She's their sister, its true

She's not my daughter, but she is my son and daughters sister. She gets excited to see them, hopefully they will get to play with each other more and more as they all get older. The twins look so much like her.... I hope they grow close, and love each other.

I never expected growing up, that my children would have siblings that were not part of "my" family... Its so hard to make sense of it, since I do not have that love or connection to her, but I know that she should be an important part of my children's life... After all, she did not ask to be separated from her siblings when they were born.

I think it is easy for an adoptive mom to be confused or taken back at what kind of relationship we want for our children's first mother's family... We want to only share OUR parents with them, who ever thought they'd get "extra", but its not extra, it's "first" why does it change after adoption? I think we were raised with such clear cut idea's of family (especially those, like me, who's parents and most of the extended family have not experienced divorce, spouse death, or other such things that separate families).

I cannot completely fault an adoptive mom who is not fully comfortable saying "sister" or "sibling", I know I was at that spot in my life once... I understand why someone might feel that way, its a hard place to be in, and emotional... Nobody grows up wanting to share their kids with other "family".. It is not easy to accept, that yes in fact, when you chose to adopt, you are not ONLY inviting a child into your family, you are inviting everybody.... Obveously you will be the only one raising and parenting your child, and once you can come to peace with that, then it can be easy to accept the rest of the family as your "extended family", and truly, that is the most rewarding part for me... My kids have an awesome mom (not me, the other mom), their sister is SO active and just sparkles! Their grandma is SOOOO nice and looks far too young to be a grandma hehe :) I bet she loves not looking like a "grandma" but having three of the cutest grand kids ever!

I wish families could overcome some of these feelings before they have their child home.. I cannot imagine it being easy to process when they have a child already in their home. But my hope is that they DO accept it, and come to a point in their life they are happy for the uniqueness that adoption brings, I think that is best for the children anyway, AND everybody else involved..

I am curious... How many of you had to really process the idea of siblings, and that evil thing we call "titles" (sister, brother, birthsister *bleh* and so on....???!?!?!) Was it EASY to accept, or did it take a bit of effort or time?