Open Adoption (Learn)

I can’t help but focus on this key phrase now that I know more, now that I’ve spent five years listening to adoptees’ voices, particularly those adoptees that experience serious discontent with their adoptions. The phrase that hits me hard as the truth now: Different isn’t better. An adoptive parent may be able to offer a more financially stable home, more opportunities for education, extracurricular activities and travel. But, the trade off to that is that there was still maternal separation and that child will likely experience trauma and loss due to their adoption, in a transracial adoption, there might also be loss associated with separation from their culture. So that child’s life will definitely be different, the adoptee will face different hardships after an adoption than they would have had in their biological home, but there will be hardships nonetheless. Click here to read more on Katie’s reflections.

Cora’s adoption was finalized on April 7, 2016, a day we coin “Zimmerman Day” in our home. Unlike some other adoptive families, we grew our family through adoption first, and then through a surprise pregnancy that led to our daughter Raelyn 8 months later. So when it came time to decide if/how we were going to celebrate Cora’s adoption finalization day, I struggled to find a way to celebrate what was an important day in our family, at the same time not leaving out our younger daughter, who didn’t have a corresponding day. We came up with “Zimmerman Day”, the day that our whole family shares the same last name. It isn’t a big holiday around our house, there are no gifts, no special hats or tiaras, but there is one messy homemade cake with a big Z on it, and as many sprinkles as will stick to it (which for the record is A LOT). Both of my girls get so excited to help make the cake and help decorate it, and the grandparents usually come over for dinner and cake. I don’t know how Cora is going to feel about this day when she’s older and has had time to understand the significance of it, but for now she loves another day between everyone’s birthdays to celebrate our family. Click here to learn more, and to learn what I think of the term “forever family” day…