We have set up a loose visitation schedule with BM over here. Basically every Friday, she gets to see her daughter, at least for a few hours. Every other Friday, SD stays overnight at her mom's house. We picked Fridays over the Summer so that it doesn't become an every Thursday and every other Friday or Saturday overnight and trying to juggle all of those days. It's not perfect... SD has a birthday party sleepover this Friday night when she should be spending time with her BM, but BM is going to come over Thursday for a little while and Friday before SD goes over to the party. SD is 15. We are getting to the point where she doesn't want to spend as much time with her parents so that is fine for all of us. We want her to grow up and be more social as that is one of our concerns with her. She's super shy. When the school year starts, we will probably change the day of visitation because BM will want to play volleyball on Friday nights and SD will want to take part in school dances and football games, etc, most of which are on Friday nights.

Visitation here is somewhat structured (in that there's a visit every week, and sleepover every other week), but also very loose arrangement that seems to work for us. There's no "This is your day and that's it". We all work together to make sure there's plenty of visitation, communication, and flexibility for all involved.

But yesterday and last week now, BM showed up unannounced. No reasons for the visits. Yesterday, she was at the mall close to our apartment and saw a rainbow. So she drove over to our apartment, buzzed our door and then sat in her car waiting for SD to go down to see her. It was somewhat upsetting to SD. She didn't know what her mother wanted, other than to "see" her and talk to her for a few minutes. It made her uncomfortable. Last week, BM showed up just to "say hi". SD was caught off guard, went downstairs as one kid and came back up as another. Complete attitude turnaround.

As per SD's counselor, DH has to let BM know that she needs to stick to the visitation routine as much as she can. Or, if she wants extra time, she has to let us know in advance. No unannounced visits or stopping over.

I'm not sure why I'm blogging this, other than to get it off my chest. On one hand I feel for BM because she's "lonely" and wants to see her daughter. On the other, I feel that BM is lonely until she gets a boyfriend and then she's okay with the time between visits and that's AGGRAVATING!! BM is now doing too little too late.

I guess my question is, if your DH missed his kids so much that he just stopped by to see them.... just to say hi, and was told to stop... how would you take that? Because we have the counselor's instruction, and it does upset SD, we have the reason to say "stop". But as a person... as a "mom" (even though I'm not biologically a mom) it seems harsh. I UNDERSTAND these visits cause SD unnecessary anxiety. I'm behind the instruction to stop, but I feel really bad giving it.