The silent birthfather

Of course you aren't being petty. I think it says alot about you as a mother and as an adoptive parent that you wish for Lilly to have a relationship with her birthdad. It never hurts to ask. My mom always says "the worst they could do is say no". I know that would be devestating to not hear back or to have him say no, but I bet if you asked him he would have a very hard time saying no. Maybe he doesn't realize just how important his role in Lilly's life is. Best of luck!

Munchkin's biological father didn't meet her until she was almost three. It's very hard for him to have a relationship with her/them because he is very, very hard on himself for not being able/ready to parent. Even harder than I am on myself and everyone knows how hard I am on myself!He may come around... he may not. He will have to answer those questions someday when she is older, you know? It's hard not to internalize those issues ourselves, as any kind of parent to our children. I sometimes feel the weight of his lack of involvement and worry how the Munchkin will feel/react. But that's HIS issue, not mine. IF that makes any sense?

We are "lucky" in the sense that my DD's birth parents are married (though honestly, only DD's birth mom and I really do the communication...not my DH or DD's birth dad which is kind of annoying). I think instead of asking that he do "x" (send a card every birthday), you should contact him and say that you want Lilly to know him and you would love to hear from him....and let him decide what he is comfortable doing or not doing for now. I just think that kind of tack may work better? I don't know. GOOD LUCK!!

Thanks ladies for your responses. I think I will work on a carefully worded letter to explain why I think this is so important for Lilly. Then at least I've done what I can do, and it will be out of my hands. Thanks again!

I understand how you feel. Castle's birthfather has Aspergers, a form of high functioning Autism and he signed away rights before she was born stating that he didn't ever want to see the baby and didn't want to know the sex, just that a healthy baby was born. His parents on the other hand had a very hard time with the adoption and sent us all his medicals and their phone number incase we ever needed to contact them. His mother was going to send a gift to our attorney when Castle was born but she never did. I have since done a people search and located their email but have never written. I understand that they may not want a relationship, they are in Wash. State and we are in Tennessee but I would love to send picture so they could see how much Castle looks like their son and how loved she is. For now I keep the email and phone number tucked safetly away until I or Castle decides that we need to use them.

I've found w/ H's bdad that asking him for specific things for H works well---last time we saw him, I asked for some baby photos, and asked if it was OK to take some pictures during our visit so we could put them in H's baby book. Honestly, I think it just hadn't occurred to him to think that we'd want those things for H.