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Thursday, February 25, 2010

oa roundtable - success in open adoption

The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It's designed to showcase the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community. Click here to link to what other bloggers are writing about this topic.

If there's one thing we all might agree on, it's that we'd like our open adoptions to be successful. But what does "success" mean to you, when speaking about open adoption? Do you think it may mean something else to the others in your triad?

I've been sitting in front of the computer for the past 30 minutes trying to think of how to best articulate what success in an open adoption means to me. No discourse today. Just this...

Success means living in the joy and sorrow that exists in adoption. It is being able to fully acknowledge both the good and the bad. And then most importantly, to aptly function within this dichotomy.

Success means emotional health and stability for each triad member. This may look different, and be achieved differently for each member, but I hope for the same for each person. This would be my big picture success story. There are so many small picture successes that are running through my mind (I think this is what is stumping me from writing today) I can't even begin to list them here. So instead I go big. My hope is that in the end, no matter what, baby T, J, and us have sought and/or received amble support, and are emotionally healthy.

I guess ultimately my two success stories involve being able to live and function in the here and now as well as in the future.

2 comments:

Lori Lavender Luz said...

Very well said.

"Success means living in the joy and sorrow that exists in adoption. It is being able to fully acknowledge both the good and the bad. And then most importantly, to aptly function within this dichotomy."

Andy said...

I like this line:"Success means emotional health and stability for each triad member."

That is so important for everyone to remember.