I can’t seem to pump these blog posts out fast enough, now that my blogging mojo is back in full swing. Today is the last day of November and thereby the last day of Adoption Awareness Month. A few weeks ago I shared about the many ways my life has been touched by adoption, about my own adoption story and the stories of several people near and dear t me. Today I want to talk briefly about another side of adoption. It’s the more painful side. It pertains to the challenges and frustrations of relationship-building with a birth-parent(s).

November 21, 2008!

The first time I heard my birth father’s voice. It’s the first time I heard him say he loved me. I didn’t even know how to process that. I doubted it. I questioned it. I surely didn’t believe it. And, his behavior since that day really hasn’t elevated any of those initial thoughts. We have spoken on the phone half a dozen times since that initial conversation. To say that I an disappointed in how reconnecting with him has unfolded, would be an understatement. My relationship (if I can even call it that) with my birthfather is complicated at best. You’d think that a year later, I would know more than “name and rank”……

He lives in Daytona Beach, Florida with his girlfriend and her kids, as do nearly 100 other family members.

He owns a construction company.

He has a new cell phone number every couple of months.

I am the youngest of four on my birthfather’s side – two boys and two girls.

I have two half-brothers; Tony lives in TN and the other died several years ago.

My birth-father spend some time in California after returning to the US in 1980 (apparently I have a half-sister in either CA or AZ).

My birth-father’s brother and his wife seem more interested in knowing me than my birth-father does.

His family is from Cuba.

My great-grandmother on my birth-father’s mother’s side is Taino (I’d like to learn more).

I thought he would want to know me. I thought he would be interested in my life, where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing over the last 30 years. I thought he would make some kind of effort. I thought that time would have changed him. Silly, right?

The only time we talk is when I initiate the call. When we do talk, it’s all fluff, small talk, nothing of substance. He dodged every single question I ask. Call me crazy, but I feel as though he should feel sort of responsibility  and accountability, or at least be even remotely forthcoming with some information.

I’d like a relationship, but if I would have to choose, I’d just like some clarity. It’s not like he made a conscious decision to give me up. He just disappeared.

I am in aw of kids who have relationships with their birth-parent(s) either by way of open adoption or reconnecting later in life. While I know that the grass is rarely greener on the other side, it sure looks that way from the slab of concrete I am standing on.

I am not sure where to go from here, whether to give him another call only to do the same dance we always do, or whether to let it go. I have little faith that he will actually be moved to pick up the phone and call me. I guess only time will tell.