Open Adoption Roundtable: Birthdays

The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It’s designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community.

This round’s topic involves birthdays.

I know that birthdays can be an extremely emotional time, for everyone connected to adoption, not just those of us in open adoptions. So what is it that we do, as part of our open adoptions, during the “birthday season”?

I admit that I am terrible about keeping in touch. If someone is on Facebook, I can handle it, but without the computer feeding me info, I’m way out of the loop. I hope to do better next year. There are three days that I make sure we contact Jack’s birthmother:

• Jack’s birthday
• Her birthday
• Christmas

I always think of S as Jack’s birthday grows near.  Every year, I remember how we wouldn’t have Jack if it weren’t for S. We wouldn’t be a family without her. I think about what Jack’s life or our lives might be like and shudder. We are so blessed to have this exuberant, brilliant little guy. Of course, that means that S doesn’t have him. I don’t feel guilty for that, but I do feel sad.

This year, when we called S, Jack listened to S and her sister sing Happy Birthday. He actually talked to both of them (with a little coaching). When I told S that I had to thank her, because we wouldn’t be a family without her, she burst into tears. She said that she needed to hear that from us. She never regrets placing Jack, she said. She knows she made the right decision.

S lives too far away for us to visit. Her circumstances are such that she can’t buy Jack presents. I do wish she would send him a card though. While thinking about the question “What do you wish you would see in future birthday celebrations regarding involvement with your child’s birth parents?”, I remembered that S is a good artist. I think I’ll ask her to draw Jack a picture and send it to him so we can put it on his wall. We only have one tangible item that S gave him – a blanket. I think it would be nice for him to have a little something more.

Nothing earth shattering or shocking in this post. I highly recommend reading what the other bloggers have to say too.

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