Private thoughts

My Facebook status this morning reads:

"Experiencing heartburn for the first time in my life. Yet another bizarre pregnancy symptom I'd never known about. Thanks a lot, Baby J."

If my adoption were more widely known, I suppose it would read something more like this:

"Experiencing heartburn for the first time in my life. Yet another bizarre pregnancy symptom I'd never known about. Guess I lucked out last time!"

Sometimes keeping things private is weird.

Holidays and Adoption

Everyone expects the holidays to become a little more complicated once you get married. "Who will we spend Thanksgiving with? Where will we have Christmas morning?" As a newly-married couple, if both families are close by, it seems generally expected that you split time between his and hers. Once children come along, maybe it changes a little. If family is at a distance, it becomes more challenging. Do you travel, or do you stay home?

You're with me so far, right?

I got a little of this feeling long before I was married. When I reunited with my birthparents in the summer of 2005, my birthfather immediately expressed his eagerness to include me in his family. He, his wife, and their daughters came to celebrate my birthday with me that fall. They sent me care packages at college. And when the holidays rolled around, they invited me to spend Christmas Eve at my birth grandparents' house, which is one of their big family traditions. Fortunately, my [adopted] family didn't really have any Christmas Eve traditions, so I eagerly agreed. I have spent every Christmas Eve since with my birthdad's family.

Then my husband came along.

We were engaged during the holidays last year, and it made for some interesting moments. You see, my husband's family does have Christmas Eve traditions. My husband was a little reluctant to miss out on them. And his family made no allowances for us--coming from a family of 10 children, if somebody has something else going on, then they just miss out.

I was very grateful to my soon-to-be-husband for making that particular sacrifice. Christmas Eve is, most years, the only time of year that I see my birth grandparents. And as I don't see my birthdad & fam nearly as often as I would like, it's an important occasion with them as well. I know that my husband could tell how much it meant to be. And this year, as we were discussing how to spend our holidays, he treated it as a given, that we would spend Christmas Eve with my birth family. Between you and me, the excellent presents we received there last year probably helped!

Adoption complicates life. There can be no denying that. Yet I continue to feel that adoption makes my life a fuller and more richly rewarding experience, for me, and I hope, for my own little family.

Open Adoption Bloggers Interview Project

 

I'm thrilled to be participating in the Open Adoption Bloggers Interview Project this year. OAB is one of my favorite adoption resources, and I have made many wonderful connections through their blogroll. Participants of the Interview Project are assigned into pairs, who over a period of a few weeks read through each other's blogs, then interview each other. The interviews were divided into three groups, and my partner and I are participating with the third group. You can read other interviews from our group here.

My interview partner is LisaAnne of Living Through Today. This is her public blog; through the course of our interviews, she also invited me to view her private blog, which helped me to get to know her even better.

Lisa is the birthmother of Brit, a darling little girl with the curliest hair I think I've ever seen. Lisa and Brit's birthfather placed her in what was supposed to be an open adoption. However over the past couple of years, and the past several months in particular, the relationship has changed significantly. My interview of Lisa is as follows:

What would be your ideal relationship with Brit (your daughter that you placed for adoption), if you could work things out with her?

I wish that Brit’s family would treat me, BF and our boys as if we are extended family.  I would like to be able to have phone conversations with them.  I would like to be invited to celebrate special occasions with them or them with us.  I wish that they would allow Brit to Skype with us.  Basically, I wish I was like a special aunt to her and her siblings.

I wish that Brit knew who we are to her.  That she is not only part of her adoptive family, but that we consider her part of our family too.

It would mean so much to us if Brit’s parents would facilitate a relationship between Brit and us.  It would be amazing to get a card from them with a picture colored by Brit for us.  It would me meaningful if they would send us pictures of the kids playing with gifts that we have sent.  I long for anything that indicated a personal thoughtfulness with regard to us.

We have never received a birthday card, holiday card or a note of any kind from them.  It is hurtful to know that we do our very best to be thoughtful about them and their children and it seems that they don’t have the same consideration for us.

Along the same line, what would your ideal relationship be with Brit's adoptive family? Could you see yourself becoming friends again, as you were before Brit's adoption?

Fortunately, I am one of the “quickest to forgive” people I know.  I would do whatever I could to repair a relationship with Brit’s parents if the opportunity was ever available.  I guess I answered the question to this with the above answer.

How do you think this adoption experience, with all its ups and downs, has affected your other children?

My adoption experience has destroyed who I was before the adoption.  I feel terrible that my children have to bear that consequence.  Now any time I cry their immediate response is “This is about Brit, isn’t it?”  They know that the last four years of tears have generally been because of the adoption.  The boys don’t understand why we have been treated like we have.  They tip toe around the subject of their sister.  They too feel betrayed.  It breaks my heart to think I am the cause of that.

Obviously, from reading your blogs, your adoption has taken quite a turn this year. If you were to meet another birthmother in a similar situation, what advice would you give her?

Well, it depends on what you mean by a mother in my situation. So I will take the approach of what I would have told myself if I could go back and talk to the LisaAnne of 2011.  I would definitely let myself know that trying so hard will only hurt the adoption situation, not improve it.  I would definitely not have blogged publicly, because that has been the number one thing used against me.  And I would just give myself a big huge hug and tell myself that unfortunately it won’t get better any time soon, so just cry it out, because the loss is deep and profound.

 

You have received some pretty harsh and negative comments on some of the blogs that you've posted. How have you dealt with these comments? What advice do you have for other birthmothers who might also face that kind of backlash?

I try very hard to approach negative comments from the perspective of ‘if I was in their shoes’.  Often you can tell the perspective of the person commenting.  Other times I could tell it was an extended member of Brit’s parent’s family or a close friend of their family, and there is no reasoning there. I am obviously a threat to them and Brit’s relationship with her parents.

There is an anonymity that blogging allows which causes people who would never be so rude in real life to say things that are just over the top.  Those comments I disregard.

But there are some who make me stop and think.  Most often it is comments from adoptees.  I believe that adoptees are the ones who ALWAYS have a right to an opinion about how adoption has made them feel.

Truthfully most of the comments on my blog are kind and supportive and I am thankful for the love and virtual embraces I have received from so many since I began my blogging.

As for advice to other birthmothers, I would say “TELL YOUR TRUTH”.  The world needs to hear that adoption is not just love and a better life for the child.  There are so many things I wish I would have known before placing Brit.  I want more birthmothers and adoptees to speak loudly so that society can hear the reality of adoption, not just the façade that has been created.

In some of your older posts, you talk about drawing comfort and inspiration from the blog of others (adoptive moms, birthmothers, etc). What is something you have read recently that gave you hope or comfort, as you have struggled with your adoption experience?

I love, love, love my adoptive mom friends who embrace fully open adoption. They give me hope for a new generation of adoptees.  I have been encouraged by those women. Each has offered to reach out to Brit’s family and help them understand the beauty of a fully open adoption.

When I see the relationships that these families in open adoption have between the biological family and the adoptive family, it warms my heart.  It makes me so glad to know that there are children who are getting the very best despite the fragmented lives that they have being an adoptee.

I consider many of these women my real life friends.  It is unfortunate that I was forced to make their acquaintance because of my loss and grief, but I am thankful for their friendship anyway.  They are all amazing women who believe providing the best for their children, even if it is hard.

What do you hope others will gain when they read your blog(s)?

I hope that a mother who is faced with an unplanned pregnancy will stumble across my blog and it will cause her to consider that what seems like the best solution at the moment, may not be the best choice in the long run.  As I have often quoted, “Don’t make a permanent decision based on temporary circumstances.”

I hope that adoptive mothers will read my blog and realize that there is another mother who may be longing and aching to know the child that she relinquished.  I want to be a voice.  I hope the words from my heart speak to adoptive mothers so that they might have empathy for their child’s birth family.

If an adoptee were to read my blog, I hope that his/her take away would be that birth families do not just move on and forget about their children.  Most of us are forever changed when we place a child.  And none of us ever forget.

***

Thank you, Lisa, for sharing your thoughts and your story. I am grateful I had this opportunity to get you know you better!

Be sure to check out the Interview Project at OAB for more interviews! You can also view Lisa's interview of me here.

The Wax and Wane of Birth Parent Involvement

A couple of years ago, I was very involved in the adoption scene. I was a volunteer on several different fronts--I was working with expectant parents via email, I was serving on the national board of a large pro-adoption organization, I helped to organize that organization's annual national conference, and I was speaking regularly at local adoption seminars and workshops, as well as a few not-so-local events.

Through my volunteer efforts, I met several hundred birth mothers, and quite a few birth fathers. I heard their stories, I got to know their circumstances, and probably a lot more about this one part of their lives than many people ever get to see. The experiences of my fellow birth parents had a great impact on my own ideas about adoption and life as a birthmom.

One thing (among so many) that I picked up on was the wax and wane most birth parents experience in their desire to be involved in the adoption scene.

I met many birthmoms during a period in their lives when they wanted to be involved. I have found that many birth parents experience times like this, when they feel especially passionate about adoption, when there is a fire inside of them that they must share. During times like these, many seek out volunteer opportunities, either working with expectant parents, supporting women who are going through placement, speaking about adoption in the community, etc.

Yet there are very few birthmoms, in my experience, that exist in this period for long periods of time. Some stay involved only for a few months, while others last a few years. Eventually, however, involvement wanes. Those high-energy volunteers slowly fade back and disappear entirely, melting back into the others parts of their lives.

I feel that this is a healthy rhythm, going back-and-forth between periods of high adoption-involvement. Here's why:

1. It mirrors the way many adoption adoptions work. Most birth mothers have times where they crave a lot of communication and interaction with their children and families, and times when they back off and get involved in their own lives. Though the birth parents' involvement in adoption advocacy does not always happen at the same time, the process is similar.

2. Being involved in the adoption scene as a birth mother can be emotionally taxing. Sharing your adoption story, as a birth mother, is nearly always an emotional/tearful/heart-rending experience. As a volunteer, you end up going through this again and again and again. It's the most powerful tool most birth mothers have--sharing their own, very personal, very emotional, and in many cases very spiritual, experience, in the hopes that it will have an effect on the listeners. But over time, this can be very taxing on the birth mother.

3. There are other parts of life to be lived. Many birth mothers, during their involved-periods, are exceptionally passionate about what they are doing, to the point where this becomes their #1 time investment. I have found this to be especially true of recently-placed mothers, who are still in the throes of emotion regarding their placement. But while it is wonderful that they share their passion and their fire, life goes on. Birth parents will never forget, but they do (or at least should, if they are emotionally healthy) move forward.


On a personal note, this topic has been on my mind because I am in a waning-period. After several years of great involvement, I would say I am no longer involved at all. What's been interesting to me is how invested I still am in the adoption world. I watch events pop up on Facebook, and even though I decide not to attend, I still comb through the pictures and the comments and the conversation. I still read adoption blogs. I still "think adoption" even though I don't "do adoption." Adoption is an ever-present part of my life, and even though I am living the other parts right now, it is still an intrinsic component of who I am.

The Differences So Far

It's hard not to compare this pregnancy with my first. Pregnancy is, of course, an enormous undertaking, on all levels--physical by and large being the most apparent, but it certainly affects mental and emotional (dare I say hormonal?) levels as well. Today, I was thinking about the differences between my two pregnancies (thus far).

1. My husband

It is amazing to me how much of a difference my James makes. I knew it would be huge, but I didn't realize just how huge it would be. My husband is here for me, in a way that Ian's father (the putz) never was. My husband loves me, cares about me, and just as importantly, loves and cares about our baby. My husband loves me through the morning sickness, the aches and pains, the uncontrollable weeping, the midwife visits, and I'm certain that I will rely on him even more in the months (and years) to come.

2. I'm sicker

It's kind of bizarre how much sicker I have been over the past three months than I was through my entire first pregnancy. This has my mother convinced that I'm having a girl. My belief is that I'm sicker because I'm older (see #3). I was 19 when Ian was born. I am now 27. You can't tell me it doesn't make a difference.

3. My body is changing in different ways

The most noticeable, pardon me, is my breasts. I mean, I have big boobs, I always have. But, honest to goodness, they didn't grow at all with Ian. They also didn't hurt (until after he was born) like this. But this time around, they have grown, they have given me new stretch marks, and they are super tender. It makes James grumpy sometimes. (It makes ME grumpy lots of times.)

On a serious note, I am coming to the belief that my non-growing, non-tender breasts last time were the manifestation of a tender mercy of the Lord. I think that my body did not prepare to feed Ian. Whether it was my own subconscious telling my body that this baby wasn't mine to keep, or whether there was more direct intervention, I don't know. But I do know that I was blessed in that regard. (Not so this time--my body is getting prepped to be a milk machine, I guess!)

4. I'm happier

This is obvious, I suppose, but it's very profound for me. When I think back to my pregnancy of Ian, and even more when I read my journal from the time, I remember how desperately miserable and angry I was through most of it. I was constantly angry with the birthfather. I was terribly lonely--even though I had friends, I felt very isolated from them. I was spiritually disconnected (see #6). I was physically strained. I was embarrassed by my situation. I was stressed and overwhelmed with trying to balance school, work, and planning for Ian's birth and subsequent placement.  And I was just sad, so sad, dealing with placing this baby for adoption.

It's such a difference. I have a wonderful marriage. I have friends and family who are excited with me. I am in a strong place spiritually. The physical is still challenging, but it feels different, now that I don't have to bear those burdens alone. I am proud and excited to become a mother. My life is in balance. And this is my baby.

6. It's my baby

This is one of the most significant differences. I do not have to face every day of this pregnancy with the knowledge that the child inside of me belongs to someone else. This is my baby. The little alien growing inside of me is mine. I get to make all the preparations. I get to have a baby shower. I get to prepare the nursery. And when I get home from the hospital, there will be no goodbyes. This baby will be mine forever.

7. I'm spirituality healthy

If you are not spiritual/religious, this may not have a lot of meaning for you. But for my LDS friends, you probably have some understanding of what I say when I describe being spiritually cut off. When I got pregnant, the feeling was instantaneous. I immediately felt the Spirit depart from me. It was, in a subtle way, one of the most terrible experiences of my life. To spend nine months wracked with my sins, unable to partake of the sacrament, unable to receive forgiveness and engage the Atonement...it was devastating. And I associate those feelings very strongly with that pregnancy. To be absent that grief and torment, to feel the light of the Spirit every day, to be able to hold my head high at church and know that I belong there, is a world of difference.



I love Ian, and his family, and I am very grateful to have had the experience of placing him for adoption. It changed who I am. And I have been incredibly blessed for the sacrifice that I made.

Still, I cannot help but revel in this pregnancy of my own. It really is a whole new experience for me. Even with the morning sickness and the other discomforts, I am happier than I have ever been. I am excited to be pregnant, and even more excited for our sweet baby to truly enter this world.

Secrets

I'm getting ready to announce later this week to the general public that my husband and I are expecting. Of course, we are very excited. You can imagine my joy when we first found out we were pregnant, something that I have longed for most of my adult life. We've told a handful of close friends and family so far, and it's been a little interesting.

A lot of people in my life do not know that I placed a baby for adoption. Almost no one at my work knows, but for those who were friends of mine during my pregnancy. I haven't told anyone at church. I haven't even gotten up the gumption to tell my in-laws (something I mean to remedy very soon).

So, when I've talked to the handful of people I've told thus far, I've gotten several comments that make me shrink a little inside.

Advice for first time pregnancy. Or things like, "This is your first, and your first is always..." or "My first was like this, but my second was like this, so just wait until you get pregnant the second time..." Or worse, a friend of mine trying to talk me into joining her participating in a first-time mothers study. How do I say, I'm sorry, I can't. You see, I'm not eligible, because of an illegitimate child that I bore seven years ago that I never told you about...

Although, I don't know, maybe this is worse: I had my first prenatal visit a few weeks back, and I knew that I was going to have to discuss my first pregnancy. I was prepared for it. When the nurse took my initial information, she asked about any previous pregnancies, and I gave her the stats. But she got nosy, so I ended up telling her that I had placed the baby for adoption.

Then the CNM came in, with a grad student accompanying her. They both talked to me for awhile, and again, I was asked about my previous pregnancy, and again, I explained about placing him for adoption. It wasn't pleasant, but I was prepared for it.

But then, a week later, I had to call the on-call nurse with a concern. And I had to go through it all again, over the phone. That time, I wasn't prepared to have to talk about it, and it really upset me.

I intend to ask if someone will put a note in my file, hopefully just to stop the nosy-ness.

I know that it's going to continue. We're planning to make it public knowledge in the next day or two. More people will gush, and more people will unknowingly say things that sting a little. Not because of what they're saying, but because this isn't my first pregnancy, this isn't the first time I've gone through this. It's different, of course, so incredibly, awesomely, different, because this time it's my baby inside of me, not someone else's. This time, I have a loving, wonderful, supportive husband at my side who is just as excited to become a parent. I am stable, and happy, and prepared. It's all different.

But it's still not the first time I've gone through this. Most of the people around me don't know that, and that's the way I prefer it, at least for the time being. It just means that I get to live with the unknowingly insensitive remarks. Secrets present their own kinds of challenges.

10 Questions Birth Moms Hate

This post originally appeared on http://www.musingmonika.com/ on April 29, 2013.

10 Questions Birth Moms Hate
by Monika Z.

There have been a lot of blog posts recently about questions the infertile community hate as well as questions adoptive parents hate. Someone in one of the birth mom groups of which I’m a part asked us to give feedback about the questions we as birth moms hate to get, inspired by the “hate posts” circling around the internet right now. This in turn inspired me to write a post of my own.

1. What are you going to do with future children?
This one’s my “favorite.” Amanda Argyriadis, a fellow birth mom, says that she likes to answer this particular question with snark and sarcasm. “Oh you know, I was just planning on getting knocked up so I could go through the trauma and heartbreak of separation cause I don’t want my membership to incubators-r-us to be called into question.” She then said she likes to follow it with a raised eyebrow “and, if you can get away with it, a smack upside the head.” I particularly like the “smack upside the head.” This question rather brings to mind a “Here’s Your Sign” moment, coined of course by Bill Engval.

2. Is it co-parenting?
This question probably gets asked of adoptive parents in open adoptions more than birth parents living the same, but it bugs us as well. I suppose if you look at the word in the most literal sense, it is “co-parenting.” I retained my motherhood when I relinquished my daughter to adoption, therefore I am a parent just as her mom and dad are parents. However, I do not have input, nor do I expect it, in the way that my daughter is being raised. If her parents ever ask Nick or me for input on a specific situation, we will provide it. But we would no more expect our advice to be followed than any other friend or family member should expect in the same situation.

3. Don’t you love your child? Didn’t you want your child?
Yes. We love and want our children. If it was simple desire and love that were motivations for relinquishing or not, we would all be raising our children.

4. Aren’t you glad she/he is in a better place?
Ugh. Our children are not “better off” without us. When we place our children, we hope that their adoptive parent(s) are more prepared to parent our child than we are at the time, but it is not “better.” It is different, obviously. This terminology causes me and other birth moms to feel as if the person asking the question is implying our children are dead and in heaven.

5. The decision is done. Why don’t you move on?
A birth mom will never “move on.” We will never forget, nor should we. Whether we have open adoption relationships with our children and their parents or not, being a birth mom means that we have a lifetime of grief. We should move forward with our lives, but moving on implies something completely different.

6. Aren’t you happy you made your child’s adoptive parents happy?
Like I’ve said repeatedly, mothers who make the decision to place their children with adoptive parents do not do so to make those adoptive parents happy. We do so for the benefit of our children. While I’m personally happy that my daughter’s parents are happy with my daughter, this question implies that their happiness should have been my sole reason for placing. This is simply not true.

7. Are you taking it okay?
Taking what okay? The fact that I’ve chosen a lifetime of grief and loss so that my child could have parents that were more prepared to parent her than Nick and me? I’m sorry, but no one can be expected to take that sort of loss and be okay with it, no matter how at peace one is with the decision that has been made. I am at peace. I don’t regret the choice of adoption or the choice of my daughter’s parents, though I do regret the circumstances that led me to make the decision I made. But I will never be “okay” again. I will never go back to the way I was before I had and relinquished my daughter.

The rest of these are statements, though there are implied questions with each of them.
8. At least your child’s needs are well provided and she (or he) is happy.
I know this is meant as a consolation for the grief. But saying this says to us that the person making the statement assumes our child wouldn’t have been happy staying with us or that his or her needs wouldn’t have been well provided.

9. Don’t worry, you can always have more.
No child, no matter how loved and wanted they may be, will ever or can ever replace the loss of a child, whether that loss is from adoption or if that loss is caused by infertility issues. This is why I firmly believe that counseling is necessary and time for healing needs to take place if there are infertility issues that cause someone to consider adoption or if there is a loss due to adoption before those people bring another child into their home.

10. You’re not that child’s mother. You need to let that child go.
Just no. I will always be my daughter’s mother, just like my daughter’s mother will always be her mother. Relinquishing legal parental rights does not erase my biological connection to my daughter, nor does it erase any birth mother’s biological connection to her child. We can let go of the fact that we cannot parent our children in the “traditional” way, and I would argue that it is necessary to do that. But we cannot and should not ever try to let our connection to our children go.