I remember when Brielle had her 3rd birthday and the party we threw at our home with a bunch of her little friends, her birth family and all her grandparents from every side that could be there. We make a fun cake and large bounce house was inflated in our living room! There was FUN in the air but, also a lingering feeling of " OH CRAP- it's about to get REAL!"
In our original placement agreement- we would terminate contact in person with Brielle's birth parents except for pictures and letters/emails/ blog at 3 years so, She could have a NORMAL life!
Our heads and our hearts couldn't wrap around the idea of never seeing our NEW family ever again- or Keeping Brielle from knowing her birth family, in person. What kind of selfish people were we? Well, I think when we made that agreement- everything was just so unknown and new (and Yet Kara and Kyle agreed that this would be okay with them.:/)
After our tiny girl dug into her presents and the last pieces of cake were put away- it HIT ME! Why It was awful and felt so wrong. I didn't get any sleep that night and Brandon and myself talked all the next day and we called our case worker who said we could do whatever we wanted in terms of our relationships so...
do we have to say goodbye? This is absurd! I didn't know how to bring it up and their were still others at our home and we all said a quick goodbye with tears and hugs.
We called Dawn ( Kara's mom) the next day and I don't remember word for word but it was something like this...
"We love you guys and don't want to stop seeing you just because we said that in the beginning. There is no reason to not have you in our lives and us in yours- if you are okay with that and if Kara is okay as well?" "Well, Yeah!" then a second of silence was heard between us, followed by an overwhelming sense of relief! Then She said- " We feel like We have adopted You guys already!"
We didn't HAVE to close off our relationship just because we once agreed to do so. And when we agreed- we had no idea what our lives would be like 3 years post!
You see- you very well may think something might be BEST for you, or your situation and when that time comes- You may totally just change your mind- b/c your heart is telling you to! And logically speaking, there is no reason not to!
We always seek for what's best for all of our kiddos and in our situations we have been lucky enough to have OPENNESS for 3 of our 4 kids birth families. It's such an honor to be part of their lives and have them as part or ours.
There is no normal! It doesn't exist and if it did- I would most likely run from it!
Our lives our complex , unique and beautifully broken! But, it's these amazing experiences that make us Stronger and more of ourselves than we'd ever thought we'd be...
In our original placement agreement- we would terminate contact in person with Brielle's birth parents except for pictures and letters/emails/ blog at 3 years so, She could have a NORMAL life!
Our heads and our hearts couldn't wrap around the idea of never seeing our NEW family ever again- or Keeping Brielle from knowing her birth family, in person. What kind of selfish people were we? Well, I think when we made that agreement- everything was just so unknown and new (and Yet Kara and Kyle agreed that this would be okay with them.:/)
After our tiny girl dug into her presents and the last pieces of cake were put away- it HIT ME! Why It was awful and felt so wrong. I didn't get any sleep that night and Brandon and myself talked all the next day and we called our case worker who said we could do whatever we wanted in terms of our relationships so...do we have to say goodbye? This is absurd! I didn't know how to bring it up and their were still others at our home and we all said a quick goodbye with tears and hugs.
We called Dawn ( Kara's mom) the next day and I don't remember word for word but it was something like this...
"We love you guys and don't want to stop seeing you just because we said that in the beginning. There is no reason to not have you in our lives and us in yours- if you are okay with that and if Kara is okay as well?" "Well, Yeah!" then a second of silence was heard between us, followed by an overwhelming sense of relief! Then She said- " We feel like We have adopted You guys already!"
We didn't HAVE to close off our relationship just because we once agreed to do so. And when we agreed- we had no idea what our lives would be like 3 years post!
You see- you very well may think something might be BEST for you, or your situation and when that time comes- You may totally just change your mind- b/c your heart is telling you to! And logically speaking, there is no reason not to!
We always seek for what's best for all of our kiddos and in our situations we have been lucky enough to have OPENNESS for 3 of our 4 kids birth families. It's such an honor to be part of their lives and have them as part or ours.
There is no normal! It doesn't exist and if it did- I would most likely run from it!
Our lives our complex , unique and beautifully broken! But, it's these amazing experiences that make us Stronger and more of ourselves than we'd ever thought we'd be...
Like this Bowl- so beautifully broken and repaired with GOLD & silver- it has become a WORK OF ART! It doesn't Matter how many cracks or breaks or problems we all have- It's how we choose to REPAIR, change and grow our ABILITY to accept others AS they are! There is no definition of a PERFECT family and how that should look or function- its different for everyone... But for our family- the perfection is in the gold that BONDS us together & that Gold is TRUE LOVE!
( the BIRTH cousins at our last visit- the girls thought it would be fun to DECORATE each others faces:) Jr. is actually Brielle's biological Half sibling!
*We look forward to seeing them again in the near future and we know our lives would be completely different with out each person in it! We are so eternally Grateful for our Glorious & Unique family- all parts if them!
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