Mom's master plan!

My own adoption doesn’t really come up all that often in real life. In fact adoption doesn’t come up all that often IRL, unless I’m telling Hilary some latest story from one of the forums.

So it caught me a bit off guard when it did come up, especially given the topic starter: my Mom. (Please note: language in the adoption world can get very confusing – as in which Mom does she mean? I prefer to not have to use adjectives every time I refer to some one, like adoptive mom and first mom, so I use Mom and Dad to refer to my adoptive parents and Iris to refer to my first mom. Cuts down on the confusion, and its how I refer to them IRL too)

Anyhoo……

My Mom and I were on the phone planning some of the preliminary details of my trip home with Liam this June. We have all sorts of great things planned, like going up the CN Tower, going to the Ontario Science Center and other fun day trips. Then she asked if I planned on seeing Iris while I was in town.

In a matter of nano seconds, my thoughts went from

1) Defensive: “Of course I will go see her, what’s it to you?”
2) Loyal: “Wow, I hope that it doesn’t hurt her that I want to visit Iris?”
3) Suspicious: “Why exactly are you asking??????”

Some background: My Mom has ALWAYS been open with me about my adoption. She shared every scrap of info that they had with me, and even made sure to write down all the non-identifying info that the SW read from my file the day before they got me. She always said that they would help me search when I was ready, and was always willing to talk when I brought up. BUT I knew/sensed that it was never an easy topic for her. That and we have never been an emotionally close, bare your soul and bond kinda family.

This time on the phone however, my gut decided to go with option 3!

“I was planning to, why?” is what I got out. Well! My mom would like to meet Iris, or at the very least, make herself available to Iris if Iris wants to meet her. She did at least ask me if I would be okay with this too. To my mother’s credit, she knows Iris’ name and she knows where she lives (they live about 10 minutes away from each other) and she has refrained from showing up on Iris’ doorstep with a basket of muffins and saying “Hi! I adopted your daughter 37 years ago, can I come in?” Because really, she’s the kind of person that would do something like that!

Her master plan (because she has obviously been planning (or plotting!) this for awhile now) is that we all go to this great kid’s park that is ½ way between their homes. This is where Iris and I met last year for our visit, since I can’t go to her house in case Madelaine comes home early. This way, Liam has somewhere to play; Mom can meet Iris, visit for a few minutes and then busy herself playing with Liam so that Iris and I can have some private un-interrupted time. A brilliant plan she says! Everyone wins!

So the big question now will be if Iris wants to or is even willing to meet with her. Last year I took pictures of me growing up and included some of my parents. This was the first time that Iris had ever seen any pictures of me other then current ones. She did have a lot of questions about my parents and my up bringing, but I’m not sure if she is ready for a face to face.

I guess I have to pluck up my courage to call her (and risk getting hung up on - check out this post for why) and ask.