This installment of the Open Adoption Roundtable at deals with the fathers involved in our open adoptions. Here is my take on J, Little Lassie’s biological father.

J is a jovial person. He is amusing and frank, the kind of person who can put everyone at ease. When I saw LL for the first time, she was a year old. J was holding her. FlyGuy and I walked into the waiting room of the adoption agency for our match meeting and I saw a man holding his daughter, Little Lassie and J. My breath caught in my throat when I realized this was the family we had been matched with. J recognized me right away from our profile. His smile lit up the room and he strode over and introduced LL to me. I thought I was going to be sick. They looked too normal, too happy to consider adoption.

I now know that they were a happy family, but they were also a family without the necessary resources to raise their daughter beyond her first year of life. J was unabashedly honest about their situation. He clearly cared about LL and remained very positive throughout the placement process. I remain grateful for that.

This is a difficult post to write because I don’t exactly like J. I know that is an ugly thing to say, but this is my space and I want to be honest. To be clear, I don’t like or dislike J. I respect him, I’m grateful to him, I honor his place in my family, but I don’t know enough about him or the year he spent raising LL to say I like him. I am, however, open to liking J. I am hopeful that our open adoption will include meetings where we can get to know each other. There is potential for J and I to make a connection beyond the one we already have and for LL’s sake, I hope we get the opportunity to develop that.

Finally, I know LL has J’s genes throughout her body and, in an odd way, that makes me feel very close to him. My daughter is a flesh and blood representation of J, which makes him one of my favorite people in the world. Adoption can be complex, but in the end it is simply based on love.