New Year’s is usually a low key thing here. For the past six or so years, I’ve been working at a three-day basketball tournament between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Three days of 12 hour days and six or seven basketball games back to back will have me running on empty.
So curled up on the couch last night on New Year’s Eve we sat down to touch base with some of our extended family. We had calls to return and make, so we hit speakerphone and got out our call list. Between going to Disney for a week, the holidays and the basketball tournament, we had been gone more than we’d been in it felt like!
We spoke to both of Hayley’s grandmothers and one of her aunts on her birthfamilies’ sides. We missed talk to them after Christmas due to scheduling and then being gone, so it was very important to talk to them and she enjoys it.
One of Hayley’s grandmothers asked if she could three-way call in her birthdad. I froze for a minute. It wasn’t something I was ready to do right then but I knew in my heart that Hayley was ready for the chat. It has been almost four years since she had spoke to him when she was about five. That was one of the few times she had even seen him because he didn’t know he was her birthfather for the first three years of her life.
I spoke to him first about how things should be handled and I knew his mother had done the same. She was shy at first but perked up some, especially went getting to talk to one of her little brothers for the first time. We talked about sports, Disney, school and all the basic things you chat with relatives about on the phone.
She ended the call with saying, “It was good to hear your voice” to her birthdad. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I knew we’d done the right thing letting her talk to him. I got an email from her grandmother today where she said he called back to talk to her after the chat and cried over talking to her.
I worried about my husband. I’ve been dealing the emotional ramifications of being the ’second mother’ but this was the first real tangible interaction with someone else who was her father too. Jeff is pretty strong emotionally and said it didn’t bother him. He was quick to chime in how great her comment about hearing her birthdad’s voice was to have made. I’ll have to take him at his word it didn’t bug him.
