Seeking God Knows What

Widget is on the phone talking to her first mom, L.

L called so we could square away the plans for getting together for Widget’s 3rd birthday. After not hearing from her for 6 months, we now have gotten 2 phone calls in 3 days. Yay

We have been working with Widget on recognition of who L is. Since we don’t hear from her that much, trying to relate who she is by picture is a little bit more challenging. I want Widget to be comfortable with L, so these little opportunities to speak to her by phone, even when she is jabbering away in slightly incomprehensible 3-year-old speak, are priceless.

since I talked about adoption related things on here.

I’ve been reading around as usual but, well, I have not been responding to what has been said anywhere.  I still believe a lot about adoption needs to change but I guess I don’t really have any “fight” in me about it right now.

I’m having a moment where I want to JUST be my daughter’s mother.  I know I’m not her only mother and trust me, that is something I will never forget.  Without L, there would be no Widget.  I recognize and acknowledge that, even if I don’t make the fact that she was adopted the center of Widget’s life, in fact, it is only a very perimeter thing right now.  She knows L is a friend, a special friend and can pick her out in pictures.  We’ve tried to talk to her about how she was in L’s tummy, using my sister’s recent pregnancy and our friend’s pregnancies as examples, and then how she came home with us because L chose us to be her mommy and daddy, even though she loves her very much.  But I’m not sure how much of that she gets, particularly since we don’t see or hear from L very much.

To be honest, I’m feeling a bit frustrated by the lack of any sort of contact with L.  I send pictures, e-mail, birthday present, and what not but I never hear anything back.  I can’t call her because her cell phone is shut off.  The only number I have is her dad’s cell phone and the last time I tried it, it was off and it was just the standard “you have reached X number, please leave a message”, so I’m not even sure if I have the right number.  I assume I still have the right e-mail address for L since nothing gets returned to me but still I have no idea what she thinks or wants from this relationship, if anything.  So, I’m trying to reconcile my idea of what this relationship would be with what reality is and at the moment, it is leaving me feeling a bit annoyed.

In fact, I’m trying not to be as ticked about it as I would be if it were one of our family or friends because I know she could just be going through a difficult time and not wanting the actual contact of a visit or phone call.  I’m trying to just keep staying in touch so she knows the “door is always open” but it is hard to remain dedicated to it when Widget isn’t getting anything in return from it right now.

2 years ago today, we finalized Widget’s adoption. While we had been a family in our eyes and the eyes of all who knew us from the very start, something about the formalization of it was somewhat overwhelming. Maybe it was knowing that she was now our child in the eyes of the law too, no more overseeing by a social worker, no more fears they would take her away from us because we weren’t perfect parents, no more worries that if something happened to us, our families wouldn’t get a say in with whom she would live.

The judge was awesome and said the days she has adoption finalizations are some of her favorite within her job. It has to be when your other days are full of custody hearings, juvenile delinquencies and so on.

Widget was a ham as is typical with her, pounding the gavel, sitting on the judge’s lap. I remember she hated the dress she was wearing because it was longer and hindered her ability to crawl and oh, how she wanted to crawl away and explore the hallway of the courthouse.

We celebrated by having dinner with our parents and a couple of my siblings who were able to make it to the hearing.

The only drawback to the day:

It meant that her original birth certificate was sealed and no one could get a copy of it any more. That is something I don’t like and needs to be changed. While we know the names of her first parents, she should have the right to have the original document showing that information.

But I’m not going to soapbox any more on this post about it. This post is about remembering and celebrating the day we became a family of three in eyes of the law

What a load of crap!

Gladney should be put out of business.

Right away, I was muttering about how the narrator/interviewer Cynthia McFadden and the “counselor” Paula St. John were calling the girls birthmoms prior to them having signed off on their rights.  They are mothers, plain and simple.  No prefixes, no qualifiers, NADA.

Plus what they called open adoption is no where near what I call open adoption.

I can’t even explain how horrified I was by their process, how coercive it seemed, how heartbreaking.  What makes it worse is knowing that Gladney probably put their “best foot forward” for this show.  My God, what it must truly be like.