A pink envelope in the mail will always brighten my day

The dogs started barking, it is time for the mail to arrive this afternoon (I started writing this on Thursday). The slot opens, I hear the push of paper into the box (our mail slot is a through the wall into our house). Julia rushes over there, opens the door on the inside of the house and grabs the mail. She takes it upon herself to look for any fun Disney items we might receive, takes that item then brings me the rest of mail to go through. Today, the stack contained a small pink envelope with the fluid penmanship of a young writer. An envelope from Julia's birthsister. SWEET! (birth sister / I'll use the initial B for referring to her)

I opened it right away (not looking through the rest of the mail first - WHO CARES about that other mail. LOL) and found two pictures, a pad of stickers for Julia and a note for us to read. It was a short note, but if it were only two words written by B, I would jump up and down with excitement.

This is one of several notes we have gotten from B in the mail over the last year. This is always heartwarming to receive these letters and pictures from her (and some from J's birthmother). She has no idea how much it makes me swell with love for her and her family. Some birth families involved in adoption never have contact with their birthsibling that was adopted. We are so blessed to be in an open relationship with them so Julia (and hubby and I) can continue to grow to know them and know how wonderful each and every one of them are.

I hope and pray we never lose contact with them.

Someone asked me the other day if I was scared to share our home address with them. No, flat out NO! Our door is a welcome mat for them if there were ever a day any one of them wanted to come visit. We are confident with her birthmothers decision to place with us that we have accepted them as extended family and welcome them any time. We are so blessed to have them in our lives and we always look forward to seeing them or seeing an envelope from them in the mail.

Ok, off to write a letter to B and to H (Julia's birthmother) and family. I made a 2nd Birthday flip book of pictures to put in the envelope from snap fish a few weeks ago, so I'll include that in the envelope.

Open adoption ROCKS!

open adoption .... wow

Open adoption ROCKS for us. Several months ago I might not have said that since it seemed we were in a time of our lives (including her birth family) that seemed more like a semi-open adoption, but the roller coaster ride is high up on the mountain with joyful news of more snail mail contact from Julia's tummy mommy and birth siblings.

ADOPTION ROCKS!

Happy Friday.

I just know she thinks of J every day, but dang it must be hard

potential birthmothers have got to have one of the hardest decisions they have to make when they decide to make an adoption plan or by her choice the other option(I won't mention that word), thankfully our daughters birthmother chose to make an adoption plan with her yet unborn child back in 2007 and we were the blessed and joyful couple that accepted her match.

We met her in her 6th month of pregnancy and she had such a positive attitude that she was going with her plan to place and really wanted us to be the couple she chose to parent this baby. At our first in-person visit with her (and our social worker), She proceeded to ask us if we had a name picked out and if we wanted to know the gender to help with the name selection. WOW, that was fun to hear her ask us that question and within 5 minutes we knew the gender was female or in other words in the to-be-mom community, "PINK". Yippppeee. I was so excited. We told her the two names for a girl we had picked out and we agreed on Julia and she picked her middle name (our mutual understanding as it she has the right to name her anything she wanted from day 1). So Julia Marie she was named in-uteral! What a fun time because I had always dreamed of having a girl first and I wanted our first to be DH's little girl. Sure, at that point in time in the birthmothers life, she had all control, all decisions to be made, SHE IS the baby's mother and IS our beautiful baby girl's birthmother!

After weeks of talking on the phone, meeting in person , a few bumps in the road and then setting up the delivery information (we got invited to one of her doctors appointments and got to see this precious little girl on the ultrasound screen, so surreal!!!! especially after having gone through 7 miscarriages). We wanted strongly to believe this was going to happen, the placement from her birthmothers arms to ours, yet we were honest with ourselves and still kept reserved about the whole process. The birthmother sensed our pull back of emotions and called the social worker on it and the social worker discussed it with us that even on raw emotions of a failed adoption just weeks prior, it was ok to let some of our guard down and let ourselves be happy outwardly by facial and bodily actions! Like HUGS and like asking if it was ok to feel the baby kick in her belly..etc...

Things got so close in the last weeks, I was nesting, DH was prepping for time off, and figuring how much time I could take off work because I didn't get paid for it. Ugh.

Then the emotional questions started hitting before delivery, would we be invited to the delivery room (yes, I was asked by our birthmother to be in there and to take pictures too!), dh was asked to stay in the hall until the baby was out. How we would be treated at the hospital! Except for a minor issue with our birthmothers purse being stolen, all went smooth in the hospital. I then saw the emotional side of things change for her birthmother after she left the hospital only 24 hours after delivery. I was scared she would disappear and not want an open relationship with us, but infact, she wanted to see her only 4 days later when she went to the lawyers office to sign the TPR papers. Then we averaged seeing each other in person about once every 3-4 months for her first year with us providing letters and pictures each time. We had to learn that it was her move to make the decision when those meetings would take place. Sometimes we suspected that she was not in a good emotional state to deal with seeing us all in person. I can't imagine what she thinks when the date approaches for meeting up with us in person. Heck, I am nervous too. I just want to see them, birthmother, Juli'a birthsiblings (1 bro and 1 sis) and her birth grandma.

So we stand having invited J's birthmother to her birthday party a few weeks back. A week before the party I got a call on my cell phone stating she would love to be there and asked if it was ok to bring her sister (birthaunt) and mom (birthgrandma) and her birthsiblings. OF COURSE, but I did let her know there were going to be around 60 people there. That must have scared her. In fact, I know it did because she said she would love to arrive about a 1/2 hour early with the mutual friend driving so she could have a few minutes with us to have fun and calm the nerves. SURE! Heck, I even joked that my sister would put her to work with prepping food if she was that nervous about meeting everyone.

Well, came the day of the party. Friends showed and the mutual friend and her hubby and daughter showed, but no show for J's birthmother and family. WOW, that took a long story to get to that climax. Disappointing climax at that. At first I was starting to tear up while holding Julia watching the friend come down the drive with her hubby and daughter. I must have had a sad look on my face. The friend told me the reason she was not with her is that the birthmother would not answer the door when they were ready to leave. My thoughts on this is that J's birthmother was so scared to meet so many strangers and feel as though they might judge her in the way that would be so hurtful to her. BUT I feel in fact it would have been just the opposite for her. Heck, I am not her and I don't know what her feelings are and I am really sorry she missed her daughters first birthday party, but I know she was thinking of her at least. It took me a few days to get over the anger of her not showing, but then I tried to look at it from her perspective as much as I could try to understand and think of how hard it might be on her to see Julia, see the family setting we are all in, and to meet so many strange (unknown) friends of ours. I let the anger ride away at night now knowing that I have such a beautiful miracle in our arms each night rocking her and giving her a bottle of her favorite milk now. God brought us to her birthmother through friends and I am so thankful for them all. That is what makes it possible for me to be able to work around the anger, look at the family picture (birthfamily and us ) on the refridge and know she is thinking about us each day. Especially this BEAUTIFUL girl that is finally growing some hair and has 5 teeth now.

sometimes couples might find it hard to work past the disappointments of the rollercoaster ride of OPEN adoptoin. I can expect the unexpected and still be a happy family. I will still write her letters and send pictures every few months. She knows our phone numbers and how to get a hold of us by snail mail too. I just hope she is emotionally ok. I hope she is feeling our love we send to her each night when Julia points to her picture on her nursery wall and says hello. I hope she knows we are ok that she didn't make it to J's party and that we will eventually get together and have our extended families meet up. We will not be judgmental of anything as we hope the same in return. We hope that we can focus on the kids and let the siblings spend some quality time. It must be hard as the older birthsibling is old enough to ask quesitons about adoption. I told J's birthmother that if she can't answer B's questions about adoption to please feel free to have her call me and I'll try and help or maybe our social worker can help too.

I want to see life from every side of adoption, so if you are a birthmother with an open adoption, please feel free to contact me and let me know how you dealt with your child's first birthday with their adoptive family. How was it emotionally for you and your family? I want to cry thinking that J's birthmother is sad, but I konw I can't fix the emotional state she might be in. I can try and comfort if she wants me to be there. Or even if she wants us to step away and give her space, even if that means months and months with no contact. I am ok with that. I will still always tell J about her and what a blessing she is in our lives and always will be!

I hope she knows we think of her and her kids every day too! Let there be calming in my heart knowing she is ok and hers too knowing Julia is too. We are so blessed no matter how many days, weeks, months it takes between in-person contact. I will get through this one day at a time.

thanks for reading this mumbojumbo .. I know it might not make sense to anyone else, but it is a place to jot my feelings down and wonder if anyone else goes through these ups and down hills of emotions in open adoption relationships with their birthmothers or birthfamilies.

not knowing how she is feeling makes me crazy..... how is her birthmother?

(I don't tend to alway blog about my feelings about adoption lately, but I thought I would share a few of my feelings of late. )

Not one day goes by without thinking how Julia's birthmother and birthsiblings are doing. I hope she is well, I hope Julia's birthsiblings & family are well too. I bet they are busy with going back to school recently.

These are things on my mind every day. I know they are not far away from us, but not seeing them in person lately brings back the thoughts of wondering how are they doing.

I know they think of Julia every day. We think of them every day. These thoughts are a normal part of our lives and I want to share these thought with others that have adopted or are considering adopting and having an open adoption. These ARE normal thoughts and feelings. It is ok to feel this way. I say it is ok to express your concerns on how they are doing if you feel ok to do so out loud or as in here, on a blog.

Sometimes I stop to think if they are eating dinner at the same time we are or if they are out playing at the same time we are. We don't have a direct way to contact them unless we show up unannounced. I won't do that. Sorry, but I don't like it when others drop in unexpected so therefore I just won't do that to her birthfamily either. We have a mutual contact that takes our messages that we have called and passes that message to J's birthmom, but generally we don't hear back for a few days or weeks. This is the case right now. DH left a message with our mutual friend and we have not heard back this time around from either her nor J's birthmom. We have learned over time that this is ok not having a call back the same day or the next, etc.... We leave the choice to call back in her court to make that next move. We know we might not hear from her for a while. The only part of this right now is that this past weekend I sent out invitations for J's first birthday party and sent one to both the mutual friends family and J's birthfamily too. We did not ask for RSVP's, instead we asked for regrets only. Now I wish I had put RSVP's on there. LOL, it sure would help relieve some stress! bahahaha, poor planning on my part. lesson learned for next year. ha

This invitation brings about more thoughts too. Will we get a call / voice mail one day here soon that says her birthfamily won't make it to the party or will we hear that they will come or will we hear from them at all? We will offer a ride to them. We can easily pick them up and bring them back home, or will they decline because they don't wish to be around our family (who are virtual strangers to them since they have only met my mom and DH's mom, although I do talk abou tthem in our letters to her) or is it too hard to be around all of us? These are things I will have on my mind for the next few weeks in prep for her party. I have a good feeling we will get answers to my thoughts and questions in due time, but it seems life for me rules right on the line of that last second basket being made from center court to win the game.... nail biter. Does that make sense.

Do any of you out there have an open adoption relationship to where you have invited your child's birthfamily to the party? How did it turn out if they did come? Or did you do a seperate date to have a more private party with the birthfamily? I thought of offering to have a get together with them later that night after her party at a restaurant or something... maybe that might work? I also want them to know J needs NO GIFTS... them being there is the gift! Them being able to play and interact and smile and laugh out loud is the GIFT from them! That is all we ever need to keep us on that high we feel after each visit. It makes my heart warm when we all give hugs to each other and share fun stories and ask about the kids school day, etc....

Since Julia's birthday is coming up,DH put together a homemade invitation... Elmo is the theme. I can't wait to decorate (we are having the party at my sisters because her sq footage is about double ours in our City houses. I even got an Elmo pinata. FUN. I gotta find some good snacks for the younger children for that one. Grandma and my sis also found another pinata in the shape of the number 1 so we will fill both .. one for small kids with pull string door and the other for the bigger kids (nieces and nephews) to hit with the baton. I am going to have to pay someone to take photos as I will be so busy with the kids and events.

How did your first birthday party go for your first child? Were you nervous? did you enjoy? WHat party favors did you have for both younger children and older nieces and nephews etc...??

Cupcakes or should buy a sheet cake and a small cake for Julia? *Elmo theme of course*.. yes, we will do a more princess or not so gender neutral party next year. hehe. I can't help if the girl loves elmo, actually I feed her addiction by buying her toys modeled after ELmo. hehe



I thank the Lord every moment for Julia's birthmother and her decision to bring Julia into this world and selecting us to become her parents for the rest of all of our lives.

can't sleep so my thoughts are running wild

I often try to find the blogs of the women I went through IVF / infertility treatment cycles with from some of the internet forum boards I was on. Man, I have lost touch with so many. I have moreso lately bookmarked blogs that relate more to my time in my life now, Parenting after Infertility and Adoption (also those that suffer miscarriages still). I migrate to these blogs that talk about the feelings they are dealing with in the adoption side of their lives, questions they get asked publically, staring that happens when a family is transracially formed by adoption, open adoption, family reactions to such adoptions and how birthmothers/birtfamilies are doing after a placement has been made. (that includes the birth siblings of an adoptive child, like J).

I had to mention to my sister yesterday that if she does take J to the local movie theater that hosts free kids movies that there might be a chance that she could run into a part of the birthmothers family of Julia. Maybe her birthsister, birthbrother and even her birthmother! They don't live far from us and the movie house that is hosting this free event is near smack dab in the middle of where we live and where J's birthmother lives!!!!! I know they go to these free events often because a mutual friend of the birthmothers and ours gave us the list of movies and movie houses they are playing at.

At first my sister was a little taken back that she might have an encounter like this, but after a few minutes I could tell she was relieved to know this could happen to her if she is out and about with all the kids (she has her 3, my brothers 3 and Julia each day (all cousins!! FUN)). I wonder if my sister will ever have "adoption" type questions thrown at her about us having adopted Julia and how is it that we can have such an open adoption like we do. We are honest with people and let them know how it works. Of course we don't share details of our visits, but just that an overall understanding of how we meet and how we let things just fall into place every few months for when we all feel the need to see each other. It really does work out well. I know one day we will all run into each other in public by chance and I wanted to let my sister know this so she could be prepared to answer any possible questions my nieces and nephews might have as to who these other people are. I told my sister to tell them they are our extended family now. J's birthfamily told us they consider us extended family now too.

I love our open adoption and am glad to share the ups and downs with anyone if they want to ask. I am proud of J's birthmother and we are so very very blessed to have her in our lives and for J to grow up knowing they all love her so much!

ok, off to bed. That is my random thought of the night... OOPS.. scratch that... random thought of the morning since it is now 1:12 am. bah.

gotta work tomorrow too. ick

what it all means... Joy, emotions, tears and love part 2

Today is one day closer to the finalization hearing at the courts on Wednesday to complete J's adoption(just over 6 months after birth). I am nervous, scared, excited and feeling overwhelmed, expecially for J's birthmother. I know she knows the finalization is this week so I wonder how she is dealing with her emotions of this all. I want to go hug her right now. Whisper in hear ear "Thank you for a miracle and blessing, We all love you so much for making your adoption for J with us". I know she knows we love her, but I just don't want her to feel alone this week. I want her to know we are always here for her.

We invited both of our mom's to the court room for the hearing and pictures after with the judge. I am sad that the judge that we had for J's birthmother terminations rights will not be doing our case. He was so kind and said he can't wait to see us at 6 months to do the finalization. I know we will still enjoy having the judge we do get. I do plan on having the camera charged up and ready to go for J's memory book. I want to celebrate, yet I will be so emotional. I just know it. I actually came in the house from work yesterday and saw that DH was red eyed. He was nearly in tears while holding J. I asked him what was wrong and he said he was just getting very emotional about her finalization coming up. It really touched my heart. I know men don't always express how they are feeling, but he has been so wonderful in letting me in on how he feels about J in our lives and her adoption process. I'll keep you posted for Wednesday's hearing.

Julia, your growing so fast. even from my post on Friday, you have started doing the following. You are now doing what I call a scoot crawl. You manage to cruise the floor every possible way, sideways, rolling, pushing yourself forward and backwards. You get pissy when you back yourself up against the chair or couch side or table legs. You won't let us leave the room without throwing a hissy fit. You tried vanilla yogurt for the first time today. Your eating is crappy right now. I wonder if you are ready to pop a tooth. I keep feeling for them, but you refuse to let either daddy or I get in there to check. We had to lower your crib mattress. You managed to start to pull yourself up on the rail and eat the railing. Body 1/2 up to the rail height so tonight daddy lowered your mattress all the way down and we just lowered the rail one position down so you are not soo far down. Before you know it, you will be standing up so this works. You like to drag the palm of your hand across the wood floor and make funny noises. You love to jabber while looking at me from the floor you are cruising. SLOW DOWN GIRL, you are growing way too fast.

it is still melting my heart hearing her say mama when I leave the room or when she is tired. sigh.. I LOVE IT. Her arms go up in the air when we approach her to pick her up.

Birthmother visit and letter writing.

In an open adoption, adoptive parents and the birthparents can tend to agree to open terms (not written terms ) of when visits can happen by either party or when letters and pictures can or will be sent. So today, after a near 3 month no contact time frame) we met up with Julia's birthmother at her friends house. We also got to see Julia's two birth siblings, her birthgrandma and the friends and their daughter who hosted the gathering. We all had so much fun.

A week ago, we knew we would be meeting up with all of them and I felt a little nervous about it, but today I was not nervous at all. More curious of how things would play out this whole evening. They went better than expected and lots of pictures were taken. (For Privacy reasons, I won't post those pictures on here.) I will always cherish these moments and pictures as we can tell Julia as she grows up who each of them are and how much they mean to her and DH & I. This gift Julia's birthmother gave us the best gift any couple could ask for in their dreams of being able to become parents. Especially after 5 miscarriages, two ectopic pregnancies and many heartaches throughout the 8 years of infertility and losses.

What a joy adoption can be and is for us. Julia's birthmother made the most unselfish decision to make an adoption plan for Julia and we were blessed to have been the couple she selected and felt would be able to care for and raise Julia to the best of our ability. That was not an option for Julia's mother at that time in her life while pregnant with her and up to delivery. But she reaffirmed this belief and feeling with us tonight when she hugged us goodnight and said she was so thankful for us in her life. I whispered back into her ear that we are so thankful for her in our lives too. Sometimes that frequency of seeing each other can be months away, but we know she thinks about Julia every day and night. I know she talkes to her kids about Julia and us and how we are able to provide Julia with a great home to grow up in. It is amazing how loving the birthsiblings are with Julia too. We got some good bonding time with them both and really enjoyed catching up on how they are doing with school and such. They are so beautiful and we are so lucky to have them in our lives to share with the milestones of Julia's growth.

Today I sat down and wrote our second letter to Julia's birthmother(bm). I wanted to do this a month ago, but with being sick I slacked off a little. Julia's bm did not mind it being late and was actually very thankful for me having brought the letter along with 15 or so pictures to give to her directly. Last time I wrote the letter was when Julia was 2 months old. We had not talked to her(bm) for a while so I had sent the letter off to the agency to send it to her when she was ready emotionally to handle reading it and seeing the pictures. This was during a time when we did not converse or see her in person for a while. I did not want to make her wait for the agency to contact her to see if she was ready for the letter and pictures so I brought them with us tonight and gave them to her. They LOVED the pictures and she said she would save the letter for later to read in private. I totally respect her decision for doing that because I think it might make her a bit emotional reading about Julia's milestones in the last few months and felt she did not want to break down in front of everyone there.

I'll make sure I keep on top of the letter writing starting tomorrow until the end of the next two months. I'll have lots of updates for her and many milestones Julia is meeting and surpassing. It will be fun to journal them into her letter as they happen. That is my goal, to keep up on top of the writing as it happens. LOL Good luck, right?

I have these letters saved on flash drive and also copied what pictures I sent with the letter (didn't do that for the first letter and now I regret it. ). So this letter covered Thanksgiving, day after Turkey day doctors appointment, December milestones, Christmas update and her January milestones and updates. So the next letter will involve her first ever Valentines Day, First St. Patty's day celebration and parade in dogtown (I took a day of vacation in hopes that the weather is nice and she and I can go to the parade together), Easter and then court finalization in April. Oh and our first SPring 2008 camping trips.

I am glad that Julia's bm enjoys getting these updates. We are so thankful for her gift of Life in Julia and we can only begin to help return the rewards by sharing Julia's life feats with her. Thank Goodness for our connection. Thanks to Crissy for introducing us to this situation of adoption. And thanks to our agency, A Gift of Hope Adoptions for helping our birthmother through the rough times and us through the new experiences.

Another note is that we mentioned tonight that DH and I want to adopt again and we hoped it would happen in the next 5 years or so, but DH and I decided (more dh than me) last night that we would want to do that quicker than 5 years from now. More like 2 if we can find the means of funding another attempt to grow our family. Everyone was excited for us too. They know now that we want Julia to have a sister or brother and to make our family a family of 4. Ahhhh, amazing to feel that joy!

Now I need to go start the process of planning Julia's Forever Family Day celebration party for after her finalization in mid-April.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I want to share this with others that might still be in the process of adopting for the sake that if they choose open adoption, it can be a great sense of Joy with the amount of openness we have with our birthmother situation.


We are a family of 3, but we have such an extended family. Yes, we inherited an extended family with Julia's adoption and we welcome that through the rest of our lives. What a pure blessing. They are all family no matter who and how we got there.