We are just beginning the process of open adoption with an infant. The Bmom, Bdad and Bgrandma will be somewhat involved in the baby’s life. For those of you who have direct contact with the Bfamily, do you have your adopted child call them by their first names or have you created a special name (honorary ‘auntie’ type thing) for them?
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We deferred to our child’s
We deferred to our child’s first mom and she chose for our daughter to call her by her first name. She didn’t want any maternal nicknames.
We use “grandpa [first name]” for grandparents and aunts/uncles, etc. like we do with her adoptive extended family. I’ll be interested to hear what other families have decided to do.
During the long wait for our daughter to be born her biological mother and I became very close. She is Latina and chose to be called tia, which is aunt in Spanish. I do consider her a sister/friend and happily refer to her as such but I also tell our daughter that she is her birth mother. We are not as close with her birth father so we’ve yet to refer to him by anything but his first name and that he is her birth father. However his family comes to see Kate and are referred to as aunt [name], and grandma [name] etc. You can NEVER have too many Grandmas that’s for sure!
Our daughter also has several half and one full sibling and we refer to them as brothers and sisters.
I know the whole name thing is tricky for people because we’re all kind of on uncharted ground developing a new way of describing our extended families. In the end all that really matters is a lot of love for our little ones and open communication about how our little families came to be.
My daughter has always called me by my first name AND she has always known that I “grew her in my tummy”.
We call the kids’ birth
We call the kids’ birth parents by their first names. It was their expressed preference and we were comfortable with it, too. With my oldest, we checked in with his first parents after a year or so to see if it was still working for them.
We haven’t really landed on anything with grandparents yet. We only have occasional contact with half of them, and some prefer first names while others bounce around between “birth-grandparent,” “grandparent,” and first names.
We call Jack’s birthmom by
We call Jack’s birthmom by her first name. Initially, I came up with a name that involved the word “mommy”, but DH didn’t like it. In retrospect, he was most likely right. The only other birth relative at that level who we talk about is his birthmom’s sister. When we do – and it’s not often – we refer to her as “Auntie name”. Otherwise, his brother and cousins are referred to as that.
ETA: We did ask S, and she said her first name would be fine.
I know you are mostly asking
I know you are mostly asking adoptive parents this question but I couldn’t resist giving a response.
Personally, as a birthmom I want my birthchild to have a level of respect for me so in the future, I hope to be called Miss Cindy as I was called by children when I vollenteered at a day camp. My first name yes, but I think the ‘Miss’ part makes a difference so that the child knows I am not an unusually large child, I am an adult.
His first parents asked to
His first parents asked to be called by first name, after we called them “Mama First name” and “Daddy First Name” during their first visit (DS was only a few months old at the time). We of course deferred to their preference.
Grandparents and great grandparents are called by various grandparental nicknames, some in combo with their first names because they are shared with other grandparents (ie Nana First Name and Papa First Name). DS has 4 sets of grandparents, 4 great grandmas, and honorary grandparents). Aunts are called Auntie.
Thought we considered it, where I live the title “Miss” is reserved for formal situations (teachers, group leaders) and acquaintances. Close friends and family are called their first name only or with their family title such as Auntie and Uncle.It didn’t seem a good fit for us.
We asked our
We asked our daughter’s first mom and she said just her name is what she wanted.
We have Grandpa M, Aunt M, cousins are cousins and great grandparents will have a special name as well.
My son’s birthmom wanted to
My son’s birthmom wanted to be called ‘Mommy’. This caused me a lot of stress at the time, because I just did not see how he could call two people Mommy. And honestly, I wanted to be the only mommy!
In the end, we compromised. We refer to birthmom now as “Mommy[firstname].” But my son, age 2, just calls her by her first name, despite both our efforts.
So in the end, your child will choose what they call them, no matter what you choose now.