adoption. Although he and I differ on some points, I've appreciated his insistence on child-centeredness and the high standards he sets for all of us--adoptive parents, first parents and adoption workers--who bring these adoptions into being. (I picked up his newest adoption book recently and I'm really looking forward to talking about it with you all.)

Lifegivers was aimed at adoption professionals, to help them reframe first parents in their adoption practice and bring them out of the margins of adoptions into a center shared with their children and their children's adoptive parents. Gritter dismantles the unfair concepts of birth parents as The Other, whether that Other is undeserving sinner, unapproachable saint, little more than a baby-maker, or dysfunctional person to be kept at arm's length (or further) from adoptive families. He shares what he's heard from years of listening to birth parents talk about their ambivalence, grief and regret and how those intersect with their open adoptions and ebb and flow over time. Finally, he offers up an ideal model of how birth parents can be affirmed and respected as an ongoing part of their children's lives.

Speaking as an adoptive parent, I think it's a worthwhile read. The chapter on creating an adoption process that values expectant parents as equal participants would especially be good for prospective adoptive parents (and expectant parents!) to read while in the agency/facilitator research phase.

I have a few questions to answer that were posed by other book club participants:

Gritter carefully describes many negative stereotypes about birthparents. What implicit expectations or pressures do these stereotypes place on adoptive parents? (For example, if birthparents are perceived as "heartless," then must adoptive parents be cast as "heroes"?)

There have been some pressures (mostly self-created) that I've felt to varying degrees over the years:

Reluctance to share with friends if I'm going through a time of feeling less connected to one of my children or frustrated in my parenting, lest it feed into the myths of adoptive families not forming real bonds.
Self-pressure to be an exemplary parent, especially in areas I know are important to the kids' first parents. For instance--and this is an intentionally ludicrous example--if one of their birth parents placed them in part to keep them away from canned soup, then I kick myself every time I am tired and lazy and open up a can of soup for lunch. There's a little voice in my head that says, "I'm supposed to be the one who doesn't serve canned soup!"
An unspoken pressure for my marriage to be rock solid, since my kids were deliberately placed in a two-parent household by their first parents.

Like I said, I recognize that these are mostly internal expectations that I'm putting on myself. I don't know that they are reactions to negative birth parent stereotypes for me. I think the root of them is the sense of responsibility I have from Kelly and Ray and Beth entrusting us with their children. Trusting us to create a stable family with real bonds and to give our best to the kids. So they are rooted in a positive view of the kids' birth parents as people who made careful, deliberate choices about their beloved children's lives, not a view of them as my opposites.

In the end, the point Gritter kept coming back to about first parents being regular people in unusual circumstances doing the best they can is something that can also be said about adoptive parents (although obviously our experiences are much different). That point is really the best way to fight against both negative and positive stereotypes. We are ordinary people who are going to have ordinary strengths and faults. The sooner we can see ourselves that way--and let others know that's how we expect them to see us--the better off we'll be.

In discussion of adoption we often hear about the difference between infant adoption and adoption from foster care. In his introduction Gritter discusses feedback he received about distinguishing between "voluntary" and "involuntary" birth parents. What do you think about making this distinction? Is it helpful? harmful? neither? How so or why not.

I can understand why the author's first inclination was to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary termination of parental rights. They seem like such starkly different experiences on the surface. And no one wants to lump together abusive or neglectful parents with those who aren't. He wrote that he got a lot of feedback from first mothers to drop the distinction, in part because their voluntary relinquishments didn't always feel so voluntary. None of them wanted to join the ranks of birth parents, even for those whose circumstances may have made it the right choice for them at the time.

Thinking about what I've learned from reading foster care blogs and trying to look at it from my children's perspective, it sure seems to me that all kids benefit from openness about their personal stories and actual connection with birth families when both possible and advisable. The shape of that openness and connection might change because of the circumstances of the adoption (and the needs of the individual child), but the value of the connection doesn't. So while there is lots of discussion to be had about how to bring openness to life in all sorts of different scenarios, starting by dividing birth parents into "voluntary" and "involuntary" camps doesn't seem particularly useful.

(For what it's worth, he may have dropped the distinction, but this book more or less assumes you're talking about voluntary infant placements.)

To what extent were you informed before placement about the importance of birth parents in the child’s life? If you are an adoptive parent, were you educated about the significant ways in which birth parents could/should play an active ongoing role in your child’s development and well being? What has been your experience and opportunity to fulfill the role described by the author?

This question came from Gritter's breakdown of parenting roles into life giving (done by first parents), life sustaining or care giving (done by adoptive parents), and life affirming (done by both sets of parents). In a healthy open adoption, each set of parents respects the unique life giving/life sustaining role that the other set of parents holds. And they all value the way they share in the life affirming role, cooperating to create an overlapping family in which their child is loved, celebrated, supported and affirmed. For that to happen, adoptive parents and first parents alike need to view birth families as more than just sources of medical history or players whose active role ended at placement.

For all my frustrations with Agency #1 (and, oh, are my frustrations many), this is one thing they actually did. We jumped into that first adoption gung ho for open adoption and the ways we that ongoing, nurturing relationships with his birth parents would benefit our son throughout his childhood. Agency #1 definitely sold us all on the possible benefits of fully open adoption. I am grateful that they started us down that road. What they didn't do--and what Agency #2 did much better--is acknowledge and prepare us for the fact that open adoption isn't always an easy road, especially for birth parents. A worthwhile road, but sometimes not an easy one. Rather, they communicated that if an open adoption was "successful," any jealousy, regret, ambivalence, or anger wouldn't be an issue. They gave us none of the tools or support we needed to sustain that open adoption they helped start. There was a lot of scrambling and self-educating (and self criticism) on my part. Puppy is the one ultimately paying the biggest price for that, because I think that lack of preparation and support has at times kept Ray and Kelly from fully playing that life affirming role in his life. I know I'm always harping on this, but helping parents--both kinds--get ready for the lifetime after placement is so vital, regardless of how open the adoption is. And I fear that gets lost as we adoptive parents get caught up in evaluating agencies based mostly on their price structure, average wait time, and whether or not we think our interests will be protected throughout the process.

To continue to the next leg of this book tour, please visit the main list at The Open Adoption Examiner.

[Disclosure: links to Amazon are part of its affiliate program.]

3BT #20

2010-06-13T03:19:00.000-07:00

Three beautiful things, as I claw my way out of this funk I've been in lately. Things are kind of rough in my little world right now. Still dealing with the aftermath, I'm afraid. It's hard work and frankly I'm tired. All the more reason to focus on the pieces of good:

The sun. Oh sweet heaven above, the sunshine. Look, I live where it rains. It is grey and cloudy for a good chunk of the year. The dreariness doesn't bother me much, at least not when it stays in the seasons it's supposed to. But lately things have gotten ridiculous. We had 25 days of rain in April. Then another three weeks straight of rain to usher in June. Every day for weeks I woke up to another cold, yucky sky outside my window. But yesterday! Yesterday there was sunshine: bright, warm, summery sunshine! I'm not even kidding, people were nicer. Strangers were smiling and talking to each other again. I am certain a dozen people impetuously proposed marriage.
The french fries at Red Robin. Enough said.
The feeling of a child in your arms who has completely given themselves over to hugging you, eyes squeezed shut, arms around you, their hair nestled against your neck, the weight of their head on the curve of your shoulder.

Babies Don't Eat Pie. Poor Babies.

2010-06-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

I made tiny pies! Cup-pies, for those of you still carrying a torch for Pushing Daisies.

I'm quite taken with them. They were for a baby shower I helped host. When Puppy heard the menu, he was concerned. "But, Mom, babies can't eat any of that!"

(When did he start calling me "mom"? He's only four! At least Firefly still thinks of me as Mama. I'm not sure I'm ready to be Mom all the time.)

It's a kick to be able to actually talk with him and get a glimpse into his thoughts. When he was still a baby, I remember being almost melancholy at the thought that he would grow into boyhood. He was my perfect widdle baybee and I couldn't imagine that it could possibly get any better than it was at that stage. But it did. It really did. And it will again.

Little Green

2010-06-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

I wrote all this out before realizing that I misread the prompt at GIMH's adoption poetry carnival. Apparently I was supposed to write a poem about adoption, not share a poem. I haven't written a poem since my angst-filled college years ended. You really don't want me to start again, trust me. And this technically isn't a poem, but song lyrics. I suppose I cheated twice over.

So, oops. But I'm linking anyway!

I admired singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell's talent for years before I learned the story behind her song "Little Green." She wrote it a few years after placing her baby daughter for adoption, a little girl she named Kelly Dale. When Kelly was born, Mitchell was still Joan Anderson, young and struggling to make a living, unaware of the huge success that was just a few years away. You can read more about her story and how its details are woven into the song. It has so many of the heartbreaking elements common to that era (and, admittedly, still often true today): secrecy, immense social stigma against unwed mothers, agency workers pressuring her as she tried to find a way to raise Kelly, discrimination from the hospital. She kept her daughter and the adoption private for decades, until it was revealed by a tabloid in the 1990s. The two reunited in 1997.

"Little Green" reminds me that far more people than we ever realize have adoption in their life's story--people we work with, laugh with, shop next to, admire or despise from afar. There is something terribly poignant to me that millions of people listened to these words for decades without knowing what a deeply personal thing Mitchell was sharing with them. The story of her little kelly green.

Little Green

Joni Mitchell

Born with the moon in Cancer
Choose her a name she will answer to
Call her green and the winters cannot fade her
Call her green for the children who've made her
Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California
Hearing that everything's warmer there
So you write him a letter and say "Her eyes are blue"
He sends you a poem and she's lost to you
Little green he's a non-conformer

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Child with a child pretending
Weary of lies you are sending home
So you sign all the papers in the family name
You're sad and you're sorry but you're not ashamed
Little green have a happy ending

Just a little green
Like the color when the spring is born
There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow
Just a little green
Like the nights when the Northern lights perform
There'll be icicles and birthday clothes
And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Help Wanted

2010-06-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

I'm looking for a person or persons to help with the Open Adoption Bloggers list. First, someone who doesn't mind doing some easy behind-the-scenes clicking once a month or so to help keep the list tidy. Second, someone who understands what the heck is going on over at Facebook. (That place is exhausting! And confusing!)

If that sounds potentially interesting to you, let me know!

ETA: Facebook-er secured! Still looking for a friendly clicker.

The Ideal Me

2010-05-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

At some point during Puppy's first couple of years, I realized that the shape of his open adoption was more or less out of my control. Open adoption is, at its core, about relationships and relationships are slippery things. I might have a vision of how I wanted things to go, but I couldn't control how his first parents could/would respond and I certainly couldn't dictate how Puppy felt about everything. And who was to say my vision was the right one to begin with?

But I could decide the kind of person I wanted to be in the middle of it all. It's an image that shifts and adjusts as I learn more about myself and my family. But it's been quite empowering at times to focus on what I do have a say over (myself) instead of fretting about what is outside my control.

When I imagine Firefly and Puppy twenty, thirty years from now looking back on open adoption in their childhoods, this is what I hope they will be able to say about me:

That I took their thoughts and feelings about adoption seriously, even when they were young.
That I was comfortable with ambiguity. I didn't have a pre-formed idea of what open adoption looked like that I was determined to shove us all into.
That I gave them space to develop relationships with their first families independent of Todd and me and let them have more and more ownership and control of those relationships the older they grew.
That I didn't see open adoption as a zero-sum game. I realized that their relationships with their first parents took nothing away from their relationships with me.
That I worked hard to offer grace, hospitality and honesty to their families of origin, even when others weren't offering the same to me. I kept a thick skin for myself, but a thin one on behalf of my children.
That I faced up to and worked through whatever anger, anxiety, or frustration the open adoption relationships brought up for me at times so that I could always speak about (and to) their first families with respect and care.
That I didn't segregate adoption or their first families into a separate category; they were simply part and parcel of our extended family, our regular lives, our normal conversations.
That I learned how to be an advocate when they were young and an ally when they were older, both in our personal life and in the broader community.

This is my contribution to the latest open adoption roundtable.

Gather Round

2010-05-29T00:55:00.000-07:00

I first "met" Shannan when she participated in an open adoption roundtable in January. Her family is a real blend: two children adopted domestically, a daughter adopted from Ghana, and a son she birthed. She writes about her family with a sweetness and tenderness that always comes across as so genuine. I admire her because her blog was set up to share fun stories about the kids with her family and friends, but every now and then she lays it all out and writes really deeply and honestly about adoption. That takes a lot of guts, I think.

But all that is rather beside the point right now. Her eldest son, Ray, is fighting cancer. Please, take just a minute to click over to Shannan's blog and leave them some words of kindness and support.