As far as my own guess as to why so many birthfathers walk away, I would guess that the actual pregnancy is fairly removed from them. For the birthmother, I would compare the process to being a crash test dummy. Once pregnant, we are stuck in a car driving at some ridiculous speed out of our control, and all we can do is prepare for the inevitable crash into the brick wall. Birthfathers are asked to get in the car but aren’t forced in, and most don’t.

1. birthfather responsibility or aka birthfather rights.
2. What about my homer?

I’ll answer the second question first. Homer was a rare form of birthfather apparently, staying by my side through the pregnancy and was a willing participant in the whole adoption process. While most of the time he was just hanging on to my coattails for dear life, he did make sure that he mattered through the process. That while we were sticking with each other, it was made clear that any communication offers (via our semi-open adoption) were to remain in effect for him too if heaven forbid something separated the two of us. I cannot emphasise enough how lucky I was and am to have Homer through the adoption process; he never once became the enemy which I’ll discuss later when answering question 1.

Bj’s dad worked with young adult males as a mentor, so he had no hesitation is helping instigate conversation with Homer during the interview. If you ever read through Bj’s story that I wrote, you will notice that it was Bj’s dad who went and retrieved Homer from the waiting room when my mom had alienated Homer from the labor room. Even though we (Homer and I) have had no in person contact with Bj’s parents since that hospital stay, I do know that Bj’s dad and Homer will remain absolutely connected in that balance of respect. If I had to speculate, Bj’s dad has *always* felt like Bj’s dad. There is no emotional come to terms with this role from what I can see, and the adoptive father – birth father who’s who has never ever been in question. I attribute that to Bj’s dad. That also helped Homer with the grief I think.

Homer doesn’t go out of his way to talk about Bj, but I know Homer has the rose colored glasses of shoulda woulda coulda. Homer wouldn’t actually change Bj’s life if we had the time machine, but Homer gets the gloomys from time to time over what could have been.

Let me come back to this in a few, I have lots of thoughts!