Worked up before a visit

The first five years of the open adoption I was crazed before each visit. Totally normal.

Hi Racilious, just wanted to check in and see how the visit went on Sunday! (Sorry, I didn't see this beforehand!) Some of my first visits involved hysterical crying beforehand, some of my first visits I was more mellow beforehand, it just totally varies with me. I find that it's VERY easy for me to obsess over an upcoming visit though. I hope you find your groove and can be yourself and comfortable approaching future visits. :flowergift:

Aside from the fact I was up the whole night before worrying, so I actually overslept, had to rush out of the house and showed up a little late, once I got there things went really well. It's always a little weird being in a group of people where they all know who you are, and sometimes know random facts about you but you barely know their names (I was one of about 15 people there since it was a tree trimming party for their whole extended family). What I think made everything better was having three kids there under the age of 2. It's really easy to not have awkward silences or feel left out when everyone's attention is directed at the little ones. My son J is doing super well and is such a joy to be around which made it worth all the freaking out that happened prior. I'm pretty sure most of it was because it was a holiday, so there were a lot of heightened emotions, and worries about gift giving, and such. I'm hoping now I have one of these sort of visits under my belt I'll be less stressed next time. Thanks for asking about the visit and congrats about the engagement!! :woohoo:

I would love to sleep in and have to rush out in the morning - haha! Give me less time to freak out all morning ;) But yeah, I can totally relate to that experience.At our visits, it's usually just the three of us (me, Cupcake, and her Mom Dee) but even then I know that there are other people that know about me, and it IS wierd. I mean, obviously people know things about Dee too, so I don't mean to be hypocritical. But let's face it, "Dee adopted my daughter" is generally going to be acccepted as a positive reflection on Dee......"TG placed Cupcake for adoption" is basically the best way you can say that, and even then, stereotypes rear their ugly head and make me pretty nervous about how I'd be received by those people. But I'm tangenting - sorry! Glad you had a good visit, and I hope they get better every time!!

I completely know what you're saying - in July I went to J's baptism and that was nuts - I was in a room of 70 of their friends and family, and almost every single person in there knew who I was. The table they sat me at were kind enough to ask if I worked with either the aparents, and let me tell them I was J's bmom, or the "baby mama" as one of the guys at the table called me the rest of the night (it was funny at the time). I found out later they all knew an awful lot about me, and had seen pictures of me, so it was only being polite that had them pretend they didn't. It's just hard because I know that I've never been able to explain what all went into my decision to place to the aparents - in part because a bit of it deals with my relationship with the birth father and I promised myself to not bad mouth him to them, and part of it deals with things I have problems explaining in general. So knowing they don't have a real good explanation means all of these people are left to their own devices as to why I placed. I guess in that way it's good when I meet these people, I can work on showing them who I am, and making sure they know how much I love the little guy. So I appreciated your tangent, and it's always good to hear when someone has gone through similar things as me.