On Raising "Adopted Bobby".

A few months ago, the topic at our agency's monthly support group for adopting parents was "Talking to Your Children About Adoption".  In open adoption, the fact that a child is adopted is no secret.  It's not something that is ignored or swept under the rug.  It is just a fact of life.  If you do open adoption "right", there should never come a point where you have to sit your child down and "break the news" that he or she is adopted.  Adoption should just be an underlying theme in the child's life, something that they know about themselves, the way they might know they are Irish, or Jewish, or have two moms, even.  It doesn't make them better.  It doesn't make them worse.  It is just a part of who they are.

Identity--how you define the core of "who you are"--is important.  Who you think you are and the groups to which you count yourself a member define not only how you see the world, but also how the world sees you.
Throughout my life, I've identified--to varying degrees--in a number of different ways.  Hippie.  Femme.  Lesbian.  Nurse.  Nerd.  Cheerleader. Only Child.  To this day, all of those labels still represent pieces of who I am.  (Well, maybe not so much the cheerleader, anymore.  But I can still do some mean "spirit fingers", watch out!)

Part of our child's identity will be "Adopted Child" or "Adoptee" or "Child Who Is Adopted", depending upon how technical and/or political you want to get with semantics (I'm still learning...).  To us, of course, he or she will just be "our child" (not "our adopted child").  The extent to which adoption plays a role in our child's identity formation will be, for the most part, up to our child.  We have a few friends who are adopted, and adoption doesn't seem to play a big role in their personal identities. However, I've read enough on the blogosphere to know that for some people, adoption is the central core of their identity and the very fiber of their being.  For many others, adoption is probably something that ebbs and flows in importance on the "identity meter" over time.  Sometimes being adopted will be very important, and at others, it will probably take a backseat to some other aspect of self.  Our role as parents comes, I believe, in ensuring that whatever part adoption ultimately plays in our child's sense of self, it is a positive one.

I think one of the biggest concerns that adoptive parents and birth parents alike have is that the child will feel abandoned, given up, or thrown away.  People outside and on the periphery of open adoptions tend to worry that children will feel "confused".  They worry that awareness of the birth family will make a child question who his or her "real" parents are.  But those of us who understand open adoption, who are in the middle of it, and aren't confused by it ourselves, tend to have faith that the child will understand.  We just worry that they won't understand it on a deep enough level.

As parents, one of the most important things we can do is help our child to understand, develop, respect, and love who he or she is.  A healthy sense of self-esteem is the gift that keeps on giving!  Believing in yourself--all the various aspects of yourself--will carry you far in life, and we hope, more than anything, that we can foster in our child a sense of comfort and pride in him or herself.  Two AM feedings?  Diaper changes? Potty training?  Teaching them to try new foods and tie their shoes? Those are no small tasks, of course, but they pale in comparison to the life-long effort that goes into raising a happy, self-confident child.

So, Amber and I are planning to do things right from the start to help our child's concept of adoption and his or her life story to be accurate, positive, and realistic.  We are reserving a special place on the nursery wall for a framed picture of our child's birth parents.  I can already see myself holding our child on my hip, pointing to the picture of them standing with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and saying "That's Kelsey, your birth mom.  You grew in her tummy.  And she picked Mommy and I to be your parents, because she loves you very much."  We'll look forward to reading bedtime stories like "Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born" and "The Best for You" that tell positive adoption stories in terms young children can understand.  We plan to keep in touch with our "adoption friends" and are excited to attend IAC events like holiday parties and picnics where our child will get to play with other kids and see other families who were formed just like ours.

But, we'll also look forward to pointing out Grandma, Grandpa, and Nonna in pictures of our own extended families, to reading "Good Night Moon" and "Pat the Bunny,"  and to having play dates with the many many non-adoptive families that we count among our closest friends.  It's not going to be "all adoption, all the time" in our house.

We want our child to understand adoption, to view his or her life story positively, and to know that Kelsey's difficult decision was made out of love.  We think this is best for our child, and we know Kelsey agrees.  But, we also know that it is our responsibility to make sure sure our child truly understands.  She is giving us the gift of parenthood.  It's a gift we accept with great gratitude, and it's a responsibility that we take very seriously.

We want to be mindful parents.  Parents who think before they act, and consider the message that small ears and young brains take in when grown up issues are discussed.  But, we don't want our child to be so steeped in the politics, philosophy and theory of adoption that they pickle in it.  Our child may love baseball or ballet.  He may yearn to be a veterinarian or a writer.  She may have a knack for music or a passion for history.  Whatever it is that makes our child who he or she is, we want to celebrate it.  We don't want our child--or our family--to be defined only by adoption.

We want to be thinking parents, not overthinking parents.  We want to remember that all children experience separation anxiety, and that if our kid cries being dropped off for the first day of kindergarten, it's not because of some deep seated adoption-related abandonment issues.  It's because kindergarten is scary, period.  We want to remember that if (okay...when) our thirteen-year-old someday screams "You"ll never understand me!!!", it's not because of some non-biological disconnect in our family.  It's because thirteen-year-olds are sometimes aliens from another planet who speak a different language than adults.

Adoption will always be part of who our child is.  But we don't want to raise our child to feel like "Adopted Bobby*", to feel like adoption is all of who he or she is, or all of who we are as a family.  I'd much rather we raise "Jock-Dancer-Musical-Adopted-History Buff-Author-Animal Lover Bobby."  Or better yet, just raise "Bobby", and let Bobby decide the rest for him or herself.

x's&o's,

Michelle

With a few of our favorite "Non-Adopted Bobbies"

*Not his/her real name.  Not even close.  We just haven't settled on a name.  And when we do, we probably aren't telling the whole internet anyhow.  Sry.

Adopting Mom, RN

I'm a nurse.

If you know me, chances are you already know this about me.

In fact, it's safe to say if you know me at all you know three things about me:

1. Amber is my most favorite person in the world.
2. We are adopting.
3. I'm a nurse.

In that order.  And if you only sorta know me, that may be all you really know about me.  I'm constantly amused and amazed by the number of people who tell me they like reading this blog.  Amber says it's because I hardly ever talk to people, so they have no idea I have all this in me. She makes a good point.  But, it is was it is, and here we are.

But, I digress.  (If you know four things about me, the fourth may be that I digress.  A lot.)

So anyway, yes, I am a nurse.  Specifically a mother-baby nurse, or maternal-newborn nurse, if you wanna get all technical about it.

I don't deliver babies.  That's the job of midwives and obstetricians.  I don't work with laboring women or help them through delivery.  That's the job of labor and delivery nurses.

I don't breastfeed other people's babies.  That's the job of old-timey "wet nurses" (and boy howdy, did that ever make for one confusing and awkward conversation when an acquaintance thought that's what I did at work all day...).

I don't live in other people's houses and take care of their newborn in the middle of the night.  That's the job of a "baby nurse", who, for the record, is usually not an actual nurse, and should really be called a nanny or something (don't get me started on that one...).

I also don't "sit around and hold babies all day," as many people tell me they'd love to do when they first hear my job title.  That's the job of the sweet old ladies who volunteer in the nursery and neonatal intensive care units at the hospital.  Note the word "volunteer".  Nobody gets paid to "sit around and hold babies all day."

So, what do I do?  I take care of new families in the postpartum ("after birth") period.  I care for women  and babies in those 24 to 72 hours between giving birth and going home.  I do the initial assessment of the infant, draw blood, give medications, and monitor their transition from being inside mom to outside in this great big world.  I take care of women who have had vaginal deliveries and those who are recovering from cesarean sections.  I monitor their bleeding, their peeing, their vital signs, and their lab results.  I help them when they are puking, when they can't feel their legs yet, and when they are in pain.  I am always on the look out for the very rare, but potentially serious, complications that can arise after childbirth.

That's the science of what I do.  But, my favorite thing about nursing is the blend between science and caring.  I'm a girl who loves cold, hard facts.  I'm very analytical and logic is the lens through which I try to see the world.  But, attached to my very black-and-white brain is a mushy, bleeding, liberal heart.  I feel a lot for people.  I care.  I want to help people, and make a difference.  In my work and in my life, I always strive to be the boy on the beach throwing back the starfish, one by one.

So the mushy emotional part of what I do is helping new families to connect to this new little wriggly, screaming, pooping, hungry, adorable little being that just got pushed or cut out into this crazy world.  I spend days encouraging moms that haven't slept all night that they can breastfeed, and the baby will get it...eventually.  I show fumbling dads how to swaddle a baby so he'll actually sleep.  I help 2-year-old big brothers climb up in mom's bed to see their new little sister for the very first time.

It's not all sunshine and lollypops where I work, though.  Most of my patients don't have a lot of money.  Many of them come from other countries, and quite a few are here as refugees.  Some of my patients are excited about their new baby, some, though, are mostly put out and stressed out by this new addition and new complication to their already difficult lives.  A few of my patients are on drugs.  A number of my patients have some major baby daddy drama.  People often wonder if working in a hospital is like what they see on Grey's Anatomy. (It's not.) On my unit, at least, some days it's more like what you see on Jerry Springer and/or Maury Povich.

But of all the patients and all the situations I see on a daily basis, right now I have to say I feel most privileged to have the opportunity to take care of those patients who are placing their infants for adoption.  As a nurse, I feel rewarded to have the chance to help strong and brave women through a difficult time.  And as an adopting mom-to-be, I feel honored to have the opportunity to witness this process from the other side, first-hand.

Most of the women in my hospital who have made adoption plans are doing open or semi-open adoptions.  Some have made plans long before they came to the hospital, others decide in the hospital and our social worker helps them to contact an agency.  In some cases the adoptive families come to the hospital.  Some attend the birth, visit in the birth mom's room afterwards, and care for or share in the caring for their new baby. Other times the birth mother and adoptive family never meet. Either the adoption counselor picks up the baby, and takes him or her to the adoptive family, or the adoptive family comes to the hospital and visits with the baby in a special "family room" away from the birth mom's room.  Some birth moms like to keep the baby in their rooms, and want to take that special time to--as they say in adoption circles--"say hello before they say goodbye" (or, "see you later," at least).  Others want little contact, and prefer for the nurses to keep the baby in the nursery.

There are no right answers.  Just answers that feel right for individual people.  Of course I have my preferences and ideas about what feels right in our own situation.  But, as a nurse, it's my job to respect and support whatever my patient--the birth mom--wants.  And I do. Strongly, loudly, and without apology.  Yes, this is an exciting time for adoptive parents.  A time to meet their new baby, to be joyful, and to form their family.  But, ultimately, this hospital experience is the birthmother's.  It's her delivery, her body, and her recovery time.  And, if she ends up deciding to sign the relinquishment papers, the adoptive family will have the rest of their lives with this precious baby.  With that in mind, honoring her wishes and respecting what she needs--no matter what it is--in those first few days is the only right thing to do.  She's giving you the gift of a lifetime.  Give her the gift of your respect, your confidence, and your admiration.

Not all nurses (or doctors, or people in general) feel the way I do about adoption.  Most have the good sense and professionalism to keep their personal opinions out of patient care.  Some, unfortunately, do not. People can be judging, and in the arena of reproduction and childbirth, this is especially so.  Had children at a young age? Irresponsible and you should have waited.  Had children after your 35th birthday?  Selfish and you shouldn't have waited so long.  Had more than 3 or 4 kids? Irresponsible and you shouldn't have had so many.  Had an abortion? Selfish and you should have had that baby.  Placing a child for adoption? Either irresponsible for getting pregnant and/or selfish for choosing not to parent. (double whammy) Patients just can't win with some nurses, unfortunately.  And adoptive families don't fare much better.  Desperate and crazy are the monikers they are most often saddled with.

I'm a fairly quiet, laid back person.  But when something pushes me to be not quiet, oh boy, watch out.  I will speak with more vigor and bluntness than you could ever expect from such a wallflower.  It takes people aback sometimes, and I can see the surprise in their faces.  But when something matters to me, it matters a lot, and I will let you know it. That's how I feel about adoption and taking care of birth mothers at work.

I'm on a committee at work that develops policies, processes and projects to improve the quality of care on our unit.  My project last year was to develop materials and protocols for caring for patients who are placing their infants for adoption.  It's a work in progress, but so far I've collected some articles and information on appropriate adoption terminology and birthmother rights to help the nurses speak and think positively about adoption, developed a door sign to identify which patients are planning adoptions so staff entering the room will know the situation and not say anything inappropriate, and developed a "memory box" kit for birth moms to take home if they want (including the baby's hat, a crib card, and a satin pouch to keep the things in).  I'm also on a personal mission to eradicate the use of the word BUFA in my hospital. It means "baby up for adoption", and it gets stamped on charts and paperwork and crib cards.  BUFA, for godsakes.  It sounds like the noise a cat makes when it hacks up a hairball.  So, in lieu of that, we've started putting the symbol from the door sign I made in the crib and on the chart.  It's a step in the right direction, I believe.

The days and weeks are rolling by, and before we know it, Kelsey's delivery day will be here.  I think about it all the time.  Some days at work, when I'm changing a diaper or feeding a bottle to a baby whose mom is resting or in the shower, I stop and think, "Wow. Soon I'll be doing this for our child".  I look at all the babies a little differently now that we are matched.  I wonder if our baby will be have hair like this one, eyes like that one, or be the same size as that one over there.  I check out carseats and swaddling blankets a little bit closer now when I'm sending patients home, doing my own sort of on-the-job window shopping.

When Kelsey's day comes, I'll do my best to take off my nurse's cap (metaphorically speaking), and just be there as a hopeful adoptive mom. We'll give her the space she needs, the support she desires, and always allow for the fact that what she wants and needs at the hospital can change at any given moment.  We're still so thrilled that she chose us, and we're honored to be given the opportunity to play any role whatsoever in her hospital experience.

Now.  Let me catch wind that anyone in that hospital is giving her an ounce of lip or attitude or anything less than excellent care?  Well, she's a strong and independent young woman, and I'm sure she can handle it. But....just in case....I've got her back.  With my nurse's cap on.

x's & o's,

Michelle, RN