For anyone new to my blog, "He" is Shiloh's brother, Will, who was also placed for adoption. Richard and I were to be his adoptive parents until we had to back out for various personal reasons.
Aside from their chubby cheeks, I have a hard time finding similarities between Shiloh and Will. However, they are both awesome sleepers and had blocked tear ducts early on (Shiloh's fixed itself, but Will had to have his opened). Also, Will's a screamer, too. And by screamer I mean, at random times he'll just let out an ear piercing scream.
We had a wonderful evening together. Laura and Jeff (Will's parents) are so nice, exactly as they were in the hospital, and were so welcoming. Laura made an awesome dinner of homemade lasagna, breadsticks and salad; complete with homemade salad dressing. After we ate I told Laura a visit at my house is out of the question. My online pizza ordering skills won't compare to her cooking skills.
I spent most of the time huddled around the kitchen counter with Kim talking and playing with Will while Laura cooked. Shiloh spent most of her time running around with Will's older brother, Charlie. She had SO much fun with him and they played so very well together, with no fighting/arguing whatsoever.
Overall, it was a great evening and I'm hoping that now that we've gotten the first visit out of the way, we'll have many more with all of us.
I want to touch on Shiloh and Will's relationship real quick. I'm sure some of you are wondering about it. Considering this is the first time she's met him, they really don't have one. When Will was first born we thought we'd see him on a somewhat regular basis, so we showed Shiloh pictures and talked about him with her. Once we realized we had no idea when she'd see/meet him, we backed off. I'm pretty sure all of the talking we were doing was going in one ear and out the other anyway. I mean, how do you explain to a just-turned-two-year-old that she has a brother who she has never met? Especially since at that point in her life the word brother meant absolutely nothing to her. I did talk about Will with Shiloh on Tuesday evening (the night before our visit), just to try to explain to her who we were going to see. I basically told her that Will grew in Kim's belly just like she did. Adoption isn't a topic we touch on a lot in our family. When my sister was pregnant with my niece I discussed with Shiloh how she grew in Kim's belly, but that's about the extent of it. I don't want to push it on her, and when I bring it up she doesn't engage herself in the conversation, so I leave it at that. Right now we focus more on nurturing Kim and Shiloh's relationship. As she gets older we'll touch more on the terms and who's who. For now, she knows Kim, she's as comfortable with Kim as she is with any family member, and, for us, that's enough.
Some of you may also be wondering if I was affected at all by our visit. I know that was Richard's first question when we got home. I think that not seeing him for almost year was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Leaving the hospital after visiting him was physically painful for me. I hurt for myself, of course, but even more so for Shiloh. I failed her. She had this awesome opportunity to be raised with her sibling, and we screwed it up. I spent some time on the kitchen floor the next day "talking" to God, trying to make sense of everything. Definitely not one of my best moments.
Anyway. After a year I, of course, felt no attachment to him and, if anything, it was kind of weird looking at him knowing that he is related to Shiloh. I told Richard, after we returned home, that this is a side of adoption that I never even imagined. I will admit that I did spend some time later that night looking at pictures I'd taken, trying to imagine Will a part of our family/as my son, but looking back, knowing the things I know now, I can honestly say and see that he wasn't meant to be ours. If he couldn't be raised by Kim, he's definitely with the family that was meant for him.
Moving on to what some of you have been waiting for... I have the cutest picture of Kim, Will and Shiloh that I would love to post, but it seems that lately I have more than my
1 comment:
I'm glad it went so well. The pic of Shiloh and Kim is adorable. And I want to see the one with Will! :c)
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