Here I sit, trying to decide what to write. Do I discuss all that was both right and wrong about the theatrical G.I. Joe film I saw last night? Do I talk about how my 6 year old is enjoying the half-day sports camp this week? Do I put down some thoughts about how other parents don’t have a regular bedtime for their young children and I think it’s detrimental to their overall health?
*sigh*
I suppose I should “bite the bullet” and get some of the Kyle story out of the way. It’s a long story, as in really long and overly complicated and convoluted, so I’ll have to condense quite a bit of it. Also there’s some legal stuff that I’ll have to skim over.
The relationship that I had with his biological mother was… I think the best way to describe it is Loud And Complicated. It was a relationship that started off too quickly and quite hot, and before we knew enough about each other she was pregnant. We were together for maybe a couple of months when this happened. We knew that things weren’t working between us, but we agreed to try and work things out for the sake of our child.
One of the things that we had agreed on was that she would move out of my apartment (yes, after just a very short time she had moved in – I told you things started out too quickly) which would give us each some space to work on the relationship. Her moving out didn’t go exactly as planned, and involved her throwing stuff at me and then me kicking her out. That was the middle of June through the beginning of September.
The birth mother then vanished, and I got a letter when Kyle was born. The name she had picked out for him was not what we had agreed on, nor did we agree that she would simply skip town with our child. About a year and a half later I got another letter from her saying that certain events had happened and she wanted me to be a part of Kyle’s life. This was great. For not quite 6 months I got to be part of my son’s life – taking him to the doctor, to the park, etc.
In December of 1993 I met the woman who would be my wife. Right after I met Laura, the birth mother disappeared with Kyle again. The two events were not connected in any way, but I mention them together because that month will always be remembered as one of the roughest times in my life. I was going through a lot of other stuff (such as managing a band that got a record contract the week after they broke up) so this period of time is simply… well, it was rough.
What ensued over the next 4 years was a very long and expensive fight that involved child support through the State of Washington, trying to locate my son, drug tests(!), and a lot more.
Then, in January of 1998 Laura and I got home and there was a message on our answering machine from the birth mother that Kyle was in Children’s Hospital and we could take him if we wanted.