Why?

My mom has been the most vocal against our open adoption. At times I feel like I started her being against it. About a month before Sam decided to relinquish my mom asked if I would have an open adoption with her. At that time, I said no. But, things changed. If she kept testing positive for drugs and her parental rights were terminated, verses her voluntarily relinquishing like she did, I don't know if it would of been smart to have an open adoption.

One of my friends would constantly say negative things about Sam, which drove me nuts. But my mom is constantly saying things about our adoption adoption with Sam and not wanting us to contact her at all. Sam wanted to be at our finalization of Emma's adoption, she was invited and welcome, but unable to make it. As we were getting ready for court and my mom heard that Sam wasn't coming she said, "Good, we don't want her there." Not that my mom doesn't like Sam, she has never met her. But I hope someday they do meet.

While we were visiting my parents for Christmas I was with Emma and my mom in my parents bathroom getting Emma dressed. As I talked to her I told her, "now that you say mom, dad, grandma, papa and like 50 other words you need to learn how to say Sam" My mom instantly, "Why?" "Because, we like Samantha and we are going to see her tomorrow!" My mom, "the baby too?". I told her Sam is out of jail so we're not going to see her in jail. I know my mom would dis-approve of my decision to take Emma to see her birth mom in jail. I really thought about it before I ever took her, I knew Sam was only going to be in there for a few months, I was only going to take Em a few times and she was too young to remember anyway's. I continued with my mom, "I know some people don't like our open adoption, but we love it and we love Sam!" She told me that she knows we like our open adoption, but it is still foreign for her and she isn't used to it. Not only is she old fashion, but she is older and from the generation of closed adoptions and open was unheard of.

Tuesday Sam came over! I'm one of those organized, have everything planned out kinda person. It didn't go as I had planned, but it wasn't bad. Sam was supposed to come over at 1. I texted her at 12:55 asking if she was still coming, no response. Now I was nervous because she constantly missed visits at DCFS so I was afraid she was gonna bail on us this time. I called her around 1:20, no answer. Great, I was kind of disappointed but not really surprised. At 1:40 she texted me saying she just woke up and was getting ready. So she didn't come over until after 2, then I had to take my husband to work. After we got back we sat and chatted. I showed her Emma's room/ baby's future room and Emma's playroom/ Emma's future room. She opened her presents and loved them. She gave me a hug when she was done looking at her things.

Emma finally started warming up to her. When she first came over she walked up to Emma and picked her up and Emma started crying. She was clingy to me for awhile. Then she started running over to Sam with a toy and wanting to play with her. While I was on the phone Emma fell and was crying so I ask Sam to get her for me and comforted her. It was so sweet to look over and see Emma on her lap with a big smile on her face!

I finally called our attorney and set up an appointment to go talk to him about baby's adoption. Sam is going with us so that we all know what's going on and what to expect. We got tomorrow afternoon.

Two bits of info came out that I'm still shocked about. The small info, Emma has another 1/2 sibling! She now has 3 on her dad's side. I knew about 2 and they are just possible ones. But they did a DNA test on another little boy and he is the dad's. And including baby, she'll have 3, 1/2 siblings on her mom's side too. As far as I know baby is his dad's only one. I'm having a hard time keeping all the 1/2 siblings straight with names and who is who's!

The shocking news... A few months before we got Emma we got a call about another baby girl. I'll have to look at my old blog posts and see when exactly we were called. But our Resourse Family Consultant called us at the beginning of Feb, I believe. He told me that they were trying to remove the baby girl, they told me she was 1 month old, but she was 2 1/2 months. They would be going to take her in the next few days. Almost a week went by before he told me that they went to remove her but the mom and baby had vanished. 2 months later `we were called about Emma. I kept wondering, what if it's the same baby! But her age didn't match. Today while talking to Sam she told me about how DCFS tried to remove Emma once before. I started asking her questions, they went to her old house but she had moved. Then they went to her new house and tried to take her, but didn't. (Around this time we were called about her) Sam knew that they would come again and actually remove her so she moved out of state with her mom! As we put the pieces together I got chills. Sam was mad that the state was out to get her. We both concluded that Emma was completely meant to be ours because we were called not once, but twice about her!!!