I remember our agency's director asking us where we worked again during THE CALL. I thought that was strange. I remember her repeatedly telling us that someone in Baby C's birth family could have connections to one of the schools that we worked at. I remember her telling us that were all from the same side of the city. I remember my DH and I trying to playout all of the possible scenarios in our heads. Did we know someone in the birth family? Did they know us somehow? Did they recognize something in our profile? Is that why they picked us? Etc...
Then, it got really crazy. The day of our first post-placement visit our SW asked us where a certain gas station was. We started to freak out. It was like 5 minutes from our house. Come to find it was another gas station, but one that was only like 10 minutes from our house. She was meeting our BF there for him to sign his final papers.
We went to our first meeting with Baby C's BM and learned even more. She started dropping names of towns. Yikes! We know those places. We shop there. We eat there. We golf there. She wore school identifying accessories. The school we went to as high schoolers... the same high school my DH works at... plays their school. We are rivals.
At our second meeting, more information was dropped. We learned her last name (she gave us Baby C's birth certificate.) Which isn't actually the truth either. The nurses at the hospital weren't very good with keeping the BM's last name confidential (the wrist band on Baby C). When Baby C was being discharged one nurse came in almost screaming...IS THIS THE ------ FAMILY? Using the last name of our BM! During the second meeting, the BM used the names of towns again.
After walking out of the agency's office last Tuesday, I will admit we immediately openned up the envelope with Baby C's birth certificate. No information was put in the BF's section. Darn! But, our BM's last name was just as we thought.
We headed straight for the mall. I was in the shopping mood. I remember our BM saying that her friend had parked at this same mall and then drove with our BM to the meeting. Just so you know this mall is about 30 mintues from the agency and then we live another 35 mintues further from there. We left the agency I would say around 6:05pm. So, we got to the mall around 6:35pm. I went to several stores and found great deals for Baby C. We were hungry so we headed to a restaurant located inside of the mall. Around 8pm my DH got a look of shock on his face. He said, "You're never going to believe who's here!" I turned around and saw Baby C's BM and her friend. They didn't see us. Crap! We had even jokingly talked about this happening earlier in our mall adventure.
I called our SW. After they had left the agency earlier, we had talked with our SW's about telling the birth family about how close we live together at our next meeting or in some fashion. We knew that seeing them in a publice setting could happen. We didn't know it was going to be so soon though. Our SW and us agreed that we didn't think that a restaurant would be the best idea. Our SW gave us pointers on how to handle the situation.
Almost right after I hung up the phone, they saw us. We were all in shock, but them especially. We knew that we lived close together, they had no idea. Would they be mad? Would Baby C's BM be happy? Disappointed? Would this hurt our relationship?
We payed our bill. We loaded up and started to leave. They were sitting at a table on our way out. We treated it like a situation of seeing friends in public. They were amazed! We joked about it being OUR mall and they joked about it being THEIR mall. Apparently, they had stopped at another mall after the meeting and that's why they were just then getting there. We left with a simple "It was nice to see you again."
.........Our SW called me the next day to see how it went. We have decided to write our BM a note explaining how it was crazy to see them at the mall, but also say that it could happen again. I am going to write in the letter that we need to talk about it at our next meeting. I don't think that it would be the right thing to do to write it all out in a letter. I plan on sending more pictures and that letter when Baby C's 3 months here in a couple of weeks.
10 comments:
Wow...that would be strange. How do you feel about them living so close and the possibility of seeing them often?
That's crazy! What a weird situation to be in...
What is the deal with the birth certificate? I'd never thought about it with adopted kids, but how do you get by without having one if the family doesn't choose to let you have it?
Talk about awkward! Hopefully the next encounter won't be. I am assuming you guys have a close adoption? Can't wait for more pictures of baby!
That would be awkward. She'll probably be happy when she finds out.
Keep us posted!
Crazy!! But you handled it well!
How weird!! I'm glad you're all going to talk about how to handle it! Sounds like the first encounter went pretty well!
It's amazing just how small the world is sometimes.
Wow, what a small world! Sounds like you handled it well & made the situation as comfortable as possible.
We only live about 20 minutes from our son's BM, and we sometimes go to the mall in their town (it has an Ann Taylor Loft and ours doesn't!) We have a very open & loving relationship with them (just curious--why weren't you supposed to know BM's last name?), but I always feel all keyed up when we're at that mall, wondering if we might run into them. We've had lots of visits but they've always been planned--randomly running into each other would definitely feel weird! Glad it all went well. It sounds like the relationship is growing really beautifully.
It must be hard to have some secrets, but not all. That semi-open thing seems difficult to me. Our relationship with Jackson's bparents is very open. We know last names, addresses, etc. It feels good to not have to have secrets, but I also see how it might be necessary to keep some personal information to yourself in certain situations. Luckily, Jackson's bparents are amazing and we don't ever worry what they would do with our information, and they also don't worry about what we do with theirs. I hope you figure it all out in your situation and come to a comfortable place. Good luck!!
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