Seeking God Knows What

Nope this is not a post about adoption #2. I’ve come to a very solid conclusion that adoption #2 is on hold for a while, perhaps even a LONG while. In all honesty, adding another child now or any time in the near future would not be a good idea for me, for Widget, for T, for our finances and a heck of a lot of other reasons. Sigh. I don’t like saying that because I have “baby fever” but I know too much needs to be worked on and stabilized before it is time to even contemplate it. (okay that was a little longer than I intended about adoption #2).

Anyway, I’ve spent lots of time, probably too much time, reading blogs, many of which have some sort of adoption focus, along with perusing the adoption forums I visit, although I rarely post on any of them. And I have been thinking about some of the recent “controversies” over wording in posts or comments.

I think we get too caught up in words and what they mean, what they can mean, what the poster intended them to mean. Along with that is our mood when we are reading the posts, our experiences that shape our interpretations of what is written. Biggest problem with blogs, with forums, with e-mail is that we don’t get the writer’s facial expressions/intonations/emotions behind the words he/she says. So sometimes we misinterpret what is written because truthfully, we don’t know all there is to know about anyone in the blogging/forum/internet world.

I put a lot out here but not a single person reading knows everything there is to know about me or my life experiences. Some know more than others and probably have a better grasp when it comes to some of the things I write about. But even they don’t know it all. I know and God knows, that’s it.

Or take Jenna- who “outed” herself as a birthmother/firstmother in a recent post on her family blog. I read both of her blogs, her mostly adoption-related blog and her family blog. In her post telling those readers about her daughter, she made this very statement. I think it was an important step for her to be able to acknowledge this huge part of her life. Although we still don’t know all there is to know about who Jenna is.

Anyway, my point here is that I think people need to remember this as they are reading. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attempt to educate someone about the subject. But as N put it, RESPECT is the key.

And I wish we could just eliminate all the labels: adoptive, birth/first, adopted and just be parents, sons and daughters. Labels make people assume something (not necessarily bad, not necessarily good) about the other right away.

And denying that there is loss and grief in adoption is ridiculous. But even though loss and grief are inherent in adoption, that doesn’t mean there will always be negative effects. Many adoptees grow up to be well-adjusted people but they still had a loss in not being raised within their biological families. There are birthmothers/firstmothers who do not regret their decision to place but they still have a loss in not raising their child. Adoptive parents gain the joy of parenting a child but with that comes the knowledge that they are parenting because of someone else’s loss and those with infertility also have a loss in not raising a biological child. Open adoption and the knowing about each other that goes along with it does not negate those losses.

I could say more but I have to get my walk in before it gets dark (I dislike that it is starting to get dark at 7:30 PM).