Bio Family Relationships - Part 2

If you'd like to read Part 1, here is the link.

She started talking to me. A lot. Like, every day.  She asked for advice on everything in her life it felt like. She was almost like a child in many ways, not knowing typical things. She said she was drug free and that she had become a Christian, and I believed her (and still do).  

Fast forward to December 2016, we happened to be in said city that Bio Mom lived in, visiting our family, and reached out to her to ask if she'd like to see the kids.  I felt like things were going well and like I could trust her, yeah she said some sorta weird stuff sometimes especially about her past but it is what it is. I didn't know what to believe and what not to believe, some of the things she said were so crazy about things that had happened to her, but still. She was making an effort big time and I wanted to reward that.

So we picked her up from her house, went to a children's museum there, and went to dinner with her. Everything went fine. She kissed and hugged on the kids a ton, M loves that stuff but the boys were a little more tentative about it (in hindsight, we should have had a plan for that, but I just didn't even think of it).  Over all, it went well.  

She said she was going to enroll at a college (I had been talking to her a lot about it) to be a massage therapist, which started in January 2017. She had her financial aid stuff figured out, she qualified for a lot of aid apparently and was going to use the extra to purchase a car (??? I've never done all that, but it sounded like it was possible with the numbers she gave me).  I tried to help her figure out how to get her birth certificate and a driver's license at least because she was having problems with all that.  She has never, to my knowledge, had a driver's license.

(Side note here - you guys, poverty is not just an income level. It is a lack of knowledge, a lack of ability, a lack of the language and tenacity needed to get things done even when doors slam in your face.  You can't get a driver's license without a birth certificate, you can't get a birth certificate without a driver's license or other form of ID, so if you have neither of those things what do you do? This is not just a single instance, this run around is a common issue in trying to get ahead. End soap box)

She asked if she could write letters to the kids, and I said that was fine. Then, she started talking about moving back to our town to live with her best friend from high school (the one who tried to get custody of D right before the adoption). Bio Mom was getting sick a lot, she has heart problems. Her friend had offered to let her live in her basement.

Bio Mom had this plan of how she was going to go to school, and then when her lease was up she would just move to our town. But her lease wasn't up until April, and if she was going to go to school, she'd be flunking out of her classes because she wouldn't be able to finish them.  I encouraged her to either not enroll until she moved to our town (if she even DID move to our town, these things often don't pan out and I didn't know if it was just talk or if she actually would) OR if she was going to enroll then she would need to stay in her city until May or June, when classes were over.

Then. She sort of stopped talking to me.  I figured she got busy.  Didn't hear a word from her.

And I will post Part 3 tomorrow!