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We are in a situation now which really makes me excited about the future! Our Emom is young(ish) and her family is very involved in the process. Coming from a lifestyle where my parents and my husband's parents had a very open, loving relationship which naturally drew in every neighborhood kid, friend, etc we see nothing wrong with including the birthfamilies. I have very close foster brothers. My husband has step-brothers and all their kin. Our lives are full of people who aren't related to us by blood but whom loved us and helped us grow up to be good people. As long as the birthfamilies are trustworthy, safe and loving, why wouldn't we share our lives with them? Lucky for us the family we have matched with is really terrific! Very stable. Good values. I believe that if their daughter had been older and better able to fully support a child as a single mother - then they would have supported her decision to parent. She would be an excellent mother. You can just tell. So it seems like a no brainer to have her involved in our lives. Children can't get enough love. They need as many consistent loving people in their lives as possible! Everyone brings something special to the table. We know that the Emom's parents will be big assets. They crack us up and they so love their daughter. This hasn't been easy on them but they are fully supporting her decision. They even helped select us!
I think we are pretty realistic. We live several states away and the Emom is in college. So she doesn't have a great deal of time to devote to travel or visits. She also doesn't have a lot of time outside of work or school. In addition, we all remember how crazy college life could be! So we fully expect that she will lose communication with us at parts in her life - she's young afterall. But that doesn't mean that she isn't thinking of her child! Instead she's focusing on getting through college and then those early career years. As long as we keep the communication coming from our side - I think she will feel comfortable enough to fully participate in her own life and not feel guilty for being out of touch over exam time, Spring Break, whatever, etc. It's important to us that she know that we are "here" and that she can reach out anytime and that we won't assign any blame or guilt for her actually pursuing a life! When she finally graduates, we hope for an invitation!
There's always the possibility that she will move closer to us after graduation! Or that we will move closer to her. Her life is such an unwritten story - so much will happen to her in the next 30+ years. The keys to our relationship will be communication, trust, and respect. People change/grow as the years pass. I don't pretend to know where our relationship will be when she is older, possibly married, possibly with children at home.
So our plan is to stay open and accessible. To keep the communication lines current even if one-sided. To build a foundation of trust and respect.
Sounds incredibly simple? But I can't even keep up with my Thank You notes! So this decision required a lot of soul searching and planning. We had to really invest. We didn't want to be the kind of AParents who said one thing and did another.
We just hope that she can commit to us when the day arrives. We've supported two other Bmoms who decided to parent. But we are really invested with this situation and it would be a struggle to lose this lovely family and this sense of well-being. We'd be grieving more than the loss of a baby but the loss of a current and future relationship.
Sappy? But true.
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