Vacation time

We have planned for a year to go to Vancouver in Canada.  We haven't been up there since 2001.  I miss going there.  I miss the beach, sandbars, and the condo literally being within feet of the beach.  My husband's family lives up there.  His grandparents were born and raised in Canada, it wasn't until after they married that they moved to California.  We don't see this part of the extended family often but we always start up right where we left off. My husband comes from the nicest, most down to earth people there are.  I am honored to now be one of them through marriage. 

The only downfall is Alyssa is not going with us.  She has to work which I totally understand and I am glad she is so responsible.  Also her best friend is coming to California while we are gone.  They get to explore together as young woman both Santa Cruz and San Francisco.  Alyssa can show her friend a few of the fun things to do and see locally.  I am glad they have that friendship but I am sure going to miss Alyssa.  I love her friend too.  I think she is one of the kindest people that are out there.  I feel like she is my third daughter.  It sucks that I will miss seeing her when she comes in town. 

I want Alyssa to come with us so bad.  I want to introduce Jeremy's extended family to ALL of my children.    I want to go on vacation and it be the 6 of us.  I know I sound extremely selfish.  After all I am lucky to have a great relationship with Alyssa.  I am able to have her live with us.  We do have a relationship that most natural moms and adoptees would envy but I want more.  I want her to go on vacation with us.  To explore with us.  I want her to see the things my other children have.   I just want to see her excitement about discovering new places.   Ten days apart is going to be rough on the both of us I think.

graduation time

A few weeks ago my youngest niece graduated from high school.  A lot of the family came to her graduation.  I sat by my sister (my nieces mom).   After it was over we were waiting for everyone to leave the stands.  All of a sudden I saw my sister talking to someone I didn't know and I see her pointing to me and Alyssa.  Honestly I was a bit upset.  I was thinking can't I just be a family?  Does it have to be pointed out that I placed Alyssa?  This wasn't the time to get into an adoption discussion.  I didn't want to be looked as as a saint or a sinner. Then my sister came over and introduced me to her friend.  It turns out that this woman placed her first child, a son, 5 years ago.  We started talking about it.  She explained that she was in an open adoption.  So I asked when did you last see your son?  She replied back when he was 15 months old.  I was in shock, flabbergasted, almost stunned into silence.  She explained that the family lives in the Midwest and she lives in California.  I did say well it is easy to say you have an open adoption when you don't have to see your child's other mother in 4 years.  It is easy to send out pictures once or twice a year. 

We started talking about the pain of adoption and then she looked at Alyssa and said something to the affect of it does get easier over time.  I asked her "does it really get easier or do you just learn to live with the pain?" 

I find it interesting the term open adoption now a days.  It means so many things to so many people.  It could mean I never met the aparents but I get a letter every few years but no pictures(like mine was for years).  It could mean I met the aparents and I was able to visit a few times.  It could mean I am able to see my child once a year for an hour in public but never in the couples home.  Or it could mean that the adoptive family and natural family act as one extended family and they do holidays and random get togethers every few weeks or months.  Every adoptive couple (of domestic newborn) that I know claim to have an open adoption.  A lot of natural parents say they had an open adoption but later the adoption closed.

Similarities and differnces

Alyssa and I were talking the other day and she was commenting how much she looks like my lil sister.  I see similarities but I don't really see they look a lot alike.  Ofcourse Alyssa moves  like us,  she talks like us, shakes her head the same way we do, she has the same mannerisms.  But I have a hard time seeing how much she look like us.  I finally realized why.

My family 1979/1980
Back row: My dad holding Charlyn, Mom holding Jason, My oldest brother ray in brown, Anita in lavender dress, and Shana in the blue dress. Beside my mom is Laurel in the dark green dress and I am in the red dress.

I grew up in a very big family.  Six of us seven kids had blond hair and blue eyes. My youngest sister has green eyes and dark hair.  If she didn't come as a set of twins a lot of people would question if she was the mail mans.  Her twin brother had blond hair and blue eyes though.   I was always embarrassed with having such a big family.  We lived in California not Utah and everywhere we went people would stare at us and count the number of kids. Even people that knew us would get confused at which kid each of us were.  I hated being called by my sisters name or just referred to by "The Smith kids".  I was Jeanette I was different than them.  From a very young age I tried to see the differences and see what made us individual.   I think I still have that perception I see similarities between all of us but I also notice the differences more than anything. 

Alyssa being adopted never knowing her family, she looks for the similarities.  She is much better at noticing peoples similarities than I am.  She notices everyone's voice, face shapes, the deep dimples, eye colors, nose shapes, even the body build of all of us. 

To see more pictures you can go to http://myfamilyofadoption.blogspot.com/2011/06/family-pics-similarities.html?zx=7cba15b8dc758639

Food the new adventure

My family has so many food allergies it is absolutely ridiculous.  I have an allergy to animal fats.  I can not eat pork, steak, or even dark meat on chicken without getting sick.  I also have  a mild allergy to milk.  I did not grow up with these allergies but they came on after I had Cassie.  Kenny and Cassie have very sensitive stomachs and have trouble with spices.  Going out  to eat is very hard so I have learned to cook for every one's dietary needs.  My younger sister has an allergy to gluten and dairy.  I have 2 nephews that are highly allergic to dairy.  My mom can have no animal fats of any kind including all meats and dairy.  My mom's allergies came on when she hit late 40's to early 50's.  Kenny had a milk allergy until he was3 years old and then all of a sudden he could have dairy after 3.

When Alyssa started getting sensitive to dairy and dark meats after she had Owen I was not surprised at all.  I had warned her that it could happen but it might not.  I thought it was best for her to know it was possible to get an adult onset food allergies.

I have only used chicken and turkey for our meats in the last 12 years.  I do not use a lot of dairy in my cooking so I didn't think I would have to change up our cooking that much. We are finding out that Alyssa  has an allergy to soy also.  It seems that soy is in everything out there.  We are experimenting and trying new recipes.  I'm trying to find foods that all 6 of us can eat and enjoy.  I do have to say though without being able to go out to eat at restaurants and fast food the food budget goes way down.  I have loved making pizza from scratch but Alyssa can't have that at all so we aren't using that recipe anymore.  If anyone has some good vegetarian recipes that do not use soy or tofu I am more than willing to experiment.

Likeness

My oldest son Alex is my quiet, shy reserved child.  He does not like being the center of attention.  He is very smart and always a good student.  He gets embarrassed very easy. The other three kids are loud and energetic and like attention.  It is almost a compettitionwho can be the silliest, funniest craziest kid between the three.

Over the last 2 years my husbands family has commented how much Alex looks, moves, and even acts like Alex's great Uncle that died about 10 years before Alex was born when this Uncle was only about 21 years old.  I never met my husband's uncle.  I do not have any frame of reference for how he acted, moved, or looked like.  This Uncle was child number 8 so there wasn't a lot of pictures of him that I have seen.  Talking to my husbands family has helped me understand how to raise, love, and nurture Alex.  Alex has started to hear stories of his uncle and about his personality.  It has helped Alex embrace himself and love himself more.  It has helped Alex to fit in our family even though his 3 siblingss atre loud and he is quiet and reserved.

Alex is so similar to his uncle that an aunt commented to me that she recently saw a picture of Alex and just the way he stood, held his hands, and even the expression on his face looked so much like his uncle that it took her breath away. 

It has got me thinking about open adoption.  If adoption is really about the child and open adoption is such a great thing why don't adoptive couples open the adoption fully to both sides of their children's natural families.  Why don't they incorporate the families into their own?  Get together for holidays, birthdays, etc?  I'm not just talking about natural parents, but aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Let the children know all of their families.  Wouldn't that help the children understand themselves and their personalities more? It couldn't be a short term thing it would have to be a long term and the natural families would have to be incorporated into the lives of the adoptive family.  It would have to be more like a marriage between the families.

I am sure the adoptive couple would see the hurt that adoption causes to a natural family.  They would have to be strong enough to understand that adoption does cause pain.  Adoption does break up families, that adoption is not, and can never be, a best-case scenario. It relies upon the worst-case scenario having already come to fruition. (quote taken from this blog)

I have encouraged Alyssa to seek out relationships  with her dads side of the family because I know it is important for her.  It helps her to discover and understand more about herself.  So far Alyssa's dad's side is very welcoming to her.  She is in contact with all of his siblings and her grandparents.  She has not met them in person yet because they are spread out a crossed the country. I would love it if Alyssa could be in contact with her other siblings from her dad.  Alyssa having contact with her dad's side is not about me but all about her and helping to find herself.  It is about her having the family connections that we nonadopted take for granted.

I am going to put up on my private blog pictures of Alex and his great-uncle that he looks so much alike.

Too much alike

I am finding it a little too eerie how similar Alyssa and myself are.  She has my drive, ambition, and competitiveness.  What I didn't expect is how much we dress alike.  My parents used to always wear the same color of shirts by accident.  Mom would get dressed, go to work wearing a plum colored color sweater and my dad would be wearing a plum colored shirt.  That happened several times a week.  I always thought it was because they had been married for so long (over 40 years now).

Alyssa and I try to work out every day for at least 30 minutes.  We will either go to the gym to do cardio and weights or we go for a hike.  We have pink, black, teal, lime green, black,. white, zebra print, orange, and brown workout outfits.  You would think that their was enough things that we would never be wearing the same colored outfit.  At least 5 times a week we will wear the same colors or the same style of clothes (like the same work out skirts). I will be getting ready and then look at Alyssa and she is wearing the same color of outfit as I am.  It looks like we planned it but we never do.  A lot of times we will even do our hair the same.

I am wondering has anyone else had similar experience?

What about the adoptive parents?

I may never know what it is truly like to be an adoptee but I am starting to understand one aspect of it.  Over the last year and a half and especially over the last month I have gotten "What about her parents?, How do they feel?, Aren't you hurting them?"  I wonder when a couple adopts do they get the same thing?  Do they hear "But what about the newborns parents?  How are they?  Are they OK? Are you hurting them?" Are adoptive parents asked "Isn't this newborn attached to their natural/original/b mother?  Isn't that the only mother they know?"  Of course those questions are never asked of adoptive parents. They are instead congratulated and praised.

The first time I was asked "What about the adoptive parents?" was from my aunt on the day I reunited with my daughter on her 18th birthday.  She told me how she would be hurt if she had raised a daughter from birth and then a birthmom waltzed in and wanted a relationship with HER daughter. 

Recently many family and friends have asked me how do Alyssa's parents feel about Alyssa moving in with us.  If Alyssa hears the question she just replies, "my parents are fine with it" and just looks at me and says "you are fine with it right mom."  If she isn't around I go into more intellectual and try to explain how adoptees have 4 parents.  I explain that my relationship with Alyssa have nothing to do with her relationship with her other parents. 

But somehow especially when this comes from my family and very close friends that I love it is so hurtful.  I expect them to be more understanding what I have been to through, what Alyssa has been through, and what my other kids have been through. 

I am starting to understand how adoptees feel when they are asked what about your parents?  Won't their feelings get hurt?  How do they feel about about search/reunion?