20 Things Adopted Kids wish their adoptive parents knew

I'm currently reading this book. The title is Twenty Things Adopted Kids wish their Adoptive Parents Knew. Author: Sherrie Eldridge Easy read with some useful information. Written from an adoptee perspective. Ms. Eldridge was adopted as an infant and writes about how adoptive parents can help their adoptive children deal with their grief and adjust to the family. It's interesting and I have flagged pages to copy some of the info to keep (it's onloan from the library). She is an advocate for openness in adoption. Not open adoption, openness. She doesn't choose sides in which type of adoption you should follow. She believes that as much info as possible should be given to the child and that adoption should be a freely discussed topic in the house. The adopted child should be allowed to discuss all aspects of their feelings and their pain and their grief regardless of how young they were when they were adopted. As a future adoptive mom, what worries me (and this is probably just from lack of experience) is that if I consistenly discuss the topic of adoption and the birth family, will my child ever really feel like part of my family or will he/she always feel like a child we are raising until they are old enough or mature enough to seek out their birth family? Please forgive my ignorance...like I said, we don't have experience in this. Our lack of experience is a huge reason we are reading as much as we can to prepare for the future adoption. Because we are going through the state for our adoption via the foster/adopt program, we want to be as prepared as possible and learn in advance what responses would be most beneficial for the child and the family. I hope I'm making sense... We want our child (or children) to be as much as a part of our family as if we had birthed them ourselves. So, all that being said and done, the information and advice in this book is very helpful and sound from what we can tell. If anyone has read this book or has any thoughts regarding what I wrote above, please post. We are interested in hearing what others have to say. Thanks! The Sauceys :)