Some days I'm not so sure

I don't normally like to post negatives because I truly do believe that negative energy begets negative energy and I'm trying to be positive, move forward in my beliefs, thoughts, wishes, etc and to not get bogged down in the inertia of everyone elses "stuff".  However, there are some days that are not so positive and wish-filled (as much I as I would like them to be, I do still live in the real world). I felt compelled to post this and really have hemmed and hawed about posting.  For the record, I am not anti-adoption...I believe it can be done well, open and honest, without any secrets and lies, without shame.  I believe it can be a beautiful thing, but it's a hard road, with ups and downs, loss and grief, happiness and sadness.  It's a hard road full of compromises for anyone to have to go down, no matter what side of the adoption fence you reside.  I have known and watched several open adoption families do so with grace, humility, love and complete openness and with that being said, they will also tell you how strong you have to be and how hard it truly can be.

My goal for this blog is to create a place of comfort for all of us to breathe & reboot, but in doing so, I have to remind myself that it is also a place of comfort for me...a place to get things off of my chest, for me to breathe and reboot, so here goes....The following is a post I wrote as a draft awhile ago and never posted...I went back and re-read it and it still gets me to my very core and I'm trying to wrap my head/heart around it...it still stings and I'm curious as to what you think about it all...

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Sometimes you can be minding your own business, turn the corner and BAM! Adoption smacks you in the face.  I was innocently following home decorating/design blog links and stumbled into a very beautiful blog.  I was enjoying reading the posts about design and family until.......RECORD SCRATCH.......I realized this was an adopted family blog...a few posts in and there it was...their adoption story wherein the blog author (adoptive mother) posted the following (see below in red) about how excited she was to finally be able to stand before a judge, finalize the adoption and legally CHANGE their names (NOTE:  these children were NOT infants by any means, so they KNEW their names and ANSWERED to them....at this point, they already had pretty strong identities!) and obtain illegal "amended" legal birth certificates with their "new" false names.

I felt like I was in a timewarp reading....that somehow I had just been transported back to the 1950s for a minute and it was in fact not 2013.  Why are we still there....still? This was written only a year ago and, lo & behold, times haven't changed at all.  Not one bit, it seems.  It was heartbreaking to read the entire post and see pics of the judge smiling smugly and posing with the family he just "created by law"...hello pomp, circumstance and illegal legal practices which apparently are still going strong today.  This is the same judge that will be playing God again when these children become adults and want their original birth certificates and he will deny them access to their own Original Birth Certificates (they do not live in an "open access" state).  My hope is that the adoptive mother was at the very least thoughtful enough to obtain their original birth certificates prior to legally changing them and the judge sealing them away forever.  One can only hope.

So yesterday our kiddos were named (old name) and (old name). Today they're (new name!) and (new name!).*

And officially, unquestionably, in the eyes of everyone, they're what we've known them to be all along -- ours.

*I've heard mixed thoughts about changing an adopted child's name. In our case, it was what we felt was right. Because of their stories, and because of some arguments made in Adopted for Life, it just made sense for us to give them new names. I understand there are good reasons for keeping kids' names, but this is just what we chose to do.

The "Adopted for Life" reference is apparently a hardcore Southern Baptist based book on adoption.  I can only imagine what the "arguments" were in that book.  I have not linked to the blog or the book because I do not want to drive traffic their way or cause any harm.  I don't want to engage as I do feel everyone is entitled to their opinions, to say what they want to say on their own blogs, everyone has a right to their stories and feel the way they feel.  I actually liked the blog and I'm sure she is a very lovely person, but because of my visceral reaction (my heart physically feeling kicked and that it leapt out of my chest toward those children), I felt strongly about posting about it here because I'm curious if anyone else in the adoption community has any thoughts on this...on changing names in this day and age...or is it just me?

Okay, stepping off soapbox now....
xo Two