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Old 03-09-2006, 09:34 AM
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echaos echaos is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MrsD820
But, how do you explain to a 3 year old that they nice lady that visits isn't someone they are allowed to get into the car with?????

I guess I'm just not comfortable with it. Sorry to the Bmoms here but my dream of a family never included another woman in the picture. I wanted it to be me, my husband and my children.

Do you have extended family? Will your child have Aunts, uncles, cousins, Grandparents? If so, these are people who will love you child and be included in your family. Some of them may have been strangers to you before you joined the family (ie your husbands relatives) but you have likely formed relationships with them. Some you may be really close to and others not so much.

Open adoption is very much like that. It's a new person (or many people in the case of birth grandparents or siblings) that becomes a part of your family. Just like you may not see your in-laws everyday, and your siblings don't get to make parenting decisions for your, neither will your child's birth mother. Overtime you may become really close, or you may not.

One thing that I really had to think about as a pre-adoptive parent (who was also adopted in a closed adoption) was what I would tell my child when they asked me questions about their birth parent. Will I be able to look them in the eye and be honest "I was scared to let someone else love you so I didn't want them in our lives" or "I knew that it might be important for you to have a connection to your biological beginings, so I put aside my fears so that I could answer your questions today". Because one day your child will ask. And either answer is okay, as long as you are comfortable with it and can back it up.

Good luck in your decissions.
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Lesbian Adoptive Mom AND an adult adoptee
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