I want to talk about this subject in more generic terms than I did in the previous post.  I think one of the things that’s not thoroughly discussed when it comes to fost-adopt, particularly older-child adoption, is that you are potentially entering into a relationship with a whole lot more people than the kids you’re adopting.

In our case, we have big sister E.  E, M, and L all have the same bio-mom and dad, and lived with the same foster parents – they’ve spent more of their lives together than apart.  But because E was managed by a different county than M & L, their placements were handled separately.  And we ended up with M & L, while their prior foster parents adopted E.  There’s a much longer story there than I’m getting into, but this is all we need for now.

So, when we adopted M & L, we took on the responsibility of helping them maintain a relationship with E.  And therefore, we have an ongoing relationship with E and their former foster parents.  We live 45 minutes to an hour away, so its inconvenient to arrange visits, but not impossible.  And my husband and I are continually trying to figure out how often to arrange for meetings; how much of the transportation burden we’re willing to take on; etc.

There’s also the temptation to justify cutting off contact.  Its too confusing; it just reopens old wounds; its better if M&L just forget.  But as an adult adoptee, I cannot justify cutting off contact with the little bio-family they have.

So while nothing about this is fun (for my husband and I, anyway), its one of those things you just do.  For the kids.  For their hearts.

This Christmas break, I tried desperately to arrange for M and L’s sister (E) to come up for a visit.  I did insist on her coming to our place (about a 45 minute drive), as we’ve done the driving for the last two visits.  But we never heard back from E’s mom regarding a visit, once again breaking M’s heart.

At long last, today, we heard from E’s mom – turned out she had the flu, and had lots of family in town – that’s why we didn’t hear from her.  But she is wanting to bring E for a visit this weekend. The timing is perfect – just last night, M came into our bedroom needing lots of hugs – I’m thinking it was just generalized sadness, but it could also have been due to missing E.

I’m excited for E to finally see where her brother and sister are living.  But I won’t be telling M and L about this until the day before it happens a) because I don’t want hearts broken again if it does NOT happen, and b) they will be BESIDE themselves with excitement (and not healthy excitement – more like crazed excitement).

I really hope this visit happens!