What If??

In the past few days I have been confronted with some things that are big "what ifs" for me and I am not really sure how I will handle these issues if and when they arise.

1) Birth date: I may not know the exact date of my child's birth. I guess I knew that subconsciously but I have been thinking a lot lately about what if I don't know, how will we handle that? I have always said that I will be honest with my child but what about others? How will my child respond when they find out that we had to estimate their birthday? I have a stock answer that birthdays aren't as significant culturally in Ethiopia as they are here in the US and because a lot of births in Ethiopia aren't in hospitals there isn't a lot of record keeping. I hope that answer will work for adults but what about my child? Will they accept that answer?

2) Relinquishment story: Since we don't have a referral yet we don't know what our child's story will be. We know what types of situations we were okay with but we will have to wait and see. The questions will definitely be there but how we answer them will depend on our child's story. Our child's story is their story and they have the right to that information and I will give it to them at the appropriate time. Will I share it with everyone? Probably not. It isn't my story to share and I don't want to share something and have my child hear it from someone other than me or my husband. We again will have to answer some questions that will be uncomfortable and if our child's story fits in a nice neat little box maybe we will share but really whose life story fits in a box so neatly?

One thing for sure is that our child will always know that they were born in Ethiopia and when they ask if they came from my tummy I will say no, you came from my heart. We will show our child their life book and the DVD we will get. The life book will be there an be available and we will explain the pictures. The DVD we get, well that may have to wait depending on whether we feel our child is ready to confront the information on the DVD. It may be hard for them and I want to make sure they are ready and able to understand it. We are adopting an infant so the memories of life in Ethiopia won't be there which I think will be a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing as they won't have memories of leaving their birth mom or maybe the poor living condition but a curse because we as their parents will need to fill in the blanks about the beautiful place of their birth and of their birth family and only hope we can do it justice.

Then there is the issue or private versus secret. I will probably keep things private about my child's story and let them share what they want as they get older. Immediate family may know more and I fully trust that if we tell them not to share this info with our child until we tell them it is okay, that they will respect that. I don't want things to be seen as secret because that seems like we are intentionally hiding something or that there is something to be ashamed of. Our child story is what it is and we will have to deal with the details of it but we will never be ashamed of it because that story leads our baby to us no matter how challenging the facts might be. So while we may choose to keep things private in no way will we keep secrets. That being said we may have to be generic in our story telling in order to honor our child and their story.