Cracking Open the "Open Adoption"

There are many things that I will not be teaching my children how to do, because I totally fail at them myself.  For example, I will pawn off the task of teaching my girls how to cook, ride a bike, do math, sports, swimming, dancing, and anything crafty, to other moms that possess these skills themselves.  That's what friends are for!

But when it comes to navigating the unknown territory of keeping in contact with Violet's biological parents, I feel like I should figure out how to do that myself before she decides she wants to and asks me how.  I know she is going to have questions, and I don't want to make it her problem alone to figure out how to get the answers.  So.....how to begin?

I'm lucky enough to have had a significant amount of contact with her birth mom, and we text occassionally about Violet's progress.  Although she expressed the desire to see Violet sometime soon, I knew it would be up to me to initiate and plan the meeting.  So we met for lunch the yesterday, I picked her up in our usualy meeting place, jut like I had been doing when I drove her to all of her doctor appointments when she was pregnant.

So much has changed, though.  When she was pregant, she was the mom.  Now I am the mom, or we both kind of are the mom.   I'm telling her about Violet and what she likes, what her schedule is, and how much she has grown.  It seems a little weird to tell that to the woman who birthed her!

We also talked about the issues surrounding Violet's biological father, but it means something completely different to both of us.  She gave up a baby she couldn't parent, and I am parenting a baby I might have to give up.  Not the same thing at all.

I signed on for this: sending letters, updates, pictures, and baby footprints to biological parents and grandparents, and scheduling somewhat awkward meetings with them in the midst of our already busy lives. 

When we said we wanted an open adoption, I knew it would be up to me to advocate for the birth parent's involvement, not because I need them inovlved, but because its best for Violet.   Its not going to be completely comfortable for us or the biological parents, I can see that now. 

Someday, Violet will be a teenager and she will blame me for either inovlving her biological parents too much or too little.  I hope so! That's the mark of a good mom, right? When your kids hate you for everything you sacrificed on their behalf? I'm looking forward to that, really.