I had a really hard time choosing the title for this post. You see I am not uncomfortable with the birth family of my children who came to us through adoption. Well not anymore. But if I am honest, in the beginning I had to step outside of my comfort zone, ignore all the naysayers and jump into the deep end.
Almost 6 years ago the Monday after our first placement I got a phone call from the social worker "Hi, Anastasia. Your little one's Aunt would like to talk to you, can I give her your phone number?" I responded quickly and without hesitation "Yes, of course" Just a little while later my phone rang and it was his Aunt. I'm sure she was nervous too; we were strangers who both loved this little boy. I had only met him days before but she had anticipated his arrival for months and she loved him too. We chatted and with tears in my eyes I said "yes you still need to be his Aunt. No one can have too many people loving them" Then I got another call a few days later from the social worker "Can you meet both aunts with the baby this week? We did a background check and they are cleared." Again I quickly replied without hesitation "Yes!" And then that little negative voice snuck in. "What if she isn't nice" "Why are you doing this?" "You don't have to do this." And fear began to creep in. Fear is not of the LORD though; that is satan whispering in your ear. I had to keep resetting myself. And I kept asking Dustin and the social worker to remind me this would be ok.
At the end of the day I walked into the restaurant to meet this sweet baby boys aunts and have never looked back. We all connected immediately and we were all in love with this sweet one week old baby boy.
Now we just simply call each other sister and only explain details when necessary. We have added lots of family since then. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, grandmas, grandpas, and lots of siblings who grew in the same tummy. I can't imagine life without a single one of them. They are family.
From birthday celebrations to weddings, we do life together. My encouragement to anyone wondering if they should take that uncomfortable step to forge a relationship with biological family is just take the leap. Not all the stories will look like ours but if I hadn't tried; look what we would have lost. You will never know until you try and when you do, you just might be surprised!
