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I have a suggestion to help you through this time. Write a letter to your son’s parents explaining how painful this time is for you. Ask them to keep a file or a box for you into which they can put photos and other mementos to be given to you at a later date when you might be ready. Also write a letter to your son for them to paraphrase to him as he gets older with questions and then to give to him when he is old enough to treasure it himself. Tell him and them how your stomach knots up because this hurts so much right now. Also ask them for now to send pictures only once a year or whatever you think you can handle. Be sure to keep them updated with your own address. That leaves things as open as you can handle and allows for change in the future.
As for the pain of seeing him happy with them, I can really identify. I am an adoptive mom, but I subscribe to this birthparent forum because I identify with so many of the feelings here. Our son came to us shortly before HS graduation and six months later we took him to college. We go to every parents’ weekend because it means so much to him now that he has parents and he likes to show us off, but it is very painful for me. I want us to be alone with him. I have also told him that he can bring friends home anytime he would like, but I really prefer that he comes alone. Why? I do want him to have as normal a life as possible, and that includes having friends, but our relationship has had very little one-on-one time, and I know he would benefit from more healing time with us, his parents. So I take what I can get, and cry whenever he leaves or we leave him. In the end, everything I do as a parent is FOR HIM.
Just make sure when you close the door that you leave it unlocked so that should he ever need you, he knows where you can be found and that you love him. God bless.
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