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I thoughtthat I would cross post here just to share with other parents who have adopted from foster care and contemplate openness.
We have exciting happy news. Over the past year, we ave been opening contact with DD's paternal Grampa & Bsister and BDad. With our support and encouragement DD {11yrs} has decided that she is ready to meet her BirthDad again.
It has been almost 5 yrs since she had a good-bye visit with him in a McDonalds, 2 days before moving in with us. There were some safety concerns at that time but we are so happy that we took the initiative to look for them and find out how he is doing now. We found out that he is a healthy, hardworking young man who is co-parenting his other daughter and doing a darn fine job of it. That is the sib that comes to stay with us now. We had her for another 3 day visit just before Christmas.
It feels wonderful to see how relieved that DD was last year when we were able to reassure her that bDad is in a healthy place and is safe and isn't the angry, frustrated abusive parent that he once was.
It wasn't an easy decision to come to. As well as the safety issues etc, we had already gone through a very challenging time with the paternal Gma. We really didn't want to purposely put ourselves into another drama filled struggle. My DH also had to come to terms with meeting/seeing HIS Daughter's other Dad.
BDad, DH and I had a wonderful sit down together last spring and started the process of getting to know one another. I have met with him several times now bring little sister back to him from visiting with us. We all agreed that it was going to be completely DD's decision if she wanted to meet him now, in 5 yrs or never.
In early December DD decided that she did want to meet him. We wanted to give her a little extra time and not have a visit right at Christmas so we said that we would wait till the New Year and see if she still felt the same way.
We put together a beautiful leather album of photo's for him for Christmas. Pictures of DD over the past 5 yrs, since he had seen her last. Pictures of her life here on the farm, riding her quad in the mountains, being my junior bridesmaid, her birthday parties with friends etc. He was able to share the album with his extended family, his Aunties and Uncles etc over Christmas. I know that it really meant alot to him and it was really special for us to put it together and give it to him.
So last night I called him and asked him if he wanted to meet us next weekend - I couldn't even get the question out before he answered Yes, he'll be here!!
Now I don't know who is more excited, BDad, DH, me or DD I don't know how we are going to last until next week!!!
Sunshinemomma
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Thanks Lovingheart.....this thread kinda feels like my own personal blog but I'll post an update anyway;)
We we had our visit last night with DD's bDad "D".!!
As DD said half way though the evening "Amazing....Amazing" and that just about sums it up. It was truly a beautiful and amazing night.
DD was excited but also a little nervous and scared in the last couple of days whether she had made the right decision to see him or not. Luckily we had talked over the idea of seeing him with her therapist last year and therapist told her she might feel a little of the PST symptoms that she had felt as a scared little girl, when the time came to see him. So we talked alot about how she was feeling, what she was worried about.
Shows how far my girl has come. She told me "I know in my head that he won't hurt me ever again and that you and Daddy would never even let him but in my tummy I feel the scared feeling that "something" might happen.
Gave her the choice of changing her mind, that she was in the drivers seat and we would support her choices.
She worried about what to call him. She worried too whether or not she would hurt his feelings if he saw how much she loves us and if our feelings would be hurt because she still loves him. {divided loyalty anyone?}. I kept letting her know that the adults were OK with all of those feelings and that we all hoped that she loved everyone.
We met at a restaurant with Dh, DD, myself and D. I spoke with D the night before and he was really nervous. He came in and he was visibly nervous at first. He went to give DD a hug, then wasn't sure but she just went right into his arms and gave him a big hug.
He gave her a locket and she didn't realize that it opened for a picture. I was so touched by DH. He pulled her aside and suggested that she put in a picture of D.
We sat and talked and laughed and joked around. D and DH have some things in common workwise that they got talking about and DD looked at me, just beaming that both "her Dads" were engrossed in a "guy" conversation with one another.
They went down memory lane just a little. Remembering some people and places. D opened the door for her to talk/ask about some of the hard stuff. She told me this morning she didn't want to talk about bad memories yet with him. I reminded her that whenever she was ready and had questions that he had already told us that he would answer everything she wanted to know.
They doodled on napkins and we told him funny stories about when little sister visits us and it just felt wonderful. It felt like family.
D & DH had a few minutes alone and D told him that the day he had to say good-bye at that McDonalds was the hardest day of his life and that he thinks about the kids every single day since then. DH told him just how important it was to DD that she did get the chance to say goodbye. {bMom never came to the last visits and DD has often mourned the fact that she never got to say goodbye to her}. Breaks my heart for both of them that they had to do that good bye visit. DH and I have always been grateful that D was strong enough, man enough to come to that visit and be gracious and strong enough to give her his blessings on moving to our home and being adopted. DH told him just how much it helped DD transition and how grateful we were for DD's sake.
I feel a little sad that we didn't do this sooner. I know that things happen the way that they are supposed to and am really grateful that this is where we are now.
We finished up the night with our DS15 and his "friend" {girl} joining us from the movie theater next door, as well as D's exGF who was watching little sister for the evening join up with us. It really felt so natural and wonderful and beautiful. We took lots of pictures including some of D with both of his daughters. Pictures he said that he thought he would never have. Just made us realize what a huge decision we made. We could have stayed on the path we were on and left the adoption closed. I am so very happy that we chose to take the leap of faith and try a new path that has led to the begining of an "AMAZING' set of relationships.
Sunshinemomma
