Treston has a birthfather

Duh. I know. It sounds weird. Having heard the story of the birds and the bees, we should have known that already. But we never knew him, so he kind of didn't exist for us. You've heard me talk about Justus' birthmom, who we have a great relationship with, but Treston has a different kind of story, and sadly, we've never had the privelege of knowing his birthparents.
In a strange turn of events, Treston's birthfather entered the scene, and wanted to visit. We said okay!
So a few months ago, in a supervised visit with New Life, we met Treston's birthfather. We sat at a McDonalds in Houston, while Treston clutched me, and tried to small talk. I'm not going to lie. It was awkward. He desperately wanted Treston to respond to him, and Treston didn't have the first clue who he was and knew something intense was going on, so he mostly clung to me, while all eyes were on him, and there was a pressure for him to do something...he just didn't know what.
But it was a good visit, in that it began a relationship. It was just a small start. Treston finally had a birthparent! This was new for us...different...good.
To be honest, I hadn't put much thought into birthfathers.
I know that sounds horrible. I'm confessing this to all of you.
It's just that birthfathers are sometimes not present or involved, and in our cases, I'd never met either of them, so I had never given a thought to their loss or pain.
But I saw it right in front of me.
He was desperate for Treston to even look at him.
He teared up when he left, telling us what this meant to him.
He'd thought of him so much, and he was so glad this day had finally come.
It was a lot to process for me.
Treston's story is kind of complicated, so to be honest, I'd just left birthfathers out of the equation. But they hurt too. They feel loss. They long for something that will never be.
Forming this relationship with Treston's birthfather is giving him something he longs for. Even just a piece of it.
And really, I can't imagine what an impact this will make on Treston's life.
To have a birthparent who is in his life, who loves him, a link to the biological, a piece of his history...it could change everything for our T-Bear.
So we had a second visit this week, where we exchanged gifts. This visit was easier. Treston even let him hold him. He didn't totally cold shoulder him, and that was improvement. It's precious to me how much he wants Treston to love him.
This relationship has just begun. There's a lot of trust building, and getting-to-know-eachother ahead of us. But it's a start.
And now that I've seen the pain of a birthfather, I'm different. It's changed how I look at adoption, and that's good.