Memory book

August 10, 2013

My heart goes out to you. We adopted our youngest daughter a few years ago at age 18 months from foster care. She has older siblings who we cannot contact. I think of them often, and my heart breaks for them. We were told to have no contact due to the dangerous birthfather (who is still involved with birthmother, and who gave us death threats). But the other children did nothing wrong, and they have lost their baby sister. They are together, adopted by an aunt who could not take the youngest (another thing I get to try to explain as she gets older), but as part of the adoption, we are to keep her away from all contact with bio family. It is unfair to the children and I am sad for them.

Is there any way to get an email address or something to the family that will adopt your sisters? I do have email contact with one half-sister of our daughter. We can share no identifying information, but we send occasional emails telling her how our daughter is doing, cute stories, and basically keeping in touch so our daughter won't have to do a big search when she is old enough, and so her sister can know she is happy and loved. Maybe you can put a letter in with the book to the adoptive parents, telling them how much you love your sisters, and hope they will be happy with their new family, and that you support them as parents of your sisters, and that it would mean a lot to you to hear occasionally how they are doing. If they respond favorably, then later you can ask if it would be okay with them for you to keep in touch with your sisters.

As for the memory book, I would make two if you can, one for each sister. They will treasure it and I'd guess that they will each want their own, even if the books are the same. If you have any baby pictures, that would be precious. It stinks to not have any. Also, any names or identifying information should be put on a separate page or in an envelope for when they are old enough. I have a scrapbook that bio family put together for her, but it has a lot of info that I am not comfortable with her having right now (her last name, parents names, addresses, etc. - info that we'll want, but just not when she's a little girl), so I do not let her look through it. It is sad. I have scanned the scrapbook and made a new one for her, so she could see pics of bio family, hear some stories about her when she was a baby and know she was loved, without the other info, that I will give her when she is older. (obviously she'll get the whole book when she is older.)

If you know about their "firsts" they are always appreciated. Where was she born, who was there, how much she was loved, when did she first smile? walk? talk? What were her first words? Pictures of her, especially any of her smiling. Pictures of her with you, and with other close family members. Any funny stories, or games you played with them, or how you loved to hold them, or how they rubbed spaghetti in their hair or whatever. What did they like to do? What made them laugh, did they have a favorite food?

Just having something, even if it's not perfect or all you want it to be is so valuable and will be so meaningful to them.

It is hard, I know. I had a foster daughter for the first year and a half of her life, and I know it is not the same as losing your little sisters, but when she went back, it took several months for me to be able to emotionally handle gathering her info and pictures into a baby book of her to give her parents. I made two - one for her and one for me to keep as a memory of her. With that in mind, you might want to make three. One for each of them and one for yourself. I loved looking at the memory book I made for my foster daughter. I miss her terribly, and it was a couple of years before I could look at it without bursting into tears, but now there is sweetness and laughter and good memories mixed with the sadness and I enjoy looking at it now and then.

Good luck. I am sorry for this tough thing you have to go through in your life.