Awkward

Navigating through life can be interesting. Sometimes you think you know the best route, but then you under/over estimated something or someone. You can only do your best, learn from your wrong turns, avoid pot holes, make use of your best GPS source, etc.

Today I am a writing a letter to some of Scarlett's birth family. We have been very fortunate to have contact with all of the boy's birth families, but so far no contact with Scarlett's. I say fortunate and sometime people don't get that. Why would we want contact? Well, I guess the simplest answer is something a good friend (also an adoptee) said to me once. "There should be enough love in our hearts to love all our family." I treasure this advice. She and I became close as we were adopting Luke. She was so helpful to me. I have always felt like the boy's birth families were my own extended family members--like cousins, aunts, uncles, or great aunts or uncles. I can honestly and sincerely say that I love them, all of them.

I know bits and pieces of Scarlett's birth family's stories, but I haven't met any of them. I don't have any contact information for any of them. I don't even have any pictures. After consulting the social workers assigned to Scarlett, I've decided to write an older couple who adopted 2 of her 4 half siblings that are now pre-teens. (Older couple, meaning they are older than us, I am told.) They live in our same county and are friends of her mother's brother. That's about all I know.

So what do I say? How to I convince them that it's ok for us to be friends? That I'm a normal, stable, sane person that just wants her daughter to have some sort of connection or access to her past?

How do you navigate that one?

Well, my plan is to start a draft. Say some prayers, Try and imagine how they might feel or what they might think, with out making too many assumptions. Try not to give them too much information, but just the right information. Tell them my hopes and intentions.

It's tricky. I'll do my best. Wish me luck. I hope I don't crash and burn. This might be really important to Scarlett someday.