Zac's History

During our pre-adoption study one of the things that became apparent right away was the importance of making Zac's history known to him early on. Some of the adults we know that were adopted as children told us that they were glad that they always knew they were adopted and that it might have been hard to discover this fact later in life. We tend to agree with this idea and so we already talk to Zac about Russia in several ways:

1. When asked, "where were you born, Zac?" he can answer, "Russia." (it's very cute). He also knows that Hallie and Jacob were born in Omaha.

2. We look at pictures from our two trips often and talk about the Baby Home, his friends and caretakers. Sometimes we ask him if he knows so-and-so's name and he will say, "Ummm, I don't know."

3. Hallie and Jacob brought up Zac's birthmom recently and told him, "You came from your Mommy's tummy in Russia." I thought, "Hmmm. We need to figure out what to say about that one." So, I told Hallie that I am his Mommy and we say that the woman that gave birth to him is his birthmom. Then we told Zac that he was in ________ (birthmom's name)'s tummy. He proudly will say this and also tell us that Hallie and Jacob were in mommy's tummy.

I am so glad that we can talk about Zac's history so openly with him as a toddler (in toddler ways) and hopefully that will make discussions about his past easier to approach and easier for him to ask about in the future.