What Isaac Knows

At the court hearing that made us a forever family!

One of the most common adoption questions that I currently hear surrounds how much Isaac knows. "Does he know he is adopted?" or "Does he understand he is adopted?" or "How much does he know?"

It's a good question, and I wanted to take the opportunity to answer it in detail. I use a lot of my blog entries to send to people who are asking questions. The more I can get "written", the less times I have to write it out over and over again. So here's what Isaac, and consequently Sidge (Abigail is too young to understand) know and talk about:

Isaac knows that he adopted.

He knows that he was in Bri's belly.

He knows that his brother and sisters were in my belly.

He knows that Joan and Roy and Bri are in our family even though they don't live with us.

He knows that he has other family members he barely knows that love him without meeting him or having met him often.

He knows that he was adopted like Jesus and Moses and Kung Fu Panda and Superman.

He knows and uses the word adopted and birth mom. He will never hear those words and be shocked by them. But I imagine there will come a point that he says, "What does that exactly mean that I am adopted?" or "What does that mean that I have and adopted mom and a birth mom?" 

Isaac's birthfather is not in the picture and most likely he won't be. We imagine there will come a day that he will ask about him. We will cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, we plan to tell him, when he asks, that his birthfather loved Bri and supported her as she grew Isaac in her baby and gave him life. But then, they decided to part ways, and our families did not know each other and therefore we do not have contact with him. If Isaac decided to seek him out when he is grown, we will support him in that desire. 

Isaac understands that Bri is now married. He doesn't understand at this point that he could one day have half brothers and sisters if Bri and her new husband, Robert, have children. This is exciting for me because Bri is also adopted. This means that the only person Isaac has in his life that is genetically related to him is Bri. It will be exciting if he has other brothers and sisters genetically related to him.

We do not fear the future in regards to Isaac's adoption. We do not believe that adopted children have any bigger issues than biological children.

When a child is "troubled" and biological, no one says, "Oh, it must be because they are biologically related to their parent." Why then do they say, "Oh, it must be because they are adopted?" We very well could have one of our biological children give us much more of a headache then Isaac. We will not attribute any "issues" any of our kids may or may not have to anything other than their choices -- not their genes.

I'd love to answer more questions on this topic. If you have any, please feel free to leave them in the comments. Any kind question will be kindly answered!