[SuzBerg]

We never really talk to Em about adoption a whole lot. She knows she is adopted, we read stories (Happy Adoption Day almost every day the first year plus she was with us), we have pictures of us with the judge on “Adoption Day , and I have pictures we sometimes look at of her first parents. It‘s not something we focus on- it’s just kind of a fact in her life. But she never asks about it and it has always worried me that I’m not handling it exactly right. And that I’m going to screw up her whole life somehow. She was adopted from foster care at age 2.5 and we have a closed adoption.

Tonight Emily is getting ready for bed, I’m helping her put on her jammies and I’m combing her hair. We are talking about puppies and mommy doggies and how she wants both because puppies would be sad without their mommies and everybody needs a mommy. So I said, “Em do you know about babies - they grow in their mommy’s tummy” and she said, “yeah”. And I said “But you weren’t in my tummy” and she said “I know that Mommy I was in the other person’s tummy”(so she does understand and remember what we have talked about before). I said “that’s right she was you’re first mommy”. And she looked at me and got a little silly and said “But when I was in the other mommy’s tummy I kept saying let me out I need to go to Suz’s house, I need to be with my mommy and daddy and brothers”. Then I told her, that her first mommy loved her very much and she said “I loved her too but I loved you the most”.

I just thought it was very interesting since she has not really talked about it that much but it seemed like she is very secure and happy and comfortable talking about it and she does understand about being adopted .