From: ABBIGALESMOM
Subject: ABBIGALES BIRTH DAD
Date: Monday, February 05, 2001 8:41am

"Hi Everyone. We finally had telephone contact with Abbi's birth father and his mother. He lives in Oregon with an uncle and his Mom lives here in Washington. I think we talked for 2 or 3 hours and it went real well. Possibly we will meet this coming weekend, as he is coming to visit his girlfriend. I guess it is his step father's birthday too. He and his Mom are both very eager to meet Abbi and us. I was on line for a couple more hours last night emailing pictures of Abbi to his Mom. We also did the chat thing on line for a while. He has a younger sister, so Abbi has a 14 year old aunt named Sara. Her Mom said she was so excited to hear about Abbi. I don't have time to write more now, but will keep all of you up dated. I guess my goal right now will be to lose 'at least' 30lbs in the next week so I'll look somewhat presentable before we meet. So as you can see, I have a BIG job ahead of me.-N-"

From: ABBIGALESMOM
Subject: Re: Time to Get Out Your Favorite Pen
Date: Monday, February 05, 2001 10:32 pm

". . . Yes, I think it would be neat if we could do something with the birth father. I'm hoping all goes well when we meet him in person. I found his Mom in a telephone directory on the Internet. She gave me his phone number......and now we're planning on meeting. I sent some pictures today, to both the birth dad and his Mom. I did email some pictures of Abbi to her last night. When I talked to her, she was crying. She said the day was very full of surprises and she really wants to meet us. My husband and Abbi's birth father seemed to really hit it off on the phone. They had a long conversation. . . Well, I think I'll wrap things up for now and crawl into bed. Bye, -N-"

From: ABBIGALESMOM:
Subject: Abbigale's Birth Dad
Date: Sunday, February 11, 2001 8:12 PM

"Hi Again Everyone!!! Here's the latest on our meeting with Abbi's birth Dad: We ended up getting together on Saturday afternoon. Yes, we were nervous wrecks and hoping we'd made the right decision by calling in the first place. Abbi's birth Dad sounded so excited on the phone and his parents were so happy to find out they had a grand daughter. Then his younger sister had sent an email saying how neat it was to know she was an Aunt. We arrived a couple of minutes late and we were hoping they wouldn't be standing in the window looking at us as we pulled into McDonalds. They weren't, thank God. However, when we got out of our van to get Abbi, this nice looking young man walked out of the restaurant with his hand extended and said "(-K-)?" "Yes, (-S-)?" They shook hands. I lifted Abbi out of her seat and said "Hi, I'm (-N-) and this is Abbi." Abbi looked at him a little suspiciously and told him her name, age and birth date. He has a very kind face and was smiling at her with such love, I wish I could memorize the look forever. He asked if he could take our picture. At that moment, Abbi said "I want him to hold me." He carried her into the restaurant. His parents and sister stood up and introduced themselves. We visited and exchanged pictures for the next 2 1/2 hours. Abbi and her birthfather played together most of the time. They last saw Abbi's birth Mom when she was 3 months pregnant. They always wondered what had happened with the pregnancy. They were only 14 and 15 years old when the pregnancy happened. They made it clear that they didn't want to intrude on our lives, but would definitely like to be a part of our lives and watch Abbi grow up. Gosh they are such nice people. It just felt like this was the missing link in our family. Abbi and her birthfather looked like they needed to know each other. He was very talkative, open and honest with us. This was quite a change for us, since Abbi's birthmother is quite shy and reserved. She hadn't given us much, if any information about him. It sounded to me as though the two of them got into a lot of trouble together. Abbi's birthfather told us that, when he turned 18 years old, he decided his life wasn't going anywhere and he had to get his act together. He's working full time and has plans for his future. For the last 2 years he has lived so close to us. He only recently moved back to OR. He said now he has a really good reason to come back to Washington more often. To visit Abbi. I gave him a large framed collage of Abbi's pictures (actually my Mom made it for me). He told me this morning he can't stop looking at it. He fully intends to hang it up and show it to everyone. He is so proud of Abbi and so thankful we kept looking until we found him. He said he couldn't have hoped for a better set of parents for his little girl. He and his family are so pleased we are open to visits and welcoming them into our lives. I can hardly wait to see them again. After our visit last night, I said to my husband "Could it have possibly gone any better than it did?" Our meeting was about as close to perfect as we would have wanted it to be. Do I think I made the right decision in contacting them? Yes Yes Yes! If my very good friend hadn't found a picture of him for me, I might have stalled a little longer in making the connection. Once I received his picture (September 2000) and saw how much our beautiful little girl looked like this handsome young man. I just felt I had to keep looking until I found him. My husband said meeting Abbi's birthfather's family was like a new chapter in our lives. I disagreed. It is like a whole new book. Did I really expect them to be this interested? No. The little we knew about them was really very negative, so we were a little scared before we met. They were nothing like we thought they might be. They are a wonderful family and we feel fortunate to have them now be a part of our lives. Abbi has a whole new family loving her along with everyone else. So, this about sums it up for now. I'll talk to you later. -N-"