Search and Reunion - Thoughts on the Future

I just finished reading through this post at AdoptionTalk: "Find My Family" as Sensationalist Trash or Springboard for Discussion. It's about a new reality show that covers adoption search and reunion. The post discusses the potential reaction of children and what age would be most appropriate.

I had a lot of contradictory feelings when imagining whether Sunny should watch such a show at his current age.  It's somewhat remote from his experience and it might not affect him at all.  He knows his maternal bio family.  He lived with his mother.  He doesn't need to search or reunite, because we already have a relationship with them.  But his mother passed away... and because of that, watching other adoptees reunite might feel like a punch in the stomach and a reminder of what's been taken from him.  He's never going to see his mother again, at least walking this earth.  I know this hurts him.

Sunny talks about it, but not often.  We read a great book together once -- Everett Anderson's Goodbye -- a story about a son grieving for his dead father.  It made him cry, and he told me he never wanted to read the book again because he didn't want to cry like that again.  Every so often, he'll say "I miss Mommy __" or "I'll never get to see Mommy __ again."  I'll just pat him on the back and say "I know you do," and talk about maybe visiting her grave the next time we visit, if he's up for it.

On the other hand, in the future, it might be useful for him to know about other kinds of adoptee narratives.  Maybe the stories would fascinate him.  Maybe they would bore him, since they tend to lack dinosaurs, robots or explosions. 

Maybe these stories would make him think about his biological father... that's an area where I'm waiting (an active kind of waiting) for him to take the lead.  I know, from talking to more maternal relatives, that his father is not quite as unsafe as the record indicated. I'm not going to pick up the phone and call him out of the blue, but I'll remind Sunny when he gets older that we can set up contact with his father.

We're not at that stage yet.  We recently cleared a pretty important stage... he understands that his maternal uncle is his uncle and not his father, that his uncle is white and his father is black.  I think he really knew this, but he didn't want to know it, so he obfuscated.  He needed a lot of very gentle reminders.  About a year's worth.  Getting to see and play with his uncle on our latest visit finally clinched it. 

I don't think I'll be watching those shows myself.  I hate to say it, but the thought makes me too sad. I can take a little bit of these stories, but not in concentrated multimedia doses.  I would find myself thinking about my own lost relatives... the grandparents that died before I was born, whose deaths were inextricably linked to my father's adoption. 

I also think the cultural practice of closed adoption with sealed records is deeply unnatural, a historical anomaly, and will hopefully disappear soon.  In the future, we'll all have DNA fingerprints on file electronically (for good and for evil) and finding a relative will become just as easy as Googling... you'll just lick your iPhone or something and a list of everyone who shares your DNA will pop up.

Sunny's Bio Grandma Made It

NN arrived in Atlanta yesterday.  She traveled here with a friend of hers.  She'll be staying for a week in a nearby hotel.

Today, they hung out at our house for a while with Guy and Sunny.  Sunny played lots of games with them and showed off his skateboarding.  Then, when I got home from work, we all went out to dinner together.  As a present, I'd made her a small photo album/scrapbook (I scrap, in a very rudimentary picture+caption+sticker way) covering Sunny's time with us and his major milestones.  We went through that book, and also the larger book I made of all his bio family pictures.

This is a really emotional time for Sunny.  He read through a couple of old cards that his Mommy __ sent, and then he had the same reaction he had the day we told him she died.  He... wilted.  Sunny cries frequently, loudly, and often in a very calculated and melodramatic fashion, but when he's really saddest, he doesn't cry at all... instead, you can see all of his energy leave him, and he gets very quiet all of a sudden. It affects me greatly to see him like that.

NN was so supportive.  She hugged him, reassured him that his mommy would always be with him, said she was happy he has the mom and dad he has now, and that his mommy was happy about that too.  But it was OK he was sad... she was sad too.

At the restaurant he was a little bit manic -- definitely more fidgety and argumentative than normal.  Guy took him outside at one point for a walk to try and cool him down a little bit.  He must have been emotionally overstimulated.  I think he'll be calmer through the rest of the visit.

In the car back, he mentioned at one point that he didn't want to hear about women being pregnant, it made him too sad, because his Mommy ___ was pregnant with him, and she also died.  We reassured him again.  NN told him, "She died because of a heart condition."  Later that night, when I put Sunny to bed, I tried to reassure him, in a roundabout way, that he was not responsible in any way for her death.  I have a feeling that that sort of association might be on the edge of his mind.  I told him that Mommy __ was very happy that she was pregnant with him and gave birth to him, and that it was a wonderful thing that happened in her life.

Then Sunny said that one reason he was sad Mommy ___ died was that it meant she wouldn't ever be pregnant again, and that meant he couldn't have more brothers and sisters.  That sounds kind of weird now that I type it up.... but it makes sense according to little kid logic (which is not selfish per se, but definitely self-centered).  Then we talked about brothers and sisters, and Sunny said he hopes that I can get pregnant with a baby, and we can also adopt BB, and then we could adopt his foster cousins.  I reminded him his foster cousins already have parents!  "But what if something happened to their mom and dad?"  I talked him out of that somewhat disturbing train of thought. 

He needed a lot of hugging and kissing goodnight.  There'll definitely be a lot to process over the coming days.

I'm proud of NN for making it here. 

Losing parents through being fostered or adopted is often compared to parental loss via death, with the analysis that loss through death is somehow cleaner, less complicated and less ambiguous.  But after tonight, I'm not sure where I stand on that distinction.

Visit Problems

Sunny's bio grandma -- I should really give her a blog nickname, I'll use NN for now -- is a very nice person, but rather difficult to talk with, as I've mentioned before.

NN was originally going to visit us in the last week of August.  She's never left her home state before and is terrified of flying.  Her first plan was to drive.  Then she had another plan to go in September instead along with a friend of hers who could do the driving.  Now the friend has been laid off and can't take the trip.  So she's going to see the doctor to see if she can fly... no, she's just going to get into the car and drive by herself... no, she's going to follow my suggestion and take the train... no, she's just going to get in the car and tough it out and keep driving and Jesus will protect her...

I just keep responding to all this with short emails: "I'm sure whatever you decide is fine!  Hope to see you soon!"

My mother calls her, sympathetically, "a bit of a lost soul". NN has had a lot of traumatic things happen in her family, but I've seen other people get up and keep going from them, whereas she seems to have retreated from life and wrapped herself up in grief.  My mother is ten years older than her, but looks ten years younger, is ten times more active and ten times less concerned about her age.

We talked about it the other night and decided that there was a large possibility NN would never come at all.  So maybe in the next email I need to figure some way to give her a graceful out.  I'm upset more on Sunny's behalf than my own, because he's been looking forward to her visit.

We might be visiting there anyway later in the year.

Visit Coming Up

Sunny's bio grandma is coming to visit at this end of this month. We invited her to stay with us, she initially accepted, but she's changed her mind and decided to stay in a hotel. This is fine with us. On the other hand, I'm worried that she said she's never left her home state before, but she's planning on driving all the way to Atlanta because she's scared of flying. I wouldn't do that by myself. I'd fly or take the bus. I know my tolerance for continuous periods of driving and it's not that high.

A lot of the things she says make me feel rather nervous and embarrassed. She's very Catholic, and will tell me I've been sent by heaven, for example. I think the visit is going to be great for her, and great for Sunny, but I'm not looking forward to it personally.

Not knowing her at all, I used to resent her greatly. Then my attitude changed a lot. I accepted the fact that I will never know, and Sunny will never know, the whole picture of why she couldn't take care of him, and I let go of resentment based on that. She has her version, other people have theirs. Judging her only on the contact we've had since Sunny has been placed with us, I cannot blame her or feel any ill will towards her. She loves her grandchildren very much.

Placing our relationship in context... on a scale of Non-Elective Relative Likability, with 1 being my insufferable, manipulative uncle and 10 being my mother, I'd give her a 6. I'd have given my uncle a zero, but I upgraded him after I met my cousins' step-grandfather at a family graduation. This man slipped me some passive-aggressive racist insults within 60 seconds of meeting me for the first time. The reason I hadn't met him before is that he'd been exiled from my cousins' family for a decade because he told my male cousin to "stop acting like a fag". My cousin was eight years old at the time. Shortly after the graduation, Step-grandfather went off to the border to try and shoot some Mexicans with the Minutemen. My cousins' grandmother died a few years ago, which is sad; her death also means there is absolutely no reason for anyone I know to ever contact him again, which is awesome.

Any time I think "Oh boy, I wish I wasn't having this awkward conversation with this certain relative" I'll remember that guy, because in comparison, everyone else is a wonderful joy to talk with.

Anyway, I once had a nice talk with her about different personalities, when I mentioned that I want to put Sunny in an acting class when he gets older. She talked about how dramatic she is, how she loved acting classes when she was a girl, and how dramatic her daughter was too! It'll be good for Sunny to see that quality reflected in a relative.

I suppose one difficulty in talking with her is the imbalance of power. I have the power, she doesn't. She's always thanking me for allowing her to have contact. She told me that she gave up a baby for adoption at birth, into a closed adoption, and that's obviously had a huge impact on her. It's sad to think that Sunny has another relative out there that he will almost certainly never know.

I've told her before that she can call us anytime, but she says that would be presumptuous, so she always waits for me to call her.

I hope that we'll eventually get into an extended family relationship where she feels more secure and doesn't have to keep apologizing and being thankful all the time. But I can't force her into a frame that she doesn't want to fit in order to satisfy my own needs. She prefers what she's used to... she's older than me and it doesn't feel right to tell her what she should or shouldn't believe.

I'm a Legal Mom, and Other Updates

Our adoption finally went through last month. Yes, I'm way behind on the news. Sunny is our legal son!

I'd like to report that some pre-adoption behavior cleared up, but things are pretty much the same. I don't think the adoption ceremony meant that much to him. In the future, it's going to end up figuring a lot more in his thoughts, but he'd already accepted us as his permanent parents a while back.

We happened to draw the oldest, palest, gloomiest judge in Atlanta. He said some nice words, but also gave an odd speech about how hard it was to make a success of yourself in this cold cruel world even if you came from a family with two biological parents and no troubles. My mother cried. I videotaped everything. Sunny loved getting to dress up and shake hands with the judge. It's a striking picture... Sunny in his sharp black dress pants and black dress shirt, the judge in his long black robes.

We have to wait a while for the amended birth certificate, and then get a new social security number. The amended birth certificate is a terrible practice and the source of needless injustice for adoptees. It won't harm Sunny, in practical terms (I have several copies of his Original Birth Certificate, which doesn't list his father's name, and he knows quite well who his biological mother was) but I wish it wasn't the common practice.

In practical terms, now that he's officially adopted we can:

• Allow our friends the neighbors to drive him to the pool or to the movies
• Have a babysitter without making them get a drug test, a physical and fingerprinting
• Sublet our basement suite or use it for charitable purposes like hosting
• Go on trips without getting permission first
• Get him a passport so he can visit Japan or Mexico with us
• If anything horrible happens to us, he won't be taken right back into the foster care system

Another thing we are now allowed to do, which we weren't before, is spank him. And this was something we did try, on the advice of our therapist. It's embarrassing to blog it. But I thought it was worth a try. Her argument was that it shouldn't reactivate trauma for him because we know he wasn't ever physically abused. And it would help him internalize that hitting people is wrong. We tried it several times -- three swats on the butt -- when he went into a violent rage and lashed out. At first, it worked. It completely stopped a rage that would normally last 15-20 minutes and made him enter the remorseful crying stage right away, instead of at the very end when he was exhausted from being held down.

Then spanking stopped working. It just didn't affect him at all anymore. The rages -- two or three times a week, 15-30 minutes in duration -- were unaltered. The last time we spanked, he yelled that he wished he was bigger, because then he would spank dad back... "WITH A PADDLE!". We might have gotten another favorable "short-circuit the rage" effect if we'd stepped up the physical punishment beyond three mild swats, but that's something we had agreed way beforehand we wouldn't do. One try, and then we'd move on. But I can see that's how parental abuse gets started. A little works, but then it stops working. So try a little more... and I don't want to go there.

I don't have much experience with physical punishment. My father used to whack me on the top of the head when I was a kid (and tried to do it into my teens, actually) but it never had the effect he wanted.

Scratch that technique off the list. No more spanking, ever.

We're starting to see a new therapist. I don't want to discount our old one, and we'll continue seeing her irregularly. She's given us some great advice in the past. She's a mature African-American woman with a ton of experience who is incredibly insightful when it comes to a lot of stuff, but we're going to try someone totally opposite: a young white guy who lists foster care experience and has a PsyD instead of an LCSW. We'll see how that works. I'm also setting up an appointment with a psychiatrist (a new one, not the icky stupid one) in August to discuss medication.

One technique we're going to start soon, suggested by a friend of my mother's, is audio/video feedback. This means recording the bad language and hitting he uses during a rage and showing him later, when he's calm.

I'm a bit skeptical about the neurofeedback treatment. It doesn't seem to have altered his rage frequency in any way. But the one thing I do believe it has helped with is his sleeping. Since he started neurofeedback, he hasn't woken us up at 4AM anymore, liked he used to do about once a week. And that's really huge once you start thinking about it. It improves our quality of life and mental state tremendously.

He used to have frequent nightmares about a man chasing him with a chainsaw trying to cut his foot off, but he rarely reports those anymore, and I ask him every morning. I'm sure he still has nightmares, they're just not as strong or frequent, and he's learned to put himself back to sleep after waking up to one.

His foster mom said he used to wake up the whole house at 5AM on Saturday morning, just running out in the hall and screaming and screaming until he made sure all 10+ family members were awake.

I'm not sure if we're going to continue with the full course of neurofeedback, and my high hopes for it have adjusted somewhat. Still, I think the sleep improvement was worth it.

We're arranging a visit with his bio grandma in a few months. She'll be driving over and staying with us for several days. I think this will be a good chance for them to bond a bit more and talk about his maternal family.

She sends us pictures of BB every Wednesday, which is when she has visitation. And BB is doing well, but it's gotten so depressing for me to even look at the pictures. Is this my son, or not? He's going to be walking soon. He's going to be a year old soon and I wasn't there for hardly any of it. It's not important to him that I love him now. It will be in the future, whatever happens, but not now.

In happier news, although it hit a stifling 96 degrees this weekend, Sunny was having the time of his life at the water park. He loves the water so much. He spent almost all this weekend having aquatic fun. The last four days have all been fit-free, and if he makes it to seven he knows he's getting a nice bonus from his sticker chart.

Edited to Add: I reread this post and realized how negative it all is. I should have just done a separate "We did the adoption ceremony and it's great we're officially legally a family." If I put up a picture of the event, you'd see we're all smiling, even the gloomy judge.

Missing Mothers

I had a very nice day today.

Guy took Sunny out to the country to see his mother (Grandma) and her husband (Pawpaw). By the way, I'm not allowed to use the word "stepfather" because Pawpaw is actually a few years younger than Guy. This is a rule Guy always insists on, although I've never seen an age exclusion clause in any dictionary under the word "stepfather". Pawpaw has a shed in back of Grandma's house with a Harley-Davidson and a four-wheeler/ATV, which he let Sunny ride with him... yikes. Pawpaw isn't very mature and I think he only just barely counts as adult supervision. Sunny definitely had a lot of fun, though.

Meanwhile, I had a quiet day with my own mother. We went to a Korean restaurant on Buford Highway for brunch. I bought her a sewing machine for Mother's Day and we did some sewing together at her house, then I took a long nap, which I really needed. We talked a little bit about her mother, my own Nana, who died of emphysema 15 years ago.

Later on, we came back home, and Sunny spent most of the rest of the day playing outside with his friends. His behavior recently has been great. He hasn't had any violent fits or name-calling for almost two weeks now. He's given me several little presents for Mother's Day... what a sweetheart.

We talked to Sunny's foster mom in the morning. She has two new placements, a newborn baby girl and a 10-year-old girl. BB is doing very well and has been working on his crawling technique. Right now he can only crawl to the right, not the left, so if he crawls around the edge of the playpen and hits an obstacle, he yells until someone comes along and moves him back to the right spot so he can start again.

I did feel a little sad that he's growing up so fast. Even if he's placed with us soon, I won't get to carry him around for very long. Just a little sad though... it's a weird kind of limbo, but I'm used to it and I don't dwell on it much.

I steeled myself for the most difficult part of the day, which is talking to Sunny's bio grandma. It's just that she often says things that I don't feel confident about responding to. For example, every time we talk, she tells me how Sunny's mother's last wish is that we would adopt BB. Since we talk to her every one to two weeks I've heard this a lot, and every time I say a few sympathetic words, but really, it's hard to know what to say.

She told me that her day had been very rough... until she talked to Sunny, and then she felt much better.

Her own mother, Sunny's great-grandmother, has dementia and emphysema, and it looks like she's stopped eating and is going to die soon. I know what that's going to be like because that's how my own grandmother went. It's a hard way. Her brother lives close by, but it's going to be her job to handle the end. That sounds awfully familiar. It's so often that the men in a family don't have the strength when it really counts. I hate to be bitter, I've just seen and heard it happen way too many times.

She told me she made a wreath this morning and went to her daughter's grave and sat and talked to her for a long time.

She hasn't been sleeping well because of the stress. She says she won't take any medication, but when she feels really down, she talks to the parish priest.

We did have some lighter moments during the call. She told me all about the kinds of vegetables Sunny's mom would and wouldn't eat, and we compared them to Sunny's own vegetable ranking. She told me how her children always hated to crawl and how they liked to spend only a few weeks crawling before they started walking and running.

Like I posted yesterday, I feel very privileged today. I also feel aware of all the missing mothers and all those missing their mothers.

About to Talk to BB's Dad - Any advice?

THE RECAP:

I met Sunny's first worker at Sunny's mother's funeral in August. She became BB (Baby Brother's) worker soon after that. Since the funeral, I have had no contact with her. We've just been waiting, waiting, waiting to hear of any word on BB's case.

BB's grandmother has been very supportive of us adopting BB. She tells me again and again that Mommy ___ wanted BB to go live with his brother and us if anything happened to her. In fact, every time I talk to her on the phone, she tells me the same story about her daughter's dying wish, and starts choking up and crying a bit.

I don't handle conversations like this well... at least I don't think I do. I get very uncomfortable and don't know what to say. This is a big reason I'm bringing my mother with me on this visit. My mother always knows what to say. Her emotional IQ is at supergenius level.

I have been hoping to talk to BB's worker for a while. Everything I hear of the case comes secondhand, from BB's grandmother or foster mom. For example, BB's grandmother told me that BB's dad said that maybe his mother could take care of BB. Then she said she investigated and had a background check run on BB's other grandmother. According to the investigation, she would not be a good candidate, and was neither able nor probably willing, especially since BB's dad already had other kids that he wasn't taking care of, and neither was she.

When Sunny's mom died, BB was in limbo. His dad had the right to raise him, but he equivocated. He didn't come to the funeral and never went to visit his child. His relatives had a say in what would happen to him, so Sunny's grandmother asked that he be placed with Sunny's old foster mom, which is what happened. Sunny's foster mom already had a baby placement, but she was willing to take BB as well because of the special circumstances.

Seven months later, the state is about to file for permanent custody. BB's dad needs to make his decision. Today, he met his child for the first time.

That's what BB's caseworker just told me.

We have no legal standing at this point, of course. But if BB's dad decides not take care of BB, and if his close blood relatives don't make a vigorous case, we're the default.

My position throughout this is to say that yes, of course we want BB. I really had no expectations of adopting a baby going into all this, but we're willing to do it because it would be important to keep Sunny and BB together, and because their mother wanted that.

NOW:

BB's caseworker told me that BB's dad would like to talk to us. He's still making up his mind. She's not happy that it's taken him seven months to get to this point, but also says that he's exhibiting more care and concern than many other parents she's worked with in the system.

I know basically what I'm going to say to him. I'm not going to tell him "this is right" or "this is wrong". He has to make his own decision; we can tell him how we'll act according to that decision. If he signs away his rights and lets us adopt BB, we'd be willing to have the same openness we have now with Sunny's grandmother. Calls/emails/pictures, plus a visit once a year. And if he decides to raise BB, we would hope that he does a similar thing and encourages the brothers to keep in touch and have a relationship even though they live apart.

Sunny's grandmother says he's a marijuana dealer. I know his first name, and his race (black). That's all I know. I'm not going to make any hasty judgments. It's not impossible for people to pull their lives together quickly. But it is kind of improbable.

The worst case is if he decides to raise BB, starts the process... then backs out and stops visiting or won't take care of BB. BB would get shuttled around, leading to the same kind of baseline anxiety that has plagued Sunny's life.

I'll be calling him tonight or tomorrow night. First I'll call BB's foster mom and ask her input, and I'll also talk to Sunny's grandmother again.

My mother, Sunny and I are leaving for his birth state visit in a few days. We might be visiting with BB's dad as well, now.

Got any advice for me? This is kind of nerve-wracking.

Thanksgiving Contacts

We had a nice Thanksgiving. It was smaller than last year's, so it was a lot easier to cook for. My stepfather is off on a business trip, my uncle is staying away due to family drama, and so on and so forth. We did have two extra Obama staffers who showed up at the last minute.

Before Thanksgiving, I finally emailed Sunny's bio grandmother. I probably should have done it before, but I have a lot of conflicted feelings about her. After actually meeting her at the funeral, I have a much more positive impression than I originally did.

I imagine Sunny has conflicted feelings too. He loves her, and she made promises to him about taking care of him that she didn't keep. But he recently saw a picture of her and said he wanted to talk to her, so that's what we're doing. I don't think I'm ever going to be satisfied as to why she couldn't take care of him; however, the future is what's important here.

Sunny talked to her before Thanksgiving. She asked me what to get him for Christmas and I gave her a good idea, and we talked about visiting next year. We also talked about Sunny's baby brother. She has visits with him at their foster mom's. She told us again that it was Sunny's mother's wish that Sunny and his baby brother would grow up together if anything happened to her, and that hopefully, this would come to pass soon. I told her that I wanted to make sure Sunny and his brother always had a relationship with her. She has a lot of sad things going on in her life right now, so talking to Sunny was really important for her and cheered her up a lot.

Sunny's bio family and foster family have a fair amount of history together, although they're not related in any way. They even go to same family doctors.

Sunny also got to chat with his foster family on the webcam on Thanksgiving. He saw two foster cousins he really missed... they had a great time making funny faces and "peace out" signs at each other.

The other person I'd like to get in touch with eventually is Sunny's bio uncle. Sunny was so attached to him that he thought his uncle was his father; I've had to gently correct him about that several times. His uncle took care of Sunny for a while when Sunny was very young, and he wanted to adopt Sunny, but his father threatened to disown him if he did that, so he didn't. By the way, Sunny's maternal grandmother and grandfather have been divorced for a while, and his stepgrandmother was yet another relative who used to talk care of him.

Sunny's uncle hasn't made contact on his own through his mother, but I imagine he would like to talk to Sunny.

Taking Sunny to the Viewing

Ultimately we decided to go to the viewing, but not the funeral. We flew in that morning then flew out the next morning. The travel schedule was grueling, especially since I'm still trying to recover from a nasty cold.

I told Sunny we were going to visit his foster family, see his baby brother, see some of his bio relatives and say goodbye to Mommy ___. "But isn't she dead?" he asked. I told him they were going to have her body in a coffin and it would look like she was sleeping. He could say goodbye to her body if he wanted, or if it was too sad, he didn't have to.

We met his caseworker outside the funeral home. She said she would help us out if there was any tenseness, but she didn't expect there to be any. In fact, everything went well.

However, being a fan of a show like Six Feet Under can give you a warped view of these types of events. I'd forgotten that most embalmings look horrifically unnatural. Mommy ___ looked like she was grimacing in pain, not sleeping. She seemed so much more vibrant and beautiful in the photos.

Sunny circled toward the coffin, looked for a few seconds, then ran back to us. Then he asked us to hold him and walk him to within a few feet of the coffin. He did this a few times, solemnly, then something flipped in his head and he ignored the coffin's existence; from then on, he just interacted with other people and ran around the funeral home laughing and giggling.

There were many of his maternal relatives there. Most of them had taken care of him at some point when he was a baby and a toddler. He remembered them, especially his grandmother, but he didn't go up to them and hug them. He was a bit shy around them and hid behind us until he was used to their presence. He did eventually hug his grandmother. The exception was when he saw his first, original caseworker. As soon as she walked into the door, he yelled her name, ran up to her and flung himself into her arms.

It went a lot better than I expected. I put out of my mind accusing thoughts as to why so many of these relatives hadn't stepped up for him. I just smiled and introduced ourselves. I hugged his grandmother, who was very emotional. She told my husband she wanted us to adopt his baby brother and keep the boys together, and that's what her daughter would have wanted. I got to hold his baby brother. Sunny was very shy around him, but I persuaded him to give his brother a handshake and a delicate baby hug.

We've been telling Sunny that his baby brother might come live with us. We'll know more soon. The baby is staying with maternal relatives for now, but is under state custody.

Sunny asked to leave after about 20 minutes. We stayed just a little longer, some of it outside the funeral home going over stuff with his current caseworker. There's an added layer of complication surrounding his (and his baby brother's) biological father. I can't say anything good about him, so for now I won't say anything at all.

Later on we went to visit his foster family. A non-adopted foster sister that Sunny was very close to had moved on, back to her mother, and his foster mom thinks they'll probably never see or hear from her again. But they had two new placements as well. Sunny had a fantastic time there. For him, it probably felt like the real purpose of the visit.

We went to see our family therapist about all this. I'd liked him on our first visit, but I'm changing my mind after this second time. He doesn't seem to engage with Sunny very much, he spent too much time congratulating us for being smart parents, and he said "kids that age have no concept of death". What? Of course he does! Before this happened Sunny had been asking all kinds of curious questions about death. I think we may need to find a new therapist, even if we have to pay for it.

I'm still recovering, physically and emotionally. I'm starting to look up some stuff about babies. But I don't want to hope for anything and have it fall through. And my feelings about having a baby are complicated. I know a lot of people would be overjoyed at the prospect, but we started off with older child adoption because that's what we really wanted... I don't dislike babies at all, I just find older kids a lot more fun to be around. Plus, they go to school! For his brother, we'd have to work out daycare or a PT nanny or an au pair, and since he isn't qualified as special needs, we wouldn't get any subsidy checks and it would mean a big change for some important financial goals.

I really do hope it happens, though. For both brothers, it would be so good to grow up together. We'll see.

I got about 15 minutes of video footage of the viewing and his foster family visit. I think that's going to be important to Sunny when he gets older, whether or not his brother comes to live with us.

Telling

Sunny's a very talkative kid. Last night we called his foster family. He asked to speak with five or six of the other kids. Each time he said, "Guess what? Mommy ___ died. She was sick then she got better, then she got very sick and then she died." Pause. "So what are you doing?"

I'm pretty sure he's going to say the same thing to his friends in school today. Telling him to be quiet would be going against his nature. I just had a talk with him and reminded him that most other kids only have one mother, so they might get confused when they heard him talk about Mommy ___ dying, so he might want to tell them that his Georgia Mommy is doing fine. If they tell him he can't have more than one mother, they're wrong.

Sunny's stubbornness can be infuriating, but it makes him resistant to peer pressure.
A few days ago Sunny complained about his friend telling him he "was a girl" because he liked Dora the Explorer. And wasn't that crazy? We told him that yes, his friend was definitely wrong. Why, if his friend was right, any girl that liked a boy was a boy, and any boy that liked a girl was a girl, and that would just be completely nuts!

I had to tell his teacher this morning about what happened. I wanted to clear up any potential confusion. I don't want anyone to accuse Sunny of lying or being crazy. As I've mentioned before, people seem to assume I'm Sunny's biological mom... I've never had a single person ask me if he was adopted so far. I told his teacher about Sunny's situation, and said that he might be telling a lot of other kids today that his Mommy ___ died. She asked if the death was expected, and I said, sort of... that she had been very sick.

Right now I'm leaning in the direction of going to visit, but not attending the full funeral.

Sunny's Reaction

After school, my husband took him out for pizza as a special treat. When he got home we had the talk. We all sat down on the floor. I reminded him that he would always have Mommy __ in his heart. I told him a very sad thing just happened. I reminded him she'd been very sick. She got better for a while but then she got sick again, and she died this morning. I said that according to his foster mom, Mommy __ is an angel in Heaven now. It's not my belief, but it's the one he's most familiar with. Then I reminded him that Mommy __ loved him very much.

Sunny hung his head and seemed to just... deflate. He needed a lot of hugging from us but he didn't cry, even though we told him it was okay to. My dad came in, and he told my dad, "Ojiichan, I have some very sad news, Mommy __ just died."

I said again that she was very sick and that there was nothing anyone could do... sometimes people just get sick and they don't get better. Then I said there was some happy news too: he had a little brother. We hope his little brother can come live with us, but whether he does or not, he just gained another person in his family. Sunny asked if his grandmother there was OK (I've read that children that age feel death is contagious). We went through all the people he knew back in his home state and I told him they were OK. We went through all the people he still had, including me and Guy and the dog. He was smiling and laughing at that point. Then he asked to go out and ride his bike with dad.

Still deciding about the funeral.

Does Anyone Have Advice For Me - Sunny's Mother Has Just Passed

I'm a bit numb right now.

About once a week or so, Sunny would say sadly, "I'm never going to see Mommy __ again". I told him it was natural to miss her, then tried to cheer him up by saying that she would always be in his heart. Then I'd ask him if he wanted to write her a card. He usually didn't; the concept was a bit too abstract. I was just about to send her my second packet: a letter describing his back to school experience, some pictures and a signed card from Sunny. I'd planned on writing letters every 2-3 months for a year, then as long as she sounded healthy, having phone calls. And then in the future, maybe when he was ten or so, when we went to visit his foster mom we could visit with her too...

Now I'm quietly mourning a woman I've never met.

I got the news from his ex-worker this morning.

I'm trying to decide whether or not to go to the funeral. It might be something that would be really good for him, in the long run. He could also see his foster mother again. On the other hand, maybe it would traumatize him too much. The funeral would almost certainly be open casket. He's been living with us for less than three months. It also means exposing him to the same relatives that rejected him because of the color of his skin. His foster mom thinks he shouldn't be taken. His ex-worker thinks he should. It's all up to us.

And she'd also just had a baby. Same father as Sunny. The worker asked, and I told her we'd adopt the baby if that's what it came to. I don't look at that as a bad thing or good thing, it's just one of the responsibilities we signed up for when they matched us with Sunny. The worker said that's what the mother would have wanted. As far as I'm concerned, if it happens it happens.

The only decision is the funeral... oh man.

Mother's Day

I talked to Sunny today over the webcam. He gives me a kiss by kissing the computer screen. I can't see him doing it, of course, I just see the top of his head approaching the camera. It's still really sweet. Then we all make funny faces at each other, and he laughs.

I usually don't get so sentimental over holidays, but this is my first mother's day as a mother, even if I'm a currently a quasi-mother, or perhaps a virtual telepresent mother.

I wondered whether to send a card to Sunny's biological mom. I decided against it. I don't know if it's my place yet to do so, and I don't know whether she wants to remember this day or not. I did send something to Sunny's foster mom.

Racism and Biological Family

Well, we have a timeline. I'll probably make a post about that later. Things are moving quickly. My only worry right now is that my worker has been very slow in getting back to me. I'm in contact with Sunny's caseworker and with his foster mother. His foster mother seems like a really nice, competent and down-to-earth woman.

Sunny's caseworker says that his biological mother would like to talk to me. I've already agreed to exchange letters through the agency. Apparently, it's not a good idea to have identifying information. She's not dangerous, but I think she's still an addict. The caseworker could put both of us on a conference call, so we wouldn't need to give out a phone number.

I said that I'd rather wait. We can always do it at a later time. I really want to exchange some letters first. That way I'll know more about her and she'll know more about me. Also, I'm more articulate in written form than I am verbally. I'm especially not good at talking to adults in emotional pain; my words dry up. She's written me a letter already and left it at the agency, and we'll get it when we travel there on the first visit.

The message that comes to mind is that 1) we will be dedicated to taking care of Sunny 2) we will be honest, but not put her down, and tell Sunny that she faced problems that preventing her from taking care of Sunny as she wanted to 3) we are pulling for her to achieve a good life for herself 4) we can keep up written correspondence, and at some point when Sunny is stable in his new home and feels ready, telephone correspondence.

I feel a lot of sympathy for her. It's a terrible thing to lose your child. Terminal of Parental Rights has already been done, and she knows there is no possibility, ever, of getting him back. The caseworker says "she is very remorseful". She dropped out of contact for quite a while, but got back in touch with the agency when she found out Sunny was being adopted. We'll need to be prepared for the fact that contact will likely be erratic.

Learning more bits and pieces of the story, I was surprised by how much sympathy I felt for her... and how much negativity I felt towards her mother. All I know about the maternal grandmother is that their family is "very dysfunctional" and that the caseworker thinks she didn't support Sunny and his mother well, or try very hard to keep him from entering the foster care system, because Sunny's father is black. That really strikes a nerve for me.

When I was in my twenties, and after my grandparents had both passed, my mother felt able to be more frank with me about the tensions around my birth. Her parents told her she was ruining her life by having a baby with a Japanese man. And ruining my life, too. Before being born, my life was already pre-ruined!

After I was born, there was no talk of ruination and they instantly became the loving grandparents I remember. I was extremely close to my grandfather. My grandmother was not warm and fuzzy -- sharp and angular is more like it -- but I also remember her as loving me very much.

When my mother told me all this, it wasn't much of a surprise or a shock. If she'd told me when I was 12, it would have hurt me immeasurably. But by my twenties I was mature enough to understand it in context. Given the time and the place, my grandparents' reaction was predictable. It didn't make me think any less of them.

There are varying degrees of infection by racism, and I feel quite unforgiving towards those who have it so bad they can't even reach out and help a little baby.