We are learning so many new acronyms, new verbiage, and adoption terminology. And while there are so many things to learn we can't wait to educate our families and friends on all of these things. I think the biggest thing we are learning about right now that is so so important to us and our future kiddo, is the terminology used around adoption. Our sweet child will ALWAYS know where they came from and how blessed we are to be their parents. We have talked a lot about how we want our child to know all about being adopted and their amazing adoption story because that is a part of who they are, but we don't want it to be their whole identity either. We have heard a lot of adoptive parents talk about talking about their child who was adopted. Instead of saying, "Our child is adopted" they say, "Our child was adopted."
They were adopted and now it is done, they are their child now. We also hope to someday have biological children too but they will all just be our children. I am fully prepared and SO excited to have a big, colorful, diverse family. They will all be our children, how they came to us will make for amazing stories.
Other appropriate verbiage for talking about adoption include things like using "Birth Mom" instead of "Real Mom" and instead of "Adoptive parents" using "parents". There are so many others as well that if we can learn and teach others to use, it makes this whole process a little easier and everyone feels respected and loved, which is our entire goal.
Our desire is that our child and their sweet birth mama ALWAYS feel love and respected. We pray that in all of this, we can learn and teach our family and friends that this child is no different than a biological child, other than how we were blessed with them AND that we get to love their biological family too! We pray we can educate you all on open adoption as we continue to learn more about it ourselves so that the woman who blesses us with our child, will always feel love from not just myself and Paul, but from our families and friends as well.
We will continue to keep everyone posted as we continue on this beautiful, emotional journey and we are SO grateful for all of the love and support thus far!!