[Mom2J]

I've thought long and hard about replying. I've actually done so several times without posting it, because as a family that has a mixture of adoption stories, I do realize our situation may be different, but also very similar.

One child in our family is biological, one is an international adoption, and one is a relative placement working on their adoption. (This is a long-term placement so we've been dealing with this for quite a few years.)

Our two by adoption/custody were very young, when the youngest came into our home. Since the youngest was a relative placement, we made it very clean, that the children wouldn't be distinguished between as in "mine-yours". For us, this was very important so as not to allow favoritism to be shown. Our agreement was that they didn't have to recognize the other kid's birthdays, but at Christmas time, please don't single the one child out. Even with this agreement, the first Christmas package came addressed to "______ Family". I called and asked were they wrapped inside or do I put the package under the tree as is. I was informed they were wrapped and go ahead and open the box. The kids all gathered around and inside was a card to the family and a package only for "the one relative" child. Our internationally adopted child was quite hurt by this. He asked why it said family, then only had a package for "him" and not for all of the family.

You see, sometimes singling out one child can cause issues in the family dynamics as it did with our children. The biological child was older and had requested NOT to be included in the recognition. We passed on this information to the biological family of the youngest child. It is VERY important for our internationally adopted child to feel equal to and be accepted by all as a member of the family. (He has certain disabilities that single him out anyway, so to fit into "life", we do everything possible to have him be as "normal" as possible.) This was stated before we got custody of the youngest.

I see this as you have several different choices. You make it clear that the child will be raised knowing there are differences in the family and they're related to others, BUT you will not distinguish this until the children are old enough to make their wishes known. You can raise the child as your brother-in-law is "uncle" only, because as your child, the brother-in-law IS uncle. (Knowing the child will be told at an age appropriate level.) You can start off with the child calling "uncle"- Grandpa and thus allowing the other children to also have another "grandpa".

It's actually kind of funny in our house now. The biological child refers to the yougest's b-mom as "first name". The international and relative child refer to b-mom as "Mama -first name". She has accepted this. She isn't the issue in all of this, neither is the b-father, or her husband. It's the bio-grandparents and bio-great-grandparent.

I'm sorry this is also long winded, but I think you need to see from another person living in this. When my family set out the "agreement", we explained that the "relative" child would be raised as a full-member of our family and not as a "baby-sat" child and would have the full- perks as our child. (i.e.- at Christmas we wouldn't buy for the bio and internationally adopted and then what was left over would be for "relative" child. If we would raise the child as our own, then it should be treated as such. We wouldn't allow the grandparents to only send to bio and international and leave out relative, so why should we allow it for the relative's family. Do you get what I'm saying?)

Let us know what you decided. It really is your choice to do what's best for your family as you see fit. I just wanted you to see another side.

Mom2J