[kaykay4us]

How do you help the birth mom move on past their loss and on with their own life? I am new so let me explain. We adopted my husbands sisters children. Our daughter we got from birth, she was removed due to drug use during pregnancy. Our son we go shortly after when the birth father was found unfit. They both have different fathers. They have not been a problem, both relinquished without blinking an eye. Birth mom was given a plan to follow to get the kids back but waited until the last minuet and lost them both. The state terminated her parental rights. She got upset when we changed our daughters name. She told us that the name she chose had meant something to her. I am sure it did but it did not to us so we chose one that did to us. She did not even form a bond with our daughter. When it was time to have visits she would either not show. She has not even seen her since she was 5 months old. Birth mom went to rehab by force, graduated and then went back to her old life. Now she is living with her father, who has an alcohol problem. Her parents think that she should have as much contact as she wants with our children. At this time we don't feel it is safe or healthy for them . She has not shown us that she is stable, drug free and able to be trusted. She has hurt our Ason so much in the past by promising him and then breaking it. I can not watch him go through the pain. Our Ason knows his bmom and her sorted past, he lived it for 7 years. Our Adaughter is only 20 months and does not know her at all. We have not kept it hidden from anyone that we have two biochildren and two adopted. We plan on being very open about it. We don't believe that it will benefit anyone of us by trying to keep it a secret. We just want the birth mom to gain closure and move on and come to realize that she made her poor choices and now she has to live with them, and move on with her life, but accept our choices that we have chose for our children. Does anyone have any advice on how to put this to her so she can get closure?

[feelingreyt]

I wish I had some profound words of wisdom for you, sadly I don't. One thing I have to say is that you can't make her move on, you can't force her to stay clean, you can't even make her show up for visits. BUT....you can and should protect your children. Also, I don't agree with your mother in law. You need boundaries. Bmom should not be able to come and go as she pleases. These are your children now. IF she is drug and alcohol free you could set up visits, but I would make all visits supervised. She sounds like someone who is not to be trusted. It is not an easy thing to TPR, so obviously she poses a potential danger to the children. I don't mean to come off as harsh or unfeeling on her behalf, but I know how hard it is to deal with a bmom that is a drug addict. It's not fun and what we have to do, what we MUST do...is protect our children, even if that means limiting or not allowing contact with their bmom and bdad.

[thanksgivingmom]

Unfortunately for you, her closure is something that she needs to deal with, not something that you have any control over. Whether you determine she bonded with her daughter or not also isn't really for you to say. You may not be able to understand why something like changing your daughters name may have had such a strong impact on her, but please don't discount her feelings. Just because she has addictions and/or other problems doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings. I'm definitely not saying that you need to put those above your childrens' however. Clearly she has a history of making poor decisions, and so yes, protect your children and make decisions that are in their best interest.

Best of luck to you and your entire family.

[kaykay4us]

Thank you for the advice or the input. I do understand that it is her choice to move past the past and into the future. I just wish that I could say something to her to let her know that it is okay to move on and get healthy. I have some really strong feelings about her bonding with my adaughter. She did not want anything to do with this baby during the pregnancy at all. There was no prenatal care, even with encouragement she refused to get any. She continually used meth during the pregnancy. Then she refused to look at the baby until she heard she had a little girl. She told her case worker she did not feel a bond between her and my adaughter. She may have bonded with the idea of a little girl and the dream, but with my adaughter I don't feel she did. I am not trying to discount her feelings because in spite of it all I still do love her and want her to get to a healthy point in her life. It is just so hard to watch someone self distruct and blame everyone else around them for thier problems. Nobody chose to make the choices she did, she did that herself. I guess is what I am trying to do is get some reasureance that what we have chose to do right now with no contact is a good thing and that we can somehow in the future have somewhat of a functionable relationship. I do want to have all of my children be able to know their aunt and know her in a healthy and sober way. She is still in her drug self entitlement bubble and until it bursts I can not have her near my children. I am very protective of my children and want to keep them safe from those things that hurt them the most. Thanks again for the responces.

[Oceans]

I think you have the answer already... In my book, drugs = no contact, end of story. Until she gets sober, she should not be welcome into the lives of your children. Also, until she gets sober, her emotions will be all over the map.

That said...and I mean this in a very gentle way, go back and read your thoughts.

What I am hearing, is that you are concerned that she is feeling pain and loss but you feel that she never bonded in the first place. She only bonded with the idea. Either way, these two thoughts are conflicting.

Lack of prenatal care, telling others you didn’t bond, trying not to bond, not wanting to look because you are scared because you know you can’t keep your baby… I’m sorry but subtract the drugs, and you are describing the actions/feelings of many a birthmom. With little exception and again, minus the drugs, you could have been describing my experience. That doesn't mean I didn't bond. I most certainly did despite my best efforts not to. Nor has it been the idea that I have been in love with for all these years.

So, yes, I think you are doing the right thing. Closing contact if there is drug exposure is certainly appropriate. Updates and pics would be nice tho. In the meantime, stay here and continue posting. You'll probably get some great perspective on how birthmom's really feel which will help you in the future...

(((Hugs)))

[RavenSong]

I agree with Oceans in that as long as your cousin is using drugs, she shouldn't be in personal contact with your children. I think it would be nice, however, to send her updates and photos of the kids on a regular basis.

The one thing that so many people don't understand about the disease of drug addiction and/or alcoholism is that it doesn't involve personal choice after a certain point. Sure, in the very beginning, a person decides to use drugs or alcohol...that is clearly a "choice". But once the addiction sets in, the drug or booze takes over the person's entire life. You become a "slave" to the drug or bottle. At that point, the addict/alcoholic needs that next drink or hit just to feel "normal". It's a horrible, vicious cycle that is difficult to break. It's really hard to make a rational decision to become healthy...to recover...while the drug is saturating your brain cells.

If you take the drugs out of the equation, your cousin sounds like she has many of the same emotions and issues that other bmoms have. Most of us bmoms from the "closed era" of adoptions were told to "get on" with our lives...to forget the past. We buried our emotions and our experiences ~ and the aftermath was horrendous. I'm sure it would make you feel more comfortable if your cousin would simply "forget" the kids and move on with her life. But that's not a realistic view. You simply cannot make her "heal" on your timetable. It's going to take a long time, and any healing that needs to take place will only start happening after she becomes clean and sober, IMHO.