Biomom visit - therapist office

Well it's over, and it went as smoothly as could be hoped.

Therapist office - no kids

Biomom was already there when we got there. We talked to her for a few minutes while waiting for the therapist to finish his earlier session. She thanked us for allowing the visit. She gave us some pictures of herself and the girls (bio sibs that still live with her). We talked about babies in general. Her youngest daughter is only 4 months old, it was hard for Biomom to leave her behind. I found out that Kitty walked at 9 months, Bear walked at 14mo and didn't talk until age 2. He was 2 when Kitty was born and Biomom said until then she and he had been best buds. On the day he was brought to the hospital to see Mom and new baby, she said he went to a corner and refused to speak. She said that was when the trouble started between them.

Her daughters had cried and wanted to come on this visit. Biomom mentioned that her best friend had come, but they had decided it was better if she wasn't at the meeting (I agreed). Kitty has talked about the best friend, and mentioned that she wanted to apologize to her. I asked Biomom to pass this along.

During the therapy session, Biomom admitted that she did not want this visit to be about closure, and almost cancelled. Her wish to see the kids won out. She was very grateful to Hubby and I for taking care of the children. She does seem to have gotten her life together and told us she is in therapy. We learned a little more about some of the kids' background. Kitty has always claimed that she bit people all the time. Biomom said Kitty never bit, but Bear went for blood and always broke the skin. Biomom gave us a few more details about some abuse that happened to Kitty at age 4.

One of the hardest things to hear was that Bear has been secretly contacting Biomom and one of her ex-husbands. Despite his claims that he hates her, he contacted her as recently as a month ago. She says she has changed her phone number recently. He has told her many tales, even told her that Hubby hit Bear with a baseball bat! We reassured her that this of course never happened. That Bear has grown a lot, and is no longer as angry, although of course he still has issues. (When asked about this, Bear of course denied it. He claims he only talked with her when she was at Biograndma's house. I believe Biomom on this one. We'll probably look at the phone bill. I told him he needed to tell us when he was contacting biofamily or Biomom's ex-husbands.)

Kitty's therapist got lost and showed up 5 minutes before the session ended. She asked how Kitty and Bear interacted. Biomom said that Bear parented everyone, including her (he tried this with me too when he first got here). She said that he didn't really spend a lot of time with the girls or anyone. Sounds like Kitty shut down when he was abusive to her and that she passed this abuse on to her sisters.

We talked about relationships with biofamily. Biomom admitted to having been physically abused by her step-father (who is still married to her mother). She confirmed that her biofather was an alcoholic. We discussed biofamily and who it would be safe for the kids to continue to have a relationship with. There were several family members that she didn't recommend allowing continued contact with - including Bear's biodad. She stated that Biodad had substance abuse issues and has been in and out of jail. She had not encouraged Bear to have a relationship with Biodad. She said it was she who had taken Bear to meet Biodad (he claimed it was his Grandfather). Currently Biodad has not been communicating with Bear (that we know of).

Kitty was waiting in the lobby.