Telling Our Story

I have met a lot of new people recently - mostly because of moving to our new house, neighborhood and parish.  It's been an interesting experience to make new friends at this stage in life.  I feel so old to be making new friends!  It can take a long time to really get to know someone, so how much do you reveal at a time? 

Everyone in our life already knows "our story," so it's been an interesting experience to tell our story to someone brand new.  Specifically, figuring out when to tell people that my kids are adopted. 

Most people presume that our kids are not adopted.  They look they could be our biological children so no one even questions it.  People go so far as to comment how they look just like us and just like each other.  I politely nod my head and accept compliments when strangers say how cute they are or how much they look like me. 

I met some new women last month on my retreat.  It was mostly a silent retreat, but we broke the silence at dinner time and had small group sharing after dinner.  A lot of my reflections on the retreat had to do with my vocation as wife and mother.  It had nothing to do with my infertility or my kids' adoptions.  So I didn't end up sharing that information until the third night of our retreat. 

The reason it came out was because another woman was talking about her health problems, including some years of infertility, before her daughter was born.  I immediately wanted to share our story so that she knew I understood what she experienced, but by then it felt a little late to reveal something like that.  I felt like since I had waited, others might think I was holding back or somehow ashamed.  As soon as I said something, the rest of the women in the group had a million questions for me about our kids' stories and the whole process of adoption. 

That whole experience kind of caught me off guard.  I LOVE sharing our story.  We have been so, so blessed and I will tell anyone who sits next to me my life's story.  I feel so honored and blessed that God has given us our children and extra blessed the way He brought them to us. 

I think one reason it caught me off guard is because I probably haven't told anyone the story of how we adopted Tommy and/or Molly in years!  I guess we haven't met many new people until just recently.  Most people in our lives went through these experiences with us. 

It was fun to talk about all these things... the pilgrimage to Lourdes/Rome, getting the call about Tommy, then waiting for adoption #2, switching agencies, driving to Indiana, our time in the NICU with Molly, etc.  As I said, I love telling our story.  However, I felt that these women looked at me differently afterwards.  Nothing bad, of course.  They are lovely, faithful women who enjoyed hearing this journey.  But it still made me different.  An adoptive mom, instead of just a regular mom.  And I hadn't felt like that in a long time.  Or possibly ever. 

Since then I've also told three other women (from my neighborhood MOMS group) and our new parish priest.  So that is why this has been on my mind a lot lately.  Some situations it's very clear when to bring up this information.  For example, groups of moms are very often talking about pregnancy and breastfeeding.  Obviously I have nothing to contribute to these conversations.  But I also don't want to make others feel awkward - as if they can't continue to talk about these topics. 

Everyone is always very positive and supportive.  People love to ask questions and want to know more about it.  But my experience has been that people don't often know what exactly to ask or how to ask.  And inevitably they say one of these things - (1) Oh, I know so-and-so who adopted or (2) I've always thought that I would one day want to adopt too.  Nothing is wrong with saying those things - and I'm guessing they mean it when they say it - but it's just so interesting to me how often I hear it.  I guess it's human nature to want to make connections, so perhaps they are trying to connect with me. 

The other part of this whole discussion that sometimes comes up is the reason we adopted.  New friends don't generally come out and ask if we are infertile.  But I can tell that they are dancing around the subject. 

Also, people don't always know the right adoption "lingo."  Which of course, I wouldn't either if I hadn't gone through this experience!  But people often say to me, "So was Molly's mom tall?" or "Did Tommy's parents have bright blue eyes?"  I am not offended by these questions, but I'm take aback when I hear people call someone else their mother or their parent.  Especially because these kinds of questions often come from our close family and friends. 

Perhaps I am reading into this too much.  As I mentioned, it's been on my mind because it's been happening so much lately.  I don't want to share too much too early with new friends - but I also feel like I'm holding back some kind of secret if I know someone for awhile and I haven't told them. 

The last point I will make (and then I will end this rambling post!) is that I realize these are my kids' stories.  I am sharing details about THEIR life.  Pretty soon, they will be old enough to be the ones making the decisions about who to tell and how to tell.  I want to be sensitive to them and what they would prefer.

Any other adoptive families have insight to share on this topic??