Bio Family Relationships - Part 3

I'm writing more about bio family relationships. You can read part 1 and part 2 if you are interested in this on-going, unending saga.

When we ended our story last, Bio Mom had stopped talking to me for.  Two weeks later, Ben (our  bio son) gets a letter in the mail. With a return address of our city.  Yup, it's from Bio Mom. Apparently she moved to our city, and didn't say anything.  Well...that's sort of weird, right?  I texted her and let her know we got it and said thank you (it had stickers and a picture in it). She said she mailed letters for the other kids too, on the same day, but we didn't get those letters for another week for some reason (that has happened before so I'm not surprised, our mail is crazy).

Then the other kids got their letters.  The outside of the envelopes said "Mommy Hername" on the return address which is what we had all agreed she would be called.  However...on the inside they were all signed "Mom (Hername)".  The kids were totally confused by this. In the body of the letter, she said "Mom (Hername) is doing good..."...like instead of saying "I am doing good"? It was just strange. In the letters she also talked about how she was doing all she could to get to see them more, she loved them so much, blah blah blah".  

I messaged her right away and asked her to make sure she was referring to herself as Mommy Hername as we agreed. She kind of freaked out and got really upset.  I was very weirded out that she didn't tell me that she moved to our city, and that she signed the letters differently than she addressed them...it's really strange.  I tried to be calm, I just asked her nicely. I was not expecting the reaction that I got from her.

Then, D graduated from boot camp at the end of March, and had 10 days of leave.  Bio Mom said she and her friend were going to drive to California (it's 23 hours, in case you were wondering!) and then drive him back home. Last I heard from D he still wasn't on great terms with Bio Mom, so I was surprised to hear this but we had really mended our relationship with him while he was at bootcamp and I thought it was possible that they had mended theirs as well. So I wrote him a letter just confirming that that was going to happen, and that we didn't need to buy him a plane ticket home or anything like that.  He responded "NO, I am not going anywhere with my mother, and even though I have forgiven her I still don't trust her. If she says anything like that please check with me."  

She claimed it was a misunderstanding with her friend.  Also in this same time period she sent me a picture of herself, at home in her bed, saying that she had had a stroke. I freaked out and told her she needed to go to the hospital if she had a stroke, and finally she agreed to go see a doctor...nope, it was just Bells Palsy (which D has had, so I knew it was a thing).  But she said "I had a stroke". And she did not even have confirmation that she had one. She also told me before that she had Pheochromocytoma...but she didn't actually have it, and was just being tested for it.

So. All of these things combined have made me feel very uncomfortable and anxious. She is really mad at me for asking her to call herself Mommy Hername. She thinks it is crazy that I am weirded out, and said she didn't want to talk to me anymore basically because she feels like she can't trust me, or something, I don't even know.  She said I'm a fake person because I didn't act like I know her and that I didn't trust her after all the time we had spent talking. We had said in February that she could see the kids in March (earlier/more frequently than normal) but then said that we would be more comfortable with May (based on all this stuff happening).  

She said, when she said she didn't want to talk to me anymore, that she would send me a message every 2 weeks to let me know that she was still sober and that she wanted to see the kids.  I didn't ask her to do this, I guess she just felt like that was what she needed to do.  I have somewhat distanced myself emotionally from her because that appeared to be what she wanted based on her saying she didn't want to talk to me anymore.

She then sent me a very long message about how I am being cold to her, and all she has is love, and we aren't forgiving the things she's done in her past, and we are not acting like Christians, etc. etc.  I responded as calmly and rationally as I could and I had 3 people look over my response before I sent it because I wanted to be absolutely clear and certain that all I was saying was appropriate. 

Anyway. I have talked with multiple people about this. She is trying to manipulate me, and I don't know if she is even doing it on purpose. That is all she knows. Chaos is all she knows.  Half the things she says make no sense at all.  I am a people pleaser, I get stressed out when people are unhappy with me, but I have learned that in this I am going to have to let it go. I will never make her happy, and I will always be the bad guy.

So I am not sure what the purpose of sharing all this stuff is. Just to put it out there, I guess, that relationships with bio family are not always black and white. They can be shades of grey.

We are still in flux. I asked her last week if we could see her on the 27th of this month. She told me "Oh I thought it was going to be on Mother's Day."  Hm, nope, I never said that. Ever. Our contact agreement doesn't say that, and I would never agree to that because I am their mother and I'd like my one day a year, dammit.  So I am unsure where she got that, other than it is just another way to try to make me feel bad.  She then said she might have school that day so she would let me know on Friday if the 27th would work for her.  It is now Monday and I haven't heard back from her.

Also, this year is the first year she hasn't told me happy mother's day.  I sort of take it to be meant  as a personal jab at me, but it's water off a duck at this point.  I'm not sure what to make of the fact that she hasn't contact me letting me know what day and time will work for her. I am going to make a prediction. I predict that on the 27th (or possibly the 26th), she will contact me with a time and a place and if we can't make it on short notice she will file this in her "reasons I hate my kids' adoptive parents" file to use against us in the future.

Side note, Y said "Oh I should make a card for Mommy Hername for mother's day!" but he did not make me anything, the thought didn't even enter his mind. So I'm not sure how to deal with that, it's a little bit heartbreaking but what are you going to do.

Adoption is messy. It always comes from brokenness and pain, 100% of the time.  But God has redeemed this to make it into something beautiful, even in the mess.