Exclusive Interview With Mommysquared!

Word went out that there was an adoption blog interview project underway, and would I like to be linked up with someone to interview- and to be interviewed? Absolutely! It sounded like fun to get to ask someone questions about their life, and to answer questions about my life (you might be surprised to know that my dream is to be on the NPR show "This American Life" so I thought of this as a sort of practice run.)

My interview partner's name is Mommysquared. She's the adoptive mother of two beautiful daughters. Their adoptions were open domestic adoptions. You should check out her blog if you want a chance to witness this amazing family. So without further adieu I present my interview with Mommysquared:

1. Why did you originally start your blog? I started our blog as a personal journal to be shared with our family and friends. Both my family and my husband's live on the East Coast and we are in California. Who did you imagine your audience would be? I've only recently started to share outside the confines of family and I hope from those that read my blog can see we are just an ordinary family. What are your favorite things about blogging? I like to talk about my family and with the blog I can just that . What are your worst things about blogging? I'm not sure that I've had any worst things yet ... my blog is only semi-public Do you ever think about quitting your blog? At this point I have no plans to quit. How do you imagine your blog continuing or someday ending? I'm not sure when blogging this particular blog will end ... I see it as representing two things for our family ... a life book for my girls and a link to our family and friends to keep up with our goings on ... I will say I don't blog as much when both girls were much younger so stories may stretch out in the future :)

2.Your family was created through very open adoptions. Did you always know that you wanted to have open adoptions or did that evolve? WEhen we first looked into adoption we were fearful of open adoption ... only after finding education and peers did we start to better understand about what an open adoption was and that that is what we wanted for our family. It only seemed real when we met our elded daughter's birth mother and how we wanted as open adoption with our second child. What surprised you the most once you were involved in the open relationships with your daughter's birth mothers? That each of our daughter's birth mothers families were so much like ours and embraced us as easily as we did them ... Were you always sure you wanted to do domestic adoptions versus international, and if so why? We wanted the newborn experience so domestic adoption seemed to be the best route to achieve that plus we had no personal or familial connection to any other countries or cultures.


3. Your daughters have been part of your family since before they were born which is very different from my daughter who joined our family at 6 months from Ethiopia. Have you had any attachment related issues? If so, how did you work through them? We have been lucky in that neither of our girls have had attachment issues which is still common in domestic adoptions ... I think mostly in part to our feeling entitled to be their parents helped us to create that attachment with them ... it came from counseling and our adoption support and community!

4. One thing that is very different about our two families is that your family "matches" because you're all the same race. As a very conspicuous family like mine, we're constantly aware of how we are perceived by others as an adoptive family. Do you ever feel "conspicuous" as an adoptive family despite the fact that you match? You are right most people do not suspect our family was built through adoption but it's the kind of thing when someone says how Ally or Jess look like me or my husband I wonder should I share more or less? Our girls are at the age that it is their story to share so more times than not we just agree it is a family thing.

5. Within the international adoption community that I'm a part of there is a considerable amount of focus on ethics. For example, we are always going back and forth about socioeconomic disparities within the adoption triad and how this effects the choices that are made for our children. We debate women's rights, and what constitutes a "good reason" to relinquish a child. Those are just a sample of what we toss back and forth. Within these conversations there is some serious passion and people's feelings get hurt quite often. Does the open domestic adoption community have anything similar? I would say there are definitely conversations about why a woman would make an adoption placement and could she have parented or why no family came to help step in ... but I'm not sure it is seen in the same light at times as international countries support or lack of support for women's rights.


6. I was recently called out on my blog for sharing too much information about my child from an adult adoptee who felt like I was disrespecting my daughter's anonymity. The whole issue of children's rights and on-line anonymity really made me pause to consider and to dig really deep to uncover my opinions about it. Do you ever worry that you share too much? Have you had situations where you've regretted posting something? My blog is not fully public so no one yet has made any comments along those lines ... I feel for the most part I am sharing stories that I would gladly share to someone in a conversation too.


7. Along those same lines: how do your daughter's birth mothers feel about appearing on the blog? Both women like that I blog about our lives and that I've always included them without hesitation.

8. If you were stuck on an island with your family and could only bring two books- 1 adoption book and 1 parenting book- which two would you bring? The adoption book would be their own picture book stories through our lives before meeting their birthmoms and through their first year. The parenting book would be how to talk so your kids will listen and how to listen so your kids will talk (I need to reread this now that our girls are getting older)


9. Do your daughters have a favorite adoption related children's book? Each like "Tell Me Again About The Night I was Born" and "The Family Book"

10. You mentioned on your blog that you're going back to school to become a Social Worker (very exciting, by the way! congratulations!) What kind of work do you envision doing within that field? Thank you. I have found that I have become very passionate about familes made through adoption and through my volunteering leading pre-adoptioneducation groups, leading our social domestic adoption group and speaking at events, that this is what I want to do now that I am almost grown up :) I feel that I can from the perspective of personal experience help those in the pre-adoption process through agencies and homestudies as well as offer more assistance as post-adoption support for those parenting their children now in their families.

***If you'd like to read more adoption interviews from the project head over here. Word on the street says there are about 120 bloggers who've signed up. Should be interesting.*************