We are off to Philadelphia this weekend to attend the 15th Anniversary Celebration of Adoption Arc, the agency where I adopted my daughter.
My daughter knows she is adopted and has several friends who are also adopted so I don’t think she feels alone in her situation but I thought this event would be a great opportunity to celebrate the event with other families like ours plus, I wanted to support the agency.
Last week, I told my daughter that we would be going on a trip to Philadelphia for the celebration and to meet other families who had adopted to gage her interest, fear and to provoke conversations and questions.
After I told her the news, her first question was “Is my birth mother coming? I was somewhat taken aback by her response and held my composure. “No, she is not coming. The party is for families like ours who have adopted. You will be able to meet other kids like yourself. One day when you older, you will meet your birth mother.”
Her very 6 year old mind can only handle so much information and she was fine with my response since she responded “okay”. Next question, ” Can we visit the hospital where I was born?”
This completely threw me but again I came up with a response that appeased her, “I will have to check, since I don’t the know the hospital where you born.” (And this is true, I did not remember the hospital where she was born.)
She then launched into a host of non-related questions about how we were getting to Philadelphia? were we staying in a hotel? did the hotel have a pool? can I eat a McDonalds (we have McDonalds only on vacation rule)???
Luckily, she was thrilled and excited about all the details of our trip and completely forgot about the birth mother conversation.
The next day, I reached out to the agency’s social worker, more like reaching for a life raft, I would say. Help!!! Per her instructions, the hospital is a normal request, so that is a go (now I just have to figure out how to get there without a car) and meeting the birth mother, not such a good idea at this age (yah think, I am not even ready for this and frankly, I don’t think my daughter will be ready for many years.)
I anticipate that weekend will prompt some more questions and anxiety on my part.
Stay tuned….
