I am doing a few small meetups locally to talk about searching in China and our experience negotiating the relationship with L’s family.   This is a big deal to me, because I don’t have much experience as a public speaker.  I am hoping it goes down as more of a conversation than a lecture.

I am starting to think through the general areas that I want to touch on.  A lot of that stuff I have covered here (should you search, how to search, what happens if you succeed, what if you fail), but I am so far along, I don’t know what kind of questions people just starting out might have.  I also feel more comfortable sharing different details about our search in person, rather than on the internet.

If we were to sit down over coffee and talk about searching, is there anything about searching/reunion you would want to know?   There may also be an older kid or two coming too.  Are there any questions your kids might ask?

If you are in central Ohio and you want to join us, let me know.

(Oh, and I know this is annoying. I hate it when people request interaction on a blog, so feel free to not reply. I will write a real blog post as soon as I finish painting my stupid bathroom.)

L’s birthday is coming up.   I know this is a hard day for her birth family because it is also the day L left her mother’s arms and went to orphanage.  The scene has been described to me and to be honest, when I imagine it, I feel like my heart is being ripped out of my chest.  I can not imagine how hard it must be for her mother.

But right now, L’s birthday is not hard for L.  She doesn’t understand the timeline of her losses yet.  She isn’t interested in that level of detail.  She has never asked about it and I haven’t told her.  To L, birthdays are exciting, fun days of celebration and presents.

Her parents have requested a phone call “so her mother can hear her voice” on her birthday. On the morning of her birthday, actually.

I don’t want to do it.

I do not want to have this phone call where tragedy intrudes on L’s birthday.  Not in these few remaining years of innocence.  Not before she understands the gravity of the day.

I do not want this phone call.

I do not want to hear the sadness in their voices.  I don’t want to hear their longing. Not on this day she has been excitedly counting down to for the past three weeks.

I do not want to start the day with a kick in the gut. I want sunshine and rainbows and butterflies on this day.

But really, this is about me, not L.  L likes to talk to her parents (for the few minutes she can keep her attention on a phone call).  She is excited to tell them she got her ears pierced as an early birthday present today.  And almost certainly she will tell them about her princess cake.

This is about me.

It is about me not wanting to bear witness to their loss.  I don’t want to rake my fingers through their agony on this day.  I can’t bear knowing their lost child is back in their lives but is living half way across the globe.  I don’t want to hear the kindness in their voices when she is on the line, only to be smacked in the face with the fact that she is unable to really speak to them.

I do not want this phone call, but we will do it.  We will do it because they asked and we have their child.  We are the ones who will watch her open presents and blow out her candles.  We are the ones who saw her bravely get her ears pierced without a single tear.   We are the ones who will hold her on our laps and exclaim over how big our 6 year old L is compared to yesterday’s 5 year old L.

These parents never got to know 5 year old L at all.  The met 4 year old L for one brief winter’s day in a hotel in China.  Her mother only held a newborn L for a very short time before sending her out into the world alone.

We will do this phone call because this is open adoption.

Open adoption is not about me and what I want.  Open adoption isn’t about sheltering L from her losses, even though I wish I could.

Right now, on this day, the phone call is about L’s other mother and what she needs.

Openness means allowing L’s parents the space to tell us what they need from us.  It is about being one big family for L, even when I wish we weren’t. It also means knowing that L’s parents’ pain is a thousand times worse than how I feel, every single day.   Openness means I will suck it up and make this phone call I dread.  I will do it because they love her and  miss her and they are her parents too.

But that doesn’t make it easier to feel what I feel.  This is hard.