“While I waited, my mind raced. Did their mom know I was spending the weekend with them? Do I hug them? I was suddenly anxious. I heard the door open. ‘Natalie,’ Kevin called, ‘Come up here.’ I breathed in deeply and felt jitters. I wanted these boys to not feel awkward. I knew I wasn’t their mom, and I would never think I’m replacing her.”
‘I can’t introduce you to my kids until I know. They’ll attach to you, and I can’t break their hearts.’: Girlfriend nervous it’s ‘too soon’ to meet boyfriend’s kids, feels anxious to not ‘replace’ mom
‘It’s definitely too soon,’ I thought. ‘No one would approve.’ I met K at the wrong time. At 26 years old, I had already been married 6 years, parented 7 children and miscarried 2 babies.’
“My phone vibrates in the middle of my text. It’s an unsaved number. I just stared at my phone. ALL I could think about was the tall handsome dude at the store, whom I didn’t even catch the name of.”
‘I was working on a cruise ship. I stepped out for fresh air. I didn’t know this decision would change my life. As it began to rain, I heard someone speak.’
“It was a very handsome man in front of me. As we spoke, I thought to myself, ‘I’ll probably never see him again.’ Weeks went by and I had almost forgotten about him. Then, one day, I was walking back onto the ship when I saw a man being scanned through security. I peeked over at his name tag. My heart fluttered.”
‘Is she your real daughter? Who does she belong to?‘ At 4, I was adopted with my twin sister by a white Mennonite family in the heart of Amish country.’
“‘I bet you are so glad someone actually wanted you,’ a stranger told me. I am running through the grass, almost to the woods to find my biological mother. ‘My real mother!,’ I shout. ‘Hold still,’ my mom shouts, before I trip. She chased me, and scoops me up.”
‘We sound like the beginning of a bad joke. A Black, Transracial, Mennonite Adoptee and a White Mennonite Midwesterner walk into a bar…’
“Eight years ago, I got in a car at midnight to eat bad cheese fries at a sketchy truck stop. I took a chance to be vulnerable with someone I didn’t know. And, it changed my life.”
‘That’s my family,’ he said, pointing to us. The man looked back in shock and refused to let my husband through. Our daughter Ava began shouting his name.’
“I remember overhearing Justin telling the kids they were not allowed to scream in grocery stores. That someone might think daddy isn’t their ‘real daddy.’ That he’s trying to take them. It all made sense to me when we went to the airport as a family, and Justin was stopped.”
‘I’m Lebanese. He’s African American. No one approved of us. The longer we dated, the more friends began to slip away.’ Woman claims ‘intolerance’ only made her interracial relationship ‘grow stronger’
“We quickly found ourselves without friends, but we persisted. I remember hearing family make racist jokes and remarks like, ‘They don’t belong here.’ We were warned not to show affection for one another. But we leaned on each other when we had no one else to lean on. I never ONCE cared about the color of his skin.”
