[Dad79]

While fully acknowledging that yes, 100% the child will be told and will have discussions throught life that he is adopted and that all the issues will be addressed. Don't you ever get to the point that you're just living an every day, boring, routine life, where your so busy with school, work, little league and piano lessons that you're not wondering what birth mommy's doing for a long time. Sometimes some of me reading tends to make me feel that they expect it to be topic #1 ALL DAY, EVERY DAY 24/7...what's the reality?

[spaypets]

Dad, fear not, adoption isn't the constant topic of conversation.

However, it does come up in our family a lot because DD was born in India and we're of European descent so we get a lot of attention. Sometimes, people just say she's beautiful. Other times they ask if she's adopted, although that's usually because they have some sort of relationship to adoption. Still others ask where she's from. So, it does come up at random times, though so far, not from our DD (who's almost 3), who is more concerned about who bought everything in the house at the moment.

But we do tell her the story of her life at bedtime sometimes. And sometimes we mention something was made in India "just like you!" or we talk about something we saw in India or got in India or that elephants are lucky...

We try to keep the story in play, so that when she does start to have questions, she'll feel comfortable asking. She's already noticing how some people have brown eyes and some have blue and that her skin is brown and mine is pink.

[echaos]

Having grown up knowing 100% that I was adpoted from thevery begning, I can say that I dwelt on adoption about 0.5% of the time and normal day to day the rest of the time.

As an adoptive mom (for 2 years now) I would have to say that the same percentages currently apply.

The subject of both my and my son's adoption tends to come up more around holidays, birthdays etc... times when we think about our birthmothers, or in my case talk with her on the phone.

Adoption gets mentioned casually (and often in a joking maner in our household) when we make comments like "I got my socks on the floor gene from my Dad" (meaning my adoptive father); "That [insert bad habit here] must come from your side of the family" etc.. My partner also teases that she feels left out as the only person in our family who is not adopted!!

Read the books, digest the contents, then use them as kindling! To me, parenthood is parenthood, and will be filled with mountains and valleys of problems, emotions and love no matter what!

[lisa in venice]

I think most of your life as an adoptive parent is pretty ordinary. Most of the time you are a plain old ordinary parent. In the beginning you will face unique challenges f older chidlren and hopefully those won't last very long (relatively) but for the most part we yell for them to get out of bed and fuss about messy rooms and forgotten homework. We cheer at swim meets and cry when they are hopelessly sweet (like when you three year old ds proposes or you get that first lopsided, sticky valentine)

Along the way things come up that are unique that involve adoption issues. Sometimes you most deal with hurts form a child's past that come up in the course of living that ordinary life. Some of my best friends adopted siblings from Russia. After the first difficult year they settled into a prefectly normal life with some small exceptions. None of those exceptions were a big deal, they were just little things that made their family special.

lisa

[tobeafamily]

Our life is as normal as everyone else's, day to day. We don't look, act, and I imagine feel differently than any other family in, say, our son's Montessori class.

The differences are subtle - referring to his Bema and Beda when we talk about families, talking about 'his story' of how he came to us, etc. We may be more watchful and concientious of attachment issues I expect than other families, though not every second of every day. Because ours is an open domestic parental placement adoption, we plan trips with his birth family, though to him they're just like going to see his adoptive family.

Sometimes in the adoption world we can be and are hyperfocused on issues related to adoption - cultural identity, attachment, relationships with birth and adoptive families, etc. This is also normal - just like when you join Weight Watchers, all they talk about is food, calories, etc. as if that's the #1 goal in life, or when you join a political campaign where the candidate issues, appearances, etc become all encompassing.

The goal in adoption preparation is to educate and prepare. Sometimes it's intensive and it feels intrusive and maybe overblown. That's just because it's focused and intense. Take advantage of the 'crash course' by absorbing as much as you can, then be prepared to put it in context when your child comes home.

All this, of course, from a person who's parented from infancy. Experiences in waiting child/older child/international may vary.

Hang in,

Regina

[Livingmydream]

Dad- your post has somewhat of a harsh tone. I do not think that is nessessary.
But, to answer your question, yes, I am very busy with Tae Kwon Do, ballet, groceries, the PTO, gymnastics, family and friends. There are times when I think about my kids bmoms ( I have 2) daily and then not times for months. It depends on growth, development, and milestones. I do not think about alot of people every day. It does not mean that they do not have a place in my heart.

[Sledge]

Dad79,
Just to let you know that in most cases I believe that the adoption discussion goes away for the most part. I have two bio kids and one ason, it's been just over 2 years and we almost never discuss adoption or anything to do with bmom and bfamily. Our only concerns is that the kids are all doing good in school, what sports events we are going to and which parent is driving who and where. Our life is pretty much normal I believe, the only time that things kind of get different is around xmas time, which might turn out totally normal this year since last year we told bmom don't bother calling or anything anymore (long story). We haven't heard a peep out of her or other bfamily since.

[LisaCA]

dad79,

I'm wondering what is behind your question...we have a three month old who has been with us from her third day. after the first month or so when we were in regular contact with bmom's family (probably every other day, but that was because we really love them and enjoy talking to them, not because they demanded it or even implied that was what they preferred), we now talk to them every 10-14 days (again because we enjoy our discussions-we mostly talk to bgrandma, as bmom is 15 and worried about prom and stuff:-).
adoption rarely comes up during the day, accept for my nearly daily visits to this forum. I feel quite "normal" about 99% of the time. Only on occasion do I feel a bit weird-for example when I went to look for good shampoo for daughter's hair, they asked a few questions including whether she was breastfed (nope bottle) then disapproving look for condemning my daughter to stupidity and poor health the rest of her life.

look, bfamily really wanted to give us a ton of distance and we literally had to beg them to please feel free to pick up the phone at any time, email us or just write and we would stay in touch. we really wanted bfamily to become part of our family. we begged bgrandma to go with her gut and be a grandma to our daughter if that's what she wanted to do. we were fine to have whatever level of contact they wanted, and it turned out that bgrandma really wants to be an grandma. In my book you can't have too many grandmas and since my parents are in their late 70s and dh's in their early 70s, we don't expect them to be actively in our daughter's life for too long. bgrandparents are in their early 50s and make a great set of grandparents.

bmom has gotten on with her life, talks to us on occasion but is really focused on the psat, homecoming queen (she won!) and other things that are the life of a 15 year old.

each bmom and bdad is different and I think you and bfamily work out a relationship that is best for all of you, whatever level of comfort you want.

adoption will be on the front burner or back burner depending on what is going on with our daughter. we'll go with the flow. right now it isn't topic number one or even topic number ten. today topic number one is her constipation, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

LisaCA

[rtsmom]

Yes, it can be very "normal". We have a semi-open adoption with both our adoptive boys' bparents. With one we send an annual written update and photo(s). With the other we have one annual face-to-face visit and send one annual written update w/ photo(s). Besides the times that we have contact with the bparents, adoption is the farthest thing from our minds. Our situation is unique to many afamilies here though, because our boys both have moderate to severe mental retardation and therefore are not able to comprehend that they were adopted.

[crick]

LisaCA & Living - Dad79 is (as far as I understand it) adopting an older child internationally. And with that comes all the education a parent must do which as you might know deals with a lot of trauma, past histories, and a basic negativity. So after you read these books and go to those classes, it wears you down a bit because in the course of educating you for the worst case scenario, you can go away thinking "gee! will our family ever be just a "normal" family?" I think it's a natural question to wonder and ask when faced with this kind of situation.

Dad79 - still focus on that positive and try to find the balance in all that education they give you. In our case, my daughter does talk about her bmom at times, wonders how she is, or something might trigger a memory and we talk about it. But on the whole, our life is about school, activities, what to be for Halloween, who got the bigger piece of cake, and who knocked over mom's vase.

We raise our kids openly (how could we not, since they have memories of their past) but we don't make the adoption the focus of our lives. It's not a secret, just not the primary focus.

Crick

[LisaCA]

dh and I initially planned to adopt an older child domestically and did a ton of research so I'm familiar with a number of the books (the one I remember off the top of my head that is applicable is the book by M. hopkins(?)-best "toddler adoption") and went to many an orientation with the county, etc. I think some issues are the same and some are different. I couldn't remember where dad79 is doing his international adoption, so I don't know how much knowledge and contact there is with bparents. dad79 and I are just on different wavelengths- I tend to be a pessimist and feel much more comfortable getting worst case scenarios. It helps me to feel in control of a situation. I suspect that dad79 is an optimist at heart and would like to hear the positives on occasion:-).

LisaCA