How I Felt When My Child’s Adoptive Parents Cancelled a Visit With Me
There was a process I had to work through.
My daughter’s parents cancelled what was supposed to be our third visit after my daughter had only been on this earth for four months. These are the emotions I felt:
First, I felt betrayed. I had just placed my daughter into their arms, trusting that they would follow through on their promises—and now they were not only canceling a visit, but weren’t allowing me to have any visits for five months. I would only be able to see her through pictures and their family blog. I didn’t understand how they could do this to me.
Next, I became confused. What had I done to make them cancel a visit? Had I said something inappropriate, had I done something that I wasn’t aware of? Did they not want an open adoption anymore? Was it because I wanted to be closer, relationship-wise, to my daughter?
Then I resigned myself to the situation. I learned I had to have patience and be satisfied with the contact that I did have until they were ready to go back to having visits. I realized that if I continued to feel angry, confused, and betrayed, I would never be able to open up my heart to having a great relationship with them in the future.
Finally I gained some understanding. When we had our next visit, I realized why they had cancelled. They were pregnant and concerned that I would be mad that they were having a baby. After that realization, I felt compassion for them. Above all, I felt happiness because I had wanted so badly for them to experience the joy of having a baby and being able to grow their family even more.
In the end, I was actually grateful that they canceled the visits for a few months because it gave me an opportunity to appreciate our usual level of openness. Now, over two years later we have a great relationship, great communication, we show our love, and our appreciation for each other in a very healthy way.
While I was able to grow through this process, I believe that the key here was more open communication. If I had understood the reasons behind the changes in our visits, the separation would have been much less painful for everyone.
