Let's give 'em something to talk about

I haven't been blogging much lately. There's a reason for that. Okay, a couple of reasons.

1) Robert is away for a while and my focus is more family centered and less self centered. At least, I hope so.

2) My work out schedule is no joke. I. am. tired.

3) I was having a hard time coming up with things to blog about. True, the kids keep me on my toes and at least once a day I think "Wow. I should blog or twitter that." But I rarely write it down and I often forget it by the time I have a chance to send it out on Blogger, Facebook or Twitter.



And then something miraculous happened.  I'm not really sure this is my story to tell, but I can tell my side and hopefully protect the innocent.

When I was 21, I found out I was pregnant. It wasn't planned. I was seeing someone, but it wasn't a relationship that had any sort of future. And, as sometimes happens, things had already started to go badly.

I was barely supporting myself and there was no way I could support me plus one. No health insurance, no savings, moving back and forth between apartments with room mates and my mom's house...it was not the best case scenario in which to try to raise a child. I did some research and decided that adoption was the best of the possible solutions for me and the baby.

Fast Forward...

So, I had the baby. After a couple of agonizing weeks of trying to figure out a way that I could keep him, I could not deny that he would end up suffering for it, so I placed him with the family I had chosen. I still can't really talk about that phase of my life. It's too painful and too hard. It changed everything for me. It changed me. I also told no one unless I absolutely had to.

Fast forward 19 years. I knew I could write him when he turned 18. It took me an entire year to write the letter to him and to his parents. What on earth can you possibly say? I had no idea or no indication if my letter would be welcomed or rejected so I prepared for the worst.

I hadn't even seen a picture since he turned 5.

I sent the letters to the adoption agency and hoped for the best. A few days later I emailed to confirm that they had received it, only to discover that he had called wanting contact information for me the day it had arrived. He wanted to contact me. I was elated.

I just knew I would hear from him, so I waited. And waited. And waited.

::crickets::

I knew that he probably just wasn't ready. I had already found him on Facebook, but wasn't going to contact him unless he wanted contact with me.

In the meantime, I ran across some adoption blogs and there's nothing like seeing an adoptee write hate filled  words about bio and adoptive parents to give you a nice little wake up call. I had to face the fact that he may not want contact. Now or ever.

One way to find out, right? So I sent him a short message on Facebook. This was in August. And I waited.

As time went by and I hadn't heard from him, I'd check his Facebook page every now and then, but began to resign myself that I might never hear from him. At Christmas, I wished him Merry Christmas.

Saturday night, when I got home from the Zumbathon, I got the kids to bed and went to bed myself. I woke up not too long after that feeling really restless, so I went downstairs to get some water. My phone message light was blinking so I checked it and what was on there? A friend request. From HIM.

Back upstairs I went to get my glasses so I could freaking see, and I accepted immediately. He had just seen my message that I'd written back in August. Since we weren't Facebook friends, it had been in his other folder and he thought it was spam.  I messaged him back immediately and was surprised that he messaged me right back too. We chatted online for a few hours and made plans to talk on the phone the next night.

And the rest is history that we are in the process of making.

So, everyone, I'd like to introduce you to Chris (World, meet Chris. Chris, meet World). With his permission you'll be hearing a lot about him from here on out.