Last Visit for a Bit I Expect

Our meeting with Sam’s “birthfamily” went REALLY well. They were happy to see him and super gracious about our willingness to let the meeting go ahead. We met at our local mall which has a play area for kids. Sam remembered them and was very happy to see them. He was also sweet enough to his maman to demonstrate his attachment to me by calling out whenever I would leave his sight (I left him with them and Daniel to go an buy lunch) Normally, this is a bit of a pain but it was nice to see it demonstrated for them. They didn’t make a big deal out of his name except that they mispronounced it the whole time (I didn’t correct them just placed extra emphasis on the right way to say it whenever I spoke to him). It’s not a big deal as MOST people mispronounce it (it’s one of those names that seems obvious but I guess isn’t).

A good thing about the meeting is we “found out” about Sam’s temper. Well we knew about his temper; anyone who has spent more than half and hour with him knows about his temper. The thing is NO ONE mentioned that he had a temper and threw temper tantrums worthy of John McEnroe in the WEEK AND A HALF we spent transitioning him to our family. It’s like they thought we would reject him based on this or something. Amber (Sam's "aunt") must have asked me 5 times if he still threw fits. Ummm… YA! We have spent the last few months wondering about this spectacular temper he has and these monumental fits he throws. As I told our social worker yesterday afternoon, it would have been nice to know that his temper tantrums were completely unrelated to adoption and just “him.” While it is unlikely that we would have treated him any different, we would have been easier on ourselves. Ah well. All in all, a good (and short! Maybe and hour and a half) visit. They left confident (I hope!) that he is doing well and that we didn’t adopt him to murder him for the insurance money (stupid plot line on Law and Order last week).

We had a visit from our social worker immediately afterwards and she was really surprised when I told her that we had just gotten home from a visit with the birthfamily. She was really impressed with our “flexibility.” To be honest though, as I said in my first post, I didn’t think we had a choice in the matter. It wasn’t at all as awful as I expected it to be. We even got to meet one of Sam’s biological great uncles who came along for the ride I guess (Nana had 13 siblings ALL raised in foster care or adopted).
One more home visit from our social worker (in three weeks) and we can start the paperwork to finalize the adoption.