May 4 2018 will forever be ingrained in my brain as that was the day my children met with their birth family for the first time in 10 years.
Some people would not understand why we would choose to do this and I don’t expect them to even try except that I had to give Jayson a sense of closer to his past.
Unless you have adopted an older child through trauma you can’t begin to really understand the choices some parents make and this was one of those times when others would think “Whoa” 😳.
We were invited to a family conference to decide what would be in the best interest of bio’s child until or if she were able to take care of him on her own.
The agency involved thought it would be a good idea for us to take part even though we had never really met the little one we were simply there because the kids had a biological connection.
When I first told about what our plan was, people closest to us thought we had gone mad and frankly I can’t say I blame them.
But like I mentioned earlier I did this for pretty selfish reasons.
I never really had to worry about Grace’s reaction to seeing bio mom, she was only 9 months old when she was apprehended and had very little memory of her except for what I was able to tell her with the little information I had.
We were more concerned about Jay if seeing her would trigger old memories and in the back of my mind I had a plan to get him away to decompress if it got to be too much.
There were several kids joining the group not only our’s but other bio family as well, it was pre arranged though that during the most critical times the kids were to be taken out of the room.
Kevin and I sat on the sidelines observing everything that was going on.
The sad thing was that even after 11 years of trying to get the supports bio mom needed to keep her kids she was in an even worst situation than she was with little to no desire to change.
Don’t get me wrong she said all the right things to the social workers and other professionals there but I knew that it was a way for her to gain their sympathy.
For someone to be in this big of a funk for almost 12 years and offered many programs to make a better life for herself and for her children, I knew that her chances of cleaning up her act were slim to none.
As hard as this may sound I still have compassion for her after all she gave birth to my children how could I not.
Shortly after lunch everyone started taking pictures of the 3 kids together with bio mom and then just of Jayson and Grace together.
There was one point that nearly killed me inside as Jayson put his head on her shoulder and a sense of peace and adoration came over him.
I had never seen that in Jayson and I felt uncertain, insecure and sheer sadness because he had never looked at me that way ever and even more surprising I had tears running down my cheeks.
I suppose it was because it took me off guard but it was really hard to watch that 5 seconds of affection that he showed.
I stepped into the lobby to pull myself together and remind myself that things were ok, he’s still my son and he still loved me, but that persistent little voice of doubt was still nattering in the back of my mind.
We gathered once again in the conference room after the kids were settled upstairs but nothing really got resolved as far as a plan for bio to commit to.
So I exchanged numbers with auntie so that she knew she could rely on me to give her any support she needed whether it was to talk about her day or any concerns she had about the whole process.
I have a soft spot for this family mostly for bio and auntie whom I want to keep an open communication with, the rest of the bio family we have no interest in forming any kind of relationship as there is still some unhealthy choices they are making.
Until next time I bid you goodbye
