To Facebook or Not to Facebook… Part 3

I was only planning on doing two parts to this Facebook question, but something interesting happened after I wrote my last post.
The birthmom from our second adoption came over to visit. She used to come over a lot, but one day told us that she needed to move on and that she wouldn’t be in contact for a while. We had developed a pretty close relationship, having her visit our home often before the birth as well as after, so we missed seeing her and visiting with her. She needed the time and the space though. She had a new job and a new boyfriend, and she needed to find a way to move on.

With our first adoption, we were friends with our birthmom on Facebook. There were a few times that she pulled away from us, just like our second birthmother was doing, but being friends on Facebook with her made that much more difficult. My wife and I were on Facebook a lot and our birthmom was on Facebook a lot, so unless we were to stop being Facebook friends, we couldn’t completely pull away from each other. She constantly saw our Facebook updates and we constantly saw hers, so the only thing that was really different was that we weren’t on the chat room as often. Both sides of the adoption, bith parent as well as adoptive parent, need to be able to separate themselves from the situation from time to time. Both sides need to heal. Both sides need to have some space to figure out their role.
As I’ve said in a lot of other posts, our emotions mirrored those of our birthmother. We felt a sense of responsibility for her happiness since a lot of her pain was because of the sacrifice she made to bring our child into our home. Being friends with her on Facebook made it even more difficult to separate ourselves from her emotional state. We could see on her page when she was having a hard day, or a hard week, and we felt responsible for it even if her pain was due to something unrelated to adoption. We had a hard time refraining from thinking about our adoption every minute of the day already, and being Facebook friends made that even tougher.
With our second adoption, though, since we weren’t friends on Facebook, during the three months or so that we had no contact with our birthmother, we were both able to progress. If she was having a hard day, we didn’t know about it, so we didn’t feel responsible. We knew that she was keeping some distance so that she could progress, so even though we missed seeing her, we felt good about our relationship because we knew she was out there progressing. That helped us progress as well.
Our second birthmother contacted us a little bit ago, and she has come back to visit us again. She seemed recharged. She was moving on. We feel even closer now than we were before, and she brought up Facebook. We discussed the reasons we had stayed away from it and ultimately we became Facebook friends. Our relationship isn’t nearly as volatile as it was during the first six months after the adoption took place, so we feel good about our decision. Still, it’s not for everyone.
To Facebook or not to Facebook? It’s an interesting question and the answer depends on the relationship between birthparents, adoptive parents, and children.

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