sadly we have never met irl, we tried to rendezvous in sunny ca, but it wasnt in the stars. regardless, i do luv this girl! she and her hubbs are in the preliminary stages to getting approved for adoption again. If you would like to learn more about them and their family, you can contact them at corybeccafamily@ gmail dot com
Hi! I was asked to write about our relationship with my children’s birthmothers. To start off as an introduction, my husband and I have two children we adopted at birth. Our son is 3.5 yrs old and our daughter is 23 months old. As you can see, our children are still very young and I would also say that our relationship with their birthmothers, is still in a stage of relational infancy as well. In fact, my husband and I have been married for almost 11 years and I feel that we are just barely out of the infancy of our relationship. Lol.
As I sit and think about my love I have for my children’s birthmothers, I am instantly brought back to what brought us together as women. Although the very difficult & loving actions these women chose was ultimately the start of a relationship, it was a choice we all decided, and continue to decide, in maintaining our relationship. My relationship with both these women is different, as they are different people. So to give readers in the adoption community some more diversity in adoption relationships I will discuss both of them and how they are both unique. To distinguish the different women, C will be the woman recognized as our first born (son’s) birthmother and J is the birthmother of our daughter.
After our son’s birthmother C chose to place her son with us for adoption, we began writing to each other. My relationship with her has been a slow, steady, safe & very trusting place of growth. In the beginning C was leaning heavily on a closed adoption. I really hoped that our relationship would continue to grow but I also realized that we needed to be patient as her ‘distance’ was the way for her to work through and go through what she had to go through. When we were at the hospital with her, she had decided that she would like to keep in contact for a year. As the year was approaching we were so nervous that our contact and relationship with her would end, but come to find out she thought the same thing and had emailed me hoping we could continue to keep in contact. Since then and from the time of our son’s birth, we have maintained a relationship and I love her so much. We began communication with C via snail mail but we have also evolved into email, blogging, facebook and messaging. What I love about C is her loving heart. She is sensitive, caring, and thoughtful. She is one of those people, that once she befriends you, she will always have your back and be a devoted and longtime friend. We feel so blessed to have her in our lives and I am grateful to call her my friend. We are so excited every time we hear from her. My son has her same sensitive soul and devoted protective nature for the people he loves.
The weekend J, our second birthmother was due to have our daughter, we flew out to meet her. Prior to that we had been emailing & talking on the phone to get to know each other more. She invited us over on a Saturday to her home for dinner to meet her and her family and her grandparents. One of the main reasons J chose us to parent her daughter, was because of some specific experiences that her and I had in common. From the beginning, I think this connection immediately created a bond between us in addition to the adoption aspect of our relationship. We communicate with each other via snail mail, email, blogging, facebook, texting and phone calls. I am grateful to have her in my life. I love that she calls me for important things going on. I was the first person she called to tell me she was getting married and then later having a baby. She has told me several occasions that I am like an older sister and best friend to her. I love our friendship & love how we can talk like sisters and feel so comfortable with each other. That comfort we have has made it easy to work through misunderstandings we have had and I am sure we will have more, all relationships do. At this stage in our relationship, we don’t get to talk as often now that she is married and has a family and little ones to keep her busy. I love that she has a big heart, is feisty, funny and compassionate. We love that our little girl has those same qualities too.
I am grateful for these women I have in my life. One of the things that really contributed to a great start with these women is that they expressed from the beginning the type of relationship they wanted to have with us, and how much they wanted to be in contact. Of course with C, she initially leaned towards a more closed adoption, but we also had expressed that we had hoped that it would open up and giving her that knowledge, allowed her to feel comfortable opening it up more when she was ready!
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