The two always go together, right? ;)
Adoption day was the Friday before Thanksgiving. L had had a few more unsupervised visits with mom (not dad) before then, but no requests for visits over Thanksgiving had come in yet. She had kind of "stalled" on her case plan work and was just coasting…
Out of the blue the CM called and asked to schedule visits for dad. What? He hasn't seen L since the beginning of October and got kicked out of treatment (again!). He scheduled a visit for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and then cancelled it the same day. Radio silence from mom.
Thanksgiving was great, my family was still in town from the adoption and we got to celebrate with them, dinner a day early (they left Thanksgiving morning), and then a family dinner and our annual cousin late-night shopping spree on Thanksgiving Day. I love Black Friday shopping, and I'm not even ashamed. I wait 'til the kids are in bed….that makes it better, right??
On Saturday, I checked the mail before heading out to church. I saw a letter, addressed from Joshua's biological paternal grandparents…..my heart about stopped. We knew they wanted contact, and had every intention of contacting them once the adoption was final and everything settled down a bit. But to get a letter in the mail (how did they find out our full names and address???) was unexpected and threw me for a loop to say the least.
The letter was a heartfelt plea from a distressed grandmother - I couldn't help but let the tears fall as I read her (and Joshua's) story. She saw the news segment of Adoption Day and recognized her "lost" grandson. She explained her heartbreak of not knowing she had a grandchild until he was 6 months old and already in foster care, which resonated within me and my heart broke for her. She begged to be able to be some small part of his life, in whatever way we deemed fit as his parents. She claimed it was Divine intervention that she was watching the news that day, and I had to agree. That night I wrote a long letter back, telling her of our process in this whole crazy experience and how much we loved Joshua. I explained the name change, and told her how he was doing/adjusting/developing. We started to email back and forth and settled on a dinner "meet" with her and her husband, without Joshua present.
Shortly before Christmas, Jose and I met "Grandma and Grandpa N" at a restaurant for dinner. We had an excellent and straightforward conversation about our expectations/boundaries and their expectations/desires for this new-found relationship. I showed them lots of pictures and made sure they knew that we would definitely keep them in the loop. Long story short, they were great and even came to Joshua's birthday party a few weeks later. We couldn't be more thrilled that they can be a part of his life, and although this dynamic is "different" and some would call "complicated", it's a beautiful picture of adoption: two families, some loss, some gain, and a whole lot of love to go around.
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