Kid Update

As I knew it would be, Mother’s Day is already proving to be a difficult time of year for my kids. The younger one returned to social media this week after nearly two months of nothing. Then she texted my partner.

She is trying to say she was forced onto that plane that took her away from us. That she did not want to go. She did not mean all the horrible things she said. A few more weird pseudo conversational things and then she asked if she would be able to live at home again.

After all the posts where she has targeted me trying to convince everyone that her life is great and that she is happy while not including any actual photos of her or her new life, she has reached out to us.

I am not surprised. Things were pretty sweet here for her. If she needed somewhere to live we would help her figure it out. Where we are right now, we cannot have them live with us again. She has been off her meds since she left and we do not need that in our home.

It was traumatic what happened to both us and her. We are not the same unit we were before that horrible weekend. As I told my therapist, I am not sure we will ever be that way again. It was an incredibly horrible thing to go through and we went through it twice.

We responded the best way we could. We said we were here if she needs us. We did not beg her. We did not guilt her. We did not argue with anything she had to say. Instead we privately raged and cried because we had to go through it so she could grow. In order for her to make peace with the live she lived before us, she has to see what life would have been like without us. We are here as always. Trying to navigate the storm that was parenthood.

It is not her fault that she felt the way she did, nor is it her fault that her fantasies did not become reality. Every adopted kid dreams what it would be like to be with their birth parent. Our kids had been through seven homes in their life before we met them. Nothing is going to erase that kind of damage. It is deep and complex. We will be here if she needs us.