Open Adoption Roundtable #17

Open Adoption Roundtable #17

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?


Honestly, I can’t say that there is too much I don’t want M (or S, I suppose) to know. I have told her about my blog, and she even knows the name of it. However, I have not yet given her the address to it. That being said, I just sent a Facebook message to several people inviting them to join the adoption awareness group, M being one of those people. So if she really wanted to she could find my blog by seeing my name, Not Just A Birth Mom, on the member list and clicking the link to my site from there. So who knows, maybe she will be reading this by the end of tonight! And though I may not be completely ready for her to read it, I am ok with it if she does.

Now if S were to read this blog? I don’t know how I feel about that. Why the difference? I’m not sure. I don’t have much of a relationship with S, neither does R for that matter. He was present for the first few visits we had with them, but after Halloween he was no longer present for any of them (save for the one in early April when we all sat down together to re-evaluate our adoption agreement, and again at Robbie’s birthday party). Now, he does work odd hours, and is on call quite often. So I know it is not really his fault if he is not there. However, there are times where R and I will wonder just how comfortable with the situation he is. There have been quite a few times both of us have gotten the vibe that he really didn’t want to be there, and didn’t want to have much of anything to do with us. At first I worried a lot about how this might affect his parenting of Robbie (and J as well, for that matter). I worried that maybe he was resentful of having to adopt, having us around, and maybe that resentment would lead to him not having a good relationship with them. Luckily though, I have seen personally that he has a great relationship with them (they adore him), and it’s obvious how much he loves them.
So I suppose what I’m saying is I am not comfortable asking what his opinion about us and the whole situation is (because honestly, I’m scared of the answer).
Also, to be fair, S does not have the same out going personality as M and is much more withdrawn (Though he was very friendly at Robbie’s party, so maybe that’s a good sign!). So perhaps that also has something to do with it, and perhaps R and I are exaggerating things and reading too much into the little things. It’s hard to not be super sensitive to these things as a birth parent.

Other than that, I don’t try to hide anything from them. There are times I may hold my tongue when I disagree with one of their parenting choices, but that’s because I trust M and S and I know that they ARE the parents and it’s their decision to do whatever they decide to do. Also, I don’t talk to M in detail about any breakdown I might have. She knows about my depression diagnosis, and she knows I have had a few very hard times. I do not feel like I should burden her with these things though. I don’t want to cause her any guilt or discomfort. However, M can ask me whatever she wants, and I will always answer her to the best of my ability. I feel like without complete honesty, we can’t build a lasting relationship. So I promise to always be honest with her, and I hope she will always be honest with me, which I am confident she will be.