How to Prepare Sibling for an Infant Adoption - Weekend Wisdom

Question: My husband and I adopted our daughter in 2019, and she is now 5. As of a week ago, we were matched with a birth mother who is due in six weeks. We have explained the process to our daughter (we made a book about our life, and one day someone will pick us), but now that we’ve been chosen, what is the best way to approach this with my daughter? We have several of the books from your (wonderful) book list, but not many pertain to same sex parents who are bringing home an adopted sibling. How do we prepare our daughter for the possibility of having a sibling, while also being open and honest about the possibility that this baby might not be ours to take home? 

Resources:

• Prepare Children for the Adoption of a Sibling (Suggested Books)
• Books for Transracially Adopted Kids (Suggested Books)
• Talking with Kids about Adoption (Resource page)

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Welcome to Weekend Wisdom by Creating a Family. The Weekend Wisdom podcast is our
opportunity to answer your questions. So please send us your questions. You can send
them to info @creatingafamily .org. Today's question is from Justin.
He says, "My husband and I adopted our daughter in 2019. She is now five. As of a
week ago, we were matched with a birth mother who is due in six weeks. We have
explained the process to our daughter. We made a book about our life and that one
day someone will pick us. But now that we've been chosen, what is the best way to
approach this with my daughter? We have several of the books from your wonderful
book list, but not many pertain to same -sex parents who are bringing home an
adopted sibling. How do we prepare our daughter for the possibility of having a
sibling while also being open and honest about the possibility that this baby might
not be ours to take home. Justin, these are great questions. And thanks, by the
way, for the shout out for the suggested book page on the creating a family .org
website. Honestly, I think it's one of our best resources. You know, you're right.
That is far. I can't think of any books that really talk about that in between
period where you've been matched, but you're not certain the baby is going to be
yours. If somebody from the audience knows of one, if you would leave a comment on
that, I would appreciate that and we will add that to our list of books, but I
don't really know of one. So you're right about that. And then a similar, although
not directly analogous, but a similar situation is a little like when a family is
pregnant. I think most people probably don't tell their children until at least the
second semester and depending on the age of the child they may well wait until the
third trimester and when it's really obvious that the mother is pregnant and so
obviously you don't have this option given that the timing and the age of your
daughter what you've already done by creating a form of a lifebook for your daughter
is exactly one of the first things that I would suggest how she came to be in
your family And that that you are looking forward to adding another baby to your
family, which it sounds like you've already done that I would focus on I in my
talks with her I would focus on that thing without being too specific Something like
you know daddy, and I have loved being your dad's you are such a neat kid We
would love to adopt another baby We have to wait until a mom chooses our family,
but we really hope somebody will. I wouldn't overdo it on the frequency of this
conversation, but I would certainly bring it to the forefront, start having this
conversation more frequently with her. If it were me, I don't think that I would be
specific about having been matched because we both know that an adoption isn't final
or isn't even an adoption until the mom after birth and the mom relinquishes her
rights or the parents relinquish their rights. And six weeks is a forever time for
a five -year -old. So you don't need to start actually preparing her for the actual
specifics. And if you need to buy things for this baby, given that's your second,
you might not. But if you do, you could do that on the download where it's not
really obvious that you're buying stuff and bringing it into the house. Now, I don't
know your daughter, but I don't think it would be too much of a shock for most
five -year -olds for you to announce something like this. Hey, do you remember how
when we talked about how daddy and I were really hoping to add another baby to our
family and we wanted to adopt and we have to wait until a mom chose? Well, guess
what? A mom chose us and she had a baby, boy, girl, whatever. So that means you're
going to be a big sister and in that exciting and we're going to go to the spill
tomorrow to see that baby. And here's a picture of him right now and that type of
thing. So I think that that would, I think that that would work. You've already
have kind of laid the groundwork and by bringing it to the forefront in these
conversations, you might also want to start talking with her about what it means to
have a new sister, you know, do they have to share a room? So you're going to be
sharing a room or you know babies sound like a lot of fun but really at the
beginning they are not they cry a lot and and daddy and I are gonna be tired
because we're gonna be up at night so they're not much fun at the beginning but
they get fun after a while and you're gonna be a big sister and you're gonna be
showing this baby how to do things and you could also talk about how the fact that
if you need us to do something or you need our attention you need to let us know
because we love you so much and that type of conversation. There are so many books
out there on and they don't have to be adoption specific. They're books about
becoming a big sister and there are tons of them and if you don't have them you
could start buying them or go to your library. I guarantee they will have a lot of
them. One thing I would also throw in, if this is going to be a transracial
adoption or if her adoption was transracial and this baby will be same race as you
and your husband. Then you want to start introducing that concept now. There are a
lot of books on transracial adoption, and they are often geared towards the child
that is being adopted transracially, but they're equally as good for helping her
understand that families are families, and they don't all have to match. So you
would want to start doing that in the six -week period as well. And there's a lot
of books on how different families are made and different families don't all match,
and they don't have to be overly focused on it just being adoption related, although
there are some of those as well. Well, thank you so much for a really great
question, Justin. I wish you guys the best of luck. If you think about it,
drop us a line at info @creatingfamily .org and let me know how things work out. I'm
rooting for you guys, so Good luck. And for everybody else, before you leave, I
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