When's there's more twins than your twins.....

How many brothers (and/or sisters) do you have? 

Such a harmless statement that expects such a simple response. 

In our case, it’s not that simple. My twins have a set of biological twin siblings who have been adopted by someone else.

The other twins are a boy and a girl.

It’s natural to want to include all of your siblings when asked how many you have.   

It’s very unatural to have your therapist explain to your 8 year old son, that for all intensive purposes, the only siblings he should tell people about are the ones that live in the home. That’s not to discredit their biological siblings, but just the mere fact of trying to explain the situation is way too much for an 8 year to need to explain to people.

Generally if we are doing something with a group of kids who are not real familiar with our family, but simply know that Ethan, James and Jordan are brothers, one child inevitably asks, “So (Insert twin name here) is your brother BUT Ethan is your brother too?” or my favorite, “So (twin name) is your brother but Ethan’s white and he’s still your brother?” to which a twin responds yes, to which said child says, “but your black.” To which my twin responds, “no, I’m brown.” 

 It doesn’t bother me, when we face these situations usually. Kids are curious and in many cases, maybe my brown babes are one of their first encounters with someone who doesn’t share their skin color. I love that we are walking example of diversity. Not that I intended it to be this way, but I hope maybe we can open people’s eyes and hearts and minds a little by being ourselves.

 I can’t imagine how hard it had to be when my twins were seperated from their other twins and the other twins were adopted by a foster mom they all shared. 

Once it became clear foster mom was only going to adopt one set of twins, my twins were moved to a new foster home. 

To other twin's moms credit, she told us at the finalization, she knew my twins needed a father (she's single) and knew she couldn't give them the life they deserved. The other twins were much younger at this point, so she is the only mom they've really ever known, while my twins have very distinct memories of their biological mom. I have so much respect for her, for knowing she wasn't what was best for them, even though at times it might have seemed like such a horrible thing to do. 

 We met the other twins and their family at the adoption finalization in November 2013. They are adorable. My twins were beyond excited to see them. When we got home, one twin did have a set back, because of the natural disappointment, hurt, sadness that would come with seeing someone you should be growing up with for 45 minutes and then have to say good-bye yet again. 

 My twins are not ready to see those twins again due to the emotional pain that would come with it right now, but their therapist has recommended they write letters and I send pictures.

 I’m not going to lie, the idea of that scared me immensely in the beginning. I have a couple friends who I texted and called freaking out so much about the other family being at the adoption. I had to agree to it, or we would have risked the District Attorney’s office not signing off on the adoption.

Now that some time has passed, and DHS is no longer involved in the adoption process and as much as they have the security of forever with our family, I too now have the security of forever, I see things a little bit differently. My biggest cause for concern was due to the fact that the person who adopted the other twins was a family friend of the biological family. 

 Since November, the other twins mom and I have kept in touch first via email and more recently via text. I send her pictures of the boys (holidays, first day of school etc..) and she does the same. 

 I won’t lie, I want my twins to know their other twins siblings. I dream of a day that we get together. I dream of a day other twins come stay with us for a week in the summer. I can’t say that this is ever going to be a reality, but now that I have found my footing and security in my role as mom to these wonderful little boys, I want to do everything I can, to make sure anyone who can love them and can maintain a healthy relationship with them, be a part of their lives.

Earlier tonight, I was sitting at the dining room table going through pictures of the boys, deciding on which ones I should send to her. This will be my first time mailing anything. 

It made me realize how far I’ve come and it made me happy, because I know God has worked on me to bring me to this point. 

It feels wonderful that I have a new openess in my heart that wasn’t there too long ago and it feels good to have cleared yet another hurdle in this long process we’ve only just begun. 

 “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.“unknown

  -t