Strange visit with Bmom...she paid no attention to Bear

Not being her, I can't answer for her.But there are times when I do pay attention to J & D's youngest son, JD (16 days older than the Munchkin) because I'm too olverwhelmed with the emotion of being in a room with a child who came into this world via my care yet calls another woman mommy.It's not always easy.

She must still be wroking out her feelings regarding her place in her birthsons life. She may be afraid to face those motherly feelings that would surely come by cuddling him close. She may fear that he will reject her and not want anything to do with her. She may fear how you all would feel by watching her hold him or bond with him. Basically I think she is "proceeding with caution". She is taking the easier road right now(if there is one...wehn it comes to placing a child and having contact with that child afterward). I'm sure she wanted to do all those things with her b-son she just couldn't. Not yet. Given time when you all feel a little more comfortable and the loss isn't so close to her heart I'm sure you'll start seeing her interact more with him and bonding with him.

I hope for both their sakes that what you guys said is what is going on. I guess I would not want to continue visits if this is the direction they would all be going. The other thing I forgot to mention is that her father offered his camera so that she could take pictures and she said "no, I don't want any". I am just confused.

Why would you want to cancel visits just because of this? Open adoption is seriously weird for all parties involved. I have wanted to just watch my bchild but felt bad if I did for the amother. I was also VERY conscious of everyone watching ME during visits to see how I was reacting...so she got scared and gave her affection to your other child. If she didn't want to see her bson then she wouldn't have come to the visit. Please give her time.

Extreme traumatic pain watching another woman raise her child/children? She needs compassion,IMO. The fact that these mothers of loss continue to even breath after they lose their child,is a miracle IMO. Each time she sees them~ she must again see them leave. I have heard some Mother's say that each goodbye feels like the first goodbye of placement for the first few years.

At our last visit, I sort of felt the same way (I do not have another child -- just more that I felt like I was trying to "push" DD on birth mom). I have to say that at the end of the visit, after we dropped birth parents off, I turned around and saw DD's birth mom literally crumple to the ground (I will never forget that). I guess that your DS' birth mom may have done the same thing and you wouldn't even know it? I think it must be extraordinarily hard for a birth mom to try to bond when all eyes are upon her and she has such a limited window to do so. I think I would assume that the seeming "noninterest" was probably really a coping mechanism and I am sure she has run the "pictures" and moments of that day thru her mind many times. I do understand, however, that when the "reality" doesn't match the "expectation," you may be questioning the whole "purpose" of your open adoption. (I.e., if the purpose was to help your child bond with his birth mom, know she loves him, etc. and it is "weird," does that work for him? I don't know how old your son is, but I bet (hope) it will get more "normal" (whatever that means!). Good luck....I hope that the next visit is an "easier" one for all.

I donn't want to look at pictures of my bdaughter right now. They are hidden in a box in the back of a cupboard. And I have been in a "successful" open adoption for 16 years. It changes over the years - it has to - good years, bad years for everyone involved. We are in the worst patch ever this year. who knows if we will ever get out of it? I just realised how weird and messed up adoption was a couple of years ago when I drove past bdaughter walking up the road. First off I was amazed that I recognised her as it was the first time I had seen her outside a visit. (I almost drove off the road from shock) secondly I knew I could not stop and talk to her or offer her a ride home or to wherever she was going...I mean how weird is that. I gave birth to this child BUT I would have totally freaked her out if I had stopped to say "hello, how are you". Now I just tell myself that I have this dsyfunctional relationship with my bdaughter and either I live with it or end it...If I was the aparents I would just do my best to ensure visits happened as promised, photos sent etc to the bfamily and not spend too much time worrying about the dynamics because it is way outside the scope of normal!

Banjo, not to hijack the thread here, but is it that your DD is going through a teenager-type phase that is making things dysfunctional? I was just thinking a lot about sort of the built-in "unfairness" of open adoption arrangements to birth parents where (as in my case) there are limited visits, etc. I mean I guess I'm wondering what is is that I expect to happen here....Can I really expect that my DD will bond with her birth family/"know" them when we each have our own "families" and have relatively limited contact? I suppose that, like anything in life, you never know how it's all going to play out. BandB, sorry to hijack, i guess a lot of times i try to evaluate/reevaluate the "purpose" of my DD's own open adoption....thanks.

I know that we are in the middle of the teenage years and things have certainly gone seriously weird since my bdaughter turned 12 to be honest. Prior to that I had a lot of contact with the afamily. AS for the purpose of the open adoption? For me it was to let my child know that I had not abandoned her - that I wanted the best for her and that I was still a part of her life. I thought that we would be friends. What I thought it would be like is nothing like the reality. I have felt like a burden to her and her family for probably the past five years. I don't think the aparents thought I would still be "around" 16 years later. I think most people would assume that I would have grieved and got on with my life. Adoption is just not like that and the general public doesn't know that. It is very hard to understand the dynamics of it even when you are a party to it. Many things have cropped up over the years that I would never have forseen that have tested my mental health and broken my heart even more, such as the fact that my bchild wants nothing to do with her bsibs. Infact I don't even think she considers them to be relatives. can you imagine how much that hurts me? It would probably be like your achild telling you when they are older that their asibs are not their sibs and they want nothing to do with them. Imagine how you would feel??? The fact is they are her sibs just in a different way than her bsibs. I guess it's difficult for young minds to process it all and it gets complicated. BUT so many children these days have blended families and step sibs etc and they learn to cope with it all. I have had to grieve her decision and accept it. Then had to deal with the fall out with my kept children and their grief over not having a relationship with her. very sad. The purpose for her? At the very least she has her bfamily history at her fingers and she does "know" us to a certain extent. Medical questions can be answered directly. She knows who she looks like. Only she can say if it was a positive experience for her. But now I have to face the fact that she hasn't got time for me in her life and that we may never be friends. However - this may not be the case for other bchildren and their bmother. Every adoption is different. Sometimes I think it just comes down to personalities - ya know. Many people do not have close relationships with their bio parents - they find they have nothing in common with their bio sibs etc. It's a lottery. But I think I need to look back and know that I did my best. I made a mistake letting her go BUT I can look back and say that I did my best to get to know her and support her afamily. So all I can say is that please do you part that you agreed to with the bparents ie visits or letters and photos. Try not to expect it to go a certain way. I am still letting go of expectations, grieving the loss of expectations - wow that is huge for me. THEN there will be no come back from your achild. I know my bchild's parents have done this as best as they can because they want her trust and love and I know that she will look back and say that they always gave her the opportunity to see her bfamily. I agree that limited contact does make it VERY hard to get to know each other. I think it would be much easier with email. Perhaps when you achild hits school age they can start basic email contact with the bmother? I think I would enourage the bmother to send tiny age appropriate gifts (ie stickers) and cool cards and ecards between visits. It will let the bchild know she thinks about them and they can exchange some basic information about each other. With luck that might continue throughout their lives. I hope this answers your questions. Be sure though that your children will always consider you to be MOM and DAD. My bdaughter is not confused about who her parents are. She loves them and would NEVER consider coming to live with me and my family!

Banjo, thank you for sharing so much with me.... I hate to be "trite" but I remember my dad saying to me (until recently), "I REALLY loved you until you turned 12!" I know it sounds like things are dysfunctional now, but I bet all the years you have "put in" to maintaining a relationship with DD will "pay off" some day....I hope so. I have no intention of not maintaining contact with my DD's birth family - - in fact, many times, i would like more contact (this is a "battle" with DH currently). But I think I will leave it up to DD if she wants more contact that what we and birth parents agreed to in our OA agreement. Good luck with everything, and thanks again!

I agree I think it may very well be her age. My half sister who I have in the past spent a LOT of time with (she's 11 years younger than me)decided that she didn't need me anymore either once she reached that magical age of 12. She is about to turn 17 next month and it's like each year has gotten worse and worse. I do hope that she finds room in her life for me again and we begin to rebuild our relationship in the future once she's done with all these crazy teen years.

Sorry...it has been one of those weekends...so I have not been able to get back to my post here. I did not say I WOULD discontinue visits. We are bound by our open adoption agreement. I am saying that I get the feeling that idea of it was not her's to begin with and that I am not sure she even wants to continue. Bear was conceived thru rape. His mother and he were in foster care together and his b-gma told her that she would never be allowed to come back home unless she did so WITH the baby. I think she was hoping that an open agreement would soften her own mother's feelings. There is "no room" at her father's house so she has pretty much been a ward of the state for more than 2 years. So, I guess I feel like she feels bound to an agreement she doesn't want to be in. This is what her actions kind of told me...but I could be wrong. I also don't want to create resentment between my own children either. They are young yet, so I am not saying it WILL happen, but it may.

Ah...adoption can be so tricky. no two situations are the same but there are some common themes...

Well, one way to kinda jumpstart her comminicating with him is to maybe keep your visits small. Instead of having your other children around during visits maybe you can have someone watch the other kids or have your husband take them out for a few hours. So there are less distractions. I'd also recommend taking a few pictures yourself. She may not want the pictures right now but I'm sure your son will and someday she may wish she had pictures of him and her together when he was still little as well. I wouldn't force anything on her espececially given the circumstances of the pregnancy. But with less distractions (or easy way outs) she may naturally communicate with him more.