About a week after we picked up Lily from the hospital, we got a call from the agency social worker who told us that her parents wanted to meet us. We had not met yet - everything had been communicated through the agency - and now they wanted to meet us and talk about having an open adoption. The social worker told me what she had conveyed to Fiona, Lily's mother: "I told her that she wouldn't be losing a daughter; she'd be gaining a family."
I shuttered when she said those words. I knew that commentary was wrong and inappropriate on a million different levels, levels that I couldn't even articulate at that time. I wasn't nearly as educated about adoption back then as I am today.
Ironically, the social worker was partially right. Someone in the mix did gain a family -- me. It hit me the other day that I really have become part of Fiona's family. Her parents, aunts, uncles, cousins ... they make me feel like I am one of them. My comfort level with them is as high as it is with my own family of origin, if not even higher at times. They are my people. They are people I can count on. They are people I can sit with and be with without having to say a single word. We have inside jokes, a familiarity with each other's quirks and shortcomings. And sometimes we get on each other's nerves. Just like family.
When we adopted Lily, it never occurred to me that I also would be "adopted" in a new family. It goes to show you that open adoption is full of unexpected surprises.
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