Birthmom's retreat

I have signed up for a retreat for birthmothers that is ran by birthmombuds! It's in May! I am pretty excited about this next adventure that is planned for me. We have a lot to get worked out to make this trip actually happen. It's in North Carolina. It happens to be actually a few hours away from Izzy lives.. It's a 12 hour drive for us but that doesn't include any stops.
I have anziety about traveling and can't travel great distances on my own. My husband has offered to drive me. We most likely will get a rental car. I believe the biggest hurdles will be finacing the trip but tax time should actually make this not really a big deal. Our other major hurdles will be who will stay with my son. I asked his Dad and he is actually planning a trip at the same time. We can't bring him with us because we expect to be gone about 4 days and two of them are school days. It was suggested we ask my ex mother n law but then their is the issue of how my son will get to school and back.

I will be staying in a hotel room during the retreat so I will have to put my husband up too.. so in some ways this will be a getaway for us because I of course will be sharing the room with him. Our other really big issue is our pets. We have 2 dogs, 3 cats, one turtle, one bunny and fish. We are debating boarding the dogs but that's gonna run at least 100 per dog.. but we don't know who we can trust to come in and take care of them.

The least of our problems is probably getting the time off work but I have yet to put in a request.

I just am thrilled at the idea of the chance to connect with other birthmoms and be around others that have experienced the same sadness and struggles that I have over the years. I am even more excited that my husband is willing to drive me all the way there. Let's just hope we can pull everything off.

My answer to a comment left.

The comment left was this..

Maybe Izzy does not know where she and you stand either. Maybe Izzy wants to be an aunt of your grandchild, participate in baby shower or something like that?
Could you suggest something like that to her?

I thought this would be a nice blog post instead of just answering in the comment section.

It's very true that there is a chance that Izzy doesn't know where she and I stand with each other. We really don't have a mother daughter relationship and I can't pin point what kind of relationship I would describe it as.. Truth is that I am closer to my sisters than I am with her. so I wouldn't call it a sister relationship.

However, out in public people have thuoght we were sisters because we look quite a bit alike and there is only 15 years apart in our ages.

I wouldn't call it a cousin relationship.. truth is I am not really in much contact with cousins except for facebook.. so maybe in a strage way if you take away our rare speed dating quicl visits.. At times it seems more of a superficial relationship based on knowing we are family but not really acting as family. However, I don't send gifts to my cousins nor do I miss them really. We do always embrace hello and goodbye. I don't know if that is cause she feels that is what I want or if she came from a hugging kind of family.

When it comes to big news in our lives I do try to tell Izzy before she learns about it on facebook. I do that because I believe somethings because she is important to me shouldn't be learned in that way. So, I did contact her about my son's girlfriend expecting a baby and I got message right back.. It tells me something. She does see my messages and chooses not to reply but since it was exciting writes me back asap.

Izzy has been included in a few of our celebrations over the years. A graduation party and a birthday party comes to mind. I was invited to her wedding reception but I do feel like around that time is around the time I noticed an big decline in our relationship.. That was also around her 23rd birthday.

I don't know for sure about a baby shower. I suggested to my son I could throw her one for his side of family but truth is I don't know a thing about throwing baby showers and I am not much of a party thrower. I am thinking about asking a friend for help and renting one of those outside shelters and giving her a shower in early June. The baby is due in July. I am antipating I may need to help with the costs of the baby but that is just my mind trying to figure how these two will support a baby on McDonald's pay..

Which gets me thinking that I met my first husband while working for McDonald's and we made it.. but not really.. cause we had to live with family for the first year.. My son and his girlfriend can't really live with me and keep their jobs cause they live about an ahour away.

Back to the actual baby shower.. If I throw one.. I will for invite Izzy to the baby shower but the thing is Izzy lives a good distance away from us. So Unless I get word about them taking a trip here which they often do.. I don't see her coming to a baby shower..They tend to come about twice a year but I don't think the timing would work right.

I will for sure let her know when the baby is born and tell her she is an aunt. It will be up to her to speak of it she doesn't want to be Aunt Izzy.

I think sometimes Izzy is testing my love for her.. I will try to remember to blog about that soon.

I will say I do feel good about not asking about the gift. I have backed my interacting with her a bit on facebook. I haven't quit speaking to her but really keeping it limited and not being all over everything she says.. not that I was on everything that came out of her mouth.

My week

I have had about ten days to spend with my little sister. I actually only worked one day out of those ten days so I had quite a bit of down time to hang with her and also other family members. It's hard being so far from her. She is working so hard in school and will graduate in May! So I am excited for her and we plan on making the trip for her graduation.

Sunday, we took a little trip to see Alex and his girlfriend. It's becoming more real that they are going to have a baby. I suggested the name Isabella if it's a girl and they seem to like it. My son likes the name Ashton if it's a boy. I am hoping for a girl. I am still worried how they are going to afford and manage a baby but we all make it work so I am sure it will be fine. My son's girlfriend doesn't want to move out of her Dad's yet and my son was talking about getting his own place. I found out what he pays and what he will pay if he would move. I actually suggested that he stay where he is cause it's going to cost double out on his own.

After, seeing my son. My sister, my Mom, Stephen baked a bunch of cookies. I actually mailed some cookies to Alex! It came with tracking and the postal worker pointed out tracking but said, "I am sure they will let you know when they get them" I found it ironic that had I been sending something to Izzy I would wonder if she would respond. I don't believe my son would get them and not contact me to say thanks.. but should be interesting.

Izzy is back on myfitnesspal logging her food and even liking some of my status on there. So that is a good thing.. maybe my head just gets to focased on making up my own stories about what is going on in her head since it's hard to know. Why don't I know where I stand? I guess fear of losing what little I have or hearing something harsh that I don't want to hear.

I will be starting a new work schudule tomorrow. I am going from a 5 day work week to a 4 day work week. This will give me a 3 day weekend off. This will make it so we are not searching for child care every other weekend and make it a little easier for me when events pop up on Saturday.

Follow up on the Chrismtas gift

It's beena week and half since Izzy got the Chrismtas gift that I sent her. It's not her normal behavior not to thank me for a gift but I know she got it since it came with tracking. I have decided that it's in my best interest that I don't question her about it. I don't think any answer will make me feel better so no need to question her to give her the choice to either choose not to reply cause she feels put on the spot ect.. or come up with an excuse as why she didn't write back.

So I will just leave it be. It is what it is and we just seem to be drifting apart.

I am feeling a bit better about the no contact from Izzy to say thank you for the gift. I walked to my best friend and she reminded me that I really haven't been getting a lot of contact from her anyways.. I did contact her to tell her about my son's girlfriend being pregnant and she wrote right away.. so that does tell me she gets the messages and depending on how exciting or interesting it is to her if she will respond..

I told my friend how that I need in the future to either send gifts expecting I might not even get a Thank you or not send them at all. She made a vailid point. I shouldn't have a relationship with her that mostly revolves around me sending her gifts. So I might have to go back and remind myself of this later but I don't believe I will send gifts to her anymore. I hope that doesn't sound wrong. I spoke to my friend about the difference of unconditional love and just being rude..

She believes she is being rude. If someone gives you something. You say Thank you! It's just how people with manners treat other people.

I do know from experience from interacting with her and watching her on facebook that she does have manners. As a matter of fact, the very same day she got my package she thanks her husband and someone else on facebook for a package. So call me out if I am reading into something but she has a problemw with me and I believe she did that on porpose to dig at me.

My son said she is rude and my friend commented that my son is only saying what I am thinking. I don't know where I will do from now on as far as contact with Izzy. I am thinking cards for holidays and birthdays but no gifts. I think I will keep my contact on facebook limited but I refuse to delete her. I don't think I could bring myself to do that.

I am still a birthmother that went years of not knowing if my child was alive or not and I can't go back to that.

Still no word on the gift. It's bothering more than I would like it to. Plus, my youngest son has deleted Izzy off of his facebook. He doesn't always communicate in a proper way and againsnt my best judgement I gave him his password.. he was doing a lot of page stalking and trying to talk to Izzy to which he never got a reply. She did contact me about him being on facebook all the time and said yea.. he is on there too much.

I tried telling my son that one has to give time for people to respond before contactng them again.. So his choice was to delete her. I just noticed this and when I asked him about it. He says I can send the friend request and take it away. She is rude. Sorry.. Stephen.. it's looking like she is rude.