[pbow]

My husband and I adopted my sister's child. My daughter is 4 now and she knows she is adopted. I want to tell her soon who her birth mom is...my husband thinks we should wait. My sister(**) and I have a good relationship and she has a good relationship with our daughter. ** also has 2 older children and 1 younger. My thinking is that if she knows now who ** is it will seem somewhat normal (as normal as it gets) to her. Is she too young? Everyone in our immediate and extended family knows and I'm also afraid she will find out from someone else. Any advice or similiar situations would be greatly appreciated! BTW - my husband and I are going to see a counselor about this. Would like to have input before we go. Thank you

Pam

[Just Julie]

What does your sister say about this? At what age do adoptees begin to ask who Bmom is? Maybe when she asks is the time to tell as that would be when she is ready. Just my thoughts.

[DianeScraps]

How much contact does your daughter have with her cousins? It would be my concern that they would say something, and I think it would be much better coming from you.

Best of luck

Diane

[pbow]

My sister is clueless. She has her other children that she will have to tell as a result of our decision. She is supportive of whatever we choose and looks to me to help her tell her other children. My daughter has asked me a few times to tell her stories about when she was in my belly. When I explain to her about what adoption means she wants to know whose belly she grew inside. Obviously she has limited understanding of the complexities....but the decision my husband and I make affect more than just our daughter and ourselves.....

[pbow]

Diane,

My sister sees her at least once a week. The older children (8 is the oldest) have very little memory of her as a baby....at least that's what he says. They were going through traumatic times with divorce and all. I am afraid she will find out from other family members though....because everyone knows and we've already experienced a little of that with my cousin who is 11. Fortunately my daughter was too young to comprehend! But, yes, better to find out from us! My husband just thinks that she is too young still. I would rather tell her now rather than when she is about to hit puberty. I think that would be too much for her.

[DianeScraps]

With that much contact I would say the sooner the better. Since she already knows she is adopted it sounds like she will be quite happy with the 'grew in Aunt _____ belly' explanation.

I am sure the counselor will have some guidance for timing and such though. Best of luck to you!

Diane

[pbow]

Thanks -- good luck to you too!

[sugarbabysmommy]

I understand you are concerned for kids other than just your daughter, but she comes first. Tell her now, she is already asking questions and showing curiousity. All that curiousity is a good thing and handled in a kind and honest way now will encourage that much more trust in you. Your instincts are right on, the sooner you tell her and make it part of her personal story the less dramatic it will be to her and the more intergrated and normal. I encourage you to go to a website called tapestrybooks . com (no spaces) and look for a few books on talking to your child about adoption. Talking wth a counselor is great, but if something the counselor says doen't sit right with you that's ok and it deson't mean you are wrong. While talking with a (regular non-adoption) counselor and expressing some of my feeings about my child's adoption, his (glib) advice was to cut off contact with my child's birthfamily- and he maintained this advice even after I told him it went against not just our open adoption agreement, but more importantly my ethics.

All the best...

[pbow]

So what did you do? Did you tell your child and how old was the child?
I agree that she comes first, that's why we are making the decision based on what's best for her, not her ** or siblings. While I love all of them, it's her that ultimately I need to nurture the most. Also, it's extremely important that my husband and I be in agreement on this issue. Thanks for your input. BTW the counselor we are seeing has adopted -- closed though, but I am hoping he will have good insight into the affects this will have on our daughter.

[SurprisedAMom]

Hi pbow,

My husband and I are in a very similiar situation. We adopted our son from a sibling. He is only 1 1/2 years old, but we are already discussing to start telling the details of his adoption. My sister is totally against it, but she rarely has contact with us. She doesn't want to be a big part of our lives. She never has. Our son has biological older siblings. They were to young to remember much. We have two older children in addition to our son. They have already asked alot of question of our son's birthparents. We have put them off, but are consdering explain more to them. We want our son to know from us rather than, his older siblings or from another member of our family. We also want to tell him sooner, so he doesn't feel it was a "secret" (which could be viewed as some thing we are ashamed of or afraid of or trying to keep from him) and harbour any negative feelings about it. Or that he doesn't here it from his biological mother at puberty and we have some weird scenario where he wants to go to live with his "real" mother. I am not sure what is right for your family, but my husband always try to be honest and open with our children. It has been hard for us to hold this back, but we also don't want to make a big deal out of it.

It is a very hard desicion. We want to respect the birthmother's wishes, but we have to do what is right for our son. We, too, have the names of two counselors who specialize in adoption. I talked to them before the adoption and we plan to contack them again to help us with "telling" and how to handle all parties involved.

I guess our feelings can be summed up as, just tell and get it out of the way. Are there any benefits to not telling?? (Except we don't have to answer alot of hard questions.. .. ..but we have to answer them sooner or later!)

I hope this helps! I am reading it over and it kinda sounds like a rambling lunatic! Keep us updated!

Best of luck!