Sugar coating
Jun 8, 2005 Adoption
I know what’s been frustrating me. I feel like I’m giving an incomplete picture and only talking up how great the visit was. And it was great but it was also hard.
As I mentioned in the entry below, not everyone was supportive of J’s decision to place her baby for adoption. I knew this heading out there and it made me nervous. Would this mean that I would end up in the middle of a family fight? Would they hate me for adopting Madison? J was sure everyone would be nice to me but she was worried that I would find her family too anxious to get a hold of Madison.
I quizzed J on the way to the airport. Were there any off-limit topics? Politics? Sports? Was there a public figure her father hated? A food he didn’t like? What if a cuss-word slipped out — big deal or non-issue?
I can only imagine what they were going through on their end.
This very careful feeling didn’t let up for the whole trip, which is one reason J and I got closer. She was the only person I knew there and I was the only person who knew her as [insert nickname here] there. So we did some serious bonding between family events.
(You need to understand that J and I talk on the phone at least every two weeks and she comes over or we go over there at least once a month so we do know each other fairly well. It would have been harder had we not.)
Here’s something weird: I’m only a few years younger than J’s dad. Ok, more than a few but not a lot. We wouldn’t have gone to high school together, say, but he and Brett could have. I’ve noticed that while you’re parenting, the ages of your kids has more to do with parent-parent bonding than does your age so in parent years, he was much older. I saw him as much older but that might have more to do with the way J and I were giggling in the backseat whenever he was driving.
One reason J wants him to come out here is that next time she wants us both on our own turf. I wonder how that will make things different?
Oh and I have to apologize if all of this trip talk gets boring. I use my blog as my journal these days, too, so you’re stuck with whatever I’m obsessing on at the moment. That’s another reason I welcome questions. For one, your questions give me new avenues for my thoughts but also then I know if I’m leaving something out that might be important someday when I’m rereading.
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Tags: high school, Madison
Thank you thank you!
Jun 8, 2005 Adoption
It’s much easier to answer questions than to come up with my own original content! Keep ‘em coming!
Nancy asked, “Did you get any hair feedback?”
I did actually. In that picture there below this entry? See her pony tails? They were impressed! And J’s dad reaffirmed that a good part is important. I told him I was practicing and he nodded approvingly. And it turns out that on this side of J’s family, wild, curly, unstyled hair is one of the norms. Also J’s stepmom is white, which is to say that they’re accustomed to white people learning curves about hair.
Julia asked, “Did it take you a while to get comfortable with everyone? And did you notice that male/females of the family treated you differently?”
Yes, it did take us awhile to get comfortable. Like the whole visit, really. I was told that J’s dad — who can be blustery — was on his best behavior and I certainly know that I was.
This side of the family is pretty much the male side because J’s parents are divorced. I met her steps but the real purpose of the visit was to meet her father. (Her brother, too, but he was very busy with his wedding so we didn’t see him that much.) It was nice having J’s stepmom there because she was less emotionally involved than her dad and she helped us all manage. For example, she was the one who asked us what we call J and I know she asked this because J’s dad was saying to Madison, “Oh you look like your mama! What does your mama say about that!” That didn’t make me uncomfortable but I realized that she would know better than I if it was important for him to understand that I’m the mommy and we call J this other name. We asked J when we first had Madison if she wanted any kind of “mom” word in the name Madison would use and she adamantly did not. So we use the nickname she goes by here in Ohio. (That was weird — remembering to use her real name. She’s like Dreyer’s ice cream — you cross the Mississippi and her name changes.)
I’d like to know if you and J. had any discussions about your/her feelings about the “impact of her decisions” or any heart to hearts about continuing on the course of the same open arrangement based on this visit.
Yes, lots. We often do though. This time we talked a lot about how her decision impacted the rest of her family. She was grieving hard for her family. For her father, specifically.
We also talked about how important we both feel it is to maintain openness. I told her that part of why I went out there to meet her family was to create more ties to help her stay involved even when her life takes her elsewhere, which she understood.
J very much wants Madison to know that she was around. She wants Madison to know that even though she was not ready to parent, she was a witness to her early years. She doesn’t want Madison to feel rejected and she worries that if she disappears at any time, Madison will think that it’s somehow her fault. So she is very committed to being a part of Madison’s life.
I also told her how much the social workers at the agency admired her because she was such a strong advocate for herself. I told J’s stepmom this, too, because there is some murmuring (not by stepmom) that adoption was the “easy out.” And I wanted them to know how hard it has been for J and how much credit she deserves. But one of the things that I realized and I think J is realizing is that there are some people in her life who will never be entirely happy with her decision. Ever. Although they are hopefully on their way to accepting it.
“What will contact be with the rest of the family? Grandpa? Direct or through J?”
–We’re not sure. I’ll leave that to Grandpa M’s comfort zone. But he’s talking about a visit here soon and that would be nice. He’s a pretty busy person and the truth is we live too far apart to see much of each other but if he wants to spoil Madison from afar and visit when he can, that’s a-ok with me. I can’t see us making this trip an annual thing though — too expensive and too hard. But if there was another big event, we might try to do something again.
“Did Madison get more comfortable with J?”
–Yes and no. She still won’t go to her but they have their little games now, honed on 10+ hours of airline travel.
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Could you guys please…
Jun 7, 2005 Adoption
…ask me some questions? I’m tired and that’s making me lazy plus I have work stuff occupying my head. I wrote on Chicagomama’s blog that I don’t mind questions — I like them. And answering them makes me think. So is there anything you want to know about our visit? I need to be respectful, too, of the family’s privacy but is there anything I should be talking about and I’m not?
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Could I be more tired???
Jun 7, 2005 Adoption
Answer: No.
And Brett drank up all the coffee while I was gone and didn’t replace it. He’s in so much trouble.
Our flight was delayed out of Cincinnati last night so we got in two hours later than we expected to. I’m sure J is hating life right now, too, because she had to work at 8am this morning.
That picture is Madison at the wedding. Her Grandpa M put the flowers in her hair.
J was worried that her dad would be too overbearing. However he was merely smitten and sometimes that can look like overbearing when it’s really not. The only hard part of that is that Madison generally wanted me within 15 or 20 feet of her at all times. If she was carried too far, she would holler ’til she came back to my arms. So basically I followed them around the grounds (it was an outdoor event at a country club) and tried to be both obvious to Madison and inconspicuous so they could have their time together. This was how things went most of the weekend. We went to a lot of planned activities and I trailed around trying not to get in anyone’s way.
Meeting J’s family and seeing her interact with them gave me a much better picture of how things were for her.
We got lost twice — once after the wedding and then insanely we got lost in the exact same place (careening onto the wrong freeway while her dad, who was leading us and had turned honked and waved frantically). The nice thing about that was it was just more opportunity for talking. And then we cruised by her high school and old stomping grounds.
I liked traveling with J. She’s funny and practical. When they tried to break our seats up on the plane, she marched up to the counter and got them all lined back up. I really enjoy her.
We got to talk more about the adoption. She didn’t know how it all worked on our end — the precalls, the other match we had (thank goodness it fell through, I told her). She told me that we were the second profile she read and that she didn’t want to read any others because she knew in her gut that it was meant to be. Her friends made her read the other ones because they said she couldn’t know without looking at all of them but she said she knew right away.
Introductions became more smooth as the trip wore on. We ended up missing services at church, (which is not just a church — it’s a church CITY! One of those big outreach churches with an information kiosk, cafe and their own rock band) but we sat in the reception area and met people.
“This is my daughter, J,” her father would say. “And my granddaughter, Madison, and her mom, Dawn, and her brother, Justin.”
Then J’s dad took my brother on a tour of the sound and light system.
The whole trip was really amazing but the best part was hanging with J so much.
I want to write more about some of my thoughts but I’m way too tired right now and will need to process them some more.
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Tags: high school, Justin, Madison
Oh goodness, it’s much too early
Jun 5, 2005 Adoption
Yesterday was THE big family event; yesterday was the whole reason we came. It was pretty great.
At one point Madison was out on the dance floor grooving with her grandpa, her uncle and J. I sent someone out with my camera (I didn’t want to go out there because if she saw me, she might have decided that she missed me) but I bet the pics didn’t turn out (lights too low).
This visit is making J see what kind of impact her decision (the adoption decision) had on the rest of her family and it’s really hard for her. We had a lot of time to talk last night and she cried because it’s all still so hard. Madison is still shy with J. I wish she wasn’t, I wish she would go to her. She goes to J’s dad readily but it’s because he’s such a typical goofy worshipful grandparent. I think she feels J’s tension. I was really hoping that this trip would give them time to connect but the flight was pretty sucky (I’m dreading the one back even more) and now whenever they’re playing, J’s dad senses someone else is getting baby-time and swoops in.
I so wish that there was something I could do to make everything all better for J. I wish I could fix it. It’s hard to stand there holding Madison — because Madison has run over and put her arms up for me to pick her up — and know it’s killing J. We’ve spent so much time together that it’s been much more intense. I mean, J visits and sees me parenting but this is so much of the everydayness of parenting and there are all of these small things that J is witnessing.
But we — J and I — are getting closer. I told her last night that it means something that I’m still speaking to her after all of this traveling because I’m an emotional infant when it comes to traveling. (Ask Brett — he’ll tell you.) And previously the only person I could travel comfortably with was Brett. Maybe it’s my ripe old age or maybe it’s that J and I get along pretty well. In any case, for me, one of the great things about this trip is all the talking we’ve done and the covert giggling, too.
Today we’re going to the pool and I think that J might be the only one getting in with Madison? Not sure if her dad is going to get in, too, or if he’ll stay on the sidelines with his camera. I hope the latter. Madison loves the water and if the mood is right, she’ll be thrilled to play with J in there. But first we have to do 90 long minutes of church. Yikes. My brother is coming, too. Ha. That’s a good brother who’ll go to church with his niece’s birth family. Who will drive five hours to get there, sleep in his truck (although there’s a perfectly good roll-a-way in here), and get up at 7am (only to find out we’re going to the later service) to go to church despite being (last I checked) an atheist or at the very least an agnostic. I do believe this is a charismatic sort of church, too. Should be an experience.
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Tags: Madison