[sugarbabysmommy]

Dublin,
I hear ya. It can be hard to say we can't get together at certain time or certain date. Sometimes I feel like I have to have an extra good reason, doing errands or just playing at home is not a good enough reason for making plans another day, like the only valid reason is our house is on fire or the wheels fell off the car. It is helpful for me to remember that my child's birthmother is family to me and I'm not be able to meet with other family either sometimes. Still, the guilt is there, it is subsiding, though slowly over this first year. We have had our bumps over this last year and there will be more, but that is ok as long as we are always treating eachother respectfully, with regard. As Brenda said, all relationships have boundaries, boudaries come easier in some relationships than others. I'd also add that all relationships are a work in progress. My MIL comes to mind, some days our boundaries are clearly set and others they are falling apart and need to be redefined.

As for keeping up one end of an agreement, this is not about that. Dublin is doing that. For me, it is more about knowing and feeling the inequity of power in our relationship with our child's birthparents and being sensitive to how they perceive they are being treated. Most adoptive parents I know are aware of how unbalanced the scales are and that is always in the back of our minds. All I can do is be sure I honor our relationship, which for me is not the same thing as our agreement, and it goes without saying that I honor that.

Dublin, as for how your child's birthmother does or doesn't act or seem to feel surrounding the adoption, who's to say. None of us grieves in the same way.