Another question...

I plan to tell our daughter the truth. I will explain to her that we fought so hard for her because the alternative would have been a dangerous situation for her to grow up in, IMO. And yes, I will include the "in my opinion". By the time your son is old enough to read any of the court documents, he will be old enough to understand the workings of people, and will form his own opinion. I try not to "worry" about things like this (though I do think about them), because I know that I did what I believed was best for my daughter.

We have to get her to open up first before we can really explain anything. Yes Christie we have court papers that state we kidnapped and hid the child for 7 yrs.We have a letter from his attorney stating the police will come and get the child if she is not returned.That letter did the most damage of all.DW lost control that day and not wanting DD to be surprised told her and she lost control and I got the worst phone call in the world at work that day from my daughter crying and asking me to help her.I still cry when I think of that day. Our attorney told us " Oh don't worry about it because that is just a LEGAL scare tactic to try and force you to do what they want" That one letter!!! If they only knew what kind of damage that did to a family thinking only of the daughter and her best interest. Bparents that keep contested adoptions going for yrs and when given legal rights to the child turn around and do nothing are not looking out for the child they are just out to find something to do in their pitiful lives because they know they have nothing and never will to offer a child and maybe jealous towards the people that have the ability to make a child smile and feel safe.I would suspect that they may feel that Hey this is my child and if I can not make them happy HOW dare you try.That is a slap right in my face so you better stop or I will take him/her away.In our case it would be " I asked you to raise her as your own,But how dare you do a better job at it then I can or could"!! In our case that just seems to be what the whole problem was. I honestly do not believe we will have any more problems from him ONLY because he knows now that we are not going away. Hang tough Christie and do not think to much about what is in your court papers.Your DS knows you well enough to know the truth. GOD BLESS

So sad. So outrageous! True in my case as well.Thank you daddysangel. I think I am still just so angry about all of this. And for both of us - it still is not "over" - and yet we are the parents and mistreated by the birthparent and the courts. Will the anger ever go away? Even if we could ever finalize permanently? What do you think daddysangel? How is it we are able to raise these sweet children and yet not be able to legalize it? Daddysangel - you and I are in similar positions. Your support means everything to me. Your advice, ideas and suggestions are so much appreciated. For those who are on the other side - do you still feel anger and bitterness? Thanks to all of you - You help me more than you know. C-

Christie, I have many times still felt the anger well up in me and am trying to find a way to still love the birthmother that gave our daughter life but not trusting her at all. She says she would "never do anything to hurt our family" but she DID hurt us (by helping birthfather) and is apparantly still with him. As for the honesty with our child(ren), we will tell them the truth as we know it. We will tell our baby girl that her father did not want the responsibility of being a parent when she was born but then changed his mind later, blaming us for everything that happened. And she will know our love every single day of her life so we're really not worried about what she feels about him. I hope that she respects the parents that gave her birth but know that she will always love us as her parents. We will not talk down about them to her . . . ever. And if they show up at some point and want to throw another story her way about what THEY FELT, we will still be here for whatever questions she may have about that. Adoption is not an easy road, there are no easy answers, we do the best we can. But remember WHO it is that is raising your son and that is who he will always know to be his mommy, the one mommy that he can truly count on. For now, you may have to find a way to make that "enough" on your end, but I know how difficult it is. I feel I have aged 20 years through this contested adoption and there's no way to undo the damage it did to this family. Love,Josie