Not the Stork, Part 2

Back in February, I had a mild freak attack about having "The Talk" with my daughter because I was worried about her feeling rejection from her Birth Father. I bought her a few books and have answered questions that she's had so far, but Birth Father has never been mentioned. Well, a few months ago I found him on FaceBook and am glad to have a way to contact him. I haven't yet but I probably will soon. We are supporters of Open Adoption and welcome contact from all of the birth family members. So far that has worked out really well with the Birth Mothers.

Recently, we met the Little Ones' Birth Father to talk about his future involvement with the kiddos. This was an anxious and exciting meeting because it was in unchartered waters. It was a good meeting and while the Little Ones weren't aware of the meeting, Emi was and she was curious about his role in their lives. We figured now would be a good time to introduce her to the idea of her Birth Father too, but weren't sure how to start that conversation. Our adoption specialist recommended that WE bring it up and not wait for HER to because she may not want to hurt our feelings. I hated to think that she'd be curious but concerned enough about our feelings to not ask.

So we talked about my nuclear family and how I get my skin color from my mom (Emi's Lola) and my dad (Emi's PeePaw). And we talked about how I have 2 moms and my step brother and sister have 2 dads and how that has worked for us in our family and how different cousins take after 1 parent or grandparent in features or size, etc. Then we asked her where she got her brown skin and she said "from Cookie" (her Birth Mom) and then we asked her if she wanted to talk about her Birth Father. She said that she did and seemed curious so we told her his name and that we had never met him. She looked confused and said "I thought you knew him?" which made me think she'd been thinking about this for a while. Glad we decided to bring it up...

We hopped on the internet after asking her if she wanted to see a picture of him and brought up his picture. She took in the features; I told her she has his smirk sometimes...and that she would be tall like him and also her cousins on Cookie's side of the family. We told her we could contact him in the future if she liked and that was the end of the first conversation about him. It was probably more awkward for us because we were projecting grown up emotions (at least I was) onto her, but she was very cool about the whole thing, curious about what he looked like, etc....

So, stay tuned....