[mommamarci]

Hey, I will join too!!!

Here is my story: We have a fully open adoption with C's bmom. But, it is in theory only... I have consistently sent letters and pics as I said I would. But we went through spells with no other contact. A few months back she started calling again and we are talking every 3-4 weeks now. She claims to ahve amiled pcis to us yesterday. (I have been told this before and never received anything...) And she says she wants to see us. (I have also heard this before.) I feel like it is different this time. Like she is really going to follow through. She says when we finalize Spencer's adoption (in just a little over a month!!) she will see us. We will be minutes away from her. Plus she says she is going to come to the hospital at some point during Cameron's stay. I hope it is different this time. I hope she follows through. I hope. I hope.

On the other hand, we have no contact with Spencer's bmom. I send monthly letters and pics. I have no idea if she opens them. We have never met or spoken. I don't even have a picture of her. That is HARD! Way harder than I thought it would be. I have given her our address and phone number. Hopefully one day she will change her mind about it.

[Vogi2002]

Wow land. First off, how are you? I can understand your anger, no advice here as I would be the same way. A thank you card? That would be hard....how about...gee thanks for the pictures...jerks.

Just kidding! hehe! But really I would send pictures of YOU for her with each thank you card, and include a letter to HER. Make copies. That way if they don't give it to her you then you still have a way to show her that you wanted to keep in touch with her & let her know you love her. KWIM?

Seriously - i would LOVE a thank you card. I sent 150 pictures and got nothing (big C). I would cherish a letter from either of thier bmoms, and any pictures too!

Which brings my next question (sorry yall for stalking the thread...dh is watching the Cowboy's game & I am BORED!) how many pictures do you send of your kiddos or get normally? Do you usually send a card? I try to send a letter & thought about outlining thier hand & foot with each letter. Is that too...cheesy?



ETA: YAY Marci!! I heard that you got a call from her to meet...bad timing but still it's a step in the right direction! It IS hard with no contact.

[thanksgivingmom]

I think that's ADORABLE vogi!!!

I usually get about 3-6 pictures in an email, so yeah, I'm a little jealous about 150!!

I gotta run to meet up with a buddy to watch the Olympics, but I'll stalk right along with you normally! (Even though I'm WAY into football, so maybe not for the same reasons you do!)

[Vogi2002]

3 -6 pictures? OMG! How does she choose? Of course not everyone is crazy with photos like me...maybe if i send 3 - 6 a month...sometimes a week. Ha ha!

Hint everyone - I use Snapfish! It's great, I just upload photos & have them sent directly to thier house. Also - if the photos don't arrive (they didn't one time to little c's bmom) they will resend them & guarentee it! I LOOOVE it. Plus i know they wona't get thier wrinkled, thier cheap, and I can send 5 x 7's, 8 x 10's etc. Can't use them for professional photos though. Dangit. I usually send about 30 or so if it's monthly (depending on the things we did that month), for big C's bmom I send way more because I only send them about every 3 months or so.

Thanks...I might do that (if I can remember..I need to buy some non-toxic stamps to stamp them with). I hate being creative yet SO unorganized! hehe

[billysmommy]

We have a great open adoption with our kids maternal family. It took us almost 2 years to get to the perfect place (with lots of bumps along the way), and it has only gotten better since. We are all just a family who calls, writes, emails, comes or goes to visit when we feel like it. While the foundation of our relationship is the kids, the walls we have built are our own.

[Vogi2002]

Beautiful billy!!!! That is what I see with little c's bmom!! It's such a blessing...

[belleinblue1978]

Well, I have seen my kiddo once this year. It was a good visit, hard though and I always feel like I am imposing. It would also be the visit where his mom told me I'm not his family.

My mom had to step in and ask kiddo's mom to quit calling. Work has been hell on earth the past two months and I am really not up to hearing about how her job is so stressful. I was assaulted twice at work in July, so really, in my world, not much compares, lol.

I still write letters once a month to kiddo, just can't deal with his mom.

My mom asked her to send pics (our agreement is pics four times a year, I have gotten ZERO this year, except the ones at our visit, but really, they were told they needed to mail pics between visits by the agency.) Mom asked about three weeks ago now, still no pics.

I'm worn out and tired of the whole thing and wondering why I bother. I have a great kiddo though and I won't hurt him.

[Stormster]

Belle I feel so sad for you. If nothing else our son's birth mother is SWEET and CAREFUL with my feelings (she doesn't realize how some of the things she DOES are in appropriate but I feel that is different because of her situation). I am also careful with hers. It must be difficult when you just really don't like or trust what will come out of her mouth.

It's so easy to take pics these days. I have a mac. I make books, send packages of photos and email. Way too many now I think (probably around 100). The ones I posted on myspace have pics of minors who are no my children. That is why I'm getting fairly desperado.

Heard from myspace last night and they asked me to describe the photos. It was 40 photos and they were all in one album so I told them her name and the name of the album. There was also an issue of if there were other adults in the photos requiring contact with a different dept. It's not simple. I took every photo but one baby shot off of myspace and turned on all the privacy settings. When L resurfaces I'll tell her what happened and ask her just to put like 5 pics maximum with no identifying info (I'm fine with her saying my Son E or whatever). I'd also prefer baby pics but that's up to her. It's ALL because of the men she knows who really scare the "stuff" out of me and for good reason.

I am sad because we still haven't received the card and photos she said she sent maybe 2 weeks ago. This may not (for now) be what I had hoped unfortunately. ok well thanks for the support esp. to you Vogi. Your post really did help me! PS I email photos to her weekly (I may scale that back LOL) and to birth father probably about 6 pics (in duplicate in case he wants to give to sibs) about every 8 weeks. Also I made a 1 year (his 1 year birthday) gift of a book of photos with captions for his 8 year old sib. I heard she really enjoys it but needs to keep it a secret from her Grandparents/Guardians who do not "know" about E. (even though they know )

[thanksgivingmom]

Perhaps after this visit I'll set up a snapfish account and send Cupcake's Mom the pics that I take that way....then maybe she'll get the gentle "hint hint, nudge nudge" from my "I LOVE snapfish! It's such a quick and easy way for me to share photos with you!" email....haha

And yes, Vogi, this will be visit #3 for us. The first was last October, the second this April, and then September!!! I was hoping to close the gap between the April to now visit a little bit so that we were at more than two a year (I'm so sneaky!) but it didn't really work the way I planned....

That's okay, we'll see what happens. It's just hard because I feel like with a visit at the end of Sept or in Oct a visit near her birthday is next to impossible - and hard enough what with Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays coming up too....oh well, maybe one of these years

Question - how far do you all live from your kids (first)parents <--said like that as in firstparents OR parents depending on which you are

Cupcake's Mom and I live pretty close. Probably about 20 minutes. So our visits are easy to get to and it's not like we're traveling. BUT because we're not traveling our visits are kinda short. The first one was about an hour and a half and the second one was closer to 2 1/2 or three hours. So crazy as it sounds I sometimes get real jealous of people that live FURTHER from their kids because their visits seem to be so much longer and substantial. Thoughts?

[Stormster]

E's birth mother and everyone else live in the midwest and we are in NY. Every June DH has a week long convention in Chicago so we will fly out with him (at our expense) but stay in the hotel with him and do day trips.

She once told me she wanted this distance (for reasons relating to privacy I think). I never even thought about it since my nephew is from Colombia. Heck I thought it was CLOSE!

But yeah when we go to Chicago it will be all day trips just as it was on our two visits. I actually stayed on their (birth parents) futon for two nights so I am used to long periods of time with them. Unfortunately they aren't speaking so we'll have to do a day or two with her and a day with him and E's sister. That is going to be tricky because one of the unforeseen complications is that E's birth mother has been using E and the OA to bring her family close to her and it kind of makes it hard for me to have direct relationships (on his behalf). Already two people who WERE writing to me stopped when they saw notes she posted to THEM on MY myspace.

I know the family fairly well and I truly feel the visits will be good but it wil help that they have lots of time to prepare for them because of their own situations. So for us the distance works.

[blessedbybug]

Originally Posted by thanksgivingmom

Perhaps after this visit I'll set up a snapfish account and send Cupcake's Mom the pics that I take that way....then maybe she'll get the gentle "hint hint, nudge nudge" from my "I LOVE snapfish! It's such a quick and easy way for me to share photos with you!" email....haha

I would love to do something like this with pics or even communicate more via email. But neither of my kid's other moms have great access. Oh well...

Originally Posted by thanksgivingmom

Question - how far do you all live from your kids (first)parents <--said like that as in firstparents OR parents depending on which you are

Thoughts?

Our situation has changed over time, as we have moved. We lived two hours away from DD's other family for a couple years then moved to the same city. That was really nice, although DD's other mom wasn't in contact for most of that time (I will share that sometime on this thread) but we still got visits with DD's sister and grandparents which are extremely important parts of our relationship as well. Now we live six hours away so it will be harder to get back (we can't just call and say 'hey, DD wants a visit, can we meet?) although we have lots of reasons to go back to the city there.

With DS, we were 6 hours away until our move this month. Now we're only TWO!!!! I am thrilled. We just had our first visit (not by choice...his other mom had a hard time deciding how much contact she wanted, another post for another time) this last week and it was awesome. DS has an older brother and it was so nice for them to meet FINALLY and for DS's other mom to see Josiah in person. And for us to see her home and understand that even though she SAYS that she's not sure about openness, she has to want it on some level based on the number of pictures up in her house of DS and our family.

I think there are pros and cons both ways. We are hoping DS's other family can come here in December for a Christmas celebration (and to celebrate DS's brother's birthday). It makes it easier to even talk about because by all purposes we are CLOSE. But being CLOSE didn't give us tons more visits with DD's family when we lived 10-30 minutes away from them.

As in any OA, it depends on the needs/wants of the specific relationship. There are some I've read where distance helps in that when they're together they really make that space to be together. And when they're apart it is easier (although not easy) to live separate lives for that time. I know I feel more at ease for awhile after a visit, not so pulled toward planning one. And honestly for me, closeness made me feel guilty about not having more visits. It was a false guilt because the door was ALWAYS open, and I do ALL of the initiating of contact in both our relationships (sometimes I feel like I'm forcing it on them... I don't know...) so I know I'm doing my part. But we're close, why can't it be more? But they don't want more. Distance helps now esp with DD's family, as they have been a struggle to really engage in any growth in the relationship.

Good golly, talk about talking in circles! I think it cuts both ways. I for one need a tad of distance, even with my own family of origin. So I guess that might pplay into these relationships as well.

It would be safe to say "it depends" no??? As in all OA...

[blessedbybug]

Originally Posted by Stormster

I don't know if I'm sad for her or for us because sometimes I don't know if she's ever going to be together enough for the kind of OA I want but hey make plans God laughs and all that.... trying to go with the flow and not be perfectionist about stuff. (I'd better not be perfectionist because MAN we've got quite a crew in this OA! LOL)

Then the lifting of our family album from our Myspace to hers. Some of her friends are great ...others not so much. (Prison shots on myspace!) And can't reach her to ask her to take it off.

And finally had a very awkward convo with E's bio father yesterday. He was so sad and sweet and just not himself. I felt like I said so many stupid things....I was trying too hard to cheer him up. Ugh it was so awkward. No other word for it.

So those three things left me kind of embarrassed and scared and depressed.

Ok now you can support me.

Supporting you by saying that you are not alone Stormster. I have listened as you've shared snippets of your story and they sound so much like ours, both of ours really. Most of my concerns in our relationships with our children's families aren't about contact with their first moms/sibs/gparents, it's about the people that their first moms often associate themselves with. For a couple years and much to our sadness, we had to stop direct contact with DD's Mom (we did keep sending updates/pics and even open to visits at neutral locations but she didn't know we had moved to the city where she lives). We lived in the same city and it wasn't even about her Mom, it was about the known associates and the placed where she was hanging out. I can say I lost sleep over the fact that pics of our family might be shown to strangers who were struggling with "stuff" (YKWIM right? I don't have to spell it out?) and well, the unknowns of all that. It was a true act of faith to TRUST my DD's other mom to be wise (which was a stretch considering her struggles as well) but the K I knew loved us too, when she was healthy anyway.

So all that to say is that I understand your comment of "I don't know if she'll ever be healthy enough to have a healthy relationship"... that just hurts my heart for my DD. Her mom tries hard but just isn't able to shake the "stuff" and I just have to keep pushing hope that someday she will. Right now, it isn't looking so good. I won't share on here but things have turned to worse for her and her other DDs.

It is scary, this trying to work on relationships with people who for their own reasons are struggling. But I have to keep telling myself that this hard stuff is a part of being the MOM of my kids. It's all a part of the deal. I can't just say "well this is hard so I quit". I have to find a way through and endure some of the awkward, hard stuff (like telling DD's Mom that we were moving where we live now, when she didn't know we lived close...that was hard because I've always tried to be honest...ugh...) for the sake of my kids. because that is why we do this...

Hugs to you... you are doing a great job... one convo, one visit, one prayer at a time... and always hoping they can overcome... that is where I am at even today...

[blessedbybug]

Originally Posted by belleinblue1978

Well, I have seen my kiddo once this year. It was a good visit, hard though and I always feel like I am imposing. It would also be the visit where his mom told me I'm not his family.

My mom had to step in and ask kiddo's mom to quit calling. Work has been hell on earth the past two months and I am really not up to hearing about how her job is so stressful. I was assaulted twice at work in July, so really, in my world, not much compares, lol.

I still write letters once a month to kiddo, just can't deal with his mom.

My mom asked her to send pics (our agreement is pics four times a year, I have gotten ZERO this year, except the ones at our visit, but really, they were told they needed to mail pics between visits by the agency.) Mom asked about three weeks ago now, still no pics.

I'm worn out and tired of the whole thing and wondering why I bother. I have a great kiddo though and I won't hurt him.

(((((((((((((((((((Belle))))))))))))) I am so sorry that things are so rough. I wish that things in these relationships were so cut and dry or that we as amoms were all better (and I'm including myself in this) at knowing how to make these relationships work. It is just really hard when others don't fully do their part. Hope those pics come and quick!!! Bless you and your kiddo...

[blessedbybug]

Originally Posted by billysmommy

We have a great open adoption with our kids maternal family. It took us almost 2 years to get to the perfect place (with lots of bumps along the way), and it has only gotten better since. We are all just a family who calls, writes, emails, comes or goes to visit when we feel like it. While the foundation of our relationship is the kids, the walls we have built are our own.

I enjoy hearing about OAs that are working very much. What do you think are the factors that have made things grow?

[blessedbybug]

Originally Posted by mommamarci

We have a fully open adoption with C's bmom. But, it is in theory only...

I hear ya on this but I find it interesting that so many people want to define FULLY open by different things. Is it potential? I could have made this statement for sure. I consider both our adoptions fully open even though they don't fit the mold of fully open. With our desire for openness we have the potential to have regular visits and mutual contact. They problem is that right now, most if not all the work is done by me to keep contact going. I know that we would most likely have fully closed adoptions by this point (in that I wouldn't know where my children's other families were, with the exception of DD's gparents) if I hadn't done all the work to keep them open. So I guess many would "define" our adoptions as semi-open because contact isn't mutual right now for the most part. But still, there is potential, if they wanted to, to have fully open. They have all the info they need to have back and forth. Sounds like your relationship with C's other family and our relnships with our kids' families are as fully open as we can possibly have them, based on the need to have more input from their families. Wouldn't you say that?

Originally Posted by mommamarci

I feel like it is different this time. Like she is really going to follow through. She says when we finalize Spencer's adoption (in just a little over a month!!) she will see us. We will be minutes away from her. Plus she says she is going to come to the hospital at some point during Cameron's stay. I hope it is different this time. I hope she follows through. I hope. I hope.

Ah... Marci... you sound like me... hopelessly hoping... I do hope it is different this time. I guard my heart for the next time. I don't trust that it will happen. But I do hope it will. I hope that for you too!

is there potential in Spencer's family or has his birth mom insisted on closed?