That Time of Year Has Rolled Around Again

The Tiny Tornado's birthday is coming up, and that means it's time for me to write the annual letter to his birthmother. This is often a challenge for me; sometimes old feelings about the lies and the drama and the custody fight and the drugs come up. Some years, I feel charitable, generous, and loving; some years, I feel put-upon, like having this ethical obligation when K. has no reciprocal obligation is just not fair.

This year, I just don't know how to write an honest letter. Since I wrote to her last year (a very nice letter in which I included an SASE in case she wanted to write to the Tiny Tornado), the Tiny Tornado has chosen to live as a boy. I am not comfortable telling K. about this, for a variety of reasons. One is that I have no reason to believe she has any goodwill towards us, and I don't choose to tell her anything that she might, in some way, use against us. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense--she couldn't possibly gain custody, for instance. But she could conceivably cause us some kind of trouble if she chose to.

On the other hand, I'm not comfortable writing a letter with female pronouns, either. And when I have tried to write mini-drafts in my head without using pronouns at all, it gets a little weird.

I have been thinking some about the agreement I made. We were asked to commit to writing a letter every year for 18 years, but I wasn't willing to make that commitment. I had heard from other adoptive parents that their children sometimes came to feel that letters to birthparents who were not otherwise in touch--not writing back, for instance--were an invasion of privacy. So I said, "I will commit to writing an annual letter until and unless the baby decides he doesn't want us to anymore."

This isn't exactly that circumstance, though I suspect that if I asked the Tiny Tornado, he would not want me to write to K. He doesn't like to talk about her, and last year when I asked him to help me think about what to tell her and what pictures to include, he vehemently declined to participate.

There's no legal obligation to write her. But I'm thinking about what my ethical obligation is, and how to weigh that against what seems best for my family.

I won't simply not write; but I might write a letter saying that the Tiny Tornado is doing well but I can't go into details this year. And I'll tell her, like I do every year, that there is a place in the Tiny Tornado's baby book for her picture, and that the Tiny Tornado would probably love to have one, or to hear from her. I'll enclose an SASE again. Maybe one of these years she'll use it.

And I'll tell her, like I do every year, that we are praying for her, and for the Tiny Tornado's half-siblings. Because we are. I do hope to hear from K. sometime. I hope to hear that she is doing well.