Before placement, we discussed with our birthparents that we would like to change our son’s first name to his middle name. We weren’t too fond of his birth first name, although we didn’t say that to them. As he was 9 months old at the time, we weren’t worried that it might be traumatic for him. They agreed and said that they actually liked the idea because his middle name was in honor of an uncle who had died tragically.
In the 4 months since placement, everyone in the birthfamily have changed to calling our son by his middle name except for his birthmother. She calls him “baby Anthony Matthew” in all references to him. We did receive one email from her where she wrote “my Anthony is no more, replaced by Matthew.” However, she still refers to him by the above 3-word name in every other communication and when she mails things to him. We’ve politely asked her to please use his correct name. She lives with mental illness, so we know she is struggling to come to terms with the adoption.
She’ll be visiting him in 2 months. Should we be concerned that she will probably call him by a wrong name? Or, at 15 months old, will he even notice? Maybe it will be like having a nickname from a certain relative? Deep down, it bugs me, but I don’t want to make too big of a deal with it if we shouldn’t be concerned.
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Well, I think it might be useful to stop thinking it as his “wrong” name and start thinking of it as one of his names. By which I mean, I think this might be one of those complicated things that happen in some adoptions and this adoption is particularly complex because of the age of your son when he came to you.
My thinking is that his name change is part of his adoption story and it’s certainly a schism he will need to try to make sense of as he grows. He was Anthony Michael for the first nine months of his life and he was Anthony Michael to his birth family and now he is Michael and that is pretty complicated even if his first mom wasn’t struggling with it, you know? And I think you’re spot on that seeing this as a nickname from a special relative might be a good way to handle it. And an introduction into talking about his life story.
I appreciate how hard this is — this sounds like a very difficult adoption story for everyone — but I applaud you for working how to figure it out and how to keep his connection open in the healthiest way you can for him. It certainly won’t be easy but I think you’re on the right track and working this out now will make it easier in the long run as he grows and becomes more aware of his adoption story and what it means to him.
Also, have you thought about creating a lifebook for him? I think doing that can be a great way for you to help make sense of how you will tell his story including his name change.
I just want to say that placing a child for adoption is always very hard on a first mom.
No matter her ‘mental health’ or whatever. Try and put yourself in her place for a moment.
The grief and loss your sons first mom is feeling is NORMAL and any normal person would be having just as hard a time with it all as she is. It just seems judgemental of you to say that she is ‘mentally ill’ because she is having hard time coping with the loss of her baby.(that she loves)
You would probably be feeling the exact same ways as she is if you were her.
I know you did not mean it to be insulting, but saying stuff that seems to imply that someone is someone ‘less’ because they are not as happy as you are about something is kind of mean.
Personally, when I placed my own son for adoption, I happen to like the name they wanted even though I did have a name for him that was quite different. I never planned on really naming him.
Obviously your son’s first mom was likely hoping to parent for life and those plans did not work out. Right now she is likely utterly devastasted by the events of placing her son, like any NORMAL mother would be. Have a little mercy. Honestly you have years to call your son by the name you want, she likely just needs a little time to call him what she called him for all the time that she parented him.
I didn’t see where she said that the birth mom was mentally ill BECAUSE of the adoption. Perhaps it was badly worded but I thought she was saying the birth mom was mentally ill AND having trouble adjusting to the adoption.
yeah, you’re right. I kind of over re-acted. It’s just that I have friends that struggle with mental illness and I really don’t like it when people say someone is ‘mentally ill’ when it just seems like their personal opinion or an excuse for behavoir.
Mental illness is not something that is unusual. Studies show that most people will have some kind of ‘mental illness’ in their lifetime.
BTW, all first moms will ALL have trouble adjusting to the loss of their child to adoption. I can’t imagine that any mother would be ‘ok’ with it, especially for the first year.
I wouldn’t worry about it and I do not believe it will be confusing for your child. He’ll just learn that he has a few different names and you can help him to understand why. But he likely already understands that people are called by different names. For instance, he calls you “Mommy,” but I’m pretty certain that not everyone you socialize with does. So he sees different people calling you by different names and he’s already discovering how that works.
Our children’s birth mother always refers to them by the names she gave them. At first it felt strange, but I’m used to it now. We’ve never discussed it, but I believe it is because she gave those names to them, they have meaning for her and it is important that she be able to use them. When she posts photos of them online she also uses the names she gave them. Generally with photos I send her which was another shock, but I got over it! Frankly, I prefer Facebook postings about them to be under their original names for safety reasons. My husband and I are very careful to not use too much identifying information online due to a sensitivity towards their privacy. The only time she uses the names we gave them is when she mails things, otherwise the post office may be confused about where the letter or package should go.
I think it will only be a big deal if you continue to have difficulty with it. Your child would probably sense that and it may make him feel conflicted or uncomfortable.
Good luck!
Gretchen
Thank you all for your wise words. The more I ponder this, the more comfortable I’m becoming with it. Yes, we do have a lifebook and there is a whole page with the story about his name.
Please forgive me if I sounded insensitive. Our bmother lives with a truly diagnosed mental illness- we paid for her to be certified competent to sign the adoption paperwork. Our bfather also lives with a mental illness. The 2 met and had our son in a group home. My own mother also lives with a mental illness, so I am very aware of their needs and challenges. Most certainly I would struggle if I had to place my son, no matter what the circumstances. I had 2 miscarriages, so I have experienced a great loss. I care very much about how our bparents feel.
Forgive me for jumping to conclusions. I am glad you care about how first parents feel.
I am impressed that you already have a lifebook and everything.
That’s something I am still working on, well…thinking about working on. lol
I am glad you have given honest thought to all that was stated.
I hope that all goes well with in the visits to come.
If anyone says open adoption is easy on either the first families or the adopting families, they have missed the mark
Nothing about human relationships is easy, especially in emotionally-charged situations. All comments to my posting have been food for thought.
At the beginning of our adoption, I sacrificed my own comfort to try to meet the needs of our birthfamily. It got so overwhelming that I talked to our attorney. She said that we had gone above and beyond what we had agreed to and that we had every right to set more boundaries. In fact, she advised me to change my email and not tell our birthmother. I didn’t do this because I didn’t feel right about it.
Our birthfather’s sister advised us to set stricter boundaries, too, and we have, as you can tell, started to navigate those. She’s been living with his issues for 50 years and knows how stressful it can be. She was the one who encouraged them to put our son up for adoption. They would leave him for weeks at a time at her house or at a friend’s. When the birthfather was asked to leave the group home, he couldn’t bring our son with him. Our birthmother was never allowed to be left alone with our son for fear she might accidentally hurt him, so she couldn’t keep him. She has also tried to commit suicide twice- once before the adoption and once in the 4 months since.
The first boundary we set was in denying what we felt was an unreasonable request that might upset our son. Our birthfather’s response was to say that, while my husband and I legally care for the child, he and the birthmother are his parents and have the right to make the decisions about his life, not us. His sister talked with him, supporting our decision, and now he’s not speaking to any of us. We did, though, get a very distrurbingly-worded card for our son from his divorced birthparents on their Jamaican cruise together. And then our birth aunt brought up the idea of us adopting a second child should the birthparents get pregnant again!
Well, long story short, this is a boundary we thought about setting- that everyone call our son by his “new” name. It’s one, though, that it looks like doesn’t need to be set. It’s trial and error, finding the right balance for all of us
It’s a blessing to have found this community of both adoptive and first families to share with! Oh yeah, and our attorney said that the counseling was the last bill we needed to pay for them, thankfully…
Just following up on this. I think OAS admin hits it right on the nail. The naming issue is not restricted to families built by adoption. My child is named after her father’s maternal aunt (first name) and my late brother’s name (middle name). My husband’s paternal aunt uses an abbreviated version of my daughter’s middle name rather than the first name as she feels a greater connection with that name. At 3 years old, my daughter doesn’t find this confusing but just a special name Auntie E. calls her and more recently she has begun to connect it to mummy’s brother who died. I worried for a while about how that would feel if my parents heard Auntie E calling our daughter by my late brother’s nickname, but really not a problem. They chose for it not to be a problem. Best of luck.
We’re struggling with the name issue.
Before T was born, the bmom and gmom wanted him to be named A. We never agreed to A and I actually asked if we could use A as his middle name mainly because A had a lot of adoption history attached to it. We wanted the baby to have a name unconnected to anyone. T is now almost 9 months old and we have not told them that we’ve renamed him T with A as his middle name. I feel sick about it. They call him A. We call him T at home. As far as Im concerned, they can call him A forever but I really want them to give us their blessing to use T as his first name. I know that we need to tell them but I’m so scared of hurting them. It’s so strange, I relly want their blessing. But I may have to face the fact that this one is going to be painful and we just need to broach the subject with them.
We see them a lot in person. They live closeby and we have an excellent relationship with the exception of this one niggling and very important issue.