When we started the adoption process, I had my own ideas about what open adoption looked like. Some were fears from terrible Lifetime movies (why does it feel like everyone wants to talk about those movies when you tell them you’re adopting?). And some were dreams for what it could look like for us. What struck me most was hearing how good open adoption could be.
As we waited for an expectant mama to choose us, I sewed up hopes in my heart about what our open adoption story would be.
What I completely failed to consider was that open adoption involves another person (sometimes another family). The first mama comes into the adoption with her own hopes and needs. Her desires must come first. Open adoption is a relationship. And like every relationship, it takes time to grow and develop and may have times where it ebbs and then flows.
I want my son to always know his first mama. She is brave and strong, she is beautiful and smart and he is all of those things because of her. I want him to never know a day where he doesn’t know her or the absolute beauty of his story. And I want her to know him; to see him eat his first puréed vegetables and take his first wobbly steps, to get to cheer for him when he pedals his bike down the block with the big kids or smiles so big it splits your heart wide open. Because together, she and I, we share motherhood. We are mama’s to our sweet boy, and she is always the first one I want to share the victories small and large with.
Our son came home in the middle of the summer. Those first months were filled with text messages, emails and pictures of every sweet, new and precious thing he did. By his first birthday, not only was my love for his first mama growing, my hopes for our future as a family together, grew too.
And then, things got quiet.
I kept sharing the funny and sweet and new things he was doing and checking in on her but she was quiet. What I know now is that she needed some time, some space. This dear, brave, strong woman, mother of my son, needed to grieve and to start to heal.
When our son cooed, laughed, or started sitting up I missed her so much. She was always the first one I wanted to tell. I will never forget the advice of a dear friend during that time. She told me to still tell her, to still save the best for her. She suggested tucking all of the things I wanted to tell her, show her, send her away. To be given to her one day. Someday, when she’s ready.
So that’s what I’ve done. I have a little box with a lid. If you open it you’ll find pictures of Halloween and the tiniest Batman you’ve ever seen trick-or-treating with his brothers. You’ll find a sheet of scribbles in primary colors, the first one our son made at Sunday school. There’s a sheet from a doctor’s pad with our son’s height and weight at one and two years and there are signed Mother’s Day cards and birthday cards that haven’t been sent. Sometimes he asks a question about his first mama or tells me sweetly that he wants to hug her, and those notes are dated and tucked in there too.
Open adoption is good and beautiful. But part of it is learning that it means being completely open to the changing tides of the relationship. Knowing that like every relationship, it might ebb and will flow. Loving my child’s first mom means giving her space and time for grief and healing and still saving the best for her.
