Halloween marks 4 years since Izzy and I met in person.

It just occured to me today that 4 years ago on Halloween I met Izzy!! The thought came to me to send her flowers and I may do that as a way to celebrate it.. However, if I am honest with myself.. I can't afford to spend the money. I am still recovering from taking out a loan to fix my breaks! I almost got an 800 dollar loan paid off!! Woot!!

So maybe I will send her an Halloween card and acknowlege our 4 year date of meeting even though our communication right now is slim to none.

I am trying to blog more on my private blog so jump over there from time to time.

Save a life of a dog

Izzy's friend posted a website for a dog that needs some medical attention. I thought I would share it on there too.. Go check it out here and donate as much as little as you can and spread it around facebook or blogging please.

An odd dream

A few nights ago, I had an odd dream. I had found Izzy's birthfather (Todd's) family on facebook. I say it's odd cause I never met them so I never gave them much thought. I know he was adopted but got the feeling they were not close. In my dream, it wasn't clear to me had I found his adopted family or birth family.

When it comes to his Adopted family them and Izzy are no where near related.. I mean I guess they are but it's so far removed that I wouldn't consider them much.

However, Izzy has a set of biological parents that gave Todd up for adoption and then Izzy was given up for adoption. That sure is a lot of broken up families just in those two. It's kind of sad. The dream made me wonder did Todd ever find his birth family? Or even if Todd or his birth family is still living?

I wonder what he is doing today? Does he think of Izzy? Does he think of me and if he does what does he feel when he thinks of me? Anger, resentment? warm fuzzy feelings from an young love? guilt? I feel like he is part of Izzy's story that is lost forever due to me not remembering his last name. It's not that I didn't once know it.. It's just that it was hard to pronouce and my memory is fuzzy from that time frame.

I don't really know what Izzy feels about the missing link.. I know once when I brought it up that I had seen someone that reminded me of him that if I ever ran into him.. she would want a picture but I don't recall if she would want contact.

It's almost impossible for Todd to find his lost daughter without coming to me first. I only say that cause he didn't know a name and I don't believe he knew a birthdate.. I imagine he would try to find me and that shouldn't be really hard. My last name was pretty easy to say, spell and my guess is that he would be able to find me thru some of my family that still carry that last name.

I guess only time will tell if we are meant to both see our daughter again.

Weekend getaway

I am going away on a retreat for Mom's with special needs tonight!! I am so excited! I wish there was a retreat for birthmom's close by to me! I think that would be an awesome thing to do. I have heard of one but it would involve planes and more money I have to spend and I don't travel well.

This is my 3rd or 4th year year going. I have lost track. I look forward to it each year at the end of the summer.

This year I suggested we do a clothing exchange and I have a huge box of clothes to bring. I hope others bring stuff too. It should be fun! I agreed to take everything to the goodwill that doesn't find a new home. but I believe one of the Mom's has a yard sale every year thru her church to help raise funds for her son's care so I might just save the leftovers for that.

Here is a most recent picture of my son! He will be staying an extra weekend with his Dad!

I plan on taking a little bit of a diet and logging break of my calories while I am gone but hopefully not by too much. They do the cooking and mostly serve us so the option to pig out isn't really a big option. They do tend to have little candies laying around but also fruit too.

I plan on getting a workout in before I leave and hopefully a little walk while I am there and then I will be home in time on Sunday to get my workout in. I am so close to my weight loss goal but the scale keeps teasing me.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Follow up post

I thought I would do a follow up post from the last one. It wasn't the "I wish" that got me upset.. I felt that comment was right on for how she probably feels about the situation. It was the "you assume we don't have car payments" that I thought was harsh.. I know it's bad to assume so I get that I was never given all the details. I know she bought her car from the newspaper.. what I assumed is that she paid cash.. So I am guessing she got a loan.. I just thought how she handled my mistake was kind of rude.

Thanks everyone for all the comments. It did help me feel better. Sometimes, I need a reminder that I am not the only one who is dealing with loss and reunion struggles. She has never spoke up sadness over adoption or reunion but that doesn't mean hurt and anger isn't there.. Or it all maybe fine with her but maybe she is happy with the little contact we have.

I haven't gone into a lot of detail about my loss or how hard reunion at times is for me. She has no idea that I blog about adoption or reunion. I really don't know how she would feel about it.

I do feel that Izzy has something eating away at her but don't know if it's adoption related or not.. or maybe I am looking too much into a situation.. I am trying to compose a post about her weight in my private blog but so far it's coming along very slowly. So there. I said it. I am concerned about her weight and wonder what is eating at her for her to eat so much? Or is it just as simple as too big of portions and not enough daily activity? and I am way off on her having some emotional trouble driving her to eat to get to the size that she is? I have a lot of unknowns about it.

I wonder if she has anger towards me cause I am hitting my weight loss goals and she has failed at her attempts to lose weight and keep it off? It's just a thought.. I will try to keep working on my post in my private blog cause to go further in this topic probably should be private.

I wanted to also add that I love Izzy no matter what her size or the amount of contact we have.. That doesn't mean I don't get hurt, feel sad or anger towards her or the situation.

The relationship between a birthmom and her birthdaughter is a tough one. I normally don't use term birthdaughter but it fits for this post.

We don't know each other like Mom and daughter. We don't have 23 years of memories as a Mom and daughter typically would have as if I had rasied her. We have been in contact for 5 years now. It's been 4 since we met each other face to face. I believe she moved away from home after about two years of face to face contact. So we only had a short while where we both were easily available to the other person.

It's hard to know what to talk to her about. I used to share things with her about my sons when things were tough but I don't feel that is right for her to hear about that stuff. I wouldn't want her passing judgement on things I said based on our bad days.. Either on them or thinking to herself thank God I escaped that horrible Mother.

I don't like talking to her too much about money struggles with her. I would feel like she might feel again thank god I got away from that.. I have no problem telling a close friend our struggles cause I have known her a long time and we have spent many hours over a good ten year period knowing quite a lot of stuff from each other. I don't fear my good friend judges me not does she have the same kind of thing going on where she could have been raised in my environment.

Relationship issues are kind of weird too! Maybe that is the closest ones to normal that I can think of right now. I really don't want to discuss my marriage problems or my husband's and mine's sex life about too little or too much. haha.. With my best friend nothing is off limits. Not that we sit around for hours discussing sex or marriage troubles but it's not off the table. I say this is simliar to normal for a Mother and daughter cause the topics I mentioned wouldn't be talked about with my children that I raised either.

Izzy and I had a lot in common when we both were trying to lose weight and being sucessful with it! We could really get a good conversation going about our good choices, calorie ccounting and workouts. I don't think it's quite a comfortable conversation for her anymore because she isn't losing weight and it's possible she has gained it.

Izzy is into extreme couponing but I haven't heard much about it online lately. I tried to talk to her about that to get tips but I just couldn't get into it nor could I understand how she got some amazing steals.

Izzy is really into crafts right now!! I am not sure where she got such a creative mind from. It's not that I am not interested in creating stuff but seems like I have moved past that stage in my life. She is actually trying to sell her items on a website. I checked out the website and it's pretty neat looking stuff.

Izzy is really into old items and going to flea markets and stuff like that! I am not sure if her parents on the same. My Mother is like this to a certain extent but my Mom also does this kind of hunting for old items to turn around and sell them. Izzy is also really creative with fixing up old stuff and making it look nice. I have done this sort of stuff once with an old dresser. I think sometimes money problems keeps my creative side down. When it comes to having kids to feed and cloth.. Mom doesn't get a lot of extra money to spend on herself. I wonder if Izzy parents are simliar and that is where she got it from. I believe her Mom rents a store that sells used odd's and ends. My aunt who knew Izzy's parents is simliar to my Mom so it's possible she got this collecting thing from her parents.

Thanks again for all the comments! It does help to remember she may have her own stuggles too.

Ouch! That hurt!

I admit that a lot of my communication these days with Izzy is just on facebook! I don't know her as much as I would like to. A big part of that is cause she lives far away and another part is I feel she doesn't give me enough time to visit when she does come home and I just don't have the income to travel and I hate traveling with a passion and don't know how to travel.

Well, anyways, today, I felt like she was rude to me and wonder if it is a hint of some anger issues with me.

Back story is that I remember that I believe both of the cars they drive were bought used off of people in the newspapers and even though we never discussed if they have payments or not I assumed she paid cash for her car.. Now his car.. I don't recall if it's the same car or not but again I never got the impression they had car payments..

You know what Assume stands for...

Ass
out
of
u
and
me

So basically she had posted on facebook about one or both cars always having a recall or a breakdown.. and again thinking that the cars were paid for I said something to the extent of being happy they are not paying car payments and fixing cars.. I only said that cause I know how that feels and again I thought they had bought the cars out right..

So she says "you assume we don't have car payments?"

I said, "I was sorry that I thought they had paid cash out right for the cars before they moved"

She replaied that "i wish"

AM I being extra senstive or what that rude of her to put it that way?

I might be sensative because while I love her I still just feel like she doesn't really care to know me.

Thinking of laying low and leaving her be for a while.

Private blog

I posted a couple pictures over on my private blog so for those that are following that you can go check them out. I know I haven't been blogging much on there at all. I hope to write soon about a topic that is close to my heart about Izzy. I just hope I don't come off as judgemental or not fully accepting her or loving her.. Cause all that would be very far from the truth. The address can be found here.

job change maybe?

I picked up a job application for my local YMCA today!! I been with my current job for 8 years.. I have two clients. One is 85 years of age and can he pretty high needs and it's almost a daily (evening) struggle. I work second shift for her. I have been with her for 4 years. It's her shift that mostly causes some issues for child care for my son. Even though he is 14 years of age we don't leave him alone. We have more bad days together than good.. Meaning I am not always sucessful with getting her to shower, stay productive and stay awake and most recently refusing medication because "I am out to make her go to sleep" We get pressured not to let her feed her dog cause he is fat. I get over half my hours from her. 20 hours per week.

My other client is 92 years of age and is in pretty good shape. I have been with her for over 2 years. We have mostly good days but there are times where it's stressful. We have more good days than bad and laugh quite a bit. I work during the day so during the school year this shift doesn't effect me being there for my son. I get less than half of hours from her.. (about 16 hours per week)

I babysit for a church on Sunday mornings and I love it. It's only about 2 hours and I get paid once a month for 100 bucks and I really enjoy going. It's on my day off so there have been times I been burned out from going but mostly when I go and there are not any kids showing up.

This gets me to the point of my post.. I know it's not adoption related but might help me to write about it.

I have a fitness buddy that works in the daycare where members can drop off thier children so they can workout. She says they are hiring and would put in a good word for me.

I was all set on applying and still plan on to fill out an application tomorrow but the idea makes me nervous.

My plan or wish is that I can pick up a shift or two once per week and drop one or two shifts from my clients.. I would rather it be the second shift client but I feel guilt over making this decision to follow thru.. this client still lives at home and my client's family really loves me.. what if me not being there three times a week seal the deal to put her in a home? I feel guilt because honestly I care more about the evening client due to the 4 years but she has changed so much that it's a challenge and I am stressed easily.

My pros for making this change are the following:

Discount with the YMCA.
I can bring my son with me to the YMCA.
I could work out before or after a shift.
The YMCA is closer.
I like babies and children and feel it would be less stressful to me.
Hoping that I can replace the evening shifts for day shifts.. less of a struggle for my son and rides for my husband for his job.

Cons maybe:

Might make less money per hour or don't get enough hours to replace the hours I give up.
Might regret not being there for my clients.
Unknown if I would enjoy being with children all day compared to a short 2 hour thing.
Afraid I might have to work more days per week to get my full time hours between all 3 jobs.
AFraid I may lose my weekend! Meaning two days off together.
Did I mention money? Big concern of losing money. I don't make a lot of money but can't afford to take a pay cut.
AFraid that this could actually cut into my workout time.. as in I been here all day.. I just want to go home!
Afraid my son might not like hanging at the ymca while I work if needed.

The YMCA has a policy for anyone to be hired they first have an open door group interview and they have a date next week. So my plan is to fill out the application and make sure I turn it in before the date and go to the group interview and go from there.