If you’ve been following along, our CEO/Founder, Katie Zimmerman, has been doing a series surrounding the things she feels she did wrong in her domestic infant adoption journey, with the benefit of hindsight. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback from our readers and our fellow Purl Families who we have helped along the way. Daniel Duran, who adopted his daughter a few years ago with his husband with our support, sent this response to our recent post about whether we should celebrate adoption finalization days. In it, Daniel shares what celebrating adoption finalization means to him as a gay dad. We hope you enjoy this perspective and we hope this encourages you to also share your thoughts on the “mistakes” we have been discussing!
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I start this with saying that I couldn’t agree more with Katie and her perspective on annually celebrating an adoption finalization and how it might affect the adoptee themselves. Having constant awareness of how our children may feel and process is of the greatest importance.
That being said…each year, we do celebrate and we acknowledge the bigness of our adoption finalization day. Now before you hear how we celebrate, here’s a bit about why we celebrate.
Simply put, it is big.
Living a life of constant rejection, continual disregard for basic human rights, being told you are less than, being surrounded by people and organizations who think you shouldn’t exist or proclaim and vote that you don’t deserve certain rights simply because of the way you were born is frankly, exhausting and defeating. Unfortunately, even today, our rights are continuously up for debate.
Growing up a gay kid in the suburbs, I never thought I’d be able to have any of what I have. A successful career, a home, a marriage…a family. Thankfully, with a lot of fight and bumps along the way, I earned each one of these. Each time, it felt like a victory. Once solidified, nobody could take it away from me. I won.
I own my own company. No employer could ever discriminate me again.
If the law of the land were to change and people like me could no longer marry, I know that my marriage at least, hopefully, would remain so.
The moment the judge said the words, “…shall hence forward and forever bare the legal relationship of fathers and daughter” I knew we were safe.
As members of the LGBTQ community we are on constant guard of “what’s next?” or “will I get to…” or “it’s our right…for now at least.” We live in a state of wondering if our rights will be taken away. And again, unfortunately this is still true today.
Having things legally set in stone, is something to celebrate. Our daughter’s birth parents chose us. They said, “without question, it was you the whole time.” Having their choice, legally protected…in a world where an outside force could pivot at any minute and tell us that two men should not be allowed to adopt, even if the birth parents wanted us to parent their child, not only felt important…but urgent.
The legal finalization of all of this IS big and, to us, worth celebrating. Celebrating another victory for who we are, how we were created, and for what is possible if you let the universe do its thing.
So, we celebrate. However, we do so quietly and just for us dads. No party, no cake. Just holding the day as special and important.
Our daughter and her well being matter. As she gets older, we’ll take her lead. We’ll create open and safe spaces to listen, talk, and process. She’ll also know of our journeys. She’ll know what certain milestones mean to us. She’ll know that we, too, at times felt like strangers in our own homes. She’ll know that we also felt like we didn’t fit in and that we knew we were completely unlike the rest of our family. While we will never fully understand her experience as an adoptee, we can surely share similarities and come together with a spirit of empathy. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why we’re her dads.
One final note…
“Gotcha Day” is one of the most cringe expressions I can think of. I’m so glad it was called out in Katie’s blog. We didn’t “get her” and she didn’t “get us”.
No…finalization day was our marching orders to raise our daughter with compassion, love, empathy and awareness. Our command to give her the space to be the entire person she is meant to be. And finally, it was the day where we found safety in knowing that whatever greater forces pulled the three of us together, now could not be torn apart.
If you’ve been following along, our CEO/Founder, Katie Zimmerman, has been doing a series surrounding the things she feels she did wrong in her domestic infant adoption journey, with the benefit of hindsight. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback from our readers and our fellow Purl Families who we have helped along the way. Daniel Duran, who adopted his daughter a few years ago with his husband with our support, sent this response to our recent post about whether we should celebrate adoption finalization days. In it, Daniel shares what celebrating adoption finalization means to him as a gay dad. We hope you enjoy this perspective and we hope this encourages you to also share your thoughts on the “mistakes” we have been discussing!
—
I start this with saying that I couldn’t agree more with Katie and her perspective on annually celebrating an adoption finalization and how it might affect the adoptee themselves. Having constant awareness of how our children may feel and process is of the greatest importance.
That being said…each year, we do celebrate and we acknowledge the bigness of our adoption finalization day. Now before you hear how we celebrate, here’s a bit about why we celebrate.
Simply put, it is big.
Living a life of constant rejection, continual disregard for basic human rights, being told you are less than, being surrounded by people and organizations who think you shouldn’t exist or proclaim and vote that you don’t deserve certain rights simply because of the way you were born is frankly, exhausting and defeating. Unfortunately, even today, our rights are continuously up for debate.
Growing up a gay kid in the suburbs, I never thought I’d be able to have any of what I have. A successful career, a home, a marriage…a family. Thankfully, with a lot of fight and bumps along the way, I earned each one of these. Each time, it felt like a victory. Once solidified, nobody could take it away from me. I won.
I own my own company. No employer could ever discriminate me again.
If the law of the land were to change and people like me could no longer marry, I know that my marriage at least, hopefully, would remain so.
The moment the judge said the words, “…shall hence forward and forever bare the legal relationship of fathers and daughter” I knew we were safe.
As members of the LGBTQ community we are on constant guard of “what’s next?” or “will I get to…” or “it’s our right…for now at least.” We live in a state of wondering if our rights will be taken away. And again, unfortunately this is still true today.
Having things legally set in stone, is something to celebrate. Our daughter’s birth parents chose us. They said, “without question, it was you the whole time.” Having their choice, legally protected…in a world where an outside force could pivot at any minute and tell us that two men should not be allowed to adopt, even if the birth parents wanted us to parent their child, not only felt important…but urgent.
The legal finalization of all of this IS big and, to us, worth celebrating. Celebrating another victory for who we are, how we were created, and for what is possible if you let the universe do its thing.
So, we celebrate. However, we do so quietly and just for us dads. No party, no cake. Just holding the day as special and important.
Our daughter and her well being matter. As she gets older, we’ll take her lead. We’ll create open and safe spaces to listen, talk, and process. She’ll also know of our journeys. She’ll know what certain milestones mean to us. She’ll know that we, too, at times felt like strangers in our own homes. She’ll know that we also felt like we didn’t fit in and that we knew we were completely unlike the rest of our family. While we will never fully understand her experience as an adoptee, we can surely share similarities and come together with a spirit of empathy. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why we’re her dads.
One final note…
“Gotcha Day” is one of the most cringe expressions I can think of. I’m so glad it was called out in Katie’s blog. We didn’t “get her” and she didn’t “get us”.
No…finalization day was our marching orders to raise our daughter with compassion, love, empathy and awareness. Our command to give her the space to be the entire person she is meant to be. And finally, it was the day where we found safety in knowing that whatever greater forces pulled the three of us together, now could not be torn apart.
