The biological father.

I have been holding off on writing this post, but he plays an important part of BB's story.I wasn't going to protect his name, but I'll just use a nickname. Dutch.

We first met on Andrews Air Force Base just before Obama’s second inauguration in 2012, he was working, getting everything ready for his section to march in the inauguration. A very handsome, intelligent and funny sailor with the most striking blue eyes. We were on and off for about a year and half. I’d always be the one to call it off. We fought about the same things every time, both working and going in too many directions to make time for the other and not seeing each other enough.

We both would argue the other wouldn’t make the relationship a priority and wouldn't make spending time together a priority. We would both argue our point of views. I’m sure we both believed we were putting forth our best effort and the other wasn’t. Could I have done better? Absolutely, but it's exhausting feeling like you are always the one reaching out and it's not reciprocated.

He made a comment once that in a relationship, sometimes you give 100% and sometimes you take 100% and he needed 100% support from me. I wanted to reply that I was too busy dealing with my Dad's cancer, my aunt's cancer and my grandfather's dementia to support him. Where was my support?

We reconnected before he left for a deployment to Bahrain. I sent care packages and letters and looked forward to his return. He never wrote a letter in return but he surprised me at work one day when he got home. Things were going really well. I had even bought him a Breitling watch as a Birthday/Valentines Day/New Years/Anniversary gift as they all fell around the same time. I also wanted to show him that despite always being the one to back out of the relationship, that I was serious about him. Dumb dumb dumb. Don’t google how much a Breitling watch costs. He never even wore it; he just kept it in the box and put in the safe.

We went to a wedding together, went to a Cardinals baseball game with my dad, had a good time hanging out watching an MMA fight with my gym, met my friends at a winery, played softball together and would try to take the motorcycles out together. Things were going well.

Then our schedules began to get worse for work and I was getting really frustrated, as was he. He was the second person I told about being pregnant, my mom being the first. I went over to his place and told him we need to talk. He talked all about his day and projects and got around to my news. He got very quiet and I cried a lot. We decided we would look into all the options. We also agreed we weren’t in a good place to parent together. We both had a lot of questions without answers.

It escalated into a very ugly argument, he made a comment along the lines of “I can’t stand it… with you just sitting there breathing. You came here to talk.” So I grabbed my shoes and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. 

I had my ultrasound about being 32 weeks pregnant two days later. We just had a conversation over text because I could not emotionally take another argument. We decided with the new information adoption was the best process.

I did all the research to pick an adoption agency, I wrote him emails to keep him in the loop with my decisions. We both agreed on the parents for our daughter. I gave him the information to call in for the phone interview with the potential parents. I was really disappointed he didn’t, but I was also happy because I was worried he and I would get into an argument during the call, so I was also relieved he didn’t participate.

I didn’t hear from him after that, I didn’t get replies to emails and told him I would be happy to update him if he asked. He never asked. He didn’t respond to the photos of her being born.

He did reply two weeks after her birth about how embarrassing it was that the court was trying to serve him papers and embarrassed him his first week at his new command. I found out from him why he didn’t participate by a simple statement of him saying he didn’t think he was the father.

If he thought that... why would he not accuse me of cheating? Why would he not ask for a paternity test? Why would he participate in the discussion of what to do? Why would he look at the parent profile and choose one with me?

If I had known that was his hang-up I would have been happy to offer a paternity test. It boggles my mind how he could just vanish. 

He finally was served papers, he was a no call no show. His rights were terminated with mine and the adoption can move forward.I'll make my next post about how the legalities worked.

I don’t expect to hear from him again.  I’ll probably bump into him through work because we work in similar circles. I’ll just ignore him, no reason to make the situation uncomfortable for anyone else in a professional setting.

I hope he changes his mind one day. The hardest part for me is how am I going explain to BB that her biological father didn’t want a relationship with her, but through no fault of her own. That bothers me the most. She has so many features that resemble his, especially as she gets older.

A friend told me, that sometimes the best thing someone can do is not be in their life. He knows Dutch, so that struck a cord with me, and it may be true. 

I hope he will come around, I doubt it though. I will cross that bridge when I get there. My dad made a good point, that if Dutch does want a relationship with BB, that is between them and I don’t have to be involved. I have my relationship with her and Dutch can have his own relationship with her and they don’t have to intersect.

I miss a lot of things about him. I miss the idea of what could have been and what I thought he could be the most. 

It’s probably weird that I still love him. I’m sure I always will, but I can do that from a distance in my memory. He’s not the person I thought he was.