Open Adoption – Pictures and Sharing Information

Awhile ago, I posted a little something about keeping what’s important to birth families. It had to do with a conversation we had with our children’s birth mother about having the kids continue with swimming, as she had been a competitive swimmer. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a follow-up, now that summer is here and the kids are actually in swimming, and how it was an homage to their birth mother.

I’ve also blogged extensively about our open adoption, and how we send pictures, cards, and mark other occasions. Just a couple of weeks ago, I posted their swimming pictures to an online album, and sent their birth family the link.

It’s been difficult to attach so many pictures to an e-mail, so a few weeks ago we started creating online albums. We love being able to share timely pictures with their first family. They have also generously shared their pictures with our family as well. Having the technology available to openly share bits of our lives has been a wondrous thing! Jenna addressed this trend in another post today.

Today, I got a lovely e-mail from their aunt telling us that her sister saw the pictures and was pleased that they are in swimming classes! I floated on clouds and completely started welling up knowing how that small gesture connected us even more! Included in the e-mail was the link to the album containing the pictures from their aunt’s recent wedding.

Their birth (maternal) grandmother has a birthday tomorrow, followed the next day by their (maternal) grandfather’s birthday. We sent off a package of homemade cards last week, and can’t wait to hear how they enjoyed them!

An open adoption takes a great deal of faith for birth families and adoptive families. Just like in romantic relationships, everyone shows themselves to best advantage during the “courting” stages. You don’t always know what it will really be like until you get to the deeper phases of your relationship. Right now we are almost at the one-year mark, and I think our children’s birth family feels pretty comfortable that we meant it when we said we would stay in regular contact and share pictures on a fairly frequent basis (we had only been asked to share birthdays and Christmas pictures). We felt it was vitally important to do more, if they were comfortable with such, because kids change so rapidly in appearance! We wanted them to really feel a part of the day-to-day with our kids.

Now, after a year, we’re going deeper into the relationship, and sharing more and more. It feels really natural and comfortable, and we feel tremendously blessed that we are one extended family!

Photo credit

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