Before I go on to address my feelings of guilt from the last post, I wanted to answer a comment left by Heather and give a bit of background in case you missed it.

First the comment:

Just curious - how was the frequency of visits established? Is it something that developed over time or was it actually discussed?

In my situation, I asked for twice a year but never got it. It's more like once every two years.

Here’s my answer:

When we first talked with the caseworker about adopting K and bmom was relinquishing, we were having visit three times per week. Birth mom wanted to continue this, and the caseworker said something like “oh don't worry, she'll get on with her life and won't want the visits.”

I'm sorry to say I believed her.

Of course I know better now.

I’m more educated about adoption. I have a relationship with birth mom now. I’m different. She’s different.

You've probably heard a lot of stories like that.

So I've been slowly getting the visits down to something more manageable. And yes bmom and I have talked about it, but she wants lots of visits, and of course I don’t as many.

Right now we are at about every 2-3 weeks or so. This is so much better for me than the three times per week for the first year.

The three times per week was required by the courts when she was in foster care. After the adoption, we went down to twice per week, and then slowly to once per week until we are where we are now.

I’ve told birth mom that we’ll continue to visit as much as we can until school starts for K.

When school starts I don’t want to be running around trying to fit in visits all the time and I’ve been clear about it to her.

We’ll still visit a lot though; we live in the same town. It’s pretty easy.

Maybe once a quarter?

We’ve talked a little bit about as she gets older the visits will dwindle, but we’ll always get together at holidays, birthdays etc. so I imagine that we’ll visit at least four times per year for a while still.

Of course that’s my take on it. Who knows what life will bring. She’s got a new child, a boyfriend and her own family. She may change, I may change, and K will certainly have her own feelings as she gets to be older. Say by ten or twelve years old I’m sure she will have input.

What a ride!

Stay tuned for my next posts: the update on guilt and my answer to Dr. G comments!