Birth Family Visits

Our family didn't deal with birth family visits with our first son.  Once he moved from his emergency placement foster home to our concurrent (willing to foster or adopt) home, his birth mom essentially fell off the planet.  We think that is about the time she found out she was pregnant again, but that is a different story.

Sam has been having visits throughout his time in our home.  Although I don't know that it counts much...considering he only had a total of three visits with a family friend during the first couple weeks in our home.  We originally thought he would move there since she has his older brother whom she is in the process of adopting.  It is confusing and complicated, but Sam will not be living in that home.  The current visits are with birth mom and birth dad who just recently requested them once the court ruled that the court would not be providing birth mom and birth dad with a case plan...they are moving Sam into the adoptions unit.  Today's visit was the first time birth mom was present seeing as how she was just released from jail.

I feel divided in my thoughts regarding this whole process.  I think it is good for the birth parents to see Sam and see that he is being taken care of well.  I feel bad for the parents because they cannot get their acts together...some of the issues being mental capacities.  My heart breaks that there isn't family able to provide appropriate care for this special baby boy.  I know my husband and I are doing nothing wrong by taking Sam into our home and providing a family for him, but a part of me grieves Sam's loss already, and the adoption hasn't even taken place yet.

Pros of visits:
*The visits are supervised, and the supervisor is amazing in dealing with threat assessment and keeping the baby's safety the biggest priority.
*We will have pictures of birth mom and birth dad to show to Sam as he gets older and asks about them.
*Birth mom and birth dad will hopefully feel better about Sam being in our home.
*We have been able to get a better picture of what mental health issues and developmental delays look like in the parents, so we have a better idea of what we may encounter during Sam's lifetime.
*I have been able to send pictures to the birth parents, so they have some to hold onto.  We would be willing to continue sending small updates and pictures with them after the adoption is finalized.

Cons of visits:
*It is hard on my son, James.  He always asks for Sam a lot while he is gone and gets really clingy.  This is good because you can see a bond is forming between the boys, but it breaks your heart too.
*I am afraid it may give birth parents a false sense of being in their child's life.  At this point in time we do not feel it would be safe to have visits with the birth parents, but we would be willing to send a few pictures and updates a few times a year.
*I am not sure if visits will create attachment issues for Sam.  I imagine not, but I don't know what goes through a baby's head when you essentially hand them over to a stranger and allowed them to leave for a few hours being under the care of strangers (maybe not the best word, but the best I can think of right now).  I mean...we have had our boys baby-sat by our family members for short periods of time, so my husband and I could have a date or something, but in these circumstances, the baby is being left with familiar faces...people he is used to seeing in his life.

I don't know.  Like I said, I am torn on how I feel.  I am grateful we will have pictures of Sam's birth parents, but I wish we had the same for James.  I am glad Sam's birth parents at least wanted to see him, and I wish I could say the same for James.  My heart breaks for my two precious babies.  Sometimes when I think about their stories, it makes me cry for them.  Hopefully someday they will grow into confident, amazing young men who choose not to let their pasts define them.  That is a tiny tidbit of my prayers for them.