Stacia,<p>
I have many many questions&#8230;.we are trying to continue with visitation but it&#8217;s starting to become pretty difficult&#8230;.<p>My mom has met lil&#8217; mama, but she was stand offish also. She doesn&#8217;t accept her as her own grand daughter and that kind of tears me up, even though I don&#8217;t accept her as my daughter&#8230;sounds strange, but that&#8217;s how it is right now. My aunts that live here in NC have met her as well and they seem a little more accepting of her. My sister&#8217;s have met her, and one seems more accepting than the other. I hate picking up on the vibes!!! Its almost like I need everyone&#8217;s approval for what we&#8217;re doing. That&#8217;s just how strong our family ties are&#8230;.the ties that bind can also choke hug???<p>My mother in law does not know about her&#8230;.at least not from my H. I&#8217;m sure she &#8216;knows&#8217; in the gossip sense, be he hasn&#8217;t had that discussion with her yet and that makes it hard for me to continue to accept this baby in our lives. It&#8217;s almost like she&#8217;s a secret and that tears me up. I kind of feel like if we could just get past this chapter (Disclosure) we would be ok and can continue to incorporate her into our lives.<p>It sounds like we come from similar families with many aunts and uncles and a 1st, 2nd and third generation cousins. For us, that&#8217;s a lot of pressure. It&#8217;s almost like we&#8217;d have to know everyone was ok with our decision, and for me, that&#8217;s weird because I&#8217;ve never been one to try to please other people with my choices in life.<p>It&#8217;s just so hard&#8230;..for most of us, when we do our &#8216;dirt&#8217; the world does not have to know about it. But in this situation, everyone will know the &#8216;dirt&#8217; my husband did. And I&#8217;m afraid of negative feedback, both for his mistakes, and for my decision to stay.<p>How do you deal???? Are you concerned with how your family will continue to react? If your situation were different (the birth mother was a little more together) would you still feel this way? It seems you&#8217;ve been there to fill the void that the baby&#8217;s birth mom can&#8217;t, but in our situation xow seems competent (at least right now). When there&#8217;s no void, how do you deal? Would you be as accommodating? <p>We&#8217;ve since adopted our own little boy and I just don&#8217;t have the need to mother lil mama&#8230;.I almost want to become standoffish myself.

Matthew6:14,15,<p>As far as my family goes, I am amazed by them. My father is a minister. He has been ever since I was a baby.
Considering that this child came into the world with so many strikes against her, I was afraid that my family would just turn their backs. But they have blown me away.<p>My mother has been very supportive. Ever since even before I knew about the A/OC. When I moved out on my own, at H&#8217;s request, I turned to my mom for advice. She was great. She asked me if I was coming home. I told her that I wanted to be a grown-up. That I was 32 years old, and I didn&#8217;t want to go running home to Mommy and Daddy, and I was going to stand on my own 2 feet. She was proud of me, and said so.
After learning about A/OC, my mother was supportive when I said I wanted a Divorce. She and my father have been married for 37 yrs. I felt that I had fallen short of what they wanted for me, what I wanted for myself. She was adamant that I was her daughter and she loved me for who I was, not what had happened in my life. She was supportive when I told her that H and I were going to work things out. And once again, she was supportive that first weekend that we had Lil Bit and I called because I was so scared while she cried, trying to have a bowel movement. This is the stuff of Motherhood.<p>My father was silent. I didn&#8217;t have a clue how he felt about the A/OC situation. I knew he was supportive, yet silent about it. I had been dealing with so much during the months prior to Christmas; D-day, Confronting OW on the phone, OW&#8217;s emails to H, filing to legitimate the baby before her birth, then the birth, DNA, and finally Court and visitation. I was totally unprepared for my Dad&#8217;s reaction to Lil Bit when we walked into their door. He took her from H and hugged her and nuzzled her. My heart was so tight watching this. My Dad loves kids. This I expected, but to see him hold her and then to tell her that he loved her was just so amazing. My mom also held her and rocked her. They took tons of pictures. I am sitting her teary eyed just thinking about that first magical night, and how blessed I am to have such wonderful parents.<p>My sister is another story. She is angry with me for staying. She is a divorced mother of 2. She lives with my parents. She fully expected me to leave H and move closer to my parents, if not in with them and her.
She has warmed a little to the idea of Lil Bit&#8230; but she is not yet ready to accept her as her niece. <p>My niece and nephew had already seen Lil Bit on the Webcam. They had already fallen in love with her even before Christmas. My niece is 8 and my nephew is 6, tomorrow. They are thrilled at having a new cousin, even though they don&#8217;t fully understand how she got here. They know that she is not &#8220;really&#8221; Aunt Stacia&#8217;s baby but they know I am Lil Bit&#8217;s Mommy. They don&#8217;t know about OW or anything about her, all they know is that they love Lil Bit, and that is as it should be.<p>My stepson is a sort of &#8220;on the fence.&#8221; He is angry with H for having done this. Yet, he is protective of his little sister. He doesn&#8217;t come around much, but I attribute that to his age and the life that he is leading. He didn&#8217;t want anything to do with Lil Bit at first, but now he will hold her and play with her. He is enjoying the role of Big brother again, as he has a younger brother from his mother&#8217;s 2nd marriage.<p>
I don&#8217;t yet know what the rest of my family; aunts, uncle, cousins, know or think. I do know that some aunts know about the situation. I know of one cousin that knows and she is supportive. I know that the aunts that know, are keeping it from my grandfather, my mother&#8217;s father. He is in his late 80&#8217;s and no one wants to upset him. I don&#8217;t know what they think will happen, but I am sure that he will find out at some point. <p>
Now, as for how I deal with this&#8230;. I deal with it the only way I know how. I pray. I talk to my family. I talk with my friends. I have been blessed with a VAST support group here at MB. Only God could have known what would happen in my life. And only God could have taken each aspect of my life and made the provisions for me. He provided so many things even before I needed them. I am continually surprised and grateful for all that has been done for me.<p>As for being accommodating, I will say that something that has me puzzled as well. If exOW was a &#8220;better mother&#8221; I don&#8217;t think I would worry about Lil Bit as much. I don&#8217;t think I could love her any less. I don&#8217;t think I could love a child of my own any more than I love Lil Bit. But because of the circumstances, I worry. And I will fight for what is best for Lil Bit.

H commented &#8220;There is nothing that you would take in trade for Lil Bit.&#8221;
I said, &#8220;Only one thing. And that would be for none of this to have happened. And your child would be biologically mine. It may sound like 2 things, but they go hand in hand as one.&#8221; <p>I would not want to lose Lil Bit for anything. I would love to go back and change how she came in this world, but I know that is not going to happen. And because of the love I have for Lil Bit, I will deal with exOW. I will do whatever is best for Lil Bit. NO MATTER WHAT!<p>If you want, we can exchange emails. I would love to talk further, without writing novellas&#8230; LOL.. but I guess I am notorious for that anyway&#8230;<p>
It&#8217;s not an easy road, but we are not traveling alone. We have each other.

Stacia,<p>Thanks so much, that would be great. I can be reached at Saltygal@bellsouth.net. I just feel so overwhelmed at times.
Part of our problem is that our visitation only occurrs every other weekend. With that schedule, we have the opportunity to get back to 'normal' life and when our weekend comes around I'm back at square one all over again. I think she's dealing with the infrequent visits in the same manner....it's hard for her to establish a bond with us when we only see each other twice a month and then sometimes, we have to miss due to other obligations.
If you email me, my responses may be a little slow because that's my home email address and I usually dont' sign on that often. I'm mainly at work when I use the internet, but I'm reluctant to use my work email address since the correspondace would be deemed company property.<p>Thanks!!!

Got your email! You can edit it out now if you'd feel better.<p>My email is [email]stacia_lee@hotmail.com [/email]<p>I check it periodically during the day. AND I use my work address as well... I will send you that address in an email.<p>My home address is with the same company as yours... Are you in the south too?? [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img]

Yep...in Charlotte, NC.<p>I was born and raised in Mount Vernon NY, but my H and I moved to Charlotte about 8 years ago.<p>How about you? Are you a 'Suthen Gal'?

Raised in Albion Michigan.
Moved to Tennessee with my parents in '91.
Married H in '93.
My parents moved to Mississippi in Oct '95 and my sister followed them in Dec '95. <p>So, now I am here in Nashville. <p> [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] so... I am a "Damn Yankee"... lol..
"Yankees come to visit, Damn Yankees come to stay!" [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img] <p>LOL...

Hi Stacia,<p>I haven't gone into my email at home yet, but I have some venting to do and I trust your input...<p>Our lawyer called last week stating that the agreement we reached a couple of months ago for visitation had to be formally typed up for the judge's signature. Well, she contacted xow and got some input from her.
We have every other weekend from Friday night to Monday morning. Quite liberal, but because of our schedules, we haven't really been able to comply. My H is a reservist and on other weekends we've done quite a bit of traveling to either his family or mines. Apparently, neither of us are ready to introduce her to our families so that meands we've gone for a couple of weeks without seeing her.
She asked our lawyer if my H could call or spend time with her during the week when he coudln't see her on the weekends, or just change the visitation schedule.
I have all kinds of emotions about the whole thing. On the one hand, I understand what she means and understand she's trying to do what's best for her daughter. On the other hand, I'm not at all comfortable with him calling during the week to talk to an 18 month old little girl. Not much sense there, and unaccompanied visitation is out of the question during the week. My H works nights so there's no way the visitaiton could take place on accpetable terms.
I feel like single parenthood was soley her choice. She knew the viable options, but chose to be supermom....now she wants more involvment and it bothers me.
Ultimatley, I want to support my H in doing what's right, but I'm tired of being the one to bear the burden.
We chatted briefly last night about just doing shared custody, that way we can get on with our lives with her in the picture. The every other weekend schedule is too sporadic for us to ever get used to the idea of her being in our lives forever....not just a dirty little every other weekend secret.
I need your thoughts....
thanks!!

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Stacia_Lee:
[QB]Raised in Albion Michigan.QB]<hr></blockquote><p>Bipolar is from Jackson and his aunt lives in Albion, his Mother is from Chelsea and we always stop at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. Go Blue!

Sorry, I didn't answer yesterday,
We are in the process of moving so my computer is down right now.<p>I am at work right now... I haven't really read your post to get all the details.. I will read it fully on my next break.. and get back to you.<p>
Catnip,
TOO COOL! I used to spend tons of time in Jackson! One of my closest friends is still in Jackson...

Matthew6:14,15…<p>Do you and H have an idea of what you could fit into your schedule? <p>I would suggest sitting down, laying out your schedules and finding what would work for both of you. Then taking that to your lawyer and have that incorporated into a visitation schedule. It seems to look better to a judge when both sides are giving input as to what works best for their schedules.
As for phoning an 18-month-old, has she had much contact with H? Or is this all very recent? (I admit I need to go back and familiarize myself with your story) Many little ones love to hold the phone and act like they are talking but it doesn’t last long. I don’t see any real benefit to the child for numerous phone calls during the week. BUT, if you and H can arrange them where you would be involved I would almost bet that exOW will discontinue them because she(exOW) wouldn’t have exclusive “chat time” with your H. <p>At some point in OC’s life it will come to the point where your family and friends will know about her. My suggestion is go ahead and introduce her to them. Take your time. I wouldn’t rush it. They need the chance to either accept or reject her. Give them the opportunity. You need to know how they feel. That way you can make arrangements with the visitation. Secrets always come out. And the sooner the better for you. They are better dealt with in the open, in my experience.<p>When deciding what time you can devote to visitation, remember to include everything you do on a normal basis. It helps when you have a guideline to follow.

Our “parenting time” is set up VERY liberal. We have Lil Bit from Wednesday nights until Sunday mornings, EVERY WEEK.
ExOW didn’t want H to have anything to do with Lil Bit if he stayed with me. She even told the GAL that she didn’t want me around her and went on to spout lies about my mental status.
The referee had originally set visitation every week from Thurs morning until Sunday morning. When exOW threw her fit about keeping me out of Lil Bit’s life and whined about not being able to make it in the morning on Thurs, was when the GAL changed the schedule to Wed. night. SO exOW was the one to give us more than half the week. She had no clue what she had done.. and still doesn’t know.. let alone care.<p>I hope this helps some…

Matthew6:14,15<p>Were you and H able to discuss the schedule?<p>My H and I have been talking about what we need to talk over with our attorney. <p>It continually amazes me the scope of what this has caused us to examine in our lives.<p>
I hope all is well with you.
Still Prayin', [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]