Always Wanted, Always Loved

Adoption.  Wow, I sure type about this a lot.  Funny how in a week, I had a few adoption related situations pop up.

Back in 2008, after Connor was placed with us (yes PLACED- we'll get to the terminology in a minute), we took part in a video about our experience.  We told our "side" of the story, Connor's Birth Mother, D, told her side of the story, and we each answered a few questions about our experience.  Reviewing the video (and remembering the fashionable onesies that Connor wore) this video was maybe done 2 to 3 months after his birth.  For all accounts, we were all still very raw with emotion and very new at figuring out our roles.  Hell, we still figuring it out.

Both D and I were asked if this video could be posted online as a positive adoption message.  I am all about being associated with positive and adoption.  Then I got the link. My heart hit rock bottom, as a grew furious with what I read.

The title had a major problem.  In fact, all five part of this video had a major problem.  I found it very late at night while Jeff was asleep, after over 200 people had already viewed it.  Where I was all ready to be the positive face of an Open Adoption.  I was one of the faces, in an adoption related video with the word "gave up" in it.

Livid. Furious. Disappointed.

I found it 100% necessary to get this fixed as soon as possible. Never in a million years, do I ever want Connor associated with the word "gave up."  He's not an old sweater D was ready to "give up" to Goodwill.  Never. That child was always wanted, loved and always was prayed for.  Want and loved by my family, by D's family, by our friends, and strangers.  Everyone who knew all sides of the story, KNEW that boy was wanted by all of us.

He was so loved, his mother created a plan for him, while he was still in-utero.  She cared for him, found him a family, and did an amazing thing for a childless couple.  If you've read my story, you know how much we care for D and love her for what she had done for us.

But to see the word- just took my breath away. A worst nightmare.

Luckily, the titles were altered.  I still personally, feel they could be tweaked to be a bit better.  Yet, I'm not the author of that project.

Please, I beg of you, PLEASE think twice before referring to an adoptive child as given up.  Just don't.  If you are around me, I will correct you.  Especially when referring to my story and my child. 

On the heels of this situation, Connor and I met with D. Being as open as we are, I asked her, "Do you use the word gave up?" 

We discussed placement and adoption plan.  We agreed that is what Connor needs to know, there was always a plan. D's plan, God's plan, our plan.  Always wanted, always loved, always our son.  My son and her son.  I read a quote once that a birth mother wrote:

He is mine in a way that he will never be hers, yet he is hers in a way that he will never be mine, and so together, we are motherhood. ~desha wood

I love this.  It is so very true.  D carried him, she loved him, before any of us met him.  It was just those two; I will never be able to share that experience.  No one can ever take that from her.  He is mine- I am the one kissing boo-boos, getting him ready for school, seeing him walk for the first time. I am Mom, and she is Mom.  He is ours.

Now I am rambling.  I am lucky our open adoption is going well; I hope it continues this way.  I want to be that family with a great open adoption.  I want Connor to know D, I want D to know Connor and us.  I don't want Connor to have guilt that he feels he will be disloyal to me by wanting to foster a relation with D when he is older.  What I hope is that D is always there, that the relationship Connor and D develop evolves with time.  So, when he is older he never feels any negative feelings.  I want Connor to know D as well as he knows any other family member. Then we would never have a weird awkward moment. 

To D, you said you'd be in the for the long haul, I'm holding you to it.





D and Connor
Scenes from an Open Adoption