Back from the visit

I'm still exhausted.

The visit was a lot of fun for Sunny, and mostly fun for my mother and me. Sunny's foster mom organized his birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, and his grandma and all his foster brothers and sisters and his foster cousins and some of his friends from his old school came over. He received a ridiculous number of presents. Most of them are being shipped back to Atlanta.

BB is doing great. His personality is a lot like Sunny, even at seven months. He likes to cry, he likes to laugh and he likes to jump up and down. I learned how he likes to be held and all about his habits. I know nothing about babies, so this is all important stuff.

The most stressful part was (not) meeting BB's dad. He wanted to meet at the restaurant where he worked at 1pm. I was there at 1pm, he wasn't. I called and he told me he worked a double the night before and had the day off, but couldn't tell me in time.

It seems part of a pattern of general avoidance and shirking. Like not visiting his newborn son for seven months. He could have left a message for me. He could have gone to the meeting even if he wasn't scheduled to work at that time. He could have met later... I floated the idea of meeting him somewhere else shortly before we left, but he couldn't do that either.

Then when we talked on the phone later, he said he wanted to start the procedure to give up custody at his next court date. He wants BB to be placed with us and wants to have an open adoption. His goal is to get a job as a truck driver and move to Atlanta, where he already has a lot of relatives living.

I thanked him and said I just wanted to see BB in a committed home. If he could commit 100% to parenting, that would be great as well, but if not, we would commit to BB and to raising BB and Sunny together. Also, I warned him that open adoption was not a guarantee of anything. It would be a relationship mostly between us at the early stages, but then it would become a relationship between him and BB, and I have no way of predicting what's going to happen 5 or 10 or 15 years in the future. Finally, I told him that the process was going to drag on for a while, so if he wanted BB to be placed with us he would have to be firm about it and definitely show up at all his court dates.

It sounds like I badgered him... it really wasn't that bad. I gave him positive encouragement and said I knew this was a really hard time for him. It's just that he was really very vague, and I was forced to take the lead. I do wish we could have met. I have no idea what he even looks like. It's hard to believe he came to this decision without even meeting us! I did leave him an envelope at his work with some articles on open adoption and some pictures of us.

I felt like I got two body blows over the weekend. The first was when BB's worker told me that even if BB's dad is in full accord and moves quickly, we might get placement at the end of this year. It depends on interstate paperwork more than anything. The second blow was when I realized BB's dad wasn't going to show up to meet me after I'd been psyching myself up for the visit the whole weekend. It's all very stressful, but I just have to keep an even keel. Having my mother there was very helpful.

At least I know BB is in a great place right now.

Sunny and BB's foster mom always fights for what's best for her kids, even when they're not "her" kids. That weekend, she had two children staying with her who weren't even foster kids. She had fostered the 3-year-old from when he was a little baby, but the courts had ruled for reunification. This boy also happens to be Sunny's old buddy and Sunny always talks about him. Sunny was so happy to play with him on this visit... he doesn't know quite how he feels about BB yet, but he's full of love and affection for the 3-year-old. Anyway, after reunification, this boy went to live with his mom in another county, but she still has a lot of problems and has been dropping both of her two younger children off with ex-foster-mom for weeks at a time. For a year. BB's foster mom could easily report her, but she doesn't want to, because then the children might end up at a different foster home and might not receive the best care. The 3-year-old's little sister was staying there too, plus another 3-year-old she's officially fostering. That's a total of four under-fours including BB. And she seems to handle it all effortlessly in a bright, cheerful, spotless house.

The talk with BB's worker (who was Sunny's original worker) was also helpful, despite the body blow. She knew their mother very well. In fact, the workers seemed to be the only people in her life that gave her consistent positive feedback and structure. I'm never going to know exactly why their family was so messed up that they allowed both Sunny and BB to go into foster care. Both BB's worker and foster mom warned me that the grandmother's stories changed with the wind. Race was definitely an issue, but not the only one. Sunny's mom's cousin has children whose fathers are black, and Sunny's grandmother is very close to all of them.

According to the worker, the underlying issue was that Sunny's mother's family was very much like the one ruled by my egomaniac uncle. Family members were played off against each other, constantly measured and found wanting, expelled and embraced in alternating patterns according to the latest power play.

At least Sunny's women maternal relatives tried. Sunny's grandma wasn't very effective at keeping the family together, but she cares deeply. The men are a more disappointing bunch. Educated, able-bodied middle-class white men with more resources than 99% of the people on this planet, but they just can't be bothered to drive ten minutes to visit... or even look at a photo. Sunny's grandmother said she tried to send some pictures of BB to Sunny's grandfather (they divorced a while back) but when he replied, he just accused her of "being morbid". He pays for a lavish funeral for his daughter but won't stretch a finger for his daughter's children.

We spent a lot of time with Sunny's grandma over the weekend. It was a bittersweet for her, especially at Sunny's birthday party. She often cried quietly to the side.

The visit helped me put a lot of the pieces together. I didn't go out investigating or ask probing questions, I just listened to what a lot of different people told me.

BB's father is older and has several other children including a teenager. He's not parenting any of them, but he pays child support on some. No one knows him well, for good or for bad. He doesn't have the kind of criminal record that would bar him from parenting BB, but his position in life isn't very good right now either. When I talked to him, he pinned a lot of his hopes on moving away and becoming a truck driver. I hope things are going to work out for him.

Sunny's mother's cousin, who raised Sunny for at least a year, knew Sunny's father. He has a very bad mark on his record and was also totally incapable of parenting, but other than that, she says he wasn't all that bad, or currently dangerous. If we ever want to contact him, it would probably be easy because you can look him up in a web database... I think that says everything you need to know about the Very Bad Mark. I'm filing this away for future reference. Far future, perhaps when Sunny is 16.

Hopefully BB's dad will follow through. Apparently it's very common for people in these situations, especially men, to simply refuse the responsibility of deciding. Instead of saying "I can't/won't parent", they do nothing at all, and that way let the courts make the decision for them. But I think BB's dad is ready to take at least some responsibility.

I'll probably have another post on open adoption soon... time to try and wind down a bit more from the visit.

Sunny's behavior since the visit has been pretty good considering all the emotions that must have been brought up. Who knows what the fallout is going to be. Right now, he's concentrating mostly on all the loot he picked up from his visit. I think one of the most positive parts was seeing his little 3-year-old buddy. He's been away for almost a year, but everyone is still there... that must mean a lot to him.

ETA: I forgot to include medical stuff amidst the parental info dump. My ankle burn has not healed. It got better, then it got worse, and now it itches horribly. I went to a walk-in clinic today and got a tentative diagnosis of a fungal infection. I'm waiting for lab results, but at least it's probably not MRSA. I got some antibiotic pills and antifungal cream. My medical expenses for this burn are now approaching the triple digits and I'm seriously thinking about calling Sunbeam and threatening to sue unless they give me money for burning me with their stupid heating pad. On the reproductive front, my RE tried to put me on 225cc of Follistim a day for my next IUI, but I just flat-out refused. I'll take my lower chances with a vastly cheaper and less stressful non-medicated cycle.