Children of adoptees

June 4, 2011

gmarie,

I had the opposite problem with my 7 yr old son when we met my father, he's 17 now (holy moly). I was the one who was jealous! He hogged up all of his grandpa's attention from the first second they met. We all ended up laughing about it. It still happens now LOL I remember Grandma keeping him occupied while me and Grandpa went out the back door. My son is best buds with all of his Grandpa's now, and it's still funny (in a wonderful way) to me to watch it. At first I did have a bit of an uncontrollable crybaby attack when my sil and I got back from the store and Grandpa and my son were playing basketball in the yard. It was what I had dreamed of, wanted, it was what should be, and suddenly it was happening.

My daughter was 16 at the time, she was harder, had bigger emotions since she could understand it all well. Plus she was active in my search and wanted to find like I did. And her loyalties to her agrandparents tugged at her hard too. Most of it hit her like it hit me. That was really hard for me to witness. As if it wasn't hard enough to just deal with my own emotions, she sent me over the edge a couple times! I thought about grabbing them and running away from it all a few times.

There is not much out there to read concerning our kids and how they take it all. It was a lot to be concerned with for me, and sometimes it was very difficult. It's one thing for me to feel some of what one can go thru during reunion, but when one of my kids is feeling things because of it, that's a whole new ball game! I know we did a lot of talking about it, and I remember letting them know how important this reunion was to me. I let them know I needed their help and support. I worked overtime trying to make them feel secure with it all. I had to do the same with my afamily, and my husband, but I wasn't so much worried about them like I was my kids LOL 10 years later it's no big deal anymore to them, it just is what it is, family, and everyone is good with it.

My kids didn't like it when they saw me upset about it. I tried hard to hide my difficult feelings from them, but they can tell when something is bugging me, and they usually don't like it. They protect me. A couple of times they got angry and the first reaction was to take me away or chase everyone away from their mama!

Has your daughter met him? Do they know each other? What things make her jealous? What does she do when she is feeling jealous? Is it just with him, or is she at that stage where she is jealous of your time and attention no matter who it is or what you are doing?

oy, I know it's hard, harder than you'd ever think, sometimes hard enough to want to give it all up.

Hang in there (((mom))) sometimes it really is OK for it to be about us for a while. If mama ain't happy, no one is!