(He gracefully maneuvered beneath me.) My first son (swimming stealthily behind me) adored her urine because it was the finest pee in the vicinity; unfortunately, you missed out on that at the time.
Where did he go when he said he was going to the bathroom – jokingly, to his sister’s swimming discussion? Where is the conversation going? I held my breath, but everyone laughed.
My adoption count is 2 for daughters, while my biological child count is 1 for sons. Within our family, I sometimes feel like an outsider or different. In a split second, a comment could shift my mommy mode and make me pause, alerting me to something that would make me react. Putting aside my children’s lack of basic biological understanding and decorum regarding bodily functions, I feel like the youngest.
I suspect my reaction as a mom in a blended family is not unusual because we don’t talk much about the birth and pregnancy stories of our biological kids, but we often discuss drug and sex, especially when it comes to our kids rolling and rocking with drugs and sex. We are not known for avoiding the biggies, so why would I go into alert mode for such an innocuous remark? This is because we received a similar question on the radio show “Creating a Family” about combining children through adoption and birth in a blended family.
For our youngest child, we lack the pictures and stories to showcase. However, I also found it easy to discontinue the tradition because I did not want to emphasize that aspect. (Son # 2: Dad, was it truly necessary to capture so many intimate shots??? Dad: Whose fault is it that you couldn’t keep your legs closed? I empathize with their discomfort as there are some early breastfeeding photos that could benefit from some editing too.) The situation was not aided by their father’s lack of discretion in his eagerness to document their arrival into this world. The children were not particularly interested and often needed to be persuaded to join us in reminiscing about a time they cannot recall. It was not a deliberate choice. Gradually, over the years, we have ceased this tradition. On each child’s birthday, we used to review the photographs from my final months of pregnancy and their birth during our early years as parents.
We don’t have the same degree of information about our adopted child’s early history because we were avoiding discussing our children’s birth. However, we have indeed opened many conversations about our adopted child’s early history and have used a lifebook to address their adopted child’s early history. You can find resources on creating lifebooks through our podcast, “Family a Creating The Lifebooks.” We strongly encourage every parent to create a lifebook for their adopted child. I wasn’t able to answer why their missed answer marked me until after the process, but this answer didn’t satisfy me. Our experts on the show “Family a Creating” responded to the need for creating lifebooks for adopted children to explain their early life history.
I know that it’s important to celebrate the differences that make each child unique, but truthfully, I’m not entirely sure how to create a completely different feel for a child. However, I do believe that accepting and embracing our differences is one of the strengths of our family. Some people breeze through certain classes or labor through others, while some avoid sports and live for athletics, and some are introverts while others are extroverts. It seems that in my case, and perhaps in all families, these differences define us in many ways. When I think about it, it surprises me how much I tend to avoid things that make me uncomfortable.
I have tried to protect her by deemphasizing the stories of her siblings’ birth and pregnancy that were born into our family. I want her to know deep down in her gut that it is not a prerequisite for membership in our family to know about the birth. However, I also want to protect my own child from feeling those losses, so I know within myself that adoption carries the shadow of loss. But despite that, I love the institution of adoption and the potential it holds for hurting and harming children. As a mom, I want to protect my kids from all the hurts and harms of life.
I am trying to protect her, so avoiding the discussion is certainly not the best way to help her cope with this loss. Even though she is the one who should be honored for her contribution to our family because she was born to another father and mother, I don’t think she only could be who she is based on her birth story. I do not know her birth story and how she thinks about our family values, but I do not think that not being born into our family would hurt or protect this child from real reasons. We should be careful if we are treating our adopted kids as more fragile than others and warn others about falling into this type of thinking trap.
I absolutely adore my family, regardless of how they came to be members. They have found a place where they are completely loved and accepted, and I want to provide them with a loving and supportive environment to fall back on. However, I am aware that I cannot protect my children from all the hardships of life, which pains me deeply. Since we have spent more time together, we have created memories that will last a lifetime. Some of these memories include my children swimming in my urine, which is a unique aspect of our family’s story. We have a variety of different stories, with different likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. It is these differences that make us who we are as a blended family, and I am grateful for the many different combinations that exist within our family unit.