One of my biggest day to day concerns has been tackling the difficult situations in our three open adoptions and making them into something positive and workable for our family. Sometimes I find myself hiding those things and then suddenly blurting something out here when it reaches a high frustration point for me. I have decided that taking those issues and talking about them and what I am doing about them on a more regular basis might make for an interesting Monday series. So each Monday I will be discussing something that has proved difficult for me in relation to my open adoption experiences, and how I am trying to turn that view around to make a positive from a negative. Lemonade from the lemons in life if you will. I hope you will enjoy this series and comment if something I am grappling with has helped you in any way, or perhaps you have experienced it already and handled effectively.

Even in the best open adoption situation it can become all to easy to get lost in the negatives that crop up. Nothing in life is with out occasional difficulty, granted, and adoption is certainly prone to a lot more difficulty than traditional family building. Sometimes though it can become far to easy to allow ourselves to block the view beyond the daily hardships and fail to see the many positive blessings we have encountered. I have been walking that road myself a lot lately and today I decided to make some lemonade from my accumulated pile of lemons.

I am hopeful that putting down in writing some of the things that I have been viewing from a not so rosy stance will help me begin to pull out some of the good things that are under there. One of my biggies in the last few months has been. . .

“Is open adoption really helping or hurting my family?”

I have been overwhelmed with recent changes with in all three of my children’s birthfamilies, so much so that I have been actually “taking on” some of their issues and that has affected our own household. Some days I admit I wondered if all the “openness” was the good thing I wanted it to be, or a source of anxiety that was keeping my children from having the kind of life that both their birthfamilies and our family desired for them.

Turning this around for me has meant stepping back from our children’s birthfamilies in the way that I am a viewer rather than a participant in what is going on in their lives. I need my kids to do the same. I can’t hide the poor choices that their birthfamilies might be making, but I can help teach them that they are not tied to those choices through their connection. They can make their own choices and perhaps seeing their birthfamily members making poor ones will become a positive (rather than the negative I imagined) in the way that they can learn for themselves some of the things they do not want to do in their own lives. You can’t shelter your child from all the negatives in their birthfamily (or your own), and you don’t want them to feel “destined” to fail through inheritance or example. I want my children to feel empowered to make their own, good choices.

“Am I being a mom or a liability?”

Geezz that sounds harsh, but honestly I have wondered. Am I really being the kind of mom that will help or hold back my children. Of course I understand that because of adoption, and in the grand scheme of things, but for time and distance anyone could have become their mom. Each one of them have such unique needs and concerns I find myself wondering if I am best equipped to meet them all.

Now I need to remind myself that ANY mother who might have become their mom would probably be wondering the very same thing. The big difference I need to make is listening to what they need, understanding that a lot of that will not come from me, and becoming secure enough to go out into the world and find whatever it is and present it to them in a way that only their most devoted mom would. Now I am not saying that their first moms are not devoted, but lets face it I am the one whose shoulders all this has been placed upon so I must to allow myself to feel 100% there and committed and not 80% because I was not present for the first 9 mons. They don’t need 80% of me right now they need it 100% and that is ok.

Check Back Next Monday!