Meeting the birthmom...

lorifromwi

Hi ladies,

Sorry I haven't been around lately...new baby, vacation and pregnancy have really taken a toll on me.  I think we're finally getting into more of a groove with little E in the house, so I'm hoping to be here more again.

I wanted to ask all of you what your experiences have been with meeting birthmom/ parents.  I met E's mom briefly at a visitation and ever since I've been all over the place.  Just a little history, this is her fourth child, the other three have all been adopted.  She is an addict in (what we believe to be an abusive) relationship.  Seeing her with E, you can tell she loves her, but just can't take care of her.

I swing from wanting to cry for her, wishing she could get her stuff together...no one should be living the way she is. But, then if this would happen it means I would lose little E.  To being so angry at her for what she did to little E while she was pregnant with her...and the after effects of that (which thankfully are a lot less than what they could have been).  My DH sort of gets it, but not really.

I knew there would be a lot of emotion around this, but never did I imagine it would impact me so profoundly.

Also, how did you deal with any conflicting emotions like this?

lorifromwi

Thanks @Spooko!  To give you a little more background on things, our LO is the third child of this mom and dad and fourth for the mom.  All of the older children are now adopted (the middle two just finalized last week after 2.5 years of case work).  Eventually in that case both the BM and BD voluntarily terminated their rights.  We are not sure if they will make that decision quickly or if they will try to work things out.  It may not matter, as they could potentially be "unavailable" for many years to come.  We are waiting to find out more about that.  As for her intentions, she has been very unreliable, which sounds like has been her track record. 

Actually one of the best pieces of advice I got was from our WIC nutritionist...we were talking about the situation, my meeting the BM and her addiction.  I had mentioned that I could see the love for her child when she held her.  The gal told me to imagine how strong the addiction must be for her to not be able to act appropriately behind that love and her her daughter in her life all the time.  I never really thought of it that way and it really stopped me cold.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.  I can't imagine how tough it would be going through this with a sister...it's tough enough with a stranger!