We’ve got a visit with K’s birth mom tomorrow, and then another visit when she comes to our home for K’s third birthday the following week.

Part of me likes the visits, and another part of me wants the visits to slow way down to just a few times per year.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that K was taken from birth mom and put into foster care because of mental illness. We adopted K after having her from almost birth. In the last three years birth mom has stabilized on medications and is bringing up her second daughter pretty well….. even with very limited support.

I’m proud of her.

I’ve also shared how visiting with birth mom brings up lots of emotions for me. I can feel her sadness over loosing K. I notice how they laugh alike and look alike at times. They have the same expressions.

K also looks a lot like me. Several of my friends tell me how funny it is that she’ll say something with an smile or frown, that is totally mirroring my expression and she looks like a baby Michelle.

Except for my age, people probably don’t even question if she’s adopted or not – so I can be pretty quiet if I choose to about our adoption. We don’t stand out as a transracial family. I can go about my life without having adoption as a big part of my life... if I choose.

But it doesn't really work like that in reality.

We have an open adoption.

The part that I don’t share is that I have adoptive Mom guilt. I don’t know if anyone else has this feeling.

It just a small tingly tiny feeling that surfaces once in a while.

After all, I didn’t take K from her birth mom, I didn’t tell the judge how to rule, and in fact, birth mom actually relinquished K so she could be adopted.


So, where does this guilt come from?


To be continued………