My Birth Dad

I have three Dads; I have my birth dad who is obviously the one that provided the other half of my genetics as well as my (and Nate’s) amazing eyes, thanks guy!  Then you have my Dad, the man that has been in my life for as long as I can remember and the one who I am referring to when I say ‘my Dad’ and then I have my Step Dad who has been there for me through the teenage years and now.

I don’t talk about my birth dad much because the majority of my family, I don’t want to say unsupportive as much as they don’t understand my need to know who the guy is or my want to know the other half of my family.  After I had Nathaniel that back of my mind feeling turned into ‘I need to somehow let these people know I have had a child and so I asked my Grandma for my birth Grandfathers address.  I don’t remember what I wrote him or told him but I’m pretty sure I sent him pictures of Nathaniel and told him I had had this baby and felt like I needed to let them know.  I was shocked when my Uncle emailed me and surprised when we began talking through emails so easily and getting to know each other.  My whole life I had felt abandoned by that side of my family, I of course didn’t know anything other then what a three year old could pick up on but they didn’t have a choice really.  They (my Uncle and Grandfather) wanted to be a part of our (my brother and I) life but it couldn’t happen or as time went on they didn’t know how to or how we would feel about it. I now know that it has always bothered them and they know that it bothered me.

I was able to meet my Uncle, Aunt, cousins and Grandfather in August of 2011 and it was beyond amazing but I maintained that I didn’t want to meet or talk to my birth father, it was still too painful.  You try to convince yourself that it doesn’t matter but then you have a child of your own and you get angry again because you can’t understand how someone could decide to give that up.  Since then, I have been in contact with him, first it was occasional holiday emails and now I share about Nate, Abby or myself and my life and he has been sharing a little about his.  We have talked about what happened when I was younger and he answered the questions I had about it and if I have any new ones he will tell me.  While I don’t understand his decisions (and he doesn’t completely either) it is easier to understand that people make bad choices and my mother and him were very young.  I’m able to choose to forgive and move forward and realize that there are more years ahead then there are behind.  Without Nathaniel, I never would have gotten to this place and that’s just a fact.  He made me want to reach out and he made me realize that it is completely unfair of me to deny him a part of himself just because I didn’t get to have it.  I can stop that, give myself the other parts of me and give Nate the other parts of himself and I’m proud of that.  I’m proud of myself.

I don’t know where the relationship with my birth father will go but I’m glad that I’ve finally gotten the nerve to tell people about it and now I’ve blogged about it.  I was scared for so long to share about connecting with my birth family but I’m not anymore.

Linking up with my friend, Shell, for her Pour Your Heart Out!