another set of in-laws

i haven't posted in a while because i've been hiding.

when we were just weeks away from adoption day social services sent us an email that the grandparents had contacted them and were wanting to know when visits with the kids would start. uuuuum....a year and a half ago! where have they been??? i shook in my boots all the way to the courthouse just sure the adoptions wouldn't go through because they had re-entered the picture. we met with them and laid as low as possible until they were officially ours.

now it's almost a year later and i still don't know how to process this new set of in-laws. that's how it feels. they aren't quite my family, but they are related. i've been told i have to love them, but i have nothing in common with them. don't get me wrong, i love my real in-laws. but we've been working on this relationship for over 9 years now. and now all of a sudden i feel like social services handed me another set to break in. and i'm not really happy about it. paul and i met with them alone and then we met with them with the kids. it went well. their grandfather is a sweet sweet man that both paul and i would like to get to know better. but he speaks no english. which means, we have to have step-grandma come everywhere we go to translate and i know a teeny tiny bit of spanish...and it's enough to know she is not translating everything we say. and i want him to know some of these stories. and i want him in our lives. and i'm sure the kids will want him in their lives someday too but with out being able to talk to him we're stuck with this extra grandparent that honestly makes me unsettled. i don't know what it is that makes me unsettled about her. she tries, she really does. but there's just something that makes me want to stay quiet and not say anything when i'm around her. i don't like that feeling and i have spent enough time in my life with people that make me feel uneasy like that and i don't trust them. i'm quick to judge and very often wrong.

earlier this summer my case worker, who encouraged us to have this relationship, mentioned that one of her kids was terminally ill and i asked if it was one of her birth kids or adopted kids and she said "it doesn't matter...but it's one of my biological kids." and it took me a while to process why did i ask that? what did it matter? why did she respond that way? and then i realized...if karyssa were terminally ill the first thing i would want to do is get her birth dad back in her life. for him to have closure. she is his baby too. wouldn't it be fair to give him closure just like i would want if the tables were turned? and i realized this woman, our case worker, who guided us through this potentially torrential relationship chose to do the exact OPPOSITE that she encouraged us to do. and i feel wronged. i listened. i obeyed in a way because i didn't know what else to do. and i gotta be honest, my adopted family all encouraged me not to pursue this relationship and now i understand why they said that.

so. all of this to say...we're still muddling through this in-law thing and i've been hiding since i got an email from them 2 months ago that still remains unanswered. i know i need to respond but i don't know what to say other than to send a gift certificate for rosetta stone. *sigh*