Open

35/365

A couple of nights ago Mike was out of town. The kids and I were snuggling in my bed reading stories, and as I was reading the last page of the last one, I thought of the photo album on the bottom shelf of my nightstand.  I had been wanting to speak to the kids about my open adoption experience, about the twenty-year-old they don't really know but who is their birth sister, about the baby in that album.  It's not that I wanted Mike to be gone for that initial conversation, but on that snowy night, just the three of us, the time softly presented itself.

My intention over the years was to let the the truth unfold naturally.  I envisioned having conversations after meeting my birth daughter and her adoptive family for breakfast as we did for years, reminding Sophie and Michael who she is, the way we explain uncles and great-grandparents.  

But those breakfast meetings haven't happened in a long time now.  I don't fully understand why, but I have been assured that everyone is okay, that our relationship is sound, that it's just a crazy time.  Sadly this crazy time has coincided with Sophie and Michael reaching an age when their understanding of extended family is blossoming.  I've had to let go of wanting them to know their birth sister, at least for now.  Knowing of her can be enough if it has to be.

So I closed The Snowy Day and brought up the album of baby pictures, of me as a puffy post-partum teenager, of their grandma and grandpa with darker hair and younger faces.  I still said what I always had in mind...my tummy...not ready...and pointed out the parents I picked for that little baby.  We talked about how she's a grown-up now, about how I get to be a mommy now and am so super happy about that.  Michael and Sophie reacted in a way that showed me the window of a healthy openness had not closed, that this timing may have been just right.  They asked enthusiastic questions, pointed to funny baby pictures, and let the topic come and go like any other.

They looked at the album again tonight briefly.  Then they played.  Then we got ready for bed, told stories, and on we go.

Sharing My Birth Daughter With My Twins - My Messy, Beautiful

While I knew I had made a mess of my life, the news was too much to feel even upon hearing it from a medical professional.  Doofus boyfriend and a few pals beside me, pamphlets on adoption, abortion, and parenting now in my hands, the full weight of being pregnant at fifteen would not settle upon me.

The messy truth became less avoidable a few days later when I heard my mom open the letter I had taped to her bathroom mirror at the other end of the house.  At the sound of her pained "Oh, no...," the air shifted.

But it was really that night when I finally let the mess envelop me.  The day had been predictably tense and had fallen away, my wish to have an abortion established, plans to see a doctor and to at least look into adoption agreed upon, the full scope of my predicament still only hovering through dinnertime and into the evening when all had gone quiet.

I sat in the living room late with the hum of summer bugs outside open windows, my sophomore year of high school nearing, the rest of my family off in their own rooms, my mess cracking open.

The sobs heaved my chest, and my head pounded with tears as I finally took in the disappointment and uncertainty, the inertia, the trajectory, the impossibility of ever going back to some other reality.  I was getting to know my mess and my place in it, and I was taking a beating from within.

As if I were a little girl shaken by a nightmare, my mom found her own place in the mess.  I don't remember the words she said.  They didn't matter as much as her leaving her bed and just coming to me, hearing me and joining me on the couch, knowing it was time to love me through this.

With that support in the coming days, I was able to envision not just enduring, not just surviving.  Ultimately I felt a peace come over me when I imagined an open adoption, a new direction for my own life and hope for some others.

Sixteen years after that moment of peace, I found myself on the phone with my mom, crying again about uncertainty, a new reality, and needing some support as I imagined yet another new direction, one that included not one baby on the way...but two.

Michael and Sophie don't know these stories yet, of course, or the countless others that have unfolded over the last twenty years since my birth daughter was born.  They remember a few breakfasts with some family friends, but visits with my birth daughter have become fewer as her young adult life (a college sophomore) has become fuller.

Being a presence in my birth daughter's life has been beyond a pleasure, but making an open adoption plan, showing up for events, and requesting visits has always been driven not just by my love for her but by a desire to keep the truth near her and approachable, to spare her the experience of learning The Big Story one day.  The truth would just be in her.

I want to spare Sophie and Michael the same.  They turn four next week, and I have committed myself to starting some preschool-appropriate conversations with them in this new year of their lives.  (I am open to advice on this, by the way.  If anyone reading this has tips, please share!)

Over the coming months I intend to bring out pictures, to be open to Michael and Sophie's questions, to begin easing them into this aspect of their mother, of their family.  I am not certain how far these conversations will go, but I know it's time to nudge that door open a bit.

Beyond sharing my truth, our truth, is a bigger point.  When the days come when I am by Sophie and Michael's sides, loving them through their messes, I want them to believe me.  I'll tell them that within every mess is a greater beauty than they can imagine.  That truth will be in them as well.

This essay and I are part of the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

"Are these your first?"

Along with filling me in on the history of twins in their own families, strangers in check-out lines and fellow passengers in elevators tend to wonder if I have older kids at home to chase after in addition to Michael and Sophie.  When they ask me if these babies are "my first," I say yes.  

While my answer is entirely accurate for what they're asking, there's part of me that feels crummy saying this.  

There's an urge in me to point out that, yes, these are my first babies if you don't count the one I had when I was sixteen and for whom I picked out adoptive parents, the one who is seventeen now, intelligent, beautiful, kind, a source of great pride for me, and with whom I visit a couple times a year.  That's a mouthful.

Part of me searches for a casual phrase to explain that once before I've watched a delicate newborn leave my body, and from the distance of an extended family member I've seen her grow into a chubby infant, giggling toddler, and on and on from one PBS kids show themed birthday party to the next.  I've seen her become a big sister, learn to crawl, walk, read, and emerge into womanhood faster than I was prepared to witness. But a simple phrase to sum that up just doesn't exist.

Part of me knows that because I've enjoyed her similarities to me while imagining her future with a bitter-sweet mix of excitement and fear, that this is not entirely my first go at motherhood, that she is my first first.  

But I just say yes, these two babies are my first.  For the question they're asking, that's the true and appropriate answer.  And elevator rides just aren't long enough for the truth, the whole truth, and for dispelling Lifetime movie cliches. 

Then the nosey strangers ask if my husband and I plan to have more.  Luckily "maybe" works just fine for that one.