Why I write . . .

Several of my friends have blogs for the purpose of sharing their family’s life with others.

I, on the other hand, started this blog to have a place to write specifically/exclusively about adoption.  Via seeking months of counseling, receiving the support of friends and family, reading many books on the subject, attending support groups to help me learn about parenting my little one who has some attachment struggles, participating in educative adoption conferences, and participating in research, my head and heart get full!  Writing this blog, writing in general, is therapeutic for me–as is dancing and running.

Each person is a unique individual–of course.  I wondered if my desire to search and know my birthfamily had come at a late stage of life when I first began.  But, one of my favorite stories is of an eighty year old man who called a Social Worker in Illinois from the golf course–ready to search for his birth parents.  🙂  He was a “young” eighty year old man, and he believed that his birthparents were of the same fabric–that they would be “young” still also.  On the other hand, I also talk with teens (or their adoptive parents) who are ready to search as soon as they turn eighteen.  Some adoptees never choose to search–not in their entire lifetime.  When asked throughout my years as an elementary student–throughout high school–throughout college–at my dad’s company Christmas party as a teenager–in doctor’s offices–and as an adult if I wanted to find my birthmom or any part of my birthfamily, I had a pretty standard answer; my answer reflected my unreadiness to search during those years.

Something changed for me.  Something changed for that eighty year old man.  Something pulls those eighteen year old adoptees early . . . .  Each adoptee has their own story/their own unique experience.  Everyone is different–thus it is not a surprise that every adoptee’s thoughts and choices are different.

And yet, through all of my counseling, networking with other adoptees, reading books on these subjects–there are similarities.  There are thoughts, issues, and feelings that only birthparents “get,” only adoptees “get,” and only adoptive parents “get.”  My pleasure–I am both an adoptee and an adoptive parent.  I hope that someday, when Naika goes through stages of sorting out how she landed in our family, that I will have insights for her/commonality with her that will help her along her journey.