Sharing Pictures

Last weekend Jim and I finally shared pictures of Jake's birth family with him. We waited until we had a quiet day at home, in case he needed more comfort or space afterwards. We really didn't know how he would react. Would he remember and be sad? Would he be angry? Would he become withdrawn or act out? It was nearly a year ago when he was brought to the care center by his family. Without getting into too much detail about the family he lost, there were pictures of about 5 family members.

Well, we all sat down on the couch and Jim and I started in halting voices to share some of the details and pictures. I had rehearsed the details in toddler terms, hoping he would get the gist of our conversation. The pictures were in an album for him. He thanked me for the album and seemed to take the information seriously. He didn't share much. His strongest reaction was to a picture of his birth home.

When we showed him a picture of his birth home, he quickly jumped up and started to pretend cry and point to his scars on his leg. We know that while he lived with his birth family he was burned in a cooking fire. We were told that he grabbed some sticks out of the fire and they landed on his legs. His scars are significant on his upper thighs. From his reaction, we assume that the fire was close to his house. Obviously this early trauma stuck in his memory. So far we do not see any fear of fire based on his burns.

The people pictures did not seem to have the same effect. He looked at the album several times. There were pictures of him in the care center and he seemed to look the most at those. Now that we have shown him the pictures we will keep them available and accessible. We will honor his first family at holiday and in our everyday conversations and remembrances. I feel relieved that we took this first step to making our family comfortable with the conversations related to his life story.

In reflection, the experience of adoption is soooo much more complicated than I anticipated. The joy of growing our family is matched with the pain of separating family members from each other. There are no easy answers in life.