{Originally Published on Production, Not Reproduction}

I haven’t said anything about my daughter’s first (birth) dad in awhile. Truthfully, I’ve not known how to comfortably approach it here. I am sorting through conflicting thoughts and feelings about him. It is hard to know what is appropriate to share.

After a chance meeting at a pizza place with an adoption agency social worker, he did go into the office to meet with her before Firefly was born. It was…less than positive. He had already made clear that he felt no obligation toward Beth (our daughter’s first mom), and as of now he apparently feels no obligation toward his daughter either. Nobody has heard from him since.

My husband and I have never spoken with him. We’ve never even seen a picture of him. We know his name and his age and some sketchy medical history. My amateur sleuthing hasn’t turned up any online presence for him, so I can’t peek at his life through Myspace or Facebook. He is a complete mystery to me. Yet he is one-half of my daughter’s genetic heritage.

This is uncharted territory for our family. Our son’s first dad, Ray, has been around from the beginning. It’s easy to include him in what we say to Puppy: “Kelly and Ray made you, they took care of you, they decided we would be parents to you. You have his smile, his hair, his eyes.” Ray underscores it all through his continued presence in Puppy’s life. I feel like Firefly’s story thus far has a glaringly missing player. What do I say about a man who chooses to ignore her? What do I say about a man about whom I know next to nothing?

One day before Firefly’s birth I sat down with Beth and laid how we had approached our relationship with Puppy’s first parents. Our priority has always been maintaining healthy relationships for Puppy. So our separate relationships with Kelly and Ray are our business and their relationship with each other is their business–we don’t take sides when there is friction between them and Puppy doesn’t get put in the middle of anything. I told Beth that we knew Firefly’s dad hadn’t done right by her. That we didn’t want her to think that us wanting a relationship with him meant we condoned that or didn’t care about it. Yet none of that changed the fact that Firefly still deserved to know him. The only thing we would expect from her would be to not to stand in the way if he ever started up a relationship with us.

It’s not that cut and dried, of course. It’s not like we can truly separate everyone into their own corners of our life. Beth is the one who is becoming our friend, who vulnerably opened up her life to us–and who received us likewise. She’s shown her commitment to this budding open adoption in myriad ways. Her opinions matter to us, including her opinions on Firefly’s dad…

Originally published on The Calm Before the Stork.

So, lesson number one postpartum: Don’t set your blog readers up for a two or three part series when you barely know if you’ll be sleeping any day soon.

When I sat down to write that first post-birth post, in a fit of adrenaline (post-mama’s-first-meconium, ahem), I had the story all mapped out in my head. But once I’d finished the birth part, I needed a nap.

I still need a nap.

But I must finish the story.

Suffice it to say, or rather, in summary, in short: My baby was starving.

They tell you that the baby comes into this world with about three days’ worth of fat stores. Enough to keep him going while he and you learn how to breastfeed him on the meager yet thick drips of colostrum, until your milk comes in.

I was able to get something that looked like latching going on that first night in the hospital. The night nurse, a young black woman with a thick island accent, oversaw these attempts. The baby was crying. A lot.

“Oh, he is hungry! And he is frustrated! Oh yes, he is very very frustrated,” she said, over, and over, and over, and over, about 17 times, in a singsongy voice.

I didn’t sleep that first night.