Happy Mother's Day to birthmothers

If, like us, you are in touch with your kid's (kids') birthmothers, it is hard to know what to say on Mother's Day.  Of course, they are your child's biological mother.  However, they are not "Mom." We are blessed that our kids' birthmothers respect and understand that.

We have very different relationships with each set of birthmothers, and we are learning how to navigate those differences every single day.

With our son's birthmother, we are in touch via email about once a month and have been since March 2009 when we met her, two months before he was born, when she chose us to parent her son.  I remember on my very first Mother's Day when our son was almost 1 year old getting a Mother's Day email from our son's birthmother. My heart welled up with such love and compassion for her.  She is an incredible woman who has found joy and has gone on to get married to a wonderful person who knows about our son and loves him, too.  Together, they are creating a life, and we are so blessed to be in touch with her. Our relationship with her has developed very naturally over time, and she now knows where we live, she has my regular email, and she knows a lot about our lives.  Early on, she proved to us that she would respect the boundaries that we had established (more on that in my next post) with her, and slowly, we have revealed to her the details of our lives.  Every year I send her and her husband a photo of our son (and by "ours" I do mean, hers and ours), and every year, she thanks me profusely.  They each get a wallet size photo as well as one to frame for their house.  My husband and I did NOT start out in this mental space.  We never anticipated having a relationship with her, but it works for us and has unfolded very naturally and very wonderfully.  She is not involved in our lives on a daily basis, however.  When the time comes for our son and her to meet, we will facilitate that, assuming our son is mentally and emotionally prepared and ready. What we have valued about "Birthmom 1" is that our son's care, stability, and health has ALWAYS been her #1 priority.  She wanted a more open relationship with us, but she understood that, ultimately, what was in our son's best interest was less contact to start.

Our son knows that he is adopted.  In fact, he thinks that most kids are.  To him, a woman either grows a baby like his Aunt J did, or parents go and pick one up at the hospital like we all did with our second child, our daughter.  It is really cute to watch him process how babies show up.  We picked up our daughter when he was not quite 3.  Shortly thereafter, we visited Aunt J when she was VERY pregnant with baby G.  He asked, "What's in there?" as he pointed to her tummy.  Aunt J said, "A baby."  And our son said, "Oh, we got ours at the hospital."  And that was that.  The world was easily divided in to women who grow babies and those who go get them at the hospital.  That explanation, or understanding, was MUCH easier than any explanation I could have created for him.

We have a different relationship with our daughter's birthmother ("Birthmom 2").  For many reasons having nothing to do with us, it is hard for her to be in direct contact with our family.  Therefore, every message and every picture I send is first funneled through Birthfather 2. As time continues, we will learn to figure out our relationship with Birthmom 2, and I am honestly not worried about it.  As someone who constantly plans and prepares (and enjoys control), I have had to learn to let go, let God, and understand that it will all work out the way it is supposed to.  We worry about our children when they are old enough to compare notes about their respective birthmothers.  What will we say to our son whose birthmother has included us in almost every single step of her life since his arrival? What will say to our daughter whose birthmother has not?

The trick with adoption is that there are TONS of unknowns: where will your child come from? Will their birthmother have taken care of them in utero? How old is birthmom? What are her expectations?What are yours? These are just some of the questions that we adoptive parents wonder about and ask ourselves and each other.  Learning to let go is the hardest thing, but the best thing, to do.

We tell potential adoptive parents whom we meet through our agency or through life that they should just take it as it comes, to keep their eyes on the goal which is to bring home a child and to love him or her with all of your heart.  That's all that matters.  I would say to anyone reading this who is considering adoption: Don't let the details scare you.  Don't let the details turn you off.  Adoption is worth it.  The joy our children bring us is indescribable.  What we did before them, other than sleep and go out to dinner, I do not know, and I definitely don't want to go back to that world.  Parenting is scary stuff, but it's worth it.

So is adoption.