I break tradition; sometimes my tries, are outside the lines.
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way.
-Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten”
Did you ever have a therapy appointment that just hit you where you needed to be hit? Made you open your eyes a little more to see past what you were stuck on and gaze upon something in a way that was necessary? Welcome to my morning. I’ve been struggling, as I’ve written about, with things that are still somewhat unknown. I’ve been worried about Munchkin’s future questions, how they will be worded and how to word my own response in age-appropriate but honest fashions. I’ve been stressing about various things from pregnancy discussions to pregnancy itself to my mother’s health… and so on. Needless to say, my anxiety has been somewhat elevated in the past month. I told my therapist this fact, admitting that it’s not out of control but hindering certain activities which only, of course, adds more anxiety into the mix.
And so we got to talking, as you do when you’re visiting your therapist, about some underlying issues. We got to talking about Munchkin and the pregnancy and openness and… everyone else’s opinion. “Who is everyone else,” she asked. I stumbled around my words, explaining that certain people touched by adoption (and untouched, but I was trying to elaborate on those within the triad) think that open adoption is confusing for the child.
She looked at me, having been my therapist for over a year and a half now and said, “I may be forgetting something, but has Munchkin ever been confused about who you are or who her everyday Mommy is?” I launched into the pregnancy discussion story on how the Munchkin had us stop the conversation and she said, “Do you realize that it is age appropriate for a child her age to not want to have come out of ANYONE’S belly?” We began discussing our family unit, blended families, non-co-parenting issues and why other people simply don’t matter.
And then she hit me with it.
Different doesn’t mean bad. Different doesn’t even mean abnormal. Just because our family is unconventional doesn’t mean we’re wrong. Â
And I sat there, unable to speak as it began to sink in. (Yes, unable to speak.) Dumbfounded at my own inability to really put it all together prior to this moment in my therapist’s office. As I continued to sit and process, she went on, giving me more ammunition for personal change in outlook.
“Honestly, you’re going to make mistakes as you go along, just the same as you make mistakes in parenting BigBrother and like you will with LittleBrother. There is no “one book” that teaches you everything you need to know about parenting. They all disagree with one another. Just because there are little to no resources for parents in open adoption doesn’t mean you have to listen to every random person’s opinion either. Yes, you’re flubbing through this, just like every other planet on the face of the Earth.” (Paraphrased as I was still somewhat dumbfounded.)
No, there aren’t many books on the ins, outs, dos and don’ts of open adoption. “Experts” in the field still disagree on how much openness is acceptable, normal or excessive. Every person touched by adoption has an opinion on the matter. Every random Joe Schmoe has one as well. And it doesn’t matter.
We (which includes me, TheHusbandMan, D, J and the kids) are doing what is best for our family. We may make some mistakes along the way. (Uh, hi, I can vouch for that myself.) We may have our own questions from time to time. And this doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from others’ experiences, good or bad. In fact, I never want to stop learning about how to better our family! But in the end, we’re writing our own life story here. You may not like how our family is made up but, well, you don’t have to come to any family reunions either.
And then my anxiety level started to drop. And then BigBrother started to scream about leaving (“READY! READY!”) and it went back up but, hey, one thing at a time.