Therapy Is Expensive

ETA- I’m not sure why but upon posting all the font changed so I apologize for the different sizes and colors…hmm I’ll have to figure out how to fix that but now its time to go spend 2 hours flat ironing my hair…fun times.

Warning there is snark in this post. I think I respond pretty level headed to comments that come across respectful but I will not censor my snark when I feel someone is being rude

A special thank you to all of you who have either closed or password protected your blogs recently. Thanks to you I have now become a real blog (because everyone knows you aren’t real until you get attacked).

As the child of an open adoption, I have to say that expecting MY adoptive parents to pay for a visit by my biological mother is just absurd.

You are so right. Me expecting YOUR parents to pay for visit by your biological mother IS just absurd. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have that expectation then isn’t it. I don’t even know you or your family and as such have absolutely no expectations of you whatsoever.

Boo hoo for you being broke and not getting a hug

I never said I was broke, only that I cannot afford more frequent visits. Lets face it cross-country airfare is expensive and getting more so especially with the new charges to check baggage. And yes I’m sad that I’ve never been hugged by my son, I can’t think of a person who wouldn’t be sad about that. I’m not asking for your pity. I returned from a visit and was very emotional, I blogged about it. Its what I do. I also posted about the highlights from that visit.

That little boy is SEVEN.

Actually I said he’s not yet seven so I guess that statement should read: That little boy is SIX. Well thanks for pointing out my son’s age seeing as how I was there when he was born I know how old he is but thanks anyway just in case I forget that detail I’m glad I can count on you to point it out to me.

As he gets older, you will just stress him further.

That is assuming I stress him, which I don’t believe I do judging by our interactions and his behavior when I’m around and by what he parents tell me in our frequent conversations.

His friends won’t understand the concept of an OPEN ADOPTION and he will just start pulling away further from you as he ages so he won’t have to explain the woman hanging around.

So far they seem to understand it pretty well. Is the only area of my life you are clairvoyant in or can you also tell me if my current boyfriend is the one I’ll eventually marry? If he chooses to pull away from our relationship I will respect that. It will hurt, but I’m an adult and I can handle that.

Having to explain the whole adoption thing will embarrass and stress him and you showing up in his life intermittently will just add to the problem.

Did you read the post about visit highlights? HE chose to tell his friend who I was without any input or expectation from me or his parents. He didn’t seem embarrassed or stressed. And while my visits are not frequent our relationship is not intermittent. There is more to a relationship than visits. If I wanted to justify the infrequent visits I could have just fudged the numbers like I said, but instead I admitted I cannot visit very frequently.

You did a wonderful thing by giving him up for adoption, but you need to GIVE HIM UP.

I can’t explain to you how much grief would have been avoided in my life if my biological “mother” had just stayed away. My mom and dad are wonderful people. My dad is a surgeon and my mom quit her job as an investment banker to be a stay at home mom for me. They are wonderful wonderful people. My biological mother was around on the edges of my special occasions. She called with excuses a LOT and when she was around it was tense and scary for me. I was always afraid in the back of my mind that she would take me away from my parents. She argued with my mom constantly, insisting that she had the RIGHT to be around me. Then she would cancel or make excuses and show up unexpectedly with a lame gift and try to hug and cuddle me. She wanted to have our picture taken all the time, which only added to the terror as I was afraid she was setting me up to take me away. Finally, she repeatedly argued that she shouldn’t have to PAY HER OWN WAY to see me. Are you freaking serious??

I’m sorry for your pain and grief. I’m sorry that your biological mother wasn’t the person you needed her to be. That is your story, not mine, not my son’s. Open Adoption isn’t for everyone. It sounds like it didn’t work for you or your family. So far it is working for me and mine.

While I did mention that I’d like a hug from my son some day I should also mention that I never try to hug him, I never ask him to hug me. I don’t want him to feel like he can’t say no so I just don’t ask. One day he will hug me, I have confidence that day will come. Also the picture taking has never been forced. We were on vacation and pictures were taken of him, of me, of his brother, of his mom, of his dad and of every combination of those people. We spent quite a bit of time on a ferry and a great way to entertain a 3 year old (his brother) is to play with the camera especially since my camera holds over 1100 pictures and hey its digital if its not a good picture it can be erased. So we would goof off and play with the camera some of those goofy pictures happen to be of my son and me together. The frustration I expressed about the photos was about my father not seeing the beauty in those pictures and wanting a forced “perfect” picture.

And to HeatherRainbow, “he’s your son, too. And travel shouldn’t be just your responsiblity” ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS??? Hell yes it’s her responsibility. They are busy raising their child, paying a mortgage, paying for health insurance and car insurance and braces and private school and fees for soccer and uniforms and clothes and everything else that comes with a child. She wants to just jump in and out of his life and YOU expect HIS ADOPTIVE PARENTS to pay for it? PLEASE!

Again I am not jumping in and out of his life. The visits are infrequent the relationship is a constant maintained via other forms of contact. Oh and he’s not in private school and decided to quite soccer in favor of Tae Kwon Do but I get where you were going with that.

They open their home to you, they feed you, they allow you to spend time with that precious child

Yes and I mentioned that to illustrate how much they do, because I am GRATEFUL for all they do and to show I’m not the only one exerting effort.

although I know it KILLS his adoptive parents as they are always scared in their hearts that you will want him back.

Again with the psychic powers. You don’t KNOW that, you assume that based off of YOUR experiences. Well my experiences tell me different and seeing as how I actually know the people involved in this I’m going to rely on my experiences rather than your “knowing”.

They don’t know what to talk to you about.

Funny, we never run out of things to talk about from politics to pop culture to what we did the day before to who I’m dating to what my family is up to, to what their extended family is up to, to my job, to their jobs, to our son or their other son….and the list goes on.

The only thing they have in common with you is that little boy.

Actually we discovered that we have a lot in common during our first phone call before he was even born. In fact his mom still calls me 7 years later on the anniversary of our first phone call.

Every visit with you is agony.

No, it isn’t.

He is not YOUR son, he is the child you gave birth to. He is THEIR son.

He is both their son and my son. I show you respect by using the terminology of your choice (biological mother) when referring to your life experience I would appreciate it if you could at least pretend to respect the terminology I use to convey my life experience.

When he is older and HE wants a relationship with you, then you can explain your reasons and excuses with him. Until then, you should butt out.

When he is older if he wants a relationship with me he will not have to search. He will know exactly where I am. If at any point he chooses to not have a relationship with me then I will “butt out”. But it will be HIS choice, not yours.

I haven’t posted more about my recent visit for a few reasons.  First is that I’ve been ridiculously busy/stressed.  Second, I’m not good at sharing (and I’m not even an only child).  I’ve drafted a few blogs but have stopped short of posting them because I wanted to hold on to my visit memories I wanted to keep them for me and only me.  But here it goes I have some details to share.

On my first or second day with my son he asked his mom what to tell his friends if they asked who I was. (most of whom I’d met on my previous visit but still he was concerned).  She reassured him that he could tell them I was (my name) and that he could tell them anything else he wanted and didn’t have to share anything he didn’t want to.  After that conversation I began to prepare myself for him to not want to share who I was with anyone.  I prepared myself to be “a family friend visiting from out of state” or whatever.

So color me surprised when the next day we went to the pool. My son and I were splashing each other and out of no where he turns to his friend and yells “help me splash my birth mom”.  Later that same day I heard him talking to that same friend and saying “I was in (my name)’s tummy”  I dont care how much the term birth mom annoys someone hearing it in this context was the GREATEST thing in the world.

He also told several other people during the course of our visit who I was without any reservation.  I think that conversation from the first (or second) night, the act of putting it completely in his control, put him at ease.

I spent some alone time with his mom on this trip too.  It was good.  I won’t go into too many details because I don’t want to put her business out there but I realized for the first time in almost 7 years that she’s not perfect.  She’s a real person.  I’m so glad. I remember the recent(ish) topic of adoptive parents being always calm and perfect and it makes me unbelievably happy I can see the real parts of her. Oh and because we are that weird, we went to see Baby Mama together.

Also when our son would ask to go with us on these alone outtings (more to get out of going to bed than wanting to actually go) she would remind him it was his bed time and then say “this is just for the mommies” she referred to me as a “mommy”  Yeah I know I’m a mom or mother usually preceded by the word first or birth but to hear her call me a mommy, well my heart melted a little each time.

For part of the visit we went to the beach on the way home while we were stopped for lunch my son drew a picture.  The picture was titled “family on vacation” or more honestly “family on vicachon”.  And in this drawing, this drawing clearly labeled as a family is me.  Yep there were all are tallest to shortest and I’m smack dab in the middle.  I nearly cried as I saw him include me in the drawing.  After he’d left the table I went to snap a photo of the drawing and his mom who’d also noticed me being included under the title family told me to take it with me.  So I did.  But I also took a picture to share with you.