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Hello. I haven't been to this site for many months. I began my birth parent search almost two years ago. The adoption agency found and first made contact w/ bmom in Aug 2009. After almost 8 months, she responded to the adoption agency in March 2010 that she would be open to email contact with me. As I'm sure isn't uncommon, a flurry of emails began our relationship which was great. As I have been from the beginning of my search, I was happy to go at her pace and in the summer she asked if we could make telephone contact. Yes! I like this woman very much and she is definitely someone I would gravitate to in my own life, and most likely become friends with if I were to meet her at work or elsewhere in the community.
Things seem uncomfortable to me now though. Our last few conversations, and they have dwindled to but a few, are relatively polite, small talk. What do I expect to talk about? I don't know. There are other things I find odd for instance she said she rarely checks her email anymore. To me, that is strange considering our reconnecting. Until I realized she wasn't emailing anymore, I anxiously checked my email daily for a message from her. She has seemed very concerned about how the adoption agency found her, having mentioned it several times over the months. She requested baby photos of me, which I thought was huge, and I sent her a few asking her to let me know when she recieved them. She didn't contact me when she did. Finally, a few weeks later I called her and she said "oh yeah, I looked at them and didn't see any similarities, they must have come later." (We now have a strong resemblance.) What the ?????????
Anyway, things just feel 'weird.' Again, I really like her and cannot imagine walking away from this new relationship, but am not sure how to handle things. I just don't know.....
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I think that might be how alot of reunions go--alot of flurried activity at first and then one person kind of "holds back". Hopefully, she will come around again. My own reunion with my brother was somewhat similar--we emailed quite a bit and got together a few times (at his request!) in a short amount of time---and then nothing for almost a year! It's so hard to say why this happens. The other person could just have alot of stuff going on in their life that we don't know about---or they could just be on an emotional roller coaster, too, and that's why they back off for a bit.
Hang in there, and just let her know that you are there, whenever she does want to talk again. Good luck!
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She is probably dealing with a lot of emotions that have come to the surface that need to be processed. She may not even be consciously aware of all of that....and/or the initial "honeymoon stage" of reunion has worn off, and now things are more like everyday life. It is hard to maintain the intensity of early reunion. My son and I never had "pullback" since we've reunited, but definitely the intensity has settled way down and often our calls are rather mundane. That doesn't mean they are bad or wrong, but just more ordinary. Sometimes it seems we don't have much to say to each other, and then other times our conversations are more interesting. But that's kind of like how things are with other people in my life. Sometimes people feel like talking, other times they don't. Other people have experienced what they call "pullback" in reunion, where, after a time, one person retreats. I have never felt the need to have these "time outs" from my son, but we also had a semi-open adoption where I kept in contact with him and his family all his life. It was not frequent contact, but it was consistent. Now that I have reunited with my son, I find I do most of the initiating with phone calls and emails and such and he is not always available to take my calls, in which case, I leave him a message. Sometimes he calls back, sometimes he doesn't. I just call again and catch him at a better time.
I do think it is fairly normal, though, given he is young and leads a busy life and also he's a GUY! (LOL!!). I think if I were the one being more distant, it might be harder for him.
Hopefully, your birth mom is just having a hard time right now, and will be able to express to you what is going on. I would try not to panic and I know it's not easy. The beginning of reunion makes you feel so vulnerable and afraid the other party is going to disappear. I felt that way with my son, just very unsure of our relationship for the first few months of talking on the phone. That's when I decided we needed to meet and I will say, it seems like meeting in person really helped. Although I feel we are still developing a foundation for our relationship, it feels much stronger since we actually met in person.
I hope things work out OK for you and this is just a small bump in the road.