The problem is Brain, is we don't know what exactly OC has been told about me/us.

We need to call OC's mom and find out.

She is 1/4 another race, POSOM was 1/2 latino

I don't understand how you could have ever contemplated going through with something as life-changing as meeting this child - who, at 14, is still very much a child - without having had a serious talk with her mother to establish what is going on in her life and what the grounds rules and expectations are for the meeting.

Some people involve social workers or other specialists to help them manage the meeting. It is a monumental event for your wife, the child and her adoptive mother. It could result in changes to the relationship between the child and her mother, for ever. It could upset your wife very deeply. It could have an effect on your marriage. I think that this is why the law usually gives the child the right to tracce its parents when it is 18. He or she needs a level of maturity to deal with the implications of the relationships and the decision to adopt.

Something does not feel right about the fact that this mother actively misled her child about your relationship to her, and about the existence of a bio father. I am also bothered that she did not introduce the knowledge that the girl had been adopted, herself, in age-appropriate ways when she was growing up. The risk that is always faced if the truth isn't told is that someone will do exactly what that cousin did and reveal the truth, and not necessarily in a loving and caring manner.

The mother risked that happening, and it happened, and she now wants to risk some other revelation occurring in a manner that is out of control. For example, one of your children could tell the girl that you are not her father.

This is all very worrying to me, and in your shoes I would want this cleared up to my satisfaction before there could be any meeting.

You haven't mentioned your wife very much in all this. How does she feel about meeting the girl? She, of course, will be meeting her as her bio mother. How does she feel about the child possibly seeing her as a "real" mother and wanting to be close to her?

Have you POJAd with your wife the issue of what the child should be told about you?

This, this right here is absolutely a good point.


My wife is on here, her thread is below this one in the forum index.

I might add that one of our fears is that the OC's mom changes her mind if we ask too many tough questions or ask her to make decisions.

Why "fear"?

It might not be a good idea for you to meet this 14 year-old child if the relationship has to be conducted via her mother. She, for understandable reasons, seems insecure about your role in the child's life.

If the mother is not happy to tell the whole truth about the child's background, it might be better to deal with this when she the girl is 18. Not so that you can rudely bypass her mother, but because everyone will have matured a bit by then.

Talking on FB to another old-timer, agrees with you sugarcane that a counselor needs to be consulted before the meeting.

"Some people involve social workers or other specialists to help them manage the meeting."

So your wife just cleared it up that OC14 believes you to be her birth dad and SugarCane's red flags were correct?

Do you know of someone who specializes in introducing adoptive children to their birth mothers?

RMX, I agree with Sugar. Your thread is a study in why honesty is always the way to go. OC's life has been clouded by lies, deception and obfuscation. This is unfair to her and everyone else involved. The problem with lying in this situation, apart from the fact that it is unfair to the person you're lying about, is that you have to remember what you said. AND you have to hope everyone else is on board with lying as well. That should have been clear to adoptive mom when a cousin revealed a portion of the truth to her. You can't control what other people are going to say.

You now find yourself t a point of having to determine whether or not it's a good idea to lie to another human about her origins. I can tell you from personal experience in the same kind of situation that lying will not serve anyone and may well be damaging to OC.

I would suggest that you have a heart-to-heart with adoptive mom and tell her that you will not lie to this child. If she insists upon keeping this fabrication intact, I would wait to meet the child until she is an adult and tell her the complete truth of her origins at that point.

I want to talk to OCs mom and ask her if she would.tell me exactly what OC.has been told, as well as.consult someone in her town like it has been suggested.by MBers here. I did not get a call back yet.

You definitely need to get the full story.

Guys, mission accomplished, I borrowed a lot of your posts for inspiration. Will post more later.

IMO, you don't need to pay a counselor to help you tell this child the truth. I do think a counselor may be necessary for her later on to help her come to terms with the fallout from being lied to for years. The chance is good that she is going to be very hurt and angry about that.

Looking forward to your update.

One of the problems I mentioned with your posting style is that I have found it hard to discover the full story of the adoption.

After she began posting again yesterday. I read your wife's links in her signature, where she tells her own story, and I seems that I have been puzzling over a misconception. From your thread here I got the idea that the mother wanted the child to be told that you were her bio father. I spent time on a number of posts asking why she would create such a mess when she knows that there is a risk that the truth could come out. The truth about the adoption came out in an uncontrolled way via a (what I presume is a child) cousin, which is undesirable to say the least, and there was a risk that the child would find out she would being lied to about her father as well, at some later date. How, I kept asking, were you to explain having one of your kids adopted and not the other three?

And then I read your wife's story and it seems that SHE asked the mother to tell the child you were its father. Why did neither of you give this information during this new round of posting?

I can fully understand why your wife did not want OM mentioned to the child. Indeed, if you as a couple had decided to keep the child, Dr Harley would have supported you in saying nothing to anybody about its origins, if it could be passed off as yours.

But having had her adopted in an open adoption, it was obvious that there would have to be an explanation one day as to why that had happened. To create a story that you were her father when she already knew she was adopted risked creating a mess one day - especially given the slight difference in appearance caused by her Latino roots.

What's done is done, I suppose, with respect to the past, but I can't understand why you didn't make it clear that this was your wife's request to the adoptive mother all along.

It sounds as if there has been a successful outcome of your negotiations with her so I am glad to hear that. I look forward to your update.

After the next to last phone call, OCs mom agreed with the points y'all made on here. I think the part about lieing and her being a southern Baptist was a really good point she agreed with.

OC's mom sat OC down and explained that I am not the bio-dad. That she was conceived while W and I were separated. She didn't see the need to explain OM was the reason W and I separated.

She told OC that OM is not going to be contacted at this time, that when she turns 18 she can open that door.

OC's mom told me OC has all the pictures we sent to her mother, and that she copied her her mothers permission to her phone and she is showing them to her friends.

I have not spoken to OC directly since she made her wish known to visit, OC is off on some "mission" for the church, or "missionary", I had a hard time hearing.

Sugarcane, I can sympathize with you not understanding my posting style, please cut me some slack. K?

I think that is the very best approach. Good luck with the visit. I look forward to hearing all about it in the summer!

It is a lot simpler to live, if you don't have to remember what you lied about before isn't it?

Yes, there's that - but there are also the consequences that would have followed this particular lie.

How would that child have felt meeting you and your kids as a family, still believing that you were her father and she was the only one that was given away?

How would you have explained it? Wouldn't the false explanation have been even worse than the truth?

A whole web of lies would have had to have been created to sustain that one. It doesn't bear thinking about.

You've got it, friend.

I needed yall to just whack me to trust my gut feelings.

I have nothing new to report, except I am trying to get rid of the garbage in my backyard.

I want the house and yard to look nice before the visit.