Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying the unseasonably nice weather!
Dana
Waiting in Faith |
Okay, so I know that probably only about half of you know the full story about how Bella came to live with her dad instead of us. I'm going to attempt a brief summary of the custody situation from her birth until now. Okay, I'm going to have to start a little further back, but I'll try to keep it brief. When I was 18, I was told by a very smart doctor (now some high ranking official at Lilly), that I would never be able to have children, but that if I really wanted them, it would take severe fertility treatments, AND an Act of God. Tell a depressed 18 year old with self esteem issues, that kids are nearly impossible, and see what happens. Lol I became fairly promiscuous, and wound up with a surprise pregnancy when I had just turned 21. Bella's father was less than supportive, saying he hoped I'd have a miscarriage, etc. Well, I didn't, and 9 months later, Bella was born. Her father wanted little to do with her until she was about a year old. Then, he suddenly wanted to establish paternity and all of the rights, etc. He started getting Bella pretty regularly from then on. When Bella was 18 months old, she came home from his house with evidence of abuse. It was reported by doctors, as were the many, many, many other times that she came back from being with him, and had suspicious things to say and show us. Long story short(er), we wound up in court to try to protect her from whoever was abusing her under her father's care (if it wasn't him, he was at least permitting it to occur many times). After years of going back and forth with the court, and court ordered counseling for us all, (and a joke of a child advocate) the court finally decided that HE should have custody, and I should have supervised visitation. This was 1 week before her fifth birthday. Everyone was in shock. Even my lawyer couldn't believe it had come out that way. Bella and I had been very, very close before we lost custody. Unfortunately, we not only lost custody, but we had only supervised visitation for about a year, which meant that certain topics were not allowed, I couldn't even be in a room alone with Bella for 5 seconds, and our relationship started to suffer. Phone contact was only allowed if I had not recently offended her father somehow, or if he was in a good mood. That all got better eventually, but by then, Bella had come to believe that I was somehow less of a parent than her father, and our close relationship was all but gone. Then, fast forward to two years ago, when we tried to get custody back. Her father had been doing some really bad stuff (NEVER telling me when doctors appointments were, just stuff like that), and we had the best chance yet of succeeding in getting her back. I asked Bella, and she said she did still want to live with us, so we went for it. A few months into the process, Bella tells the court interviewer that she does NOT want to live with us, and so the custody stayed mainly the same (I got a few extra hours a week). When I found that out, I was crushed. Especially, when I found out that the reason she had said that was because she didn't want to be homeschooled (nobody had ever said anything about her being homeschooled, and I had actually planned on sending her to a Catholic school halfway between my house and her dad's!). If she had said something to me before saying that to the interviewer, or if the interviewer had done his job PROPERLY, and given me the chance to explain, Bella would probably be living with us now. But that isn't how it went. So, everything went along as it had been, and I tried my very best not to let what Bella said to the interviewer affect how I felt about her, or have an effect on our relationship. Then, a couple months ago, Bella started pulling away more. She'll be 13 in March, so I figured she just needed that space, and that I was no longer "cool" enough to talk to or want to hang out with, since every time I tried to talk to her, or Emma tried to talk to her, she would just stare at her phone, and grunt or say "uh huh" or "okay" in a bored &/ condescending tone. So, we stopped trying to include her in conversation, etc. She was always welcome to join in, but we stopped straining to get her to have an opinion about anything. Then, I called her last night (as I do EVERY Tuesday and Wednesday at the allowed time). I was telling her about our day, and her voice sounded off, so I asked her if she was okay (she's always sick...colds and flus mostly), and she started saying that she thinks I love Emma more than her. Why, you ask? Because I spend more time with Emma than Bella, and because when Bella's with us, I talk to Emma more. I tried to explain to her that I do spend more time with Emma, but she lives with us, and she's 7...she still needs me more than Bella does, plus she's homeschooled, so we're ALWAYS together. As for the talking, I told Bella that I try to talk to her, and it always feels like she doesn't want to talk to ME, so I was trying to respect that, and give her some space. I asked her if she had any ideas on how to fix this, and she didn't. So, we just left it that we'd both think about it. So, apparently I'm officially the parent of a teen now. My kid thinks I hate her. Ugh. I obviously feel like a giant, steaming pile of poo now. So, I guess when she comes over on Thursday, we're going to have to have a deep talk about how we got to this place, and how we can get back to a good relationship. Then, when she comes for a couple of weeks at Christmas, I'll have to make a special effort to get her alone, so we can have time just the two of us. And now I feel guilty for loving Emma as much as I do, and wanting to do fun stuff with her. I'd do fun stuff with Bella too, but she acts like she barely wants to acknowledge my presence most of the time, and besides, when she IS here for a weekend, we try to do stuff as a family, and save fun, family activities for when she can be here, so it's hard to carve out special time for just the two of us. If this is the kind of thing I'm in for the next several years...I better get stock in wine! I was so heartbroken last night after talking to her, that now I'm doubting if I want to try so hard to have another baby. I know this will pass, and I will still want another one (if only to better my odds of having at least 1 kid who likes me at any given time), but right now, I feel like a parenting failure, and like I should just focus on Bella, but then I don't want Emma to start feeling neglected. How do big families do this??? I only have two, and I feel like I'm drowning. I thought having a toddler was hard...they have nothing on teenagers...it's a whole other kind of hard.
Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying the unseasonably nice weather! Dana
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September 2017
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