Dear Birth Mom...

[Jungleland]

Hi, My name is "difficult child" and you are my birth mom. I miss you. I love you. I cry when I miss you.

I love you, your daughter "difficult child"


This, written on a piece of binder paper and difficult child's picture tapped on it. difficult child wrote this yesterday, after a major meltdown due to me saying that we would not be able to take her to the Water Park for her b'day tomorrow.

Now she is demanding I mail it to bio mom. For those who don't know her history, we had an open adoption (phone calls and pictures only) until difficult child was 5 and then bio mom flipped out on us and demanded us to "return" difficult child to her. We cut off all correspondences to bio mom and told difficult child she could contact her once she turns 18.

difficult child has been talking about bio mom all the time lately and has been glued to her baby album that has pics of bio mom and bio sibs.

I need some advice here. Seems difficult child has fixated, once again, on "life would be sooo much better with bio mom". I know that this is normal with adopted kiddos but what I need advice on is, should I allow her to mail this letter to the last address I have for bio mom? Last contacts with bio mom were not appropriate and a bit scary.

I have to be honest, I feel, alot of the time lately, that maybe difficult child needs contact with bio family. We obviously are not filling whatever need she feels she is missing. It has been sooo hard lately, we can't seem to be able to get her stable or happy for any length of time. I feel like we are at the end of what we can offer her. husband is still trucking along, living in his own little "things will get better, just hang in there" world and I see things deteriorating rapidly.

It is not fair to our 5 yo to spend so much of her young life having to listen to her sister meltdown and scream and swear at us, throw things, etc. This IS affecting her, she is having nightmares.

Well, this post is turning into a vent, I am sorry. Just feeling really not heard, again, by husband. I am doing so much praying, begging for G*d to help us all cope and to help difficult child hold it together for that day, that minute, etc.

Anyways, I guess I am grasping at straws here, wondering if difficult child contacted bio mom if that might help her come to grips with the loss she feels and maybe help her cope with life.

Thanks for listening, Vickie

 

[DazedandConfused]

I don't have any advice. Just wanted to send some supportive hugs.

 

[DaisyFace]

Jungleland--

Why not handle it the way you might send a letter to Santa? There is unlikely to be a positive response whether the actual letter is mailed or not...

--DaisyF

 

[BusynMember]

We found a fantastic psychologist who is very skilled in dealing with adopted children and especially with reunion and contact issues. He has been a Godsend to us. I can't tell you how much he helped us make good decisions for and with our daughter. Daughter is now doing great with all adoption issues.

There must be some psychologist in your area with extensive experience with adopted children, and this issue is always on the minds of adopted kids. When it comes up, it's great to have an unemotional but very well informed person to help you decide how to deal with it. One place to go is to various adoption agencies that have post-adoption help, which includes therapy. This is not a new issue or anything unusual for a person who deals day after day with adopted kids.

Sometimes what THEY want and what WE want aren't appropriate (for the emotional age of the child). This psychologist thought of things we never did and we know we can always make an appointment. for this issue in the future. We are dealing with an aunt and a grandma (bio.) who want to know "their" granddaughter and niece. The thing is, they may just be a gateway for bio. father who is in prison (not jail, PRISON) to have contact with her. He gets out in 2010. Comforting, no?

We didn't want to be mean and deny law abiding grandma and auntie from seeing a lukewarm N...the psycholgist was the one who helped us make a decision to tell them that, yes, they can meet her on neutral ground with us there AS LONG AS birthfather is not talked about and as long as the relationship is limited to just those two. And that's only if N. wants to meet them. I'm sure they aren't happy with our response, but too bad.

Look for an adoption agency--doesn't even have to be the one you used. Get help from somebody who understands adopted kids. Not all therapists do.

 

[smallworld]

Vickie,

What is the reason the water park was taken away from your difficult child?

Sending gentle supportive hugs.

 

[Nancy]

My difficult child wrote almost the identical words to her bm. Over the years I wondered if we should try to locate her and reunite them so that difficult child could get her questions answered and maybe dissipate some of the anger she had toward us. In the end I decided I had to wait until she was 18 because we were still responsible for her and her well being.

She turned 18 this past Saturday. While we signed the papers to have her bm located and reunite them, I recently found out information that I believe would cause difficult child a lot more difficulty and would certainly not help her in any way to get on with her life. I decided that difficult child would have to initiate the search herself when she was 21, and hopefully by that time she will be better able to handle it.

If there is any doubt in your mind that this contact would not be good for your difficult child then you should not do it. I know in my heart that any contact right now would be destructive to my difficult child. I was so hoping that bm had gotten her act together and could be a source of support to difficult child. That is not the case and in all honesty it clearly explained why we were having so many difficulties with difficult child. I knew that if difficult child had any chance to straighten out, reunification at this time was out of the question.

I know so well many of the feelings you are having. You have done everything for this child, given her your heart and it seems all you get in return is her anger and resentment. I hope for both of us that someday our difficult child's will understand and apprecaite the family that they have.

Nancy

 

[eekysign]

Sounds like it might not be a good idea, since BM's last contact with your family was to "demand the return" of your daughter! Scary to think what a "I miss you I love you" letter might do to such a person. But I don't have ANY experience with adopted/foster kids, so that's definitely just my two cents, not a real opinion. I feel for you.

 

[mstang67chic]

Sounds like it might not be a good idea, since BM's last contact with your family was to "demand the return" of your daughter! Scary to think what a "I miss you I love you" letter might do to such a person.

My thoughts exactly. We adopted our difficult child also but it was out of foster care and he was 9 when he came to us. He hadn't lived with his BM for about 4 or 5 years at that point but obviously still remembered her. The only thing was, while he remembered the bad stuff, he was wearing a really huge pair of rose colored glasses and had all these ideas about her. She quit drugs, she is never in jail, she doesn't do the bad stuff anymore. Nice fantasy but that's all it was. Pure fantasy. In our case also, difficult child had some contact with bio aunt and her husband and also grandma. At one time, this aunt had difficult child and 2 of his siblings and grandma raised the oldest sibling. Because of issues I won't get into, the older girl was adopted by a non relative family, difficult child came to us (eventually) and the younger girl was adopted by the aunt and her husband. Over time, contact dropped off with the aunt and uncle and grandma stays in touch but only a couple of times a year. She has her own life to deal with and has also told me that she doesn't want to halt or reverse any progress we've made with difficult child. Personally, I don't give a rat's patootie if we hear from the aunt/uncle again. Grandma I like.

While it's not the same as your situation there are some similarities. Whenever the subject would come up, I would have the therapist talk about it during difficult child's appointments. We would also tell him that when he was over 18 he could make contact if he wanted. When he got to that age, it was not a good time all around and grandma actually helped convince difficult child that contacting/visiting/living with BM was definately not the best idea at that point.

Personally, I agree that it's a pretty common thing with adopted kids.....this desire/fantasy. And I also think that a lot of kids probably have it in their minds that their birth parent(s) were good people who were forced to make a tragic decision but still cry over them and think of them every second of every day. In some cases this may be true or close to it. In others however, not so much.

In your case though, I don't think contact is a good idea. For one thing, the reason why you cut off contact originally is enough to make me wait till difficult child is older. Another reason is her unstability. Even if BM hadn't flipped out and was stable herself, personally I don't think introducing her back into difficult child's life when difficult child herself isn't in the best of shape is a good idea. I think it could make things worse and/or confuse her even more.

But, you know your daughter and family better than we do. At the very least, I would bring it up with the therapist (away from difficult child) and explain the situation. I also like the idea of a therapist that specializes in adopted kids. Maybe that person could consult with your current therapist.

Whatever you do though, I know it's difficult. Hugs.

 

[susiestar]

I have no real wisdom on this other than to tell you to trust your instincts. I agree that as the last contact was biomom demanding return of your daughter, it might not be in the best interests of anyone to allow contact. But I am not an expert on this.

If your instincts say that this is a horrible idea, well, you have those instincts for a REASON.

From my experience, the times I ignored my instincts are the times I made HUGE and HORRIBLE mistakes.

It probably would be wise to consult a therapist with experience in adoption.

 

[BusynMember]

The good thing about the therapist was that he had really good ideas about how to word "It's not in your best interests." Although my daughter who was in question is not a difficult child, she still needed to hear the reasons why in the right way so that it didn't sound like, "You're just being mean and jealous" on our part. It really opened up a good dialogue. Not as sure that this would work with a difficult child, but I find the extra wisdom helpful.

 

[Jungleland]

Hi all. Some really good thoughts in your replies. I think involving her therapist is a great idea.

I spoke with her Equine therapist this afternoon, she feels it might be a good thing to open communication again, highly monitored tho. I am not sure I agree, this therapist really doesn't know our difficult child well yet. Her thinking was take away the "legend" thoughts of bio mom by letting her get to know her a little bit. The only thing is bio mom is a huge difficult child herself and is very manipulating and can talk a great talk. Who knows how she is now.

Got some more thinking to do. She has asked and I told her husband and I needed to talk about it first.

Oh, and the water park trip was not taken away from her, we just cannot afford it. We explained it all to her and she flipped out. Does not take disappointment well. I feel horrible about it but I did not appreciate how she handled it.

 

[therese005us]

I have come into this late and I feel that at age 11, pre pubescent, it is probably a difficult age. I think that reintroducing bio mum into the picture at this point would make things very difficult for all of you, and probably give her some 'ideas'.
My advice would be to let her know that as the adoption was a legal adoption, bio mum doesn't actually have any legal rights at this point and that legally, she herself could be crossing the lines of privacy of the bio mum. therefore, you could take the line that until she is 21 years (or 18, whichever is your case) you are under no obigation to make a contact.
You could make suggestions about 'letters, etc.' maybe keeping a journal of her feellings for her bio mum, etc. that she could mail to her when she turns 18, prior to making a full contact.

You could help her make a 'life album' of photos, memorabilia etc. like graduation programs, certificates etc. to give to her, so that when they do have contact, she has something to show her.

talk to her about why her bio mum gave her up for adoption, that probably she loved her very much and was reluctant to give her up, but felt she couldn't care for her well enough. How lucky you felt to be the chosen mum, and how thankful you are to her bio mum for allowing you to be her mum.

I think this will blow over, and things will be back to normal eventually. I know how hurtful this might be for you, rocking your security and emotions.

Hugs and prayers to you.... you're a great mum and I'm sure your little girl realises this, she's just testing the boundaries.

I think it would be best to be honest, about the mail, and maybe decorate a special 'mail box' with your daughter that she can 'post' her letters into, knowing they won't get to bio mum straightaway.