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overwelmed with fost adopt thoughts. (post-adoption)
I am so incredibly happy with our end result... we have the absolute most perfect match in the world and she's ours!!!
but I have to admit, the whole process still makes me dizzy. I almost want to vomit when getting overwhelmed with certain aspects of the process. I just want my baby to be a 'normal' baby for lack of better words, rather than constantly being referred to as a fost/adopt baby. I am tired of going into lots of explanations. I've done that for years. I even stray away from the fost and adopt web boards (mostly adoption.com) more lately than I used to just because I want us to feel like a normal family. Is this a normal feeling??
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Re: overwelmed with fost adopt thoughts. (post-adoption)
our are not final yet, but i don't even refer to them as being adopted or that they're even foster placements still. i just say "our boys" and leave it at that now.
as does our agency, which is a great feeling. something we've never felt. they were even talking today about trying to get them finalized on the same day and asking that the 6 month placing be thrown out for Trent.
I do not refer to my baby as being adopted. or mention she was foster. But it's obvious to everyone around me, mainly coworkers and friends and acquaintances of the family. Of course they are going to be curious, but I'm now overwhelmed by all the questions. I try to be nice and keep it short and sweet, but boy, people really have questions! They always want to know all about the birthfamily. I think in time things will pass and no more questions will be asked...can't wait for that day.
OHHH!!! well I always say that their parents just couldn't care for them at the time (all the foster children) and leave it at that. DH's coworkers all know that we do drug exposed children, so there's not normally any questions there thank goodness.
since you have finalized and its completely on a different subject, but kind of the same - have you decided how to go about it when she has questions about her BPs? we go back and forth on what we're going to say/do, especially since neither child has ever been in the care of their BM.
I think it took us about a year after Charlotte came home to finally feel that the adoption was normal, although an untraditional normal. To some extent I think it will always be different and we will always have to explain, but our comfort level with it will change over time.
We leave out many details when we explain. We don't go into the drug exposure (we don't want people to judge her off the bat and look for things wrong and we don't want to give her a complex about it), we don't usually go into how her birth mother is related to me (just say her birth mother is a family member rather than she is my sister), we simply say that her birth parents weren't able to care for her and we were excited to grow our family so adoption worked for us (rather than go into the whole foster care history). Really though we usually just have to say that we adopted and we had a bio child and we don't specify which one is which.
I've found that I have become more comfortable explaining our situation and because it now feels normal in my head, it seems normal to explain it to others. Does that make sense?
Six years later we still get some comments (DD is from China and obviously not our bio child). The one that irks me the most is questions about her "real" parents. First of all, I don't share too many specifics with people other than those who are close to me. I don't want the "A" word to come up yet (abandoned). I resent being asked how much she "cost" and I really resent the whispered "designer baby" comments.
Some days it bothers me more than others. I don't think it's my mission to educate others, but some days it's just to hard to ignore the ignorance.
BB&J