Tag Archives: adoption reunion

Let’s Talk Collateral Damage : Extended Family

Posted on by under Adoption Activism, Collateral Damage

Thank you to those that have been messaging me privately with your collateral damage stories.

Today’s discussion topic relates to extended family members and your relationship with them.  You can still submit your thoughts on previous topics – Siblings and Spouses/Significant Others. Comment on those posts or email me at bluestokking at gmail dot com

Extended Family

Some thoughts and questions for consideration:

Pre Surrender Counseling – Did you receive any pre surrender counseling that involved how to talk to your siblings or extended family about your experience? Did they tell you to keep it to yourself?

Your Siblings – How was your relationship with your own siblings post surrender? Did you discuss your child, their niece or nephew, that had been removed from the family? Or did you pretend nothing had happened?

Your Parents – How was your relationship with your parents both post surrender and pre/post reunion? If in reunion, how did your parents handle your child being brought back into the family? Do you feel you have an authentic relationship with your parents? Do you discuss your child or is your experience the family secret?

Parented Children Adopting – Have your parented children, aware of your experience, chosen adoption for themselves as a family building option? How did you handle that? How is your relatinship with your adopted grandchild?

Let’s Talk Collateral Damage : Spouses/SO’s

Posted on by under Adoption PTSD, Collateral Damage

Continuing from the previous thread on Collateral Damage and the impact to first family, today I want to chat about spouses and significant others.

Spouses/Partners

Some thoughts and questions for consideration:

Forming Relationships – How has surrendering your child(ren) to adoption impacted (or not) your ability form healthy marital or loving relationships?

Honesty in Relationships – Have you told your spouse or partner about your spouse or partner about your child? If so, did you tell them early in your relatinoships or later? How did you go about telling them? What was their response?

Pre Surrender Counseling – Were you counseled pre-birth about the possible impact surrender would have on your future romantic relationships? Were you told to keep your experience a secret?

Extended Family – How does your spouse/partner feel about your experience? Do they share with their friends or family or is it a secret kept between the two of you?

Other – Anything else you wish to share about your marriage/partnershps and how adoption and/or reunion may have impacted it?

Thank you for your consideration.

Let’s Talk Collateral Damage : Siblings

Posted on by under Collateral Damage

Let us chat first family collateral damage, shall we?

Over the coming days I will post a variety of topics. I would love first mother / first father commentary. Feel free to share with friends as well. If you wish to comment but do not want it public, feel free to email me at bluestokking at gmail dot com.

This is purely for informational and sharing purposes. I am presenting at AAC in a few weeks along with other first mothers and the spouse of a first mother. Our session is titled Mitigating and Managing Collateral Damage: Impact of Adoption on 1st Family.  While I have spoken or emailed with a few of you, I would love to hear from more that might be willing to share. Your commentary will inform my presentation. Your names/emails will not be used in any way. It is purely for additional insight for me to help make our presentation more impactful.

Siblings

Some thoughts and questions for consideration:

Pre Birth Counseling – Prior to surrendering your child to adoption, did any counseling (informed consent) you received cover the impact of adoption on your other children – either those you had at the time or those you parented post surrender?

Reunion Relationships – If you are in reunion and you have parented children, do they have a relationship with your child? If not, why not? Does this vary depending on the gender of the children? If they do have a relationship, how has it gone?

Your Relationship with Parented Children – How has reunion impacted your relationship with your parented children? Were they aware of your surrendered child prior to reunion or did they find out when reunion happened?

Your Parenting Style – How has surrendering your child to adoption impacted the way you parented your subsequent children?

Other –  Anything else you wish to share regarding the impact adoption and/or adoption reunion had on your parented children?

Thank you for your consideration.