Desiring Motherhood

My cute little sister-in-law, as a Christmas Eve gift to the family, announced that she is expecting a baby in July. My husband and I were actually informed a few weeks ago, though sworn to secrecy. My sister-in-law had a miscarriage earlier this year, which was devastating in and of itself, but made even worse by the fact that she had already told family, friends, and Facebook. Anyway, James and I are delighted for my brother- and sister-in-law, especially because we know how earnestly they desire to become parents.

This desire has been a focus of my thoughts for awhile now. It is a desire that I myself have, but which I cannot fully express on our family blog, where my adoption experience is not public. And it is a desire which I truly wish to express. I wish these thoughts didn't come from comparing myself to my sister-in-law, though that is indeed the root of them. I love her to pieces, and I have no wish to belittle her as a person or a mother. Please bear with me as I attempt to make sense of my thoughts on this topic.

I long to be a mother.

I have watched as many of my friends have become mothers, and though I am not privy to their innermost thoughts, I have what I believe to be a fairly accurate gauge on their anticipation levels. When I think of my closest female friends, I come up with quite a range. Friends who have been excited to become moms, friends who have approached it rather nonchalantly, and friends who have been terrified.

And then there is my sister-in-law. She is 20 years old, been married for a year, no college education, a part-time job she enjoys, but would/will easily sacrifice to become a full-time mother. And there is no question as to where she stands--she eagerly, almost desperately wants to be a mom. She used to be far more vocal about her desire, actually, before the miscarriage toned down her dialogue somewhat. But I have no doubt that her longing remains.

It is my sister-in-law who brings this question to my mind most often: What makes me long to be a mother?

When I first knew my sister-in-law, her over-the-top, incredibly vocal desire to be a mother actually bothered me a great deal. It seemed so...vain. It seemed to me as though she believed that she wanted to be a mother more than anybody else wanted to be a mother. And frankly, it rubbed me the wrong way. How could a then-19-year-old girl with no real life experience have any understanding of this desire, which had such a deep and fierce place in my heart?

I think that if I had gotten married at 19 (as was my plan at the time) and gotten pregnant shortly thereafter, I would have approached the event with naive excitement. When I think back, I can't really remember what my thoughts were on motherhood at the time. I know I wanted to be a mom, though it certainly wasn't my primary focus.

But then my life happened. I got pregnant. My boyfriend abandoned me. I went through nine months of spiritual torture in addition to "normal" pregnancy awfulness, culminating in the single hardest moment of my life -- placing that beautiful, wonderful baby in the arms of another woman, and declaring that she, and not I, was his mother.

Afterward, I went back to my life and tried to forge onward. I finished college. I worked. I dated and enjoyed deep, lasting friendships. But placing a baby for adoption changed me in ways that I still don't fully understand. I had become a mother, and yet I wasn't a mother. I understood the otherwise unfathomable love for another human being that had grown under my heart, and yet my arms were empty.

In the years that followed, I watched as my closest friends married and started their families. I watched their excitement (or their nonchalance) as their babies' births approached. I have held their newborns, and watched them grow into darling toddlers. I love my friends' children, and dote on them often. But all the while, my arms have silently ached.

Eight years. Almost. This February, it will have been eight years since I looked into my baby's face, felt so much love for this boy-creature that had grown from nothing inside of me, and then parted with him.

Eight years! During most of that time, I remained alone. It's another post entirely, my single-hood. But anyone who has spent time as a single adult knows how hard it is. Especially in my Mormon culture, where so much emphasis is placed on home, family, marriage, and children. It is impossible to feel like a fully functioning member of this society as a single adult. And it only gets worse as time goes on. I never went through a period where I did not desire marriage and children. But I would get asked, "Are you dating?" My own mother: "Are you trying to get dates?" As though I was turning the guys away! She could not imagine why it was taking me so long to get married. And all the while, I was battling self-doubt, fearing that I was "broken" because of my previous pregnancy. Fearing that I would never marry, that I would never have children of my own....

I have matured more than I thought was possible, eight years ago. I have gone through other trials, and though none have been as devastating as my unplanned pregnancy, each one has taught me, and strengthened me. Through it all, my desire to be a mother has only deepened. With each passing year, the silent ache within me has grown steadily stronger, until at times it has seemed unbearable.

The joy I experienced when I (finally) married was all the sweeter, for the time I spent preparing (I don't like to think of it as "waiting") for my husband. And I believe that my joy will be even sweeter in motherhood, for much the same reason.

I guess the reason it bothered me so much at first when my sister-in-law expressed her desire to be a mother was because I could not imagine having so strong a desire without experiences like I have had. How could a 19-year-old year with so little life experience truly know this desire? Yet what I am coming to understand is that we can never truly know another's life experience. We can never truly know another's thoughts and desires. And we can certainly never compare ourselves to anyone else when it comes to these things. To do so is unfair to them, and to ourselves.

It's a relief, to be able to let go of my resentment. When my sister-in-law told us that she is expecting, I felt true joy for her. In that moment, I realized that I didn't have to compare or compete with her -- I could rejoice for her, for this is a desire that we share. It no longer mattered where the desire came from. I no longer questioned the validity or depth of the desire, on either of our parts. I simply recognized a kindred spirit. We both desire to be mothers, and it is our greatest joy to see that desire fulfilled. At last.

Everything's normal 'til BAM it hurts

My poor husband probably won't appreciate this post, but this blog is my therapy, and I need it today.

I had a prenatal appointment this morning. It didn't start off very well, and didn't really have any redeeming moments. (I've been very seriously considering changing care givers, and today's appointment was like the last nail in the coffin.) So you could say I was already on edge by the time the CNM finally came in to see me.

I came to the appointment with a couple of concerns (which the midwife did not really resolve...grr...) besides the normal measuring and heartbeat listening routine. Through it all, James played on his phone. Although I know he was listening, he just seemed so utterly unengaged, and it really upset me.

After the CNM left the room, I talked to James about it. He was immediately apologetic, but I couldn't stop the tears coming to my eyes. He asked me if I wanted to explain why this upset me so much. And I admitted, "I don't want to feel like I'm going through pregnancy alone again."

James, of course, wrapped me up in his arms and was perfectly sincere and contrite. And I forgave him immediately, though I was a mess for a little while after that. It's weird moments like this when the emotions of my previous pregnancy strike. Most of the time, I feel completely at peace and emotionally healthy. But every once and while something will happen that makes it feel like I've been suddenly stabbed with the terrible emotions--grief, anger, fear, anguish, loneliness--that I faced the last time I was pregnant. I deal with them as best as I can, thankfully with the help of my sweet husband.

This is getting harder

Saturday, I told my sister-in-law that I placed a baby for adoption. (And maybe my brother-in-law? I really don't know if he was listening or not at the time.)

This is the first member of my husband's side of the family whom I have told. Not because I haven't wanted to tell them, but simply because I've been terrified to do so.

I think sharing my adoption story is getting harder. Or maybe it's just different than it used to be.

When I first placed my son for adoption, everyone around me knew the situation. After all, they'd watched me go through pregnancy. Friends, classmates, professors, ward members...they'd all been around. So even if they didn't know specifics of my situation, at least it didn't feel like I was keeping secrets.

Then I had several years of adoption volunteer work, where I was sharing my adoption experience on a regular basis. But even then, it was mostly strangers whom I was speaking to, or other members of the adoption world. I did not fear their judgment.

But these days? First of all, I work with children and teenagers. I am very conscious of my position as a role model. In four-and-a-half years of working at my studio, I have told one parent about placing my son for adoption, and not a single student. My silence there comes not from fear, but from my desire to be that good example for my students.

My in-laws, though, are something else entirely. Part of me wishes that I had told them (my parents-in-law, at least) while James and I were first engaged. Because at least part of my concern now comes from my fear of disappointing them. I don't want to watch them change the way they look at me. I don't want their opinion of me to lower. It's gotten to a point where I don't even know how I would go about telling them. And so my silence has continued.

Until Saturday, when I blurted it out to my sister-in-law. We were talking about childbirth, how I want to deliver my baby, and she was saying something about how important it was to make my first childbirth experience perfect. And I blurted out that this wasn't my first. My sister-in-law was, understandably, completely stunned. I stammered out a few more details, while she just stared at me. She said she didn't know what to say, and I awkwardly changed the subject.

I feel absolutely no relief, having told her. Maybe it will never come up again. I don't know. But it definitely doesn't make me feel any more confident in having this conversation with, say, my mother-in-law.

However, I have to remember that open adoption is a part of my life. My sons will know each other, even if it's only at a distance. And what happens when my Baby J is talking to his Nona a few years from now, and starts talking about his brother? If I haven't explained my situation well before then, it could lead to some pretty awkward conversations!

I've always believed in openness. Somehow I'm just going to have to get past this part, and make the best of things.

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.