The Adoption Triad

Over the last six months I've really been studying adoption. I started with reading about adoption from a birth mother's perspective. Within a few short months, I was immersed and reading every blog I could. I was nervous about branching out, but it has been the best thing for me.

Before I started researching, I hadn't ever thought about this subject, but now it's all I do think about, and it seems obvious to me. The Adoption Triad is made up of essentially three people (think of it like a triangle): Adoptive parent, Birth Parent, Adoptee. As I've read more though, the triad has become more of a weird looking web-thing. Imagine for a moment if you will, on the adoptive parents' side connected to them on different branches are their agency, caseworkers, extended family, bio-family (if you're like us then bio-children), friends, etc. The Birth Parents is more like a branch in two different paths: Birth Mother/Birth Father. On each of their branches, they have their family and friends. Now, who would you expect to be connected to the Adoptee that is not already connected to him/her through the others? Think about it for a minute. . .

(I'm going to leave you thinking about that for a bit, but I will address it in a later post.)

Now you see what I mean. . . the adoption triad starts out looking like a triangle up close, but as you zoom out, you see a strange looking tree with branches going everywhere. Or maybe it's a web. . . not sure. The interesting thing is that one side of the web/branch/triad thingy seems to have all of the power to make or break an adoption experience for everyone involved, and it's a little disconcerting. I wonder if you think it's the same branch that I do.

What are your thoughts?

I feel like I'm starting a lecture series called, "LeMira's Adoption Thoughts," but I do want to post about each member of the triad and what I've learned. I can't really do it in one post, it'd be super long and probably super boring.