Making Contact with Adoptive Families

So remember when I sent the Email to the adoption agency before I found Max?

So right after I know everything, the director writes back, very prompt, and says that she had already called Max’s parents and told them I had requested an update and that she would speak further with them. Then she stated that I should get pictures and letters ready.

It was completely mind boggling.

First, I was really impressed that they had acted so quickly. I had expected to be ignored or at least put on the back burner for a while. After all the adoption was over 16 years ago, so really I was of no use to them, but they still treated me well…gingerly, but well. The director, Amy, could not or would not tell me if her feel was it was a “here’s an update, now be happy and go away” type thing or if they were more excited than that. She did say that they were shocked, I assume also unprepared.

They were going to write first it seemed which I liked for then I could get a “feel” for them and kind of respond in a way that they might be more open to, but from July I waited, all of August most of September. Finally, Amy said I should just write first and so I mailed out a letter, to the agency first as it was still considered “confidential”.

Adoption Agency Control and Confidential Contact

Now, granted I could have just bypassed the agency completely and made direct contact myself, or had Mom2 be the first contact intermediary, but I knew that going though the agency would seem more “sanctioned” and probably make his folks feel more safe and comfortable.

It’s very hard because even though you KNOW that nothing you are doing is wrong..you just want to know about your own child..it’s not criminal, it’s mother nature’s pull of extreme maternal instincts; yet you feel as if you have no right to want what you do. Or at least I did, like I was ashamed of what I was feeling even though the emotion it’s self was pure jubilant excitement and happiness.

I didn’t like going through the agency, after all I am a big girl now, I can talk to people and not make an ass of myself. I can handle things with grace. Plus it felt like a lie, it was a lie, I didn’t need them. Yet, there was no way in hell I was telling any of them that I knew what I knew. That was my ace in the hole should things turn south.

So my stuff was mailed out, first to be checked by the agency who makes copies and to intervene if necessary, then on to Max’s parents for inspection. Then I waited some more for anything from them.

All I Want is a Picture of My Son

At this point, my dearest and greatest wish was just to have a picture of my son. I had the baby ones from when he was still mine, and the ones I was sent from his first year and I do treasure that peek into his life. I did comfort myself many a time that he looked well, he seemed happy, he was fat and chubby and cute and OK. For the life of me, there was no way I could imagine what his face looked like now. I would look at Garin and imagined him older, but it wasn’t the same. Plus I knew from Garin, you don’t see what they will become, but when they are there, right in front of your face, then you know that they would not be any other way. It’s like of course!

The waiting was, completely, making me crazy. I had the agency promise to call when they got something and then over night it. Every day, my nerves would get all nutty until the mailman came, then I would have this intense mini depression of disappointment and then I went on with my day. Every day, for months. It was a Saturday when I came back from Westchester and Rye said, did you get your envelope in the mail? I grabbed what was there including the large plain brown envelope, but didn’t think anything of it as I had been getting lots of catalogues and samples from vendors for my business.

It was a few seconds after I looked at the return address that it registered what I held in my hands. Pictures of my son..the face that I had not seen in 16 and a half years, my baby, grown man/teenager /son. I sat on the couch nest to Rye and opened the envelope. And saw the face that I had been craving to see.

My son, my baby, and of course, this is what he looked like….beautiful.

Continue reading……Adoption Reunion: and then wait some more….