A part of my adoption that I’ve always loved is that I was placed with my biological brother. Yep, that’s right! Even though I was adopted I was able to grow up with my actual blood brother. You wanna know more about that now don’t you?
Well we have the same birth mom but separate birth fathers. She placed my brother for adoption in 1989 with LDS Social Services and then in 1990 she was facing the same decision with the same Social Services with me. It just so happens that my parents had already filled out paperwork to adopt again. So when the offer to place me with the same family that her previous child went too, her answer was – yes.
I’ve never taken this part of my life for granted. As an adopted child, feeling like you are ALONE is often just a part of the territory. So being able to have someone in the same house as me that was actually biologically related to me was something that I always felt comfort in.
While it did comfort me, it also brought it’s own set of challenges too. Because although we are related, we also have different reasons for being and different scenarios which led to our adoptions. Sharing blood but having separate backstories often led to relentless wondering on my part.
Another factor to add in was our different genders. I was easily frustrated with him as we grew up if I ever felt like he wasn’t as invested in potentially meeting our birth mom as I was. His lack of interest often made me feel guilty for wanting to and then I’d also feel bad for feeling like I was forcing him to be interested.
I recently learned that it is more common for girls to think about, wonder about & want to know their bio family than boys are. Which has proven to be true in our experience.
Growing up so close in age to my big brother was one of my favorite things about childhood. Our friend groups would all hang out together which made for plenty of fun. We are siblings who love each other so naturally we did our best trying not to show that by relentlessly teasing & fighting with each other.
When the topic of ‘meeting our birth mom one day’ would come up he’d tend to be a little wishy-washy. Some times he was interested, other times he wasn’t, you just never knew. But I was always hopeful that when that day would finally come that we would do it together. However that wasn’t the case.
I ended up searching, making all contact & meeting our birth mom solo. At first I felt so guilty about that but then I realized something very important. I learned that every single person that is adopted has differing feelings and opinions on the matter even if you share the same birth mom and how that adoptee wants to proceed or not, is entirely ok and entirely up to them.
My birth mom was actually the one who made me realize that the most. She completely understood that it wasn’t something he was ready for at this point in his life. She was fine with it, which ultimately helped me be fine with it too.
That day may or may not ever come and if it does then great and if it doesn’t that’s okay too. I’m actually proud of him for not doing it just to please me. Meeting your birth mom or biological family is a life changing decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly and should only be done if you truly desire it. Trust me on this.
I’ll forever be thankful that I had the opportunity to always have him in my life, even if I wanna beat him up 90% of the time.
Most of the time as I blog I will be referring to this ride as MINE, but if you see me saying OUR then now you know why. It’s a special part of our story that we luckily got to do together. But my thoughts and feelings are my own, and I will never speak for him as his are his own as well.
Like with most parts of adoption, even through the difficult stuff I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way!
I love you lil big bro, I’m glad we share blood and stuff.
Love, Jenni
