questions & conversations {adoption}

I know there are countless adoptive families and those considering adoption that read this blog. I don’t talk about adoption too often anymore – it isn’t that we don’t think about it, but it is that we don’t think about it. Kinda hard to explain.

Earlier this week I shared about the girls’ The Little Mermaid performance. They had an incredible time, but it was also a reminder to me how things that are obvious to us aren’t always obvious to everyone else.

We are typically around people that know us and our story. If we are with strangers it is usually in a setting that people don’t ask us questions – like ball games or the grocery stores. The musical was our first time in a long time that we were around a large group of people on a regular basis that did not know us.

Nearly every practice my girls would come home and tell me stories about people asking about them being sisters.

There were countless practices I would be standing next to my youngest and another adult would walk up to her and ask her to go get her mom.

These are normal questions. There was never ill intention or meanness. It simply just wasn’t obvious to others that we belonged together. And that is okay.

It was just unexpected to us. To me.

We talk about adoption openly and honestly in our house, usually letting our youngest lead in those discussions. I actively seek out the voices of adult adoptees – especially those in a trans-racial adoption. Their voices are invaluable to me as I learn to listen to and help my daughter use hers. Over the years I’ve found that I tend to be far more worried about her and how others could make her feel than she is. Right now – she is one secure, confident 7 year old.

Though there were days over the last several months I wish I could make people stop asking questions (as innocent as they were), I can’t help but be grateful for the conversations that happened in the privacy of our home as a result of those questions. The nights tucking my girls in bed and hearing them giggle about sisterhood and also stop with mutual understanding and respect for the really hard parts of adoption – invaluable.

We will continue to face questions – there won’t be a day that will end. However, we will continue to pull each other close in the security of our home and celebrate the sweetness of our family and hold each other in the hard parts of our stories too.

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