Ordinarily when you go through the adoption process with an adoption agency a social worker or case worker is assigned to walk with you through the process from beginning to end. Someone you can trust, can ask advice, and rely on for their guidance. During our adoption experience Chris and I went through 3 different case workers. It wasn’t something we did or requested, in each instance the caseworker assigned to us decided to step back professionally to devote more time to their home life and family. That made for a bit of a bumpy road at times, because we didn’t have a foundational relationship with someone who walked through the experience with us start to finish. It was our first case worker Dawn who really introduced us to the process and set expectations for what was to come. It was also Dawn who provided some great advice.
Begin to share your child’s adoption story with them
the moment you bring them home.
Wait, what? I wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this thought. Dawn was visiting our home for the first of several homestudy visits. We sat around the kitchen table talking about ways to incorporate the heritage of our (not yet born) child. How would we explain our child’s adoption to them? How would we answer tough questions? Honestly I had no idea. I knew I didn’t want it to be some big reveal (“Hey! Hey! SURPRISE you’re adopted!”) but how does anyone start a conversation like this? She explained to us how starting the conversation early would create a sense of normalcy surrounding the conversation for us as parents, and ultimately create normalcy around the subject for our child too. In a sense it would give us practice. It also would help remove the veil of secrecy and even shame surrounding their adoptive roots. Creating a safe space for open conversation surrounding our child’s adoption starts with us, the parents.
I tucked these little nuggets of wisdom in the back of my mind, and when Jack came home as a new baby I remembered Dawn’s advice. Countless times I have sat in the nursery rocking my Jack telling him his story. It felt strange at first and I stumbled a lot over my words but the more I did it the more normal it felt to me. I have a few great adoption books for children that I love reading to him, but it was a children’s picture Bible and the story of baby Moses that has helped the most. On one page you see a birthmother feeling scared and alone, crying as she puts her child’s future ahead of her own fears and heartbreak. She lowers a basket that holds her child into the river, with nothing but faith to cling to (“Jack, this is baby Moses’s birth mom, how selfless! And brave! Do you know what selfless means? She’s sad because she loves baby Moses so much”). The adjacent page shows the Pharaohs daughter, pulling the basket from the river (“Jack look! That’s his adoptive mom. I bet they eat pizza together and ride bikes together, and she tucks him in every night. She loves her baby Moses”). I just love that adoption has been around basically since the beginning of time! 💕
It has come in handy to have explained his adoption story time and time again. Inquisitive cousins have the most innocent and precious questions about their cousin (who they adore). “Where is his real mom?” “Why is his skin so dark?” “Did his birth mom have dark skin too?” “Couldn’t she take care of him?” I explain that Jack has me as his mommy, but he also has a tummy mommy. A tummy mommy who has beautiful dark skin like him, and she protected him in her tummy all those nine months but knew she couldn’t take care of him. So she did something so selfless and brave, and let us become his mommy and daddy.
I know right now it’s easy. I’m doing all the talking, and he’s not full of questions. But I know the questions are coming. I won’t be caught off guard, I won’t be hurt. Because this place of normalcy Chris and I have created together surrounding Jack’s adoption, is safe for all of us.
-Kristen
“Every good and perfect gift is from above” James 1:17 #truth
I tucked these little nuggets of wisdom in the back of my mind, and when Jack came home as a new baby I remembered Dawn’s advice. Countless times I have sat in the nursery rocking my Jack telling him his story. It felt strange at first and I stumbled a lot over my words but the more I did it the more normal it felt to me. I have a few great adoption books for children that I love reading to him, but it was a children’s picture Bible and the story of baby Moses that has helped the most. On one page you see a birthmother feeling scared and alone, crying as she puts her child’s future ahead of her own fears and heartbreak. She lowers a basket that holds her child into the river, with nothing but faith to cling to (“Jack, this is baby Moses’s birth mom, how selfless! And brave! Do you know what selfless means? She’s sad because she loves baby Moses so much”). The adjacent page shows the Pharaohs daughter, pulling the basket from the river (“Jack look! That’s his adoptive mom. I bet they eat pizza together and ride bikes together, and she tucks him in every night. She loves her baby Moses”). I just love that adoption has been around basically since the beginning of time! 💕
It has come in handy to have explained his adoption story time and time again. Inquisitive cousins have the most innocent and precious questions about their cousin (who they adore). “Where is his real mom?” “Why is his skin so dark?” “Did his birth mom have dark skin too?” “Couldn’t she take care of him?” I explain that Jack has me as his mommy, but he also has a tummy mommy. A tummy mommy who has beautiful dark skin like him, and she protected him in her tummy all those nine months but knew she couldn’t take care of him. So she did something so selfless and brave, and let us become his mommy and daddy.
I know right now it’s easy. I’m doing all the talking, and he’s not full of questions. But I know the questions are coming. I won’t be caught off guard, I won’t be hurt. Because this place of normalcy Chris and I have created together surrounding Jack’s adoption, is safe for all of us.
-Kristen
“Every good and perfect gift is from above” James 1:17 #truth
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