Carrying A Cat By The Tail

How Do I Get There From Here

2012-03-13T23:57:00.002-04:00

I just don’t see it happening.

I dated my college sweetheart for 6 years. We built common friends, experiences, hobbies and a “family” between us. When we broke up it crushed me. He claimed he wasn’t “ready”. Six months later he was serious about his now-wife, less than a year later they were engaged and married. Less than a year after that they had their first child.

It took me a long time to “get over” that. I had to let go of old ties, memories, bonds. Some were easy and some were very difficult. It was a death; a death of our common hopes and dreams and plans. A death of some friendships. The death of the 20 something year old me that I was then. I do not begrudge him nor his wife and family the happiness they have found, but it took quite a while to adjust to the fact that he would have the future I had always dreamed about- but with someone else.

So I moved on, moved through, got past it. It took me five, six years to fully build a new life, gain my own strength, feel more whole on my own than as part of the “us” that we were. I took on new jobs, gained experience and respect in my field. I made new friends, travelled. At this point the “me” that I am now is no longer invested in that “me” of the six year relationship. As I get older, I see that stretches of time in my past were truly chapters. You can’t predict when they will end but when they close, you certainly look back and appreciate those lessons.

Bluebell is a year and eight months old now. She’s doing great. I haven’t been in touch with her parents lately, simply because life has gotten busy. I get a quick text or photo now and then, and I don’t find myself so desperate and anxious in the time in between. I am confident and assured that she is thriving, very loved, and with the family she was meant to have. I couldn’t give her that and I know, to my very core, had I raised her on my own I would regret not being able to give her that for the rest of my life. Every day would be a heartbreaking struggle in terms of trying to support us, of trying to “make up” for the fact that she had no father or much family to support and love and treasure her.

I know first-hand; I only have a mom, dad/stepmom and sister. Holidays are sad. I haven’t had a consistent holiday celebration since high school or before that. I am grateful that my parents are alive and that I am close to my sister. I am grateful for what I do have, but I still feel a longing and emptiness of not being part of a larger “clan”. My close friends know this; they all advise that I need to marry into a large family and then I will know that the grass is not always greener (this is always said in jest; I have friends who are from very large families and holidays, birthdays, etc are always quite a production; they love it but tend to say that they wish they sometimes had more of a choice or independence in where they spend holidays or plans they make).

I don’ t think simply marrying “someone” is going to ease the lonliness; I don’t want to be thrown into a huge family unit just to blend in. I want a partner who is like-minded, has similar life goals, and wants to become a family with me.

I have gone on four dates in the past six months. One was an intelligent, stable, interesting man. He was in his late 40’s, and being in my mid 30’s, it didn’t seem entirely “too old”. But he started talking about having kids (mind you on our first date) and when I did the math, in a hypothetical scenario, he would have been 50 by the time our first child was born. I’m not the type of girl to fantasize about marrying someone the minute I meet them, but in that case I felt the age difference. I do hope he finds someone and has the family he also wants, but he was looking for someone who was ready yesterday to have a baby, and that was his focus. I admire him for being honest but it didn’t leave much time to get to know each other.

The second date I went on was with an acquaintance of whom we have mutual friends. We had similar interests and everyone was certain we’d hit it off. I spent the evening hearing him tell me all about how crazy his last two girlfriends were. I also realized that he had a very rigid and set life. He had his interests, hobbies, ways of doing things. There wasn’t any flexibility for another person in those plans. If someone wanted to join in and follow along he’d be fine, but I found the lack of ability to compromise or make plans for “we” instead of simply “him plus whomever wants to come along” hard to comprehend.

I know in relationships it’s not always going to be 50/50- some days it will be 20/80, some days it will be 10/90. But there is an ebb and flow to it, and he didn’t seem to want to consider having someone entering his life in a real, mature way. So I decided we’re better off as simply friends.

The third date was a friend who I’ve known for awhile. He’s good looking, charming, very intelligent, successful at his career field (and it’s very interesting to me), has a large network of friends, tons of fun interests, full of energy. Never a dull moment with this one. Yet he’s a grown up bachelor. Never married, no kids, and almost 40. Lives in a beautiful condo, owns a boat, has all of the conveniences and luxuries he can afford. He also has no shortage of female attention. There is no need for him to settle down. I don’t think kids are even on his radar, and he enjoys his lifestyle. He is great to hang out with, invite to parties, spend a day on the water with. But I just don’t see him wanting to settle down anytime soon. I had to finally realize no matter how well we got along, he is in a different stage of his life. That’s ok, but I can’t force a square peg into a round hole. Alas, we are also better off as friends.

The fourth date was the killer. A few weeks ago I had a conference for work for an entire weekend. It was full of fun and social events, but I was also working. In my line of work you meet interesting people, have great dinners, socialize, network. It’s not exactly filing taxes. Yet I still have to be professional and remain committed to my duties and responsibilities. Well wouldn’t you know, I met a handsome man in the same field. We worked together during the meetings, and after hitting it off the first night, tried to spend time together in our down time during the weekend. A coffee here, a cocktail there. It was fantastic. Finally, someone who “speaks my language”.

Not only is he in my field (and therefore we can understand a lot about each others’ lives and interests) but our personalities truly matched as well. We talked about everything under the sun from our childhoods, religion, friends, gender roles, our travel experiences, careers, the whole thing. At the beginning I wanted to keep it very professional but I loosened up after we got to know each other. I told myself to keep it simple and not expect or want anything out of our interaction, but it really gave me hope that I have moved forward in life, and am now ready to find someone who is truly suited to me. It gave me hope that I am willing and open to find a partner, a companion, a relationship.

After Bluebell I shut down emotionally. Completely. I am usually the person who always remembers your birthday, keeps in touch with long distance friends with cards and letters and phone calls, who remembers the little things. I care for my friends and family dearly and have no problem showing it.

After Bluebell it was like something in me had dulled. The emotion was still there but there was no action behind it. I didn’t send birthday cards. I could barely go through the motions of being happy while at a friend’s wedding. I wondered if I would be like that forever. As far as dating or romantic interest, there was zero. When someone I trusted (DNA) and was very close to abandoned me pretty much the day I told him I was pregnant with his baby, his child, you tend not to want to consider men in any shape or form.

I know there are good ones out there but after my pregnancy and subsequent adoption experience, I just had no need for it. Especially when there are a lot of other stories- one where unplanned pregnancies are met with joy or an engagement ring or a quickie wedding. I’m not saying DNA needed to marry me or support me financially if he did not want to, but this was his child. There is something that dies in a woman when you’re abandoned while pregnant. One of the most feminine, womanly things is the potential or ability to bear children. Many couples go to great lengths to conceive (IVF, surrogates, etc) rather than adopt or go childless because they simply want a biological child- meaning the man and woman want each others’ DNA and genes so much that they remortgage their house, sometimes literally go bankrupt, trying to achieve that end. I know some men who have completely changed their lives to commit to the mother of their children, or at least, commit to their children, by providing for them, becoming an involved father, being a coparent. In my case it was not to be.

I understand rationally that he was an immature, scared guy who lacked character. But my emotions and psyche and soul bear that scar. He didn’t want me, he didn’t want his own baby that he conceived with me. Am I so awful that he couldn’t bear the thought of even participating in my pregnancy or the news about his own daughter? Is there something fundamentally so wrong with me that nobody was supportive in me becoming a mother? (That’s the doozie) I wasn’t 16 years old, mind you. I had little support in keeping Bluebell, the most I received was from strangers or blog friends. I will be an amazing mom some day but it strips something from you when you were an expectant mom, you held your child in your arms, and well, the universe or society or the man who helped create that precious life, walked right past you. It doesn’t exactly endear you to join the dating scene.

I give credit to women who go on to have successful relationships, marriages and move forward with good, strong, amazing men, after their adoption experiences. The loss of being a mother, the circumstances, the way it was handled by DNA….well forget about wanting to date, just forget about it.

Well since it’s modern day and google is my tool of choice I decided to search the internet for my new friend. We’ve all done it. I really just wanted to find out more about him, see some pictures. (He lives in another state). I was mostly curious, not looking for dirt or gossip.

The guy is a ghost on the internet. I had his full name company name, past company information, the area where he lives, his phone number. I couldn’t find a thing. He had already told me he wasn’t on Facebook, but I couldn’t find a record of him anywhere. Not LinkedIn, not MySpace, not public court records! I couldn’t believe it. This guy was a ghost. After a lot of detailed searching I did find a photo of him from last year. He looked very handsome.

He also looked very married. (Wedding ring)

Feeling like a complete idiot I scoured through the few event photos I had of the conference and analyzed them. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring in any of the photos. Ok so he could have simply forgotten to wear the ring. (Um, right) I just didn’t get it. I had asked him if he had a girlfriend, and was told no. I had asked if he had ever been married, and he said no. Before you discount this entirely, this is not someone who I met at a bar or at Starbucks. This is a professional person, a client of my company’s, who I will inevitably cross paths with again. He certainly knows this- I can’t imagine why he would spend the time getting to know me while lying about being married- it’s not like he was going to be able to get away with it. Full disclaimer, things didn’t get any further than a friendly peck on the cheek, but the conversations and time spent together was certainly more romantic than “friendly”.

So I called him out on it. I sent him a text message that said I’m sorry if I misunderstood something but are you married? I did not know this and would not have spent so much time with you if I had known. He answered back that it was a “very complicated situation”. That’s all the explanation I got.

Meanwhile, we’ve had to correspond the past few days for work related issues. They are all professional and polite. After a day or two of feeling like an utter fool I will just have to chalk this one up to not ever being able to trust anyone, no matter how much you want to.

Which brings me back. I just don’t see it happening. Not simply because of this guy, but it certainly has pushed me over the edge. I don’t see myself getting married let alone having more children. I can’t seem to find a decent guy to go on a second date with, let alone have a forever with. I’m the last person anyone would say is “boy crazy” but just when I finally think I’m ready to start dating, explore what’s out there, be open to love, something like this happens.

Before you fault me for being too picky or gun-shy, well this is just how I am. I don’t trust easily. I don’t feel safe with anyone. I’m going to be this way for the rest of my life. I’m not a carefree teenager or in my 20’s. The last time I “fell” for someone and started a relationship it left me heartbroken, pregnant, and resulted in me placing my child for adoption. I do not regret the adoption but I regret trusting and loving someone so much that the result was a pregnancy that I was left alone to carry and a decision that broke my heart to make. I am sure many people- those who are widow/widowers, divorced or have had similar experiences aren’t that eager to throw themselves into a relationship either. Yet I feel like I’m running out of time.

My mom is in her 60’s. My parents divorced almost ten years ago and she is happy as a clam being alone. She loves her freedom, her solitude, her house the way she wants it. She is one of those people who just will not remarry. She has no interest and I don’t blame her. I think at this stage in her life she finally has the freedom and peace that she didn’t have before (when she was raising two kids, being a wife, struggling through a rocky marriage, etc).

I’m in my mid-30’s though and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. It’s been a good six years since I’ve had an actual boyfriend (aside from DNA). It’s been six years since I had a good guy in my life, a partner, a companion. It’s been a really long time. I don’t want to be alone, but I keep busy. I go to my book club, keep connected to girlfriends, accept invitations to events and activities. I’m not antisocial. I just know the pitfalls of choosing the wrong guy, and am gun shy.

Then I finally meet someone and feel like my world may be opening up, just to find out that whatever his situation is, it’s “complicated”. At this point in my life if you call something complicated you must give an explanation of what that is- does it mean you are getting a divorce? That you have children? A vague “complicated” just means someone is lying and I don’t have the patience or tolerance or time to sleuth it out.

When I met up with Nicole we discussed various things, one was dating and how I was feeling about the future. She asked how I felt about children and if I desired more, given the right conditions etc. I said yes of course but I will never pursue parenthood on my own. She asked, well what if you are 40 years old with no husband in sight, do you want to give up the chance to be a parent? I answered the same- I do not want to be a single parent by choice. I do not want to be a single mother by choice. I will not pursue any extraordinary means to become a parent, and especially on my own. My entire philosophy about parenting, which I hadn’t expected to be faced head on with two years ago, is that yes it’s wonderful and life changing and valuable, but I want a partner, I want a father for my children, I want my kid or kids to see a partnership- two committed parents. I know single parenthood is a reality for many and some, yes by choice. I am still not one of those people and even at 45 years old, when I guess the “clock” is screaming, you will more likely find me buying a litter of puppies than pursue single mother hood.

Sure if I was Oprah and had the financial means and resources to adopt twenty children I would, but I am not in her position. I do not have unlimited resources or finances or loyal staff and admirers to help me raise them. I know one child is different than twenty children, but in my mind it’s the same. That’s just my personal preference.

So I wonder. I don’t even like to say “I want to have children” or “I want to be married” out loud, afraid that I will jinx my future. (When I say “have children” I mean by any way possible- biological, adoption, fostering). I hope I have the opportunity to have a biological child, simply because if my body can conceive it would be wonderful and a blessing. But rather the answer is, yes I would like to be a PARENT. I don’t put much stock in how my children come to me- through conception or adoption or fostering….they will be my children no matter what.

Which brings me back. I don’t know how to go about meeting someone who is trustworthy and honest. Match.com? Church? A bookstore? I’ve heard horror stories from all three. I also know that I’ve been too rough of the last few years to be open to someone who isn’t at least empathetic much less emotionally mature and able to understand my unique needs and fears about parenthood and marriage. I’m not afraid of being married nor of parenting. Yet getting to a second date seems to be more of a problem…and I can’t give a “chance” to every guy that comes along. A lot of them have ulterior motives, or maybe don’t really know what they want until they know that they don’t want me….I don’t have the young innocent heart I used to, and frankly don’t care to waste any more time or bits of my soul in the process of finding someone suitable to date. That of course leads me to realize that if I can’t get a date, I can’t develop a relationship, meaning marriage won’t be a possibility, and forget about kids.

I just don’t see it happening.

A Soul Sister

2012-03-13T00:11:00.001-04:00

I had the absolute privilege to meet up with one of the amazing birthmoms I met in an adoption support group when I lived in California. We'll call her Nicole. She was in my town on business and wondered if I wanted to meet her for coffee or a drink. I live in a fairly large area, and this weekend was very busy. I couldn't contain my joy when she told me that she was staying at a hotel for a work conference ON MY SAME STREET.

The reunion was amazing. She placed her first son when she was a teenager in high school. She is now married with three adorable children and the most supportive, caring, loving and true "partner" in her husband. When I met her I was a mess- pregnant and considering adoption, had Bluebell and considering raising her (she was the one who drove me 30 miles away to meet with The Wonderfuls and Bluebell during that horrible 2 week "waiting period" right after she was born). She's been a dear friend, mentor, and soul spirit for me. It was such a great reunion, we could have talked all night if we both didn't have to work today!

I'm not doing our meeting justice, but our conversation and reunion really helped me understand how far I've come, and how different I am than when I was pregnant and utterly beside myself with fear and lonliness and anxiety about how best to provide a great life for my daughter, when I literally had no-one. Such a wise and gentle soul, and so supportive. I feel so lucky to have her in my life, and it reminded me of all of my adoption-related connections here in blogland and it inspired me to check back in. Life's been busy and taking on a life of it's own for the past few months, but I can't ignore this part of me, being a birthmom. It's an essential part that shapes my life, and so are the connections I have made- throughout the country- even overseas- through shared adoption experiences.

Nicole raised a point yesterday that I've been hanging on to, and I hope that those struggling or hurting with their adoption experiences, no matter why or how, can take something from. We were speaking about that horrible deep grief, the lowest of the lows, and the ache and the myriad of emotions that we both went through during our placements. Our circumstances were different but only another birthmom can recognize and remember that painful time and truly understand. I've never been able to fully talk about relinquishment unless it was with another birthmother; it is still painful to recall. However, Nicole is raising three children and has her hands full working full-time as well. I remarked that I felt bad sometimes because as much as I love Bluebell, I'm not her mom. I'm not soothing her when she's sick or disciplining her when she says "no no no" or guiding her in her daily life. I'm not her mom, and don't have the mother/daughter bond with her and never will. Yes it's sad, but not entirely, because she has that. Her mom is a tremendous mother, and everything I had hoped and more, for Bluebell. So as much as I love Bluebell, and would do anything for her, and would lie down on train tracks for her, there is a level that I won't have with her and that is the parent/child, nurturing relationship.

I remarked that of course, the relationship between parent and child is the day to day stuff- the love, the discipline, the monsters under the bed and the terrible twos and the first teeth and the first tantrums and then those teenage years....it grows and expands as life moves on and as the children grow. I will watch Bluebell grow from afar but I simply cannot have the level of relationship with her that her mom does, and I'm ok with that. Then Nicole tied that thought to her feelings about relinquishment, and how hard and painful it is. She simply remarked, I know it's easier to say now, and during that rock bottom sheer agony of pain and separation and grief of relinquishment, you never think it will go away, that it will absolutely hurt and stab you every single day.

But she pointed out, that it is impossible to maintain that level of pain. Your body, your soul, your heart, your emotions, simply cannot maintain that level of grief and hurt and pain. Yes you will learn to live with the grief and it doesn't all of a sudden "heal" nice and clean, but just as I remarked that my love for Bluebell is unconditional, I also don't have the relationship that her parents do with her because I am not her day to day caretaker, her nurturer, the mom who sings her lullabies at night. Without that constant contact and being the provider of primary care, I can't maintain a relationship with Bluebell like a mother or father can either. It's just a process of being a birthmom; yes I loved her first, but she is not my "child" and it's ok not to feel completely maternal emotions and feelings towards her. And that's ok, because that isn't my role. It was a relief to talk about birthmom musings with another birthmom, in person.

The pain, for me anyway, has transitioned into a lot more than simply hurt and sorrow and agony. It's taken on more of a polish, a rounding, like rocks on the beach. I think the years, and time, and the way life unfolds, will continue to weather and shape that pain. Right now, it's always sweeter when it's a burden shared with a friend.

Amazing Article About A Birthmother in ELLE Magazine

2012-01-25T14:44:00.001-05:00

http://www.elle.com/Life-Love/Sex-Relationships/I-m-Not-What-s-Best-for-My-Baby

Reflections

2011-12-28T01:30:00.001-05:00

2011 has been a long year for me in many ways, and harder than I'd thought. Adoption grief, life struggles, family issues, financial worries, they've all had their turn. Lately I've been having incredible flashes of clarity though, and this week seems like the one to sort of lasso them all in.

Christmas was this past weekend. I by choice, decided to stay home alone. I could have 1) visited my sister out of state 2) visited my mother on the west coast 3) visited my father and stepmom about five hours away 4) spent the holiday with local friends 5) spent the holiday with non-local friends. I was not limited in my options. I did, however, evaluate what I wanted out of this Christmas holiday and I knew I wanted and needed one thing: peace and solitude.

I moved into an apartment in September, the first time I have ever lived entirely on my own. I moved away to college when I was 17, so I've been living as an adult for a very long time. However, I've always had roommates. This is the first time I have my own corner of the world (at least for as long as my lease exists) and it's been an amazing blessing. After Bluebell's adoption I moved in with my dad and stepmom and lived with them for just about a year until I could move out, so this independence and freedom has been a long time hoped, wished and prayed for.

I've also had some very emotional issues regarding how I feel about the "openness" of my adoption and how my dad and stepmom want to be involved in Bluebell's life. I feel that some of their wants and needs override the best interest- which is that of Bluebell and her family. I appreciate my dad's interest but we don't see eye to eye on how to communicate and execute that relationship. My dad sees himself as grandpa; I see him as birth-grandpa. It's a delicate situation, because I'm very worried and concerned about how Bluebell's parents feel and do not want to inconvenience them or cause them any anxiety or worry. Of course, being my dad's daughter, I want to respect him and I do love him. So it's been a terse few months with us not seeing eye to eye. When Christmas came around I just didn't want to face those issues.

I did not feel like travelling and although I wasn't a grinch this year, just being able to get back on my feet with a new job and new life direction was enough excitement. I graciously declined the invitations to visit friends and took the day for myself.

What did I do? I cooked a wonderful breakfast. Read a book I've been wanting to read. Watched a handful of cheesy Lifetime Christmas movies. Went for a walk and admired the landscape, scenery and ocean waves. (It was 82 degrees where I live on Christmas Day!) Cooked a nice Christmas dinner and had a glass of wine. Listened to some Christmas Carols. Went to sleep, fulfilled and content.

I do wish I had gone to a church service or midnight mass, but I truly feel that I needed a day of reflection and peace and quiet. It was the best present I could have received! I did not have to endure the stress or expense of travel. I didn't have to participate in traditions or activities that I did not want to. I ate "my" version of Christmas dinner. I enjoyed the very simple pleasures of a good book, a cup of coffee, being by the seaside. It was all that I did for Christmas, and it was plenty enough.

I had the feeling all day that there will not be many Christmases like this in the future. I will resume holidays with family and friends. Hopefully there will be a special "someone" down the line to share traditions with or make up new ones together. Hopefully I will be able to enjoy Christmas through a child's eyes- whether my own, a friend's, one from the community. I already have plans to look for volunteer opportunities for next year and have realized that I would like to find a local church that I can begin attending services at. I'm looking forward to a bigger type of Christmas, a more social type of Christmas, a more giving and celebrating type of Christmas in the years to come. But this year it was perfect.

“The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea” Isak Dinesen

Bluebell's mom texted me a photo of all three kiddos in their pj's, ready for Christmas morning. It was beautiful and everything I had hoped and dreamed for her. To wake up in her footie pajamas, accompanied by her two brothers, scampering down the stairs to see if Santa had eaten the cookies left out the night before. I felt no sorrow, no pain, no sadness about it. I feel fortunate that my daughter has a mom who remembers me and knows just when to send along a photo or an update. I continue to trust that the future remains open and communicative.

The last few days I feel lighter, brighter. That there is hope and possibility and good things in store for me. No, I didn't meet a great guy, I didn't win the lottery. I just have had a moment to pause and reflect, and instead of that reflection showing me all of the pain and heartache, frustration and loss I have been through, for the first time, what is reflecting back at me is a sort of new beginning. Like a sunrise over an ocean. I am really looking forward to more of that view.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T00:41:00.002-05:00

What a wonderful gift to receive on Christmas day!

I for one, am happy that Christmas is over, and looking forward to 2012 to begin. I hope everyone had a peaceful, joyous and special Christmas, whether it was full of presents and family or quiet solitude.

Open Adoption Roundtable #23

2011-12-20T00:20:00.004-05:00

I'm trying to come back to blogging after a little hiatus, and that's made easier by participating in Open Adoption Roundtable #23

Share a holiday memory that involves open adoption.

My daughter, Bluebell, is 1 year and 5 months. (I'm not one of those people who call children by their ages in months. A child is not 24 months or 48 months; they are 2 years or 4 years, respectively!) That said, this is my second Christmas being a birth parent, and one of many to come. In our adoption that means cards, maybe an email, and some photos emailed or texted to me. That was the scenario last year and I can't imagine this year will be any different.

Last year, her first Christmas, I started what I hoped would be a tradition. It was simple but heartfelt. I got an ornament for her family, an ornament for her two older brothers, and one for her. Hers was sweet because it was a baby bear in a pink bow and listed her birthdate, time and stats. Her brothers' ornaments were two different versions of "I'm A Big Brother" and their names, and her family ornament was her last name and her parents' names plus the kids names spelled out.

This year I truly don't have much Christmas spirit. I did just land a new job, thankfully, but anxiety over work and bills have really taken up most of my time. I am not travelling anywhere this year to visit friends or family (thinking I would have to work, when I find out today that I have an entire week off!) and just haven't felt in the mood. Something jolted me out of my funk though, when I looked at the calendar and realized that if I wanted to send Bluebell and her family anything I needed to do it this week.

Somehow I got the gifts together. The kids' ornaments were simple- the first letter their first names on a colorful glass ornament. The Wonderfuls had moved to a new home this year, a beautiful white two story home on a lovely lot with trees and lots of yard. I found a similar looking "home" ornament and had it personalized with the year and their street address. Not elaborate or extensive, but enough to let the kids have fun opening their boxes and let them know I am thinking of them at Christmas.

So, in a way I started this tradition with Bluebell's first Christmas, and it seems like a fitting way to continue wishing her and her family well during the holidays. I don't want to buy clothes or toys she will outgrow, and I enjoy including an ornament for her brothers and family as well. It will force me to get creative over the years and it will be a nice reminder when they decorate their tree each December.

I also got a matching ornament of the ones I bought for Bluebell for my own collection. I am not putting up a tree this year, but I hope that when the year comes that I do, it will help me feel close to her during the holidays to know that we have the same ornaments. Many years down the road I can explain- and maybe even show her- that she has never been far from my heart.

Stocking Stuffer

2011-12-15T11:59:00.001-05:00

Bluebell, 1 year 5 months, December 2011

Santa's got nothing on Bluebell's mom.

Just received via text message.

To have built a strong relationship with her parents, to be able to share her firsts- the little and the large, to know how she is growing and developing, to know about her family's activities, their traditions, their home life...is such a blessing.

Christmas Came Early

2011-12-15T10:56:00.003-05:00

I haven't had regular health insurance for over 3 years!

A miracle happened today. For me anyway.

I filled out a health insurance form for my new job. Yes, my new job has 100% company-paid health insurance. My coverage begins January 1, 2012.

What a way to start the new year!

I had a maternity health plan when I was pregnant with Bluebell but it only specifically covered the prenatal visits and labor/delivery. I was very fortunate to have it of course, but I paid for it mostly out of pocket. It didn't include vision, dental or any other services than what was related to the pregnancy and delivery. Prior to, I had changed jobs and had been without any type of insurance since 2008.

I know so many people are struggling with unemployment, underemployment, and lack of the basics like insurance or an emergency fund. I have been without health insurance for over 3 years. I have made do. I wear contacts, so go to Walmart or Costco for their eye exam and order the lenses from a discount online retailer. I have gone to Planned Parenthood for women's services. (No matter if you are pro choice or pro life, I really believe that Planned Parenthood provides a crucial service to women especially low income, students, etc. They provide access to low cost services that empower women by allowing them to take charge of their sexual health, provide education, well woman exams, low cost contraception, referrals to counseling or other medical professionals etc.....many women wouldn't see a doctor at all if they couldn't go to Planned Parenthood) I take vitamins when I remember, avoid extreme sports, don't smoke. While prevention is probably 90% of the battle though, accidents and illness still happens.

I am usually pretty healthy and have no preexisting conditions, I eat healthy, exercise. But accidents happen, bad flus go around, every once in awhile you need antibiotics for an infection or virus. The feeling of insecurity when you don't have insurance is awful.

I myself incurred a slip and fall type injury about a month ago that landed me in Urgent Care with a gash on my chin (6 stitches required!) that cost upwards of $300. I had luckily managed to go for about 2 years without health insurance, but that accident illuminated how important it is to have some sort of coverage. Having to borrow money from my parents- who don't have a lot extra to spare- was hard too.

So, Christmas came early for me. I'm so grateful!

Only A Birthmom Can Understand This One

2011-12-03T16:15:00.000-05:00

So. Thanksgiving has come and gone. The job-hunt has been hard and I've had some setbacks. However I would like to announce that I have been hired at not one but two part time night waitressing positions, and I was given a job offer for a daytime, desk job, to start this Monday. I'm elated! Thanks for all the words of encouragement. I knew something would pan out!

Well this post has nothing to do with job searching. It is the aftermath of the Thanksgiving visit between Bluebell, her family and my dad and stepmom. And it's a doozy.

My dad and stepmom went to visit her family for Thanksgiving for about a week. They had asked The Wonderfuls if they could arange a visit with them and to see Bluebell. It was arranged. The reason why I could not go is basically, I'm broke. I have been fighting with two state unemployment departments for over a year to prove that my former employer didn't pay any unemployment/SSI/etc taxes on my earnings. I have had no income coming in. (Not to mention health insurance, etc.) For some reason I can't seem to get food stamps either. My parents are retired and on small fixed incomes. They can, say, take me out to eat when I visit them, but paying for a round trip airline ticket to go to the Thanksgiving visit is not in the budget, even on a credit card. I've been using a credit card for the past few months to put basic living expenses on, and my payments are past due. So this is why I've been scraping by just barely. Plus, knowing that I need to find a job ASAP, going away for a week wouldn't be a smart idea. Turns out, I had an interview the day before Thanksgiving and that is the job offer that I accepted and am starting on Monday. So I really had to stay put this time. I have rent, utilities, food, etc that nobody is going to pay except me. So there was no feasible way for me to go visit Bluebell. There simply was no money to cover it.

I spoke with my dad yesterday on the phone. He asked if I wanted to know about the visit and I said sure. He started off by telling me that they drove to visit, and they took along my stepmother's father. This part rattled me. "What???" I exclaimed, not even realizing how emotional I felt about it. "He isn't even related to Bluebell!".

My father was offended of course, and proceeded to berate me for feeling upset. He reminded me that my stepmother's father had terminal cancer (he does but he is doing pretty well right now) and that how could they deny him the chance to meet Bluebell? He claimed I was selfish for being upset.

Hmmm....

See, in my opinion, the sole and primary reason for any relationship or communication between myself, my biological family and Bluebell and her family, should be to provide her parents and her a context of what her biological origins are. A connection to her genetics, so she has that information to integrate into her life experience.

The reason why them bringing along my stepmother's father to visit made me upset is two fold.

One: I have never met my stepmother's father. I love and respect her, and consider her "family", but I was not raised by her, nor do I know anyone in her family. She married my father about six years ago, it was not either of their first marriage. She has grown children whom I have never met. The later in life marriages tend to be that way; of course her and my father are a family unit, but it is not the "Brady Bunch" type of blended family that sometimes happens when remarriages occur when children are still young.

When there are holidays, my stepmother often takes time before or after a holiday to visit her children (out of state). As much as I know she cares about me, and my father cares about her kids, we are all adults with busy lives. There has never been any interest in or effort on anyone's part to bring us all together. Apparently, this particular Thanksgiving, my stepmom's father wanted all of his grandkids to visit. He is in his 80's and knew it would be harder and harder to get everyone together. So he paid for his grandchildren's flights and hotel arrangements for them to visit him. He has two grandsons who came with their parents as well. So in that context, that is her side of the family.

I have never met those people, have no sort of connection or relationship to them aside from the fact that their mom is married to my dad and she's a great person who I've developed an individual relationship with. But in relation to Bluebell, my stepmom or her father really have no relevance. Yes I'm sure they care about her, which is so nice, but I don't feel that it is appropriate or necessary for Bluebell to be introduced to them or form a relationship with them; seeing as it is not a biological relative that she may be curious about or want to know based on that.

Two. When I told my father that I did not have the money to buy a plane ticket, or pay for a hotel or otherwise travel, and I felt that I needed to stay here to keep searching for a job, he basically said oh I'm sorry, I hope some day you can afford the trip. He said that it was just fine and that basically felt that he had a "right" to develop his own relationship with Bluebell and her parents and that he didn't think I was significant in the equation. When I questioned why he would bring my stepmom's father to the visit he said that it was a nice thing to do for a dying old man. This makes no sense to me. I have never met the person, yet my dad felt it was more important to bring his father in law to visit a child who he is not related to, and does not know?

This all comes down to boundaries, and obviously my dad doesn't have any. I have tried to beg and plead with him and my stepmother both to be respectful of Bluebell's privacy, and her family, and the limited role we will have in her lives. It was the hardest thing on earth to give up being her mom, but I knew what I wanted her to have in her life, and the kind of parents and family that The Wonderfuls could give her, and I am secure and ok with my decision. I do hope I can visit and hopefully am now on more stable footing where I can do that, but I do not want her or her family's life interrupted or inconvenienced by my dad's request for contact, visits or communication. I was very concerned at the beginning that he would overstep his boundaries (he calls her his grandchild, and refers to her as if they have a grandfather/grandchild relationship, which is NOT ok by me).

Listen, I love and respect my parents. We are all human and make mistakes. But I want to protect Bluebell and her family at all costs, and do not want my father trying to develop a more extensive relationship with them or her because it could be potentially confusing or disruptive in their lives. Her parents have three small children, large families on both sides, grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts, and three birth families to contend with. Bluebell is not a timeshare. Simply by virtue of biologically being related to my father, doesn't give him any "rights" to her, or entitle him to a relationship. Especially since she has two sets of grandparents. I am happy that my dad and stepmom have taken an interest and am touched that they care about her, but adoption is not foster care. Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful are not surrogate children of my father who are raising his granddaughter. Adoption is a permanent situation. The relationship we have established, and the one that I have insisted upon, is not one where we have promised yearly visits or scheduled visits. I do not want my father to plan on being able to see Bluebell every Thanksgiving. I promised Mr and Mrs Wonderful that I was on board with their parenting plan and philosophy- and the hallmark of that is the fact that they are going to make the decisions best for their family and their children no matter what. It is a tricky world to navigate especially with three adopted children and all different circumstances. But I in no way want to step on their toes or make pushy demands for contact or visits.

Ugh. I don't want to sound like a spoiled brat but I feel like my dad's visit was for HIM and his needs and wants, not for the good of Bluebell and her family. I have sent Mrs. Wonderful an email expressing my concerns and asking that all contact and communication happen between them and I from now on, and if I choose to share it with my parents it is up to me. I know it must be hard to be a birth-grandparent, but a large part of why I placed was my family history and dynamics, and my father doesn't seem to be able to accept that he isn't "grandpa". I hate myself some days for not being Bluebell's mom but I know it was what was best for her. It was the best decision then and it is the best for her today. I was 31 years old when I had her, and the pregnancy and adoption decision was solely my responsibility and decision. Her birthfather did not help me in any way, support me, or even speak to me during my pregnancy. My mother sent me about four emails during the 9 month pregnancy. Not one was supportive or caring, they mostly spoke about my poor choice in DNA. My father and stepmother were mildly interested, but when I told them adoption was my decision that took me 8 long months to take, they shamed me about not wanting to be a parent and yelled at me for not letting them have a grandchild (they both have multiple grandchildren by their other kids).

Emotions are high but Bluebell's well being comes first. I feel that my father's attitude and wants regarding a relationship with Bluebell are inappropriate and disruptive to her and her family's life. Sigh. Being a birthmother doesn't end once you sign those papers. It's even more difficult trying to broker a family truce when she's not your child anymore. Ugh.

When You Fall You Get Back Up Again

2011-11-14T20:19:00.002-05:00

Well. A little update!

First off, I never went on a second date with Mr. Nice Guy Who Asked Me On A Date. I wanted to focus on my job search and didn't feel like I had the attention or intention to fully engage in getting to know someone for the purpose of a relationship right now.

Secondly, my "temp to perm" job ended, as I shared, and I've had a heck of a time trying to find anything else since. I've sent out a ton of resumes and got a few call backs, and even a few promising interviews. The best opportunity was to be an Executive Assistant to the founder/CEO of a family trust/charity and it sounded like a great chance to build skills in that area. Only caveat; the CEO lives in Florida half the year and Los Angeles half the year. He wanted me to be bi-coastal as well, to serve as his assistant for himself and his wife, which would be ok, except that requires two apartments, two cars, two sets of utility bills, etc. For him and his wife, well they are literally billionaires, so it's not a problem, but for me, I can't carry the expense of two households in two different cities (unless there was say, a free guest house or help with rent, etc.). I also wasn't crazy about becoming a nomad, living between two cities and not again, putting down roots. They also wanted me to do this for $28,000 per year and no health benefits. I'm not in a position to turn down a decent job, but this one just required way too much than the opportunity or salary warranted.

So I went back to the drawing board and reasoned that for the meantime, I can put my smile and years of waitressing in college to good use and go get a hostess or server job at a restaurant. People still go out to eat, and waitressing is hard but honest work, and you do bring home cash in tips, and once you get the swing of things you can always pick up shifts or work your way up to a better restaurant, that sort of thing. So I went down the street to a restaurant/bar near my house, waited politely for an interview (with my extensive career resume as well as a full resume of all hospitality jobs I have had- I worked my way through college so it's actually a decent amount) and was hired, all in under half an hour. The feeling of empowerment I felt was awesome! I had snagged a job, and was set up with a schedule and was to start training the next day. Finally things were looking up.

The next morning I got up, ran the shower, and went into my kitchen to make coffee. All of a sudden, I was on the floor. I had fainted and landed on my kitchen floor. More dazed than anything, I tried to figure out what had happened. My chin was throbbing, my mouth hurt, and something was wet. I touched my mouth and it was dripping blood. Blood was dripping down my chin. Blood was all over my very white, very hard, ceramic tile kitchen floor. A huge bruise was forming on my right kneecap. I dug my ice packs out of my freezer and began pressing them all over, wherever I felt a pain or a tinge. I knew that I was going to have to get through my first day of work and bruises all over would not do. After ten minutes I felt ok enough to stand up and go into the bathroom to check out the damage in the mirror.

Oh no. Blood was pouring out of my mouth, my chin and a cut near my lip. My lips felt like someone had smashed their face into my mouth. I gingerly held back my lip and bam, my gums were bleeding and I had chipped my top front tooth. This was not going to be as easy as a band aid and an aspirin.

To make a long story short, I had to call the manager and explain that I had an accident and probably needed to make a trip to the hospital, and would not be able to start training today. I could hear the unbelief in his voice when he said feel better, but with all the blood and guts there was no way I could start a new job.

Upon lying down for a few hours with ice packs and aspirin (I am really squeamish around blood and things, and didn't feel well enough to get up and drive myself anywhere) I broke down and called my dad and stepmom. My stepmom is a semi-retired nurse and of course would have some practical advice. I explained what had happened (for anyone wondering, fainting runs in my family on my dad's side, my sister, myself and my dad have this very sensitive vaso-vagal response where we pass out easily. Triggers can include heat/temperature, feeling claustrophobic, seeing blood or needles, etc). This fainting thing has happened to me my entire life, but usually I can feel it coming on, and I can find a chair or a couch or a counter to lean myself on. This was the first time where I couldn't catch myself.

Off to the Urgent Care I drove myself (my friends were all at work and I didn't think I needed an ambulance). A short consultation and six stitches later, I walked out of there dazed but grateful for the kind nurse and doctor who stitched me up, incredibly grateful for my dad and stepmom (who paid the $350+ bill) and increasingly disheartened- I was supposed to start training that day for the waitressing job, and I had been put on the schedule for the entire next week. I had finally found a job in the nick of time, and through this freak accident, that wouldn't be happening.

I went in the next day to show my manager the damage and apologize. (In the restaurant business excuses are as common as ketchup bottles) I explained that I fell and showed him the bandage. He luckily said I could come back in and start training once I got healed up, but that isn't going to be for another week. Considering that rent is due in two, I'm panicking now.

Of course, if I had a desk job or a job where part of my job wasn't to look pretty and act charming, the stitches would be a non-issue I guess. But considering I haven't been trained yet and the bandages are sort of scary looking, I won't be earning any money until these injuries have healed. And of course, going on any interviews, even if I get some, this week, is dicey because even if you say "I don't normally look like this!", having your face banged up and stitches sewing up the side isn't the best first impression.

So, I have a week of resting and obsessing over finances and jobs and when the next shoe is going to drop. My dad and stepmom are going out of town for Thanksgiving to visit relatives (who live an hour away from Bluebell and her family) and they arranged for a visit the Saturday after the holiday. I'm glad that they can see her (I guess?) but it makes me feel crappy that even though Bluebell's over a year old I haven't been able to get my act together enough to save a few hundred dollars for a plane ticket to visit her or her family. I'm too busy trying to make sure my power doesn't get shut off to be afforded the luxury of being a part of her life in any meaningful way, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. So in addition to feeling like I'm constantly struggling I also feel like a crappy birth mother. Last year I was fixated on the perfect cards or gifts to send her and her family for the holidays....this year I don't have that opportunity. I can't afford cards or gifts for anyone I know. I'd rather find a job that requires me to work through the holidays this year to be honest with you.

I really don't want to be a "Debbie Downer". All weekend I have been marvelling at how lucky I was- my fall was bad, but could have been worse. Thank God my dad and stepmom were able to pay the medical bill (I feel sheepish about that but I am very, very grateful). Thank God I went to a nice Urgent Care that treated me with kid gloves and were gentle, despite my fear of needles and hospitals. I actually found a college dental clinic the next day that fixed my chipped tooth (going into job interviews looking like a hill billy was just not something that I could go through) for less than half the price a regular dentist would have charged. All weekend I have been saying thank you's, and feeling grateful that though something hard happened, my immediate medical needs were tended to, I got my tooth fixed, I have food in the fridge, the support and companionship of a handful of good friends, and at least I can start my job next week.

Earlier today my father wrote me an email checking in on me, and then told me that though him and my stepmother are always willing to help me out if needed (such as with the medical bill), they are having some financial difficulties right now (he's retired and on a fixed income, and she works half time but has been trying to retire fully) and they won't be able to help me past that. This I already knew, but I guess they just wanted me to be prepared. I wasn't planning on asking them for money or help, but I guess they were looking at their budget and plan to cut back a lot so they can get back on track and build up more savings. This is completely understandable, and they do not owe me any explanations about their finances. I guess my dad just wanted me to know that I am going to have to make things work somehow on my own, because they aren't in a position to help me.

This past weekend, plus his email, has really cemented my adoption decision. Not that I ever question it, because I do not. The month or two after, I did every day. I was going through so much grief and didn't have a counselor or anyone who had been through it to talk to (aside from the lovely birthparents, adoptive parents and others I found through the internet and blogs). I would wake up in cold sweats thinking I hadn't relinquished her. However as time has gone on, now over a year later, I cannot imagine raising that adorable little gal on my own with absolutely no safety net. My dad and stepmother begged me to keep her, saying they would help support us, help with childcare, help with the logistics. I told them that they had raised their respective children years ago (both with spouses, I may add). Raising a child as a single parent is a whole other ball game, and no matter how much they were eager for a grandchild to run around their living room, I could see into the future, and I could see the struggle and the hardship and the pain. It would not always be smiling faces on Christmas cards and trips to Disneyland.

Today everything I envisioned is true. My parents (not that they owe me anything and certainly did not owe me or Bluebell any financial support) do not have the means to help me financially, let alone me with an infant daughter on my own. They told me the last time that I saw them (my dad is 73, my stepmother is 65) that although their general health is fine, they no longer have the energy and enthusiasm they once had. They expressed a desire to slow down (not travel so much, no over exert themselves). These are the two people who were begging me to keep Bluebell, offering up financial and physical support, but truth was, they weren't really in a position to give it to me. Bless their hearts for offering, of course. My own mother didn't offer anything except unspoken judgement, a battery of complaints about how my father should have paid her more in their divorce, and therefore, she believed he should give me the money to raise Bluebell on my own (I've said this many times before- I grew up in a one income, comfortable but definitely not luxurious or wealthy lifestyle. My mother has irrationally believed since my parents' divorce that all of a sudden my father has millions of dollars she was somehow screwed out of...) Anyway, back to practical matters, I am barely hanging on by myself, and dragging Bluebell through this uncertainty would have been unthinkable to me.

If I had my fall in the kitchen with Bluebell around, first off there is an injured mother (me) who maybe didn't have time to go to the emergency room or a babysitter to watch Bluebell while I went. Maybe my parents didn't have the $350+ to pay my doctor bill, or I needed that money for food for her or daycare or clothes or diapers. Raising a child entirely on one's own, in my situation with very limited family and very limited family support, would have been downright dangerous. Yes, I am still in a precarious position without trying to raise a toddler on my own.

But I can handle being broke, I can handle stitches in my chin, I can handle going to get a waitress job to make ends meat in the meanwhile. I could not fathom adding Bluebell to that mix. We would have struggled every single day- for a good many days. Her biological dad would have never "come around". All the well-meaning friends who wanted me to keep her, who encouraged me that I could do it, who actually spoke harsh words to me upon finding out that I was considering adoption? Well those friends have their own lives and bills and families and kids and dogs and unemployment and car crashes and refrigerators breaking. Everyone has problems and catastrophes and injuries and accidents. People can be supportive in a lot of ways but at the end of the day it would have been me and her against the world and I could not live with those odds.

So, I'm feeling a bit banged up but grateful. A little despondent, but I know that once I get back on my feet, I will continue to rebuild my life, one step at a time. I will save every dollar, every penny I find on the street. I'll work eight jobs to make sure I have an income, can pay my bills, have health insurance. The economy is tough and a lot of people are in hard situations financially.

I am going to a friend's for Thanksgiving, with a handful of others who aren't travelling or aren't going to see parents or relatives. I will make a few dishes (fun for me because I love to cook) and be really grateful that I have good people around me, despite the bumps in the road. I'm sad that I won't see Bluebell or her family, and yes I'm a bit jealous that my dad and stepmom will, but that can't really be helped. My heart is heavy, because I don't want her to ever think that I don't love her, don't think of her, don't hope and dream and pray for her every second of her life. But right now I just have to piece mine back together and hope the future holds better possibilities.

A New Year

2011-10-31T01:24:00.000-04:00

Wow, it's been awhile. Between the new job, moving and settling in, I haven't had much time or energy to write. I also just passed my birthday (low key and with little fanfare or fuss which is the best way for me to celebrate!) So for me, it's a "New Year" starting now.

Problem is, I still live with adoption every day, and having so many thoughts and emotions about it bubbling up all the time with nowhere to go leaves me confused and struggling some days. I try to push them away or keep busy with my other obligations, but I don't want to avoid them either.

Another recent challenge- my promising new job has come to an end. It was a temp-to-perm position with the hopes to turn permanent, but due to a slowing economy and sales figures lower than they expected, they decided not to bring me on full time. It's a bit disappointing (and they ended my contract three weeks early so it's also financially nerve-wracking).

I'm exciting to find a new opportunity but these days sometimes it just feels that I'm just squeaking by day after day. I know a lot of people in this economy are facing similar challenges, but realizing that I have 28 days to come up with next month's rent puts me in an utter panic, not to mention other bills.

Forget ever setting some money aside for a rainy day, forget about any extras....it's frustrating. I'm doing worse now than before and during my pregnancy. I kick myself now for not saving more money, for not getting an accounting degree, for not marrying that "Mr. Too Nice but super duper stable". I wonder if I will ever have a life partner- someone else to have my back- or I'll be constantly doing the heavy lifting myself. I enjoy being independent but it can be very solitary.

Then Halloween and all of its delights comes tomorrow and I get to see every friend's child dressed up adorable via Facebook or text message (and I can count over 10 friends with babies born in the past six months) and wonder, why was I so obsessed with giving Bluebell a perfect life, a perfect family, perfect parents? Everyone else is simply doing "the best they can" with their kids....I gave up the chance to be a mom because I thought it was best, because I thought it would give her the world, because it would stabilize my life and allow me to build a better foundation.

I thought her parents were more established and better prepared and equipped to bring her into their family, their life. I was not mistaken. They were then and they are now. I just hate feeling as if I will never be at that solid type of place, that I don't have a partner to build a life and foundation with. I do want a family, I know that the real things that matter are family, friends, making a difference, living a good and meaningful life. Sharing memories and holidays and milestones. I feel light years away from having that.

So many conversations and experiences and thoughts have happened over the past few months....a lot relate to adoption; some are opinions I've heard from friends, some are its portrayal on television or movies, some are emotions about the experience. I'm sifting and sorting them, hopefully writing them out can help make sense of it all.

I did just receive a few pictures via text from Bluebell's mom (she's getting so big and walking!) and she is truly so adorable. No matter what, I'll never regret the decision to bring that little girl into the world or place her with her family.

No matter what comes though, I can handle it. I have been through worse. Things will move forward, and hopefully good changes are to come.

The Things We've Handed Down

2011-10-04T23:58:00.001-04:00

I love the singer Marc Cohn.....his lyrics, music, instrumental pieces, and absolute and utter passion and truthfulness in his music has always hit me right to the core.

I recently found an old CD of his at a thrift shop (best purchase I've made in years, probably!) It was his album "The Rainy Season".

The last track is haunting, and beautiful, and peaceful. I sort of hummed the lyrics, until I actually opened the liner notes to see if there were lyrics. There were!

To me, this is a song to an unborn child. Two of my dearest friends are expecting right now. One a very good friend who has had ups and downs, and is now engaged to a wonderful man and expecting her first child; and the second is a birthmother who inspired me to stick with my adoption decision all the way through. She is parenting two children, has a baby on the way, and is in an amazing reunion with her first daughter (who is now a teenager!) and I look to her as an amazing source of inspiration.

So the baby love is all around me these days! And it doesn't hurt a bit. I am so happy.....for my friends, for the place I am finding in this world, for the experience becoming a birthmom has allowed me to have. It wasn't easy and I still live with it; but I find so much more joy, self-knowledge, reflection, purpose, and clarity having had this experience. It has truly allowed me to live a life of purpose, a life of accountability and responsibility, and a life greater than my own immediate needs and wants and desires. I learned how to truly become selfless and love someone, something, unconditionally.

I never would have stopped to listen to these lyrics previously. I am not a mommy, I don't consider myself an active mother. But having had the incredible gift of a pregnancy, and giving birth to a healthy and amazing and beautiful child, I do not ever take that for granted. I may grieve not being able to parent, and I may still feel the sting. But I stand by my beliefs which led me to adoption, which was that every child should be so wanted, and planned for, and welcomed with love and faith and hope. I hope and pray that every child has a foundation- of a family, of at least one committed and loving parent (I am a realist I know there are many single parents these days). I hope to every fiber of my being that any expectant parent (and people parenting already) have the support system, family help, community help and support that they need.

We hear about it every day in the newspaper, see it on the news. Humans with horrible pasts, abuse, bad childhoods. People who go off the deep end, become violent or turn to drugs or addictions. Who did not have a stable home or someone who believed in them or a relative or neighbor or family friend to be their advocate. Children who are cast aside, not nurtured or loved or protected. Children deserve the best start in life no matter their parents' backgrounds, economics, education. I do not advocate adoption for everyone, certainly not, but the world is not an easy place for an unsupported person or couple to welcome an unplanned pregnancy or a teenage pregnancy or young pregnancy. The ones who suffer are the children.

Having The Wonderfuls come into my life, to become Bluebell's parents, is the greatest gift I have ever been given. Having touched and experienced what it feels like to actually be a parent (for a little while) revealed the mystery and miracle of parenthood. It's something I could and would not trade for the world.

If you'd like to listen to it, it is on youtube HERE

Here are the lyrics:

Don't know much about you
Don't know who you are
We've been doing fine without you
But, we could only go so far
Don't know why you chose us
Were you watching from above
Is there someone there that knows us
Said we'd give you all our love

Will you laugh just like your mother
Will you sigh like your old man
Will some things skip a generation
Like I've heard they often can
Are you a poet or a dancer
A devil or a clown
Or a strange new combination
Of things we've handed down

I wonder what you'll look like
Will your hair fall down and curl
Will you be a mama's boy
Or daddy's little girl
Will you be a sad reminder
Of what's been lost along the way
Maybe you can help me find her
In the things you do and say

And those things that we have given you
They are not so easily found
But you can thank us later
For the things we've handed down

You may not always be so grateful
For the way that you were made
Some feature of your father's
That you'd gladly sell or trade
And one day you may look at us
And say that you were cursed
But over time that line has been
Extremely well rehearsed
But our fathers, and their fathers
In some old and distant town
From places no one here remembers
Come the things we've handed down

2011-10-03T23:25:00.000-04:00

So my date went well!

Yes, I went through with it. (Believe me, I could have cancelled at any moment!). I realized though, that in asking me, he extended respect and courtesy and I should follow through.

So, we ended up at a different restaurant than the one originally planned, but it was also one I was eager to try. I met him there (although he did offer to pick me up, but on a first date I thought better of that idea) and it was a really nice evening.

We talked, got to know each other, spoke about our careers and families and where we've lived. He asked about my career and interests, I asked about his. Halfway through the date we were talking more familiarly, and approached some of the bigger topics. He let me know that he had never been married nor had any children. He was "incredulous" about the fact that I had never been married and had no children (something along the lines of "you are telling me that nobody has tried to marry you yet? I can't believe that!")

The subject of kids did come up. He didn't ask me point blank, and I didn't want to tell. It wasn't because I felt awkward or didn't know how to bring it up. This sounds really strange, but things were going very well, and I could almost tell every time I agreed with him, or mentioned an interest or opinion or political or societal view, it was very in line with his, or at least something he understood and agreed with. I almost felt like I was an on audition (which first dates can be anyway). Before I even had a second to give Bluebell a second thought, he laid it on me.

"The one thing I regret is not having kids".

Excuse me? I stammered.

He went on to explain that he has spent the past 10, 15 years of his life working, and travelling around the US for his job. He basically has had apartments in a few different cities (he is in real estate development) and had been called to live in different cities to oversee various projects. So he had been in one place for six months, another place a year. He is originally from the East Coast, and has a home base here, but it sounds like he was busy with work and travel and probably keeping up with friends and a social life in multiple locations. He said he had a few serious relationships that he thought would lead to marriage but didn't. He also mentioned that he had a brother, who had two teenage daughters, his nieces, and from observing them grow up, he knew that he definitely wanted to be a father and hoped he'd have the chance to.

This is definitely a good sign. At least it wasn't someone who said they didn't want kids, or were on the fence, or said they did but deep down they didn't. He sounded like a man who had lived a good amount of life chasing a career, a life, travel, other interests, and is more ready to settle down and start a family if possible, than not.

This would be an amazing, wonderful, great thing, except he is a little older than I thought. I thought he was in his early 40's and I think he's in his late 40's. That doesn't preclude him from being excellent husband or dad material, not at all. I just feel like he may be ready RIGHT NOW and I'm still getting my bearings.

Yes I know, it was a first date, not a marriage proposal, but it is something to keep in mind. He was attractive, educated, well spoken, intelligent, nice manners. He was considerate (paid for my valet parking, I can't remember the last time anyone has done that for me), easygoing, very interesting to talk to.

As the date progressed though I sort of felt like I was auditioning for a part in his life sort of. It wasn't creepy and he wasn't oppressive or asked too many personal questions. I simply felt like this was a person who had lived enough of life, had a few very serious relationships, watched his nieces grow up, watched his brother marry and build a family, had a lot of career success, and now what matters to him is the "real stuff"- marriage, kids. Building a legacy.

When I was talking to him, I seemed like I could fit the role very well. Never married, so no crazy ex husband. No children, so no custody or child support or ex husband/children's father to deal with. I am in my early 30's so for all intents and purposes I can still have kids. Since we didn't touch on the adoption at all (truthfully there was no point for it to be discussed and I already felt like I was playing into his scenario so well that if I had mentioned it, he may have canonized me on the spot). I didn't want to bring up Bluebell because, and I'm not trying to brag or sound conceited, but that would have probably sealed the deal for him.

I am young-ish, intelligent, educated, a career type of person, have common sense, not materialistic, can take care of myself, independent, easygoing. (This is probably not the usual type of women he meets around here, basically there are a lot of "gold digger" types with no substance roaming around these parts looking for some sort of sugar daddy or man to take care of them). If I had laid the "I'm a birthmother" thing on him it would have immediately proven 1) I am capable of conceiving and birthing a child and 2) I have such a huge heart and compassionate nature and common sense to know that adoption was best for my child with the deadbeat father and 3) I must obviously want another baby or babies ASAP, so let's get started!

Now I'm eggagerating a little. But the reason why I didn't mention Bluebell was because he was already enthralled with other elements about me, and we didn't touch on an area where I felt it was relevant to bring her up. He has asked me out again (for the next day to be exact, but I begged off, wanting some down time this weekend to do laundry and errands!), so that is a good sign.

It's funny, I have always dated men who are a few years older, to maybe 10 years older. I have a lot more in common with older people- starting in high school I was rolling my eyes at boys my own age while I was smitten by the high school boys who seemed more mature and together. I am an old soul- I like old music (Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac) and I have been into "older" interests (wine, food, the New York Times, art, architecture) since an early age. I guess it's because my parents let us be independent in certain ways. So I have had more in common with and a common ground with men who are a handful of years older. This one, I had a ton in common with, but I could almost see him staring at the clock, feeling like the time was slipping away, the time he had left to find a wife and have children and complete that part of his life. (He's probably in his late 40's). Not that I think it's a bad thing, but I have rethought my previous enchantment with "older men".....

I don't want to fit into someone else's game plan. I don't want them to fit like a peg into mine, either. I want someone I can grow with and learn from, and vice versa. I want someone that is eager to start a journey together- to create new memories and goals and hopes and dreams. I can't become part of someone's paint by numbers idea of the next five years.

My sister keeps telling me not to be picky and I should take the opportunities where I find them- that I'm "not getting any younger". I know that. I am not looking for a 25 year old and I don't want to be anyone's trophy girlfriend or wife. I understand that people have pasts and former loves and experiences and a lot of people have been married or already have children. Those things don't bother me and I'm not looking for any type of perfection.

I was talking the date over with a friend (of course) and she thought maybe I just wasn't attracted to this guy or he wasn't "my type". After hashing it over I realized, that's not it at all.

As much as I want someone to share my life with, a partner, a husband, a mate, I have spent the past few years entangled. I was pregnant for a year where the entire year was stressful and heartbreaking, trying to carry a healthy pregnancy and doing it with no help. I had to spent most of it agonizing over my choice not to parent Bluebell and the entire year after that, trying to find a job, still grappling with that choice. I had to deal with DNA and my family's opinion and my friends' opinions and my sister's opinion. I did not live on my own- I had a roommate or lived with my parents the entire past four years. My job situation was not stable and I was at the mercy of getting paid once in awhile and trying like heck to find a job in the meanwhile. Not easy when you're visibly pregnant.

What I realized is that I have not had my life to myself for a very long time. I spent the past ten or more years focusing on my career- jumping whenever my job or boss asked me to jump. Moving across country, arranging my entire life around a work schedule. I have never not had a roommate until about a month ago. I was beholden to other peoples' needs, wants, whims, preferences. This past year I was lucky to be able to stay with my sister, mom, dad and stepmom, but it wasn't my own space, or privacy. It wasn't my kitchen to cook in, it wasn't my television to program. I have literally been at the mercy of everyone other than myself for so long, I haven't known what actual autonomy felt like until now.

So I have concluded that while I may accept a second date, I'm not eager to get tangled up in someone else's life right now. I like my life as it is. I like building it, reconnecting with friends, scheduling my time with no regards to anything but work and other obligations. It's been a long, long time since I have had "me" all to myself. I'm not keen to give that up quite yet.

To Go Private?

2011-10-03T11:35:00.000-04:00

Thank you for all the recent comments! Love to have all the feedback and advice. I will have an update shortly!

I received my first *strange* and negative email the other day. I almost thought it was a spam/computer because it wasn't phrased in any recognizable type of English but then realized that sadly, many people out there can type on a computer without knowing how to actually form a sentence or intelligent thought.

This is why I don't publish a real email address- you can contact me by clicking on "send me an email" and it gets forwarded to me, but I don't feel comfortable with my email address out there naked and vulnerable.

The comment basically said "Why do you write this?", gave a fake email address, and said something nonsensical about their dislike of my blog name and, I think, (remember this comment did not make any sense at all) accused me of being a man because only a man would accuse a woman for "entrapping" him in an unplanned pregnancy.

That said it was creepy and I'm leaning towards ignoring it, but also don't want to become the police of the internet either. Going private would eliminate strange responses (and also, people digging into my privacy and more importantly, that of Bluebell and her family).

Not exactly sure what path I will take but I'd like you all to know I'm definitely not a male, my adoption story is real, and I'm proud of everything I write here. I'm just not thrilled with odd lookie-loos taking my personal thoughts and writings and turning them into something they are not.

Advice anyone?

Do You Have Any Kids?

2011-09-29T22:58:00.000-04:00

I have a date tomorrow night.

Slow down, Nelly. My head and heart hasn't had the energy or desire whatsoever, to get involved or date again. Honestly after dating DNA, and the pregnancy, and Bluebell, I just felt so raw and exposed. I felt abandoned and used and after the adoption, empty and meaningless. I was, to be honest, depleted.

I know myself and I'm not an impulsive person. Given the choice of dating right away after the adoption or going on some sort of self-imposed 10 year break from dating or men, I'll take the 10 year hiatus. Some people have the opposite wiring- they can move on quickly, or find joy and healing in opening up to others, giving love a chance again, leaving their hearts open.

The adoption sucked most of the strength and joy that I had out of me and I knew that there was no way I would make it through this year unless I focused entirely on myself, my needs, the future, a job, moving on. I had no energy or room to bring another person into it. Absolutely not.

Well I'm still not actively pursuing "dating". Friends ask me all the time if I am seeing anyone, if I have met anyone. A few months ago I would be screaming inside "What they heck are you talking about dating anyone? I got pregnant by the last guy I dated and he left me holding the bag, resulting in me giving up my first child to adoption! How on earth could you even imagine I'd be up for dating anyone ever again!" but of course, politely just say "No, just trying to focus on a new job" or "No, just haven't met anyone special". I know a lot of the comments were just to be kind and show interest but I could not fathom even glancing more than two seconds at a member of the male species.

A few days ago on my lunch break I struck up a conversation with a man who was eating lunch next to me. It was casual and interesting and no pressure. We exchanged cards and I barely thought of it, but I did think, wow, that rarely happens anymore, when you meet a stranger and you have the time to do some basic chit chat and you actually find them interesting to speak with! Well tonight he called and asked me out on a proper dinner date for tomorrow evening, at a restaurant I've been dying to go to.

I'm not really looking to jump into anything or to fall in love tomorrow, but I enjoyed our initial conversation and part of my whole "moving on" and new start needs to include being open to new people coming into my life. Granted, I'm extremely cautious about new people that I meet and get to know, but I have also realized that I can't cling to the one or two people I love and trust more than anything in the world either. I will have to get out there and meet new people- friends as well as potential dates. So I accepted.

Naturally I did some google sleuthing and couldn't find much (but I did verify his name and where he lives and some basic information he already told me, which is a good thing). I spoke to my sister on the phone and she asked if he had ever been married (I don't know, we didn't get that detailed) or had kids (same thing). It then occurred to me that while we may have exchanged pleasantries and some info at lunch, dinner will inevitably get a little more detailed. I am sure questions such as "So have you ever been married?" or "Do you have kids" may pop in there. Those are normal questions that come up during a dating type of scenario.

I've never been married, so that answer is easy. But the kid question, that's a little more difficult. I always vaguely thought that if I ever dated again, I would get to know the guy well, and not mention Bluebell until I knew him well enough that I trusted him and felt that he was worthy of the story and information. I'm not going to bring her up in casual conversation with a stranger, and I probably won't mention her tomorrow evening if the question comes up. He seems like a nice guy, but that's not something I want to lead with, if that makes sense.

Then it struck me, if I don't tell a person right away, and then the date goes well and it leads to more dates and getting to know each other, is it lying if I don't talk about it? At what point do you tell someone? I don't feel that a date or even boyfriend has a "right" to know that information, and truthfully wouldn't want to share such a personal and intimate and heartbreaking experience with just anyone. There's still mixed acceptance and feelings about adoption, and there are lingering stereotypes of birthmothers.

Plus Bluebell is special, and very real to me. It's very personal to talk about her. She is also NOT my daughter. She isn't like a "mascot" or pet chihuahua that I can show off pictures of and talk about incessantly....that is disrespectful of her and her family's privacy, and I also don't consider her as an extension of me in any way. I know that sounds strange, but she is her mom's daughter, her dad's little princess. I am her biological mom but she is entirely part of The Wonderfuls.

Now DNA, probably tells every girl he meets about Bluebell, to garner some sort of "sympathy" points or something, but considering that I actually lived through that and have felt every second of anguish, pain, joy, heartache, happiness and melancholy about the adoption decision, it is a real and true experience for me.

If I had ever been married and was now divorced, I would feel comfortable saying, "I was married once", or "I am divorced". But having a child and placing him or her for adoption is different....50% of marriages end in divorce and many people know others who have been divorced, or have been divorced themselves, or their parents or relatives or friends have divorced. The stigma of divorce is no longer. Yet you don't often meet birthparents.

In addition, the fact that someone chose adoption for the child indicates that there was some issue or issues that led them to that decision. Perhaps it was financial or their age or their lack of support system or lack of help from the biological father or them not being ready or simply not being able to provide what they wanted for their child. Those are all deeply personal and individual reasons, and telling someone you are a birthparent basically brings all of them to the surface. You almost feel compelled to talk about the reasons or give your personal side of things, and those are very intimate and personal details for anyone to share. A first date isn't exactly the place to get into it.

So, if I am asked "Do you have any children?" tomorrow, I will probably say no. It may be followed with "Do you want children?" in which I will say, "I'd like to be a mom some day".

A Little Hiatus

2011-09-27T01:49:00.001-04:00

Wow! I've been "gone" for awhile. I didn't realize how quickly the days have been flying by....trying to get a new routine set up with work, a new apartment, attempting to settle into my neighborhood. I've been enjoying the changes, but adoption hits me over the head just about every day. It has faded somewhat into the back of my mind and experiences (the new job has been very busy, in addition to basically jumping in and hitting the ground running there's all the usual stuff of trying to remember 30 new co-workers' names, anticipate my boss' personality and management style, that sort of thing) but for anyone curious, birthparents think of adoption every single day and in many seconds, minutes, hours of the days.

I suppose being a birthparent is similar to having had a dear loved one, friend or family member, pass away. I don't forget about Bluebell, not for a second. Small memories make me smile and remember her fondly (and recent pictures always amaze me at how she is growing and changing). I hear something about the city where she lives, or something that reminds me of one of her parents or siblings, and it comforts me.

On the flip side, I hear something such as a celebrity announcing a pregnancy (Beyonce, the singer/actress has been one of the latest ones) and it hits me with pangs that I did not expect. A friend posts a "baby bump" photo of herself on Facebook (this high school friend is actually single and pregnant, with the father not involved) and I do a nano-second of a second guess- why couldn't I be proud to show belly pictures and just happy that my child was coming into the world? Why did I even choose the adoption route? Then I'm reminded of all of the reasons and am certain that it was the right choice for us, no matter what other people are doing.

As time goes by I am more and more convinced that my decision was the right one. It's easy for me to say that now, over a year after placement, and having some positive things to look forward to. But I'm telling the honest truth. I 100% do not regret the adoption.

I was thinking about a past relationship, my high school boyfriend, who I thought I'd end up marrying. It was a hard breakup, years ago, and I literally lost my foundation. We had many mutual friends, were close to each to each others' families and co-workers and extended families.......it was as bad as a divorce. It was extremely painful, and he ended up meeting someone fairly soon afterwards, which added insult to injury. I spent the next three years trapped in a painful, heart-wrenching sorrow and depression about the breakup, experiencing all of the stages of grief. Even when he got married I couldn't be happy in my heart. It took me a very, very long time to accept it and move forward.

Today, I have no feelings whatsoever about him. Looking back on that chapter in my life, I know for certain I was a different person, as was he. We were very young and loved and cared about each other, and were meant to be in each others' lives for that time period. Of course without a lot of time, therapy, some years between us and a lot of self-help books, I would have never come to that conclusion. Especially after Bluebell and her adoption however, I know that whatever sorrow or pain or grief I had about that relationship was very small potatoes compared to becoming a birthmother. Which is incredibly odd, seeing that I did not have that kind of influential, long-term, best friend, soulmate type of relationship with Bluebell's biological dad. Yet I know now that my breakup with College Boyfriend was meant to be, to prepare me for Bluebell and her relinquishment. I am convinced of it.

When I look back at that relationship I appreciate the good parts, smile at the funny memories. We learned a lot from each other and in a lot of ways grew up together. We dated for six years in our late teens early 20's, a very formative time. I do remember some of the bad things but I don't have an emotional connection to them. I mostly just accept it and realize it was part of my life's path. The only thing I do regret?

The time. I regret the wasted time. I do not wish him harm and I know that it takes two in a relationship. But I would never, ever, date someone for six years ever again without the promise or request for an engagement or marriage. I would never suggest to a young woman (college age or younger) that she get involved with someone that seriously for so long, without the intention and set decision to marry either.

Not that my ex was a bad person, but we just looked at each other after six years and realized that we were in our early 20's and had a lot of life to live- career plans, getting an MBA, travel. We realized that we were not ready to get married yet and needed to focus on our personal selves- whether it was with career or education or social life or hobbies- we needed the freedom to not have the long term commitment and obligation of a relationship. We needed to grow up and explore different paths and decisions and interests. It wasn't the matter of not loving each other- we just weren't ready to take the next step I suppose. Broke my heart, and life limped along.

That's what I regret. The wasted time. I'm not an octagenarian but now in my 30's I'm accutely aware that time truly does wait for no-one, and as far as I know, you don't get a do-over. We all learn from experiences and trials in our lives, but once the time is gone, that is the one thing you can never get back.

I don't regret my decision to have Bluebell nor place her for adoption. I am sad that I had to learn, six months into the pregnancy, that the nagging uncertainty and gut feeling inside of me, was going to turn out to be right; that I didn't have the resources I needed to keep and raise her. I do regret the time I spent with DNA. I can't say "Well at least our relationship produced the most wonderful little girl in the world!". Bluebell is an amazing child and I love her to pieces.

If I could go back in time though I would not have wasted my time with someone like him, not even given him the time of day. Yes his DNA and mine combined to create an amazing, gorgeous, lovely little girl, but knowing how how he felt about the whole thing and how he simply wanted nothing to do with it, it cheapens her existence somewhat. Had I not placed her for adoption she wouldn't have a complete family, two parents. I would have fought a losing battle every day of her life trying to reassure her that although her dad wasn't in the picture like some other kids' dads, it didn't matter. I would have passed on some of the hurts of my own childhood to her (not having much family or extended family for love, support, friendship). I couldn't live with myself to repeat that.

I am still full of sorrow for the woman I was two years ago, scared witless but determined to do right by the baby. I did right by her, I know I did, but I would never, ever advise a woman to go through a first (or subsequent) pregnancy simply to bring that child to other parents to raise. If a woman found herself in a crisis pregnancy I would support her no matter what. Abortion is a very sad option, but having gone through the pregnancy and birthmother experience- and knowing what empty arms feel like- I could never tell anyone else what to do in those shoes. I know how hard it is to walk in these ones.

Going to work, meeting some new people, trying to get my routine down, has taken up some of my time. But I still feel like an old soul. I'm working with some "kids" who are just out of college. They are sharp and intelligent and all about the internet, social media, tweeting, what have you. I feel like a little bit of a dinosaur! I have always looked a little younger than my age, so some of them assume I am a few years older than they are when really I am about ten. Being around them reminds me of how much enthusiasm and promise kids have, when they are tackling their first internships or jobs and ready to take on the world.

Then there are the co-workers who are actually my age, who have pictures of their children (toddlers, elementary-school aged kids, high-schoolers) and husbands or wives on their desks, laughing at the intern's tales of navigating the dating world, saying things like "I'm so glad to be done with that phase of my life!". I'm sort of the odd man out- not falling into the "norm" for either age group. I'm too old to be footloose and fancy free, and definitely have had enough life experience in the past few years to feel like I'm 100 years old, but from appearances I'm just single, no kids, no boyfriend or husband, living the "Sex and the City" type of life (believe me, I certainly am not!).

My mind is a mixture of mush right now but adoption comes to me daily if not hourly. It is always around me, reminding me. I think of Bluebell all the time. Right now though I still need to figure out where I fit in, and how I can right my ship to a positive future. It's slow going but hopefully I'm going somewhere.

Family Love is Family Love, No Matter What

2011-09-11T12:20:00.002-04:00

I just found a really touching article, an interview with the actress Emily Proctor. She is probably best-known for her role as CSI "Calleigh Dusquene" on CSI: Miami. She had a daughter, "Pippa" this past December.

I have long admired her as an actress, and was curious about her pregnancy because she was pregnant during some of the time I was pregnant with Bluebell. She is also 42, and this is her first child, which is more common these days, but certainly not the absolute norm.

You can read the article here.

Emily Proctor and her daughter, Philippa Frances ("Pippa")

The amazing part is, I had no idea that Emily Proctor was adopted! She grew up in North Carolina with her brother (also adopted), and it sounds like she had a wonderful upbringing (despite the fact that her parents divorced early on and remarried). The article touches on some of her feelings about being adopted, now that she has a newborn of her own.

Some of the most poignant quotes are below:

I’ve long felt that it doesn’t matter how your babies come to you, just that you have each other.

I have always thought about my birth mother and what she went through. In the hospital room, when the nurses asked, “Would you like us to take the baby?” I said, “No! I do not want you to take the baby from this room!” And I thought, “What if I had to say, ‘Yes, you can take her away—for good.’” I cannot imagine how brave and painful that would be, to make the choice to let someone else raise your baby if you couldn’t do it. It was the right choice in my case.

My love for Pippa is overwhelming. But after all these years of wondering, the birth of my daughter has helped me see that the love I feel for her is the same love I feel for my mother or father or Paul. For me, family love is family love, no matter what.

I loved this quote as well:

I really beat myself up for waiting so long when I’d always wanted children and family had been the basis of my happiness my whole life.

Now, I don't love the fact that she had a struggle to concieve. It is a frustrating mystery when people face fertility issues.

But her saying that her family has been the foundation and nucleus of her happiness her entire life filled me with joy.

From her perspective, she loves and adores her family, and doesn't seem to have any issue with being adopted. This is the future that I hope for Bluebell.

Working Girl

2011-09-07T00:22:00.000-04:00

I started a new job today! It's a 3 month contract position, no benefits, but if this goes well they will try to hire me on permanently after the project is done. Back to blogging on the weekend!

Pinch Me

2011-08-28T02:39:00.002-04:00

Someone pinch me.

A year ago today, I have no idea where I was. I may have been at my mom's house, saying goodbye before shipping my stuff to the East Coast and trying to pick up the pieces of my life. I may have been visiting my sister, crashing on her couch and still undergoing that weird post-pregnancy sweat fest where all of your hormones and sweat glands and whatnot go into overdrive and you wake up soaked every night (combine that with adoption-related dreams and grief and it's a picnic, let me tell you). I may have been at my dad's house, house-sitting while him and my stepmom took a long-planned and saved for trip to Europe, thankful for the peace and quiet but also tortured by the excruciating sounds of silence and tick tock, tick tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway.

Truth be told, I can't exactly remember where I was last year on this day because it was such a heavy and clouded and hard emotional time. I am sure I went through the motions but my mind and heart was somewhere else.

The journey over the past year has been rough. I placed Bluebell on August 3, 2011. I lost my job immediately afterward. I packed up my things and made plans to feel out the waters of the job market in California. After realizing that there was no way I was emotionally ok or able to handle with staying in LA where I had lived during my pregnancy and placed Bluebell, I realized that I wanted to return to the East Coast where I had been when I had found out I was pregnant.

When I lived there, everything up until me finding out that I was pregnant, had been going well. I decided that come hell or high water I would go back to Florida some how, some way. My parents live here, but I vowed that I would some day move back here on my own- no sleeping on a friend's couch, no roommates, no temporary thing. I wanted to pursue career opportunities there, I have friends there, I enjoyed the lifestyle and scenery and wanted to make a fresh start there.

I didn't realize that it would take me 12 months to do it.

I saved money from the part time work that I was doing. (Unfortunately that has dried up so now I'm on a mad resume submitting, interview anticipating roller coaster). I stayed with my parents. I budgeted. I wasn't this focused at the beginning- mostly I was grieving being a mom, grieving Bluebell, filled with an incredible amount of self-hatred and disappointment.

The first six months of placement it was like there was an internal loop in my brain saying "you're such a failure". I felt like it. I hated that I couldn't parent her. I hated that no matter how much effort I made or money I saved or books I read, it wasn't enough. I wanted to love and cuddle and bond with her. How on earth was I able to birth a baby and walk away with nothing? Damn the cosmos, honestly.

Well I'm writing this from my new apartment. Someone better pinch me.

For various reasons, mostly convenience and money, I've always had a roommate. Even growing up I shared a room with my sister until my mom could be persuaded to give up her "sewing room" and let me have my own. In college I had roommates, after college I had roommates. I've never not had a roommate (and no I have never lived with any boyfriends, if you're wondering). I'm 32 years old and it's about time I not have a roommate.

So. I am happy to report that I am the proud tenant of a beautiful condo. One bedroom, 1.5 baths. A balcony overlooking water, with a direct view of the ocean to the east. 12 months, and it's all mine.

I don't exactly have furniture yet. A bed and kitchen stuff and odds and ends. I'll make do until I can fill it in. I'm still looking for a job (for anyone wondering how I can afford rent without a "real" job, I saved money for a year so was able to put down the hefty deposit and two month's advance rent). Basically I knew that I needed to be living on my own, in the area that I plan to stay in, where I am looking for jobs. I was trying to apply for an interview for jobs here but not living locally was making it difficult.

This is the darn apartment that I've been waiting over five months for. I held out for it. I know that this is the right timing, no matter the wait.

This is a beautiful condo. Wonderful views. Nice amenities. The nicest place I've lived in my entire life. It's clean and big and spacious and ALL MINE. Did I mention that it's ALL MINE?

If I had not placed Bluebell, I wouldn't be able to live here. I would still be living with my parents, trying to make it work. Working at Dunkin Doughnuts or Kohls (nothing wrong with that but those jobs do not pay a lot especially when you have a child to support). Being a full time mom with no help wouldn't allow me to find a "career" type job (paying more money) nor would it allow me to be the kind of mom she deserves- the kind of mom that she has now.

I thought about it today, as I looked around the condo and at the view. I wondered, well wouldn't it just make it perfect if Bluebell were here with me? There's plenty of room. I know exactly where her crib would go. There are nice parks and schools nearby. The ocean is right there! Would life be perfect if Blubell were with me? If I met a genie in a bottle, would I wish for her to be with me right now?

No.

This life, the one that I am starting, would not be possible if I was parenting Bluebell. Sometimes this doesn't get talked about in a realistic and sensitive way but yes, placing a child for adoption alters your path in life. You may be able to finish college or travel around the world or be footloose and fancy free. Yes, literally not parenting, you have no responsibility to that child. However, being a birthparent is the worst kind of chains (but also the most wonderful, confusingly) that you can endure being shackled to. So if anyone assumes that birthparents can just pick up, lickety split, that is completely false.

To riff on the "sometimes you can stare at the closed door for so long you don't see the open window" concept, there is a positive that birthparents don't talk about a lot because to put it bluntly, all of the "moving forward" mumbo jumbo that the social workers and agencies talk about is just that- mumbo jumbo.

A year ago I didn't want to hear, oh this will help you move forward, you can create a life for yourself, you can continue to pursue your goals and dreams and career aspirations, adoption is a way to also choose a new path for yourself. You will not be parenting, but then again, you will not be parenting. Embrace it! It's a "second chance"! It's a "new start"!

I didn't need a second chance or new start. DNA was 32 when I got pregnant. We weren't teenagers. I had finished high school and college. I wasn't going to save my academic career or graduate on time due to placing my child. I was an adult, living in the real world, where over ten of my close girl friends were pregnant in the last two years (and just found out that about five are pregnant with their second this year). I wasn't too immature or selfish or uneducated to be a parent either. None of those "you can have kids later!" fuzzy wuzzies were going to apply. And of course after she was born the magnitude of what I was giving up hit me like a mack truck.

So to those well meaning social workers or people who don't understand how hard placement and signing up for the lifelong process of being a birthmother is all about, please don't remind anyone that placement will allow someone to "move on" or "have a second chance" or allow you to save parenting for when you are "ready". Birthparents go so far down the grief rabbit hole that the realization that you have a completely empty dance card is cruel and unusual punishment. We WANT to be our children(s) parent. Most of the time we just don't have the support and resources to do so.

A year ago I would have ripped your face off if you tried to point out the positives in choosing adoption. Now, a year later, I do not see the plus sides of not parenting. I will always wonder, mourn, and miss my child, my first-born, the baby that I wanted and nurtured and loved and carried. However, I can acknowledge that life does move forward, and birthparents who are not parenting that placed child, has changed the course of their lives.

For me, I was able to move to a new city, concentrate on job opportunities and networking, and begin again. I can try to make a new start. I'm still me, Bluebell is still the apple of my eye. But life keeps moving forward. Birthparents can sit in the corner and curl up in a ball and cry for years (and nobody would blame you including me) but unfortunately the sun rises and sets every 24 hours.

I don't have the choice to go back and change my decision. I also know that despite the grief and sadness, the resources that I wanted for my daughter were not available to me when she was born. So I found parents and a family who could provide them.

I know that all birthparents aren't able to move out of town or get a new apartment. But I want all of the ones out there who can't see past tomorrow, who can't believe that anything positive will ever happen again, who don't see the point in planning or making choices for the future- the future will definitely come. It took me a year to save up $4000 (I'm talking 12 months people, that is a long time, compared to when I was employed full time) and find a lease and get a good deal, pass the application process, etc. It's not a huge thing but it's a start.

I wish everyone out there a new start, and I want to tell you from me, that it can be done. If you are 12 or 22 or 54 or 92. You can choose to make a new start, to make each day better than the last. I finally have a "home base" and realize that even if it took me twelve months to get here, the thing that matters is that this day finally arrived.

Your day will "get here", and it's up to you to make it happen. Position yourself. Make plans. Make promises to yourself. Honor them. Concentrate on moving forward. Work hard. Every bit helps. Every quarter you save, every positive thought you console yourself with, every time you choose to honor your experience by stretching yourself just a little further today than you did yesterday. I was shocked to find out that life post-placement was actually harder than my unplanned pregnancy, and I believe also that this year was harder for me than if I had been parenting Bluebell. No doubt about it. I could have "made it work" . My parents would have helped and I would have buckled down and figured out the rest. We would have made it, and done well.

But that's not what happened, and the only reality I live in is the one of today.

Signing the lease on this apartment is something I have been working on for five to six months. In prior times, when I was gainfully employed, I wouldn't have had an issue. I would have signed up for the place and moved in a week later. This took a year to come up with the money, find the place, go through a screening process.

I've only been here three days so far but every day I look outside my window and say "Thank you". I am grateful. I am humbled. I am on my own, and while it's going to be lean until I can figure out a new job with a steady paycheck, I did it. It took the amount of time that it was going to take. Now it's up to me to continue the journey.

Sometimes A Stroller Is Just A Stroller

2011-08-24T02:11:00.001-04:00

I accomplished a herculean task today.

I've been staying at my childhood home for a few weeks to house-sit. That has left a LOT of time to think, analyze, and reflect back on where I was about a year ago last year. I was in a really sad, dark funk. I had placed Bluebell at the end of July and ended up coming back here to store some things and prepare to move back to the East Coast. It wasn't easy to be in the same house and bedroom I had grown up in, wondering where it all had gone so wrong, second-guessing my decision, unable to see past the immediate pain and grief.

When you are surrounded by childhood mementos, yearbooks, notes from your junior high best friend or a dried corsage from a dance, you are reminded of the "you" from many different stages in your life. I hated knowing that growing up here, I had no idea where my life would lead, where it was heading, and I certainly had no dreams of becoming pregnant unintentionally and giving the child up for adoption. I honestly couldn't get out of here fast enough.

I had left some things to store here, and I went through them this past week. A lot were books and keepsakes from college, yearbooks and the like. Those will stay safe in my bedroom closet until the next time I decide I need to go down memory lane. However I opened a few boxes and I couldn't even believe what was in them.

First off one box contained books all about pregnancy, babies, child development. When I was pregnant and planning on parenting, I think I bought out both Borders and Barnes and Noble (and Half.com) reading up on it all. When I moved, I packed up the majority of those books and donated them to two crisis pregnancy centers and gave a few to friends.

For some reason I had kept about ten of the ones I liked best, ones that I knew I didn't want to repurchase down the line, ones I felt connected to or attached to, so I kept them. I had completely forgot about them until I opened the box.

Well those went back into the closet. I don't know if or when I'll be a mom but books can always wait.

Then I tackled something I absolutely could not bear to part with last year that has been sitting in my mom's garage for a year. A beautiful, brand-new, never opened Maclaren stroller.

I had received it for a shower gift from a friend who lived out of town. She wasn't going to make the shower and sent her gifts to me way ahead of time. Unfortunately, when I started to have second thoughts and realized that I may not be raising this baby after all, my best friend who had planned the shower had discreetly cancelled it, letting my friends and the guests know that it was a delicate situation and having a baby shower while I was in that frame of mind was probably not the best idea. (Love her for doing that) However, the out of town friend had bought the stroller and shipped it before the shower was called off.

I wasn't saddened by it, I was amazed at her generosity. This stroller was at least $300 and it's a well known brand. Just receiving the gift made my pregnancy a little more "real". At that point, adoption was in the back of my mind, so I never opened it and shoved it into the back of a closet. After Bluebell's placement I told my friend that I would return it, but she wouldn't hear of it, and said perhaps I may need it sooner than I think. So I held onto it.

To be perfectly honest I couldn't just give that stroller away or sell it. It was practically the only tangible proof that I had, that I had at one point, been an expectant mother. For a little while I was just like every other pregnant woman, excited about the baby growing, eager to meet her. Receiving gifts from well-meaning friends. It was a physical reminder that yes this happened, you grew a baby, you were going to be a mom. I wouldn't go so far to say that I kept it as a souvenir, I just couldn't bear to part with it.

After her placement, all I had was a manila envelope of photocopied documents (the TPR and the like), a generic printout on hospital letterhead saying "On 7/20/10 Baby Girl A Life Being Lived was born at this hospital, in this city." A few onesies and her hat from the hospital, and bracelet. That was it. I had a box of books, an unopened stroller and nothing else to show for the past nine months of carrying, growing, treasuring, nurturing, and loving my first child.

Of course I couldn't figure out what to do with that stroller, so I let it sit in my mom's garage for a year.

This last week I put the stroller on Ebay and sold it. I wasn't sad or upset. It was a little hard to type out the description (I wrote that I had received it at a baby shower but had been unable to use it) but I got through it. I priced it at half the cost it is going for online, and voila, had a buyer within a few days.

I dropped it off at FedEx today and I wasn't sad or heartbroken. The stroller had finally ceased to be something bigger than it was. The emotional attachment I had to it was gone. Yes, it reminds me that Bluebell could have used that stroller (for the record I offered it to The Wonderfuls, who politely declined, as they have plenty of gear) and that I could have been just another mom, pushing her in the stroller, but the stroller wasn't going to solve the bigger issues. I could handle buying clothes and gear and supplies.....I couldn't handle her growing up without a father.

I looked at all of my childhood mementos and treasures, and it hit me. I have pictures and pom poms when I was a cheerleader. I have scuffed cleats and trophies from when I played soccer. I have report cards and college acceptance letters saved in a scrapbook. I have photos of graduations and celebrations, my first dorm room, my first college party. I have "proof" that these things happened. Sometimes I see a picture and forget about a friend or a trip I went on. Sometimes I can't remember for the life of me, someone's last name or who dated so and so in the 8th grade. But for the most part, those memories are still there, they happened, it is part of the life I have lived.

But for the most part, unless you're an extremely good athlete and turn pro, was a child prodigy chess player and become Bobby Fischer, a child model who goes on to be a famous actress, most things don't stay with you forever. Yes I can recollect the days when I played junior high school soccer, have pictures to prove it. But that was a time, a phase, a season in my life.

I don't identify with being a soccer player now. I haven't played soccer in 15 years. I don't identify with being a cheerleader, though the pictures are printed in that yearbook, and I spent every Friday night on the sidelines of a football game for four years in high school. I don't necessarily consider myself a cheerleader now. That would be silly. I'm not upset that I'm not a soccer player and no longer a cheerleader. I was at one point in my life, it served its purpose. I have memories and made friends and developed talents or skills, and received some enjoyment out of participating, but those days are long gone now.

But parenthood is not something you should only have a vague memory of. Parenthood is not something that you can prove by the existence of a folder of sparse paperwork. Parenthood isn't something that you can easily tuck into your childhood bureau, until the next time you feel like walking down memory lane. You become a parent when you have a child. I don't consider DNA a parent. He had no active role in any of anything except Bluebell's conception. He didn't participate in the adoption planning either, which tells you something. But obviously, as the mother who carried her, I had a whole heck of a lot to do with it.

I hate that being a mom is something that occurred by accident, and my pregnancy and adoption was truthfully a challenge to overcome, to face, to make the best of. I hate that she was supposed to be my first child, the oldest child in her family, to grow up with me as her mom, but because I needed some sort of "do over", she is the third child in her family. She is not the "first" child or "first" grandchild in her family either. She is their first and only daughter, and I love that, but it's so weird to view my own parenthood as some phase, or experience, that is all too quickly over.

Of course this was all ordained by the choices that I made. I didn't have to carry the pregnancy. There would be no pregnancy, no Bluebell, no grief, no out of birth order situation. There would not be a yellow box filled with a few baby clothes, a hospital blanket, a pacifier, TPR papers, cards from friends congratulating me on my pregnancy, a few mementos and photos of DNA and I to show her when she is older. None of this had to happen at all.

I can't go back and change it. Would I change it? No. I just wish that my memories and experience of being pregnant and delivering a baby and being that baby's mom (for a few days) wasn't the short, abbreviated version that a birthmother has. Of course I can't change being a birthmother. It's just not the easiest thing to absorb and move on. I can certainly accept the fact that I'm not playing on the USA Women's Olympic Soccer Team. My time to play soccer came and went. But after you have a child and lose the opportunity to parent that child, you are still a mother. A mother mourning parenthood, mourning those milestones and first steps and first tooth. This is true of all parents who have lost a child, I'm sure, but I'm speaking from the birthparent perspective.

I hate that I have boxes of various memories, years in school, hobbies, sports. I kept that stuff so one day I could look back, or tell my kids or grandkids, hey! I was something back in the day. Look at these pom poms, look at the letter awarding me that scholarship to college. Something to support and enliven and jog the memories. I hate that my experience of being a mom is basically in one of those boxes.

Inspired

2011-08-21T06:43:00.002-04:00

I've been browsing around the internet lately and have stumbled onto a few blogs I used to read all the time. Some are about cooking, some travel, some are just interesting people with a story to tell. I have bookmarks of all of the adoption-related blogs I read and sometimes I get "stuck" solely reading those. As much as I love all of those, it's also refreshing to read someone's blog about making crafts or story about taking their son to a neighborhood taco stand or their memories of growing up with immigrant parents. I have more interests than adoption, believe it or not!

Well as often is the case, I click on a blog via another blog, and then to another blog. Somehow I ended up on a woman's blog in which she writes about her daily life. Her daily life is just like everyone else's- except it isn't.

This particular woman, in her 30's, has an autoimmune disease which basically has left her home-bound, complications from her condition making it extremely difficult for her to move around, drive a car, walk. She's also at high risk of picking up other viruses and things because her immune system is suppressed by the medications she has to take. I haven't read about all of the details but apparently it is so bad that she cannot even open a window to breathe in outside air, lest it compromise her system.

Her name is Sara, and her blog is called Choose Joy. Disclaimer: I do not know her, have never met her, she has not asked me to promote her blog. I just clicked and clicked and clicked and voila, somehow ended up on her page.

She sounds very upbeat, and I believe makes a living blogging and writing. She sees friends and family when they can visit her and she also uses Skype a lot. It sounds like despite being confined to her home she has loads of friends and family that adore her. Oh, and she has an adorably-cute dog. She's an amazing writer too.

No, her life doesn't sound "that bad" but when you realize that she is house-bound, hasn't been able to take herself to the drugstore in over a year, and has to hire someone to help her dust and pick up her groceries, well it's complicated. I realized that sure, I may have had some hard times in the past and this whole birthmom thing is no walk in the park, but I have a lot more freedom than she does.

The entire point of this is that I was curious about her condition, so found her "About Me" section of her site, where she describes her diagnosis and treatment. She closed with this:

"This is not the life I imagined for myself, but it's the life I've been blessed with and I won't take a moment of it for granted."

Sure, it's simple, but it's also pretty darn profound.

I will also say (though I haven't read a lot of her blog yet) that she has an extraordinary faith (I do not know what religion she practices or identifies with but she definitely believes in God very strongly). It's awe-inspiring.

In another post, she answers a question about if she blogs about her day to day struggles a lot or if she leaves some of them off of her blog. She actually says that while she writes about her condition and her challenges to introduce and help explain some of the ins and outs of her issues, she tries not to dwell entirely on the negative, and in fact, only blogs about about 5% of the really tough stuff. Here is her reply.

"The reason I don’t talk about my day-to-day life in the ‘struggling sense’ is simply because I don’t sit around and think about it all the time myself. I just live it. There are moments that are incredibly frustrating, tiring, maddening, sad and exhausting. Everyday. But that doesn’t make my day a frustrating, tiring, maddening one. I reduce them to the moments they are rather than letting them define my whole day. I find that lamenting over all of those things only produces more lamenting. And I don’t want to live in a space that is taken up by the negative."

Once again I'm humbled. As much as I ponder and pontificate here on my blog (and please know that I never meant this to be a reader-focused blog, it isn't written for an audience, though I do appreciate any and all readership that I have), it was written for me. I started to write it so I didn't go insane, because I can't afford therapy, because my adoption agency disappeared like thieves into the night. Because I didn't want to tire or bore my friends, or drive my sister up a wall by talking about my adoption experience of Bluebell over and over again.

Writing is an outlet for me, so of course I'm going to let my emotions out. My blog is about being a birthmother, no doubt about it. My posts aren't all going to be happy and full of sunshine.

But what her words reminded me was that I have the choice, once again it all comes down to that- choice. I can choose to wallow in the "wrongs" and the hurts of my adoption experience. There are no shortage of birthparents who will commiserate with me. I can choose to be negative, day after day. I can decide to analyze and obsess over and think about my unplanned pregnancy, how DNA "did me wrong", how adoption was my only heartbreaking choice. But that's living in not only the negative, but the past. The pregnancy is over. The placement is over. DNA is over.

Yes, I can recognize and accept that I am a birthmother, and incorporate it into my life, but I don't have to be dragged down into it. The grief doesn't have to be so big and so wide. I can close some of that gap. It doesn't have to swallow me.

It doesn't mean I don't love her any less, it doesn't mean I'm not mourning the chance to be her mom every single time I hear about another milestone. It doesn't mean that I don't think that there are some practices in adoption that need change. It by no way means that I'm "out of the woods" emotionally yet.

But I can choose to drown in it or I can choose to simply, live in it.

The past few weeks I have had a lot of down time for self-reflection and it's never been more apparent than now, when I've had nothing but my own thoughts to keep me company and a lot of introspection to answer to. I'm not going to stop blogging, I'm not going to stop healing or learning to live with "being a birthmother". But this is it. I'm living it now. I'm living my life now. In another year she will be two, and I'll be a birthmother two years into it.

No, this isn't the life I imagined for myself. Far from it. But it's the life I've been given. It's the one I have now, this very minute.

Who am I to turn my back on that gift? Who am I to thumb by nose at God (I believe in God; if you believe in a heavenly power, higher power, mother nature, go right ahead) and say, this life you created? Yeah, it's not worth appreciating. The tough times wore me down and tired me out. My soul has been hurt. My heart has been betrayed. This life I'm living? This "Life Being Lived"? (pun intended), I can't appreciate it. There's been too much pain and hardship.

Guess what? I'm here. In the now, in the present. This is the life I've got. I don't believe in reincarnation (or if I do I don't remember having a life before this one!). As far as I know I have a good amount of life left to live but the pages are not endless. Life has an expiration date. If I keep waiting here, in limbo, stuck, frozen by my sadness or frustration or inability to move forward, the only place I will be living is in the negative.

I may not ever become an astronaut. Odds aren't good that I'll becoming a concert pianist. It's pretty much a given that I'm not going to get married at 18 and have two kids by 25. Those days are gone. I'm also not going to marry my college sweetheart, become Editor in Chief of Vogue magazine, or go to medical school. I'm never, ever, going to be Bluebell's mom.

What I need to remember is, there a lot of life I need to get to living. If this amazing, brave and courageous woman can be thankful for the life she has been given, who am I to grieve mine away? Who am I to focus on the sadness and hurt and hard times?

I'm not discounting my experience nor am I saying that all birthparents need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. I will never say that. I've been there and I won't disrespect other birthparents by suggesting that. But being grateful for the life I have been given, no matter what trials it has entailed, is something I need to consciously do every single day.

It is not what I had imagined for myself. It is not what I wanted. But it's what I've been given. I can choose to look at my life as a gift- all of its highs and lows, joys and sadness, it's been given to me. The life Sara has been given she sees as a gift, not a burden or nuisance. She is grateful for the life she HAS. Not the way she wishes it had been or wishes it could be. Pretty inspiring stuff.

Autonomy

2011-08-21T03:33:00.001-04:00

I read the results of a well-publicized study that tracked attitudes and opinions of a wide range of people for over 40 years, in over 63 different countries. The study was designed to pinpoint what exactly makes people "happy", or contributes most to their well-being. The answer was somewhat surprising. It was not a high powered job or fancy cars or mansions and yachts and trips around the world. It was not wealth.

It was freedom of choice, and autonomy (autonomy, similar to freedom of choice, basically means that you feel that your life- it's activities, habits, routines, are chosen and decided on by you alone).

Of course decisions we make are somewhat influenced by others, but in the true sense of the word, autonomy is the solid feeling that you call the shots in your own life.

Aside from the things that we all know we can't control (the weather, other people, the stock market, the run rising and setting), if we have a general sense that we have independence, choices, freedom of movement and decision-making, it greatly affects our well-being.

It is hard for anyone who has suffered a loss or trauma, to feel autonomy. Whether you experience a significant car accident, lose a loved one to death, are subjected to abuse or assault, witness a tragic accident, endure damage to your home or property in a natural disaster, lose an important relationship or friendship, those are major losses or injuries. A lot of hard events are sudden, or surprising. They can rock you to your core.

You may be shocked into realizing that you don't have as much control over the world as you thought. Perhaps it shakes up your faith system and you lose belief in what you thought was everlasting. Maybe it reminds you of just how insignificant you truly are in this huge big planet. It's a big wake up call, and often times these are the events that "make or break us".

I would consider experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and adoption placement one of those biggies. I hadn't planned on becoming pregnant, surprise #1. I didn't truly expect DNA to leave me all alone with it, surprise #2. I tried hard and wanted to be a great single mom but on my own I was devastated to learn that no amount of will and love could fashion together some concrete, real-life resources to truly help me do it, shock #3. And of course making an adoption plan and going through with it, well #4 was the hardest of all.

It is no wonder to me, that birthparents have such a hard road to walk after placing their children. Not only do we have to grieve the loss, try to handle and process it, try to accept it, it leaves us with the feeling that something as personal, and as significant, and as awe-inspiring, life-changing, and so innately natural as childbirth and parenting, is completely out of our control.

I would say that the experience of pregnancy loss and infertility is also way up there with a birthparent experience in some of the same ways. Many people are not faced with the knowledge of fertility issues until later on in life, when they are trying to have children. So you may have believed your entire life that it is pretty simple to conceive, yet now married to Prince Charming and in your 30's, you find you cannot? Nature's cruel joke! And of course the loss of a fetus or baby or child is something that nobody can ever comprehend. Why did God allow this? Why punish an innocent child that way? Why take that life?

I would also 100% agree that adoptees, at various stages, struggle with their own feelings regarding autonomy. Whether they work it out in childhood, or adulthood, there is still an "aha!" moment where they realize that through other peoples' choices, things they had no control over, they were placed in a family that was not their biological family (most of the time). That they were raised by a mother that did not birth them, perhaps parents who are not biologically related to them in any way. At 5 years old it doesn't sink in as much as it does to a 20 year old, who can accurately imagine the profound loss and effect that adoption has on their life.

Adoptees are literally the real-life example of the "what if's?". I remember being a child and wondering, in a typically childish way, what my life would be like had I been raised by my best friend's parents. I grew up with parents who never got along, always fought, and eventually divorced. I learned early on that some other parents were not the same way.

I remember playing the "what if?" game, imagining what my life would be like if I had different parents, if I had a different mommy, if I had grandparents that I visited on summer vacation. Of course in some ways I could imagine that life would be different/better/improved somehow. In other ways I didn't know that some of my "what if's" could actually play out to be more complicated (how perhaps a divorce and step-parents would have affected my family) either. It was just childhood game-playing.

Adoptees have to rectify and absorb the "what if's?" into their lives, for the rest of their lives, based on decisions other people made for them.

It honestly, then, is a wonder, that birthparents go on to marry, have other children, succeed at careers, build a future, move on from their adoptions. If the feeling of having absolutely no control as something as significant and personal as parenting a child is instilled in you, I would find it impossible to believe that anything is a matter of choice or independent will. And that breeds a feeling that everything is futile, that you are powerless.

It is a wonder that adoptive parents and people who have gone through child loss or miscarriage, or those with fertility issues, can find the strength to face another day and take the plan b, c, d or e. You think you "did everything right"- found a good mate, got married, pledged devotion and fidelity, and eagerly try to start a family and it's not exactly as easy as you'd hoped or thought.

It's a wonder that adoptees don't continuously lash out, powerless over the decisions that their well-meaning birthparent(s) made for them.

I guess the answer is, resilience, and a will to move forward. That's another post for another day, but there are enough of us birthparents who have accepted our cross and have bore it; enough adoptees who have accepted and made peace with their biological and familial ties; and enough couples or families who have experienced the loss of a child or pregnancies, that have put one foot in front of the other, acknowledged that life moves forward, and have tried to move forward as best as possible.

Autonomy is still possible, despite being knocked over by the mack truck of grief or loss or sorrow.

I'm trying to be one of those people. I do have the choice to wallow in my grief and sorrow, or climb out of it and seek a better tomorrow. And that ability should be the thing that brings me the most happiness (after all, having an active choice is what is supposed to better my well-being). I admit though, it is, some days, a hard task to feel up to.

Not every day is a struggle, but I do have a little extra bit of baggage to carry with me. My baggage may be very cute and match the other pieces, but it can be heavy. I guess I wish I travelled a little lighter, but then again realize I wouldn't be me if I did.

Some Days I Wish For My Naivete Back

2011-08-18T02:41:00.003-04:00

I had a job interview today.

The interview went very well. It is in my career field and the position is basically the same job I have done at my past three jobs. I am incredibly overqualified, but in a way that would only be an asset, and serve as a way to grow and make this position my own, and expand on it. I had a great rapport with the woman who interviewed me, in fact we have had similar career paths and have a lot of mutual industry contacts and colleagues. The next step is a follow-up interview with someone else at their organization.

The only downside is that it is a significant pay cut. In this economy I know and am expecting to take a pay cut, no matter where my next full time position leads me. This would be less than half of what I was making though, and while at 20 years old I may have jumped at the chance, I basically did this same job when I got into my industry eight years ago. So now instead of thinking solely of if this is a resume-builder, or if the brands/products are so great that I can't NOT take the position, etc. I am thinking more of issues of work/life balance, health or other benefits, the possibility of increasing my salary or earning a bonus to make up for the shortfall.

At the time I became pregnant with Bluebell I had a great career but little savings and no benefits. I know it sounds like an oxymoron; how could it be a great career if I didn't have tons of money in the bank and secure benefits? The fact is, I have always been driven by my passion for my career field and the incredible opportunities I have had to grow companies or build brands, or work with certain individuals. Success to me is not financial, it is if you have truly found your passion and calling and pursue it. So my career has been stable and I have always earned a decent living, but I have also supported myself financially since I was 17. I've always worked to pay my rent, food, bills, etc. I support myself but for various reasons it's been mostly enough to pay my bills and save a little, and that's it.

I also had no time to plan for a baby, no time to consider part time work or changing career fields, and even if DNA had stuck around, would have probably had to keep my very time and effort-intensive job which required a lot of travel and late hours. I vowed after she was born that my next career move would take into account my personal hopes and dreams, a family life, not just if a job would look great on my resume or it was a prestigious company or if the brands I would represent were number one in their category. I promised myself that I would look for a field or position where I could also build a life that could accommodate marriage, children and a person life, without turning my career completely upside down.

Well the fact is, I'm not dating or in a relationship so marriage isn't on my radar quite yet. Of course I'm not planning on parenthood anytime soon either. Yet I want to make different choices with my job and career commitments (even if it means a pay cut or changing my lifestyle in other ways) so that if those things do develop, my life and circumstances can adapt to them, not the other way around.

The woman who interviewed me was very smart, sharp and had an impressive background. She has an impressive resume herself, and has been on the sales side of my industry for about ten years. She confided in me that in four to five years she sees herself moving into a management role that is fixed; one where she isn't travelling all the time and covering a specific territory; rather she had hoped to work her way up into the General Manager or VP position so she would be running and overseeing sales, but she would have more of a work/life balance, and more stability.

She looked at me and said, "Well, to tell you the truth, I'm in my mid 30's, and I want a marriage and a family one day. I've set a goal for myself, and I plan to be in management within 5 years. I want a baby by 38. I don't want to be 60 years old and watching my child graduate from high school. I'm not going to be that mom."

She said this with the utmost in sincerity and tact, but of course, hearing it from my perspective, I had to cringe.

I didn't cringe because I thought her plan or goals were silly or unreasonable. I just know, every so harshly so, how you don't always get what you want, or plan.

She was probably a year or two older than I am. I did not ask if she had a boyfriend or was married. She seemed like a person who put her mind to something and got it accomplished, and I'm 100% convinced that she will have a baby by age 38 and be running that company as well, with a corner office.

I wonder, if I had not becoming pregnant at 30, if I would have the same "take charge of my fertility, take charge of my parenthood" attitude that she has. Perhaps she feels that she has worked hard and figures that her 40's are the time where she wants to slow down, focus on a marriage and children and home life, and leave the climbing the corporate ladder behind. More power to her.

It just doesn't always happen that way. For her sake, I hope that it does, but there are no guarantees.

At 32 now, and looking for my next job, I completely understand where she's coming from. I don't want to work crazy hours and get home at 3 in the morning either. I am not willing to work a day job and a night job unless my financial situation requires it. I actually worked two jobs in my 20's- one a full time demanding job in the publishing industry. I would work 8-6, five days a week. Then I would drive to a retail store a few blocks away and clock in at 6:30pm, and work until 2am, drive home, go to sleep, wake up and do it all over again. I did not do this for the money. I did this to GAIN EXPERIENCE. I know, I can't believe it myself. I didn't even need double espressos to keep me awake. I just had the drive and passion of a 20 year old who wants to make a mark on the world, build a resume.

Those two jobs got me in a lot of doors after those three years, but would I go back to those days? You couldn't pay me enough. At that time in my life I realized that I was "paying my dues". Now at 30+, I'm looking for stability and benefits and a decent wage. I have had a successful career. I wish I could say that it has been financially lucrative and I have thousands of dollars saved, but I don't. Yet my career has been a source of pride and accomplishment, and I feel that I have excelled at it. I truly believe it is a joy and a gift if you enjoy and take pride in your work. Most of us are going to have to work for a living, so we might as well enjoy it as much as we can.

Her words struck a chord with me because as much as I do hope and pray that I am blessed to be a parent one day, I know nothing is absolute. The mere fact that I had a baby and placed her for adoption doesn't move me up to the "she's been really good" line when they hand out blessings and gifts and lovely opportunities the next time around. It doesn't mean that I will be able to get pregnant again so easily, or that my future husband won't have fertility issues. Heck, I could meet the love of my life tomorrow and find out that he doesn't want kids! I have no idea what the future will bring. And I'm not entirely optimistic about it either.

That's the weird part about being a birthmom at my age. I am thankful that I didn't have to try to handle finishing high school or getting through college after my placement. I think those women are the bravest out there. It's quite an accomplishment alone to get through the teenage years and high school, not to mention earning a degree or certification. I cannot imagine how women who go through unexpected pregnancies during those times handle it.

But a lot of the prevailing attitude or "support" that is given in those situations is slanted differently- it encourages birthmothers who placed before college to use their opportunity to pursue an education or reassures them that they still have college or the career field or internships to look forward to, lots of time to move forward in life, earn a degree, meet the "real" Mr. Right, get married and have babies when they are "ready", at a later time.

Having been 31 when I placed, I don't have certain things to look forward to. I finished high school a long time ago. I already went to college. I started a career, had internships, have traveled a decent amount. I've built a career and professional reputation, and have had the experience of working at different companies. The "thrill" out of building a professional career path, to be quite honest, isn't as exhilarating at 31 as it is at 21. At least for me. I scoff at my 20 year old self. Back then I used to sneer when people asked if I wanted to be a stay at home mom or keep working. I couldn't imagine anything more tedious than to be trapped at home with an infant all day! Not when there is a career ladder to climb and women can do it all, didn't you know?

How silly that attitude was. Of course I was 20 and your mindset is different. I had also not placed a child for adoption. When parenthood is just an abstract idea, you can be as idealistic as you want about it. Until you've experienced pregnancy loss, infant or child death, infertility or birthparenthood, or actual parenthood, you don't have that first hand knowledge. I know now that if at all possible I want to stay at home with my kids, and if I can't, I want to be in a career field where I'm not going to lose all of my professional respect or mobility if I cut my hours to part time. I'd rather be in a friendlier career field than the one I am in right now, so that when I eventually do have the opportunity to marry and be a parent (no matter how that opportunity comes to me, if I am lucky enough), that becoming a wife and mother can be my first priority. Yes I will work if necessary, of course I will work, but I won't give 1000% to that job. I will do it as a means to an end, but save my energy and passion and motivation for my family.

I have learned that women can't "have it all". There are always trade offs. Especially when it comes to career, finances and raising your kids. You either work all the time and earn tons of money but never see your kids. Or you may stay home with your kids and you and your partner make it work but you possibly don't have the financial means that you did if you were working. There are always trade offs.

My career is also a double-edged sword. It used to give me a lot of sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, a way to feel proud about myself and goals. Yet when I was pregnant and especially after the adoption, when all I could think about was the ways I failed, how my life and circumstances weren't in the best place to raise her, I grew to resent and hate my career and all of the time I spent on it, all of the goals I had made for myself.

I realized that I had never, not once, not ever, set a goal of finding a husband or getting married or starting a family. Ever. I never played "bride", I never thought about what my wedding would look like. I never had secret names for my future children or planned their birth order. Partially, because I was raised not to place importance on boys or dating or relationships. I wasn't conditioned that it was ok to say you wanted to get married or be a "mommy". My mom was very strict and made sure she let us know that she only valued education and independence. My own mom felt stifled in her role as a stay at home mom and housewife, and she passed that on to my sister and I. I'm not saying it was right, but it was all I knew.

I realized that at the end of the day, my single-minded dogged pursuit of my certain career path may have led to me not having a husband at the age of 30. By concentrating on my career and trying to achieve a lot professionally, it didn't leave me a lot of time to cultivate a relationship with someone who was looking to settle down, marry and have children. Maybe the fact that I hadn't become an elementary school teacher with a very reliable schedule and the summers off put me out of the "potential wife material" category? I will never know.

I admire the woman who interviewed me today. She made her comment with the utmost in conviction and the completely honest and open demeanor of someone who had never experienced infertility, pregnancy loss, a child passing away or placing a child for adoption. The collective pain of women (and men, but I'm speaking from a woman's perspective here) who have had experienced those circumstances is enormous. The sharp reality of their experiences has taught them that life isn't fair, that nature can be cruel, that grief knows no end.

I could tell by her response and matter-of-fact attitude, she has not yet experienced one of them. I really hope she never will.

There are just some things you can't truly understand until you've been there, you've been through it, and you've lived to, if not always talk about it, smile silently while someone who has entirely no idea, boldly proclaims to have control over something, that you know deep down, they don't.

The Other Side of Adoption

2011-08-17T02:30:00.001-04:00

The Wisconsin "Fon Du Lac Reader" newspaper published an article about birthmothers a week or so ago called "THE OTHER SIDE OF ADOPTION: Women Who Place Children With Other Families Face Unique Challenges".

While it isn't that extensive, it does touch on the fact that birthmothers grieve their chance to parent and gives some perspective over a birthmother's thoughts upon placing her child.

I thought one paragraph captured the essence of adoption in today's day and age pretty accurately and still reminds the reader that the decision to place doesn't take away the hurt.

"Unlike a closed adoption in which birthmothers have no contact with their children once the legal papers are signed, semi-open and open adoptions give birthmothers a bit more access into the lives of the children they have placed into the care of an adoptive family. Though they have glimpses and limited roles in their birthchild’s new life, there is an emotional cost that accompanies such a difficult choice."

You can read the article here.

There is an accompanying article titled "Forget 'Teen Mom': Women From All Walks Of Life Choose Adoption" written by the same reporter. She interviewed a woman at an adoption agency that gives her thoughts and observances on the birthmothers she has worked with. The woman gives the following statement about birthmothers she has worked with:

“Many clients want their child to have the opportunity to have a two-parent stable home — something most cannot provide. I have had a few clients who had already parented and their children were older and they felt they were already ‘done parenting’...”

I don't especially like the next quote the woman gives (who happens to be a pregnancy counselor at Bethany Christian Services, and I have heard absolute horror stories about them, though I have not used them first-hand and am just going on third-hand information)

"Down in our Waukesha office we have a lot of women who are alcohol or drug addicts that are not prepared to parent.”

To be honest, I don't think the subject matter was done justice and the writing is a bit disjointed (hey I was an English major and worked in publishing for a long time and the majority of what I do is write for a living, and I'm a birthmom, so I'm qualified to critique).

However, I do appreciate that either this reporter or newspaper found it timely enough or relevant enough to write about. I wish a more in-depth article about birthmothers and breaking the stereotypes could be written and published in one of the more mainstream lifestyle magazines (Marie Claire magazine, for instance, is one that runs somewhat politically or socially relevant articles regarding women's issues), but this I suppose, is a start.

(Marie Claire used to have a monthly reader column called "It Happened To Me" and it has occurred to me many, many times to craft an article about adoption for it but I am not sure if that column still exists and am still a little gun-shy about putting my name and face on my adoption and details simply because I don't know how to preserve Bluebell's privacy by sharing my story in a public way like that).

One day I'll figure something out though, it's the only way the representation of birthparents is going to change or achieve more balance. In the meanwhile, this blog gives me a safe place to spin my thoughts!

Apology Completely Unneccessary

2011-08-15T18:42:00.001-04:00

I received this picture via text this morning and short note from Bluebell's mom.

She apologized for not having time to send her one-year update, having promised it a week or two ago. She said said that the reason for the delay was because their family made an impromptu trip out of state to visit to her brother (their uncle) and also to see family (who live nearby), play with cousins, and enjoy the last of summer.

As if I needed an apology?! I'm over the moon that she has cousins and aunts and uncles and a mom with the free time to be able to pack up the kids and let them visit their relatives! I love this part about Open Adoption. Even if we agreed on three-month intervals between updates, I understand that they have busy lives and especially with three kids under the age of three, well schedules aren't always written in stone.

I also love that at this point in our adoption, I have had enough interaction, updates and pictures to know that she is true to her word, and more pictures and updates will be forthcoming. I don't have that gnawing, nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe all the promises we made to each other before I signed the papers will be forgotten about. I don't have to stare at every picture I receive of her for hours, wondering if it's going to be my last. I have a comfort and familiarity and trust in our relationship, and that's a good thing.

I think Bluebell agrees.

The 80's: The Good, The Bad, The Bizarrely Disturbing

2011-08-15T02:33:00.002-04:00

My previous post mentioned an article posted on the website, Cracked.com It is a site that is pretty sarcastic, snarky and has a very tongue-in-cheek viewpoint most of the time. A lot of the information is based in fact, with a lot of ironic and sarcastic humor thrown in. It's not like The Onion where all of the information is made up (though that site too, is hilarious).

Well I stumbled upon this article titled "6 Beloved 80's Toys With Bizarrely Horrific Origin Stories". I actually have a post in my drafts and I was writing about my childhood memories, and couldn't remember the specific name of these toys I used to play with. So I googled "80's childhood toys" and found this article.

(I still haven't pinpointed the name of the darn toys I was googling. They were long colored sticks-NOT pick up sticks but sort of like that. They were about the thickness of straws, each stick was a different color (primary colors) and they also came with these plain wood-colored circular wooden knob things that you could fasten the sticks together with to create objects. Basically they were wooden sticks, sort of the same size as a drinking straw, with flat ends, that you could piece together with these circular wooden joints. If anyone knows what the heck I'm talking about I'm all ears, it's driving me nuts)

Back to the topic, one of the toys in this article is CABBAGE PATCH KIDS.

We had this set of Cabbage Patch Kids

I owned one Cabbage Patch Kid. In fact my parents gave my sister and I a set of twin Cabbage Patch Kids for Christmas one year. They had red (orange) yarn hair and pacifiers.

If anyone was around during the 80's or you have relatives or friends who were, ask them about Cabbage Patch Kids. These things were more popular than Furbees, Elmo and Spongebob Squarepants combined. It was "THE" toy to have.

All I vaguely remember was the premise about these dolls was that they were adopted. I do remember cartoon commercials showing an honest to goodness "cabbage patch" at a farm somewhere, and the doll heads would sprout out of rows of cabbage. Pretty weird, but as a kid you are used to flights of fancy and don't really give it much thought.

Hey, I'm from the generation that was completely ok with Smurfs, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ghost Busters, Rainbow Brite, Transformers (not the Michael Bay version either) and She-Ra. None of those were especially true to reality, either.

To be fair, I did my own research instead of just reading the article. The Cabbage Patch Kids have a website, and according to them, this is how the Cabbage Patch Kids come to be.

Ok, it's a little weird, but as the article will suggest, marketing baby and child dolls to children by explaining how REAL babies come into the world is a bit much for kids. So magically, these kids grow in an honest to goodness cabbage patch, some strange creatures called BunnyBees (the name is trademarked and everything!) "pollinate" the cabbages, and from the cabbage heads sprout babies.

As an aside, you too, can also own your very own BunnyBee, if you visit this site here! According to Cabbage Patch Legend, "BunnyBees are too little to be bunnies and too big to be bees, but they look and act like both. They are able to fly by flapping their long, soft ears. BunnyBees soar over the Cabbage Patch sprinkling magic crystals onto the Mother Cabbages below. These magic crystals pollinate Mother Cabbages and help determine if Cabbage Patch Kids will be boys or girls."

The horror. I honestly want to get my old Cabbage Patch Kids out of the attic and BURN them right now, this is so disturbing. But wait, we are not done yet!

If you read the article, you will find out what the original back story was about the Cabbage Patch Kids. (That the above "Legend" as found on their website, conveniently leaves out) It actually makes me sick, and I am hopeful that most people do NOT know or remember this story.

Read it here, if you DARE.

The Cliffs Notes version is:

Apparently the Cabbage Patch kids were kids, grown in a cabbage patch, on a farm. The strange BunnyBee creatures flew over the patch and fertilized the cabbages, resulting in babies.

The babies have no parents, until they are "adopted". In this case, it means when a child's parents decide to plunk down $95 for a doll at Toys 'R Us. Anyway, it is of extreme importance that these poor children be adopted because there is an evil woman named Lavender McDade who wants to kidnap the children so they can work in her nearby gold mine.

Excuse me wha???

No joke. Here is a few lyrics from a song from a Cabbage Patch album from the 80's:

I've got to stop those Cabbage Kids from finding parents of their own
I'm going to need some henchmen I can't do it all alone
'Cause there's gold here in the valley and the kids cannot go free
I need their little fingers to dig the gold for me."

The evil Lavender McDade (wonder if McDade was
the last name of someone the dolls' creator had
a falling out with!)

Lavender McDade also has a henchman named Cabbage Jack (an evil hare, which is a wild bunny rabbit I think) who tried to help kidnap the kids before they could be brought to Babyland General Hospital (um, the Hasbro factory?) where they would patiently await "adoption".

All I know is if I ever find my Cabbage Patch Kid I hope I can send it back to the "hospital" so I never have to explain where it came from!

It Wasn't About "Being Ready"

2011-08-14T19:02:00.002-04:00

I just read an article that is a tongue-in-cheek look at the "big issues" in life. Some of it is humorous but some of it is downright serious. It was called "5 Questions You Need to Ask (Before Ruining Your Life)" by John Cheese. "I think much of it is pretty spot-on.

I was pregnant at 31, as I've mentioned before. Definitely not in the "Teen Mom" category, and I knew without a doubt I wasn't in the "I'm not ready for kids" category either. My circumstances and relationship with DNA and perhaps my financial resources were not ready for parenthood, but I know that I definitely was, and am. It hurts sometimes, though, when people assume I placed because I "wasn't ready" (A few well meaning friends told me this and it hurt a LOT more than you think to hear that) or that my lifestyle didn't accommodate kids, or that I'm too selfish to have kids, or that I didn't want to be a single parent.

It is true, I didn't want to be a single parent but not because I would be alone or it's hard or it's only you, all the time. I didn't want to be a single parent because I felt the effects of it on Bluebell (no father, little time to spend with me, being shuttled from daycare to daycare) would be awful. In fact, I was terrified that being a single parent to her would, as the article less delicately describes it, would "F--- her up for life".

I was also very concerned that her lack of a father would deeply scar her, that the lack of family support and minimal financial resources would also screw her up. A few people told me "all babies need is love" and a few choice gems, but honestly people when your kid needs braces or has a trip to the ER, somebody has to pay for that and no amount of love is going to replace a healthy bank account, sorry. A few people kept warning me that I would regret my decision and be very sad, and heartbroken, and that I would never get over it.

Well you know what it did change me forever, I was heartbroken, and it still makes me sad. But I couldn't simply keep and raise her, with all of my misgivings, because I anticipated being heartbroken or sad. What was way more important to me that she had a positive environment, two parents, stable family support and resources. I thought, and I still do, that placing her was a way to ensure that she would not be screwed up for life. I know not everybody feels that way, I know some people believe that aside from abuse, children should always be kept in their biological family of origin.

I have had many people tell me that they grew up without a dad and it always was a hard reality for them. I have heard many people tell me that they were raised by single mothers and while they love and adore and respect their mothers, their childhoods were rough due to financial circumstances or having to move a lot or mom working multiple jobs. Growing up myself with a distracted mom who wasn't hands-on has certainly affected me in significant ways. I didn't want to repeat that with her.

So for me, I believe the most responsible and mature thing I could ask was, how could these two scenarios screw up Bluebell (me raising her on my own, or placing her with her parents and family)? Which is the one that has the least probability of doing that?

Her parents and family won out. I hate to admit it but I didn't think, comparatively, the alternative of me raising her entirely on my own and struggling every minute of every day, would help me raise her into a mature, well adjusted, kind, emotionally and intellectually developed kid.

I think that is the surest sign that I was ready to be a parent if there ever was one. I put her needs and my wants for her first.

So, it wasn't without more than a bit of irony that I read this article, and paid heed specifically to question #3, the one about parenthood. To me it's at least a little affirmation to me that I made my choice of out utmost concern, care and love for her well being.

(Below is the article and its corresponding photographs for question #3. All rights to the material and photos are owned by the website and/or author)

#3. "How Do I Know if I'm Ready to Have Kids?" (Or, "How Do I Know if I'm Being a Bad Parent?")

A lot of you are at the age where you're either considering having kids, fear having kids, or have kids and wonder if you've made a huge mistake. It's a reasonable concern, since this is the most important thing you'll probably ever do. You're in luck; I have forgotten more about bad parenting than most of you will ever know.

Photos.com
I'm still working on blocking the rest out.

The Method:

Fortunately for my kids, I didn't need to ruin them in the name of research into bad parenting methods. I had my own father, who was one of the great masters of the art. Based on having lived through that, and having kids of my own who so far don't show signs of growing up to be serial killers, I can say this:

If you're worried about having kids because you're not sure if that's what you want in your life right now, that's a bad sign.

If you're worried about having kids because you want to make sure you don't fuck up the kids, then you're probably fine.

Photos.com
"She doesn't really go with my purse -- should I just leave her there?"

In my experience, shitty parents don't usually care enough to analyze their performance from the kids' point of view, so they'll never ask the question to begin with. It's always about, "How will kids fit into my life?" rather than, "How will I not fuck up a kid's life?" To them, parenting is another obstacle they have to put up with, like a job or the flu. You grit your teeth and bear with it until the kids are out of the house, and then it's back to the normal life you had before they came along. To them, children are chores that have to be done.

For example, let me share a story about my father, and see if you can get a sense of where he went wrong here:

When I was 12, dad woke me and my brother on Easter Sunday. I remember that it was 8 a.m. because my grandmother, who we lived with at the time, had pointed out that he didn't need to be opening a beer that early. He told her to fuck off, shouted that he was a grown man and took us outside where we found two enormous Easter baskets on the porch. As we dove into the chocolate, he disappeared for a minute and returned with two six packs of beer, sitting one down in front of each of us.

Photos.com
"Awesome! Now who's ready for opium?"

He said that we were old enough to have our "first beer with the old man," and made us open one and drink it with him right there on the spot. Followed by the other five -- each. My brother was 11. To him, he was attempting to do something nice. Sharing something he loved (beer) with his children, and we should be appreciative of that, right? What he didn't know was that the only reason we drank that beer was because we knew that no matter how politely we turned down the offer, the rest of the day would have taken a dramatically violent turn. We joined him out of fear.

You can probably see the problem right away -- he never looked at it from our point of view. Parents make less horrifying versions of this mistake all the time. When you argue with your children, do you use the same tone of voice and tactics that you use with an adult? Because their brains haven't physically developed to that point yet. They haven't experienced anything that will let them put what you're doing in context. To them, you are just this screaming ball of anger and hateful facial expressions.

Photos.com
"Bitch, I'm 6."

And worse, they think they are what caused you to turn into that monster.

Kids have a tendency to blame themselves for all negative situations because by nature, they are biologically wired to be self-serving, to think they are the center of the universe. They learn to be compassionate and sharing, but they are not born with it. So when things go wrong and you erupt, their natural thought process is to assume that your reaction is their fault, even when it may be something else like a bad day at work. The only way to stop yourself is to continually stop and say, "How does this look from a kid;s point of view?"

My dad didn't realize he was a bad parent until a few months before he died. Some people go to their grave never knowing. Which brings me back to my point, that if you're asking, "How do I know if I'm going to be (or am being) a shitty parent?" in the first place, there's a very good chance that you're not.

Photos.com
You're on track to becoming the metaphorical golden pick to a well groomed fro.

Not My Fault, But My Responsibility

2011-08-12T14:58:00.003-04:00

"It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future; and how we undermine it, today." -Viktor Frankl

For me, the past year has seemed to be about sheer survival. Some days it is just putting one foot in front of the other. Some days it is getting out of bed altogether. Some days it is taking the time to remind myself that there is meaning in all of this. Some days it just feels like a waiting game. Waiting to land a better job. Waiting to move out of my parents' house. Waiting to hear if my part time job is going to pay me this month. Waiting to get a break, somewhere.

To be perfectly honest I thought I would have gotten a lot further by now. I had hoped that within this year I would have had the opportunity to find a solid, secure job with benefits. I had hoped that I could move to a community where I could put roots down. I knew that with Bluebell safe and loved and cherished by her family it would allow me the freedom and time to pick up the pieces of my life and establish a solid foundation that I could build a promising new future on. To tell you the truth, I haven't been in touch with The Wonderfuls as much as I thought I would be, because I'm sad and a little embarrassed that I can't tell them that I have a great new job or that I won the lottery or that I travelled around the world or met my soulmate.

About six months ago, Mrs. Wonderful told me that the birthmother of Bluebell's brother, Big Brother 2, had met a wonderful man shortly after she placed Big Brother. He was "the one" and they were engaged and married within that first year. As of six months ago they had announced their pregnancy. The Wonderfuls were over the moon happy for her, and understandably so. I know that they are secretly hoping that I have some great news to share with them too. To let them know that the adoption was not only a blessing for them, but that it allowed me to move forward and craft a wonderful life for myself as well. It's flattering to know that they are praying for and pulling for and rooting for me but I really have nothing new to report.

I feel like an underachiever of sorts. I don't really have a success story to tell (so far). I wish I did, but I don't. I correspond with her mom, but keep it light. I don't want to admit that I haven't gotten a great new job or a fantastic new apartment or met a loving, committed guy who wants to marry me. I'm just sort of....here.

Anyway.

Last year at this time I had been a birthmom for three weeks, whatever the heck that meant. I had failed at something huge. I had gotten accidentally pregnant, and even at 31 couldn't raise my own kid. Obviously my life was a total and utter failure.

(Insert sigh and big hug here)

I wasn't a failure. I wasn't an underachiever, someone who didn't measure up, someone who's life didn't mean anything or had become a trainwreck. All of my 31 years of living did not add up to one big fat zero.

Of course though, I couldn't see it at the time. All I could see was the pain and hurt and regret and sorrow. And the deepest, darkest fear in the back of my heart that Bluebell would never understand the choice I made and would hate me forever.

I have to cut myself a little bit of slack because a few weeks post-placement you are in no shape to be making accurate or rational assumptions about anything, nevermind doing a self-evaluation.

Over the past year I have been a birthmom adjusting to what that is. Some days it means I look at pregnant women in Target with a whole new sense of meaning. Some days it means I absolutely need to "hide" one or two friends DAILY on facebook because they have just announced their first or second or third pregnancy, or have just posted photos of a baby shower. Some days it makes me want to literally box the ears of a parent who complains about being a parent (which can feel like salt in a wound). Some days it means I look at my stomach and can't believe I actually had a baby inside there. Some days it is simply a quiet thought reminding me that there is an angel in this world and I helped become part of that miracle.

I'm trying not to let the grief truck, or God-forbid, the "woe is me" street cleaner define the way I see the world, people, and life. It's not easy.

Yet I have to remind myself, and I do daily, that the biggest lesson, that I keep reading about and hearing about and am starting to see as part of the big picture is that the only thing I can change, the only thing I can make a dent in, the only darn thing that will change my lot in life, my attitude, my luck or fortune or happiness, is how I look at it. I must take responsibility for whatever comes my way, decide to embrace or accept it, do what I can, and at the end of the day, I need to learn how to be happy with it.

There are tomes and books and teachings written about this simple concept- basically, be happy in whatever circumstances you find yourself in- learn to appreciate the moment for what it is; an opportunity to learn, or look at a situation a different way, or even, the opportunity to admit that you are not the one in control and every so often you need a reminder of this. Appreciate what is right in front of you.

I read a book this weekend and it wrote about a twist on this concept. It told about how people often externalize their problems and blame them on other people or things (eg. it is my mom's fault because she didn't hold me enough growing up, my boss has it in for me, life just doesn't work out because I was born under an unlucky sign, etc.). I admit I do it and it's a lot more automatic than I realized.

However, the book's genius was that it showed how to look at things in your life in a different way. If you OWN your experiences, (even if you can't at the beginning), if you review them and see where each and every point you had a choice, you can start to take responsibility for them.

It is up to you to take responsibility of a situation even if you had no part in getting there. It is not what happens to you, but what you do after- how you deal with what happens to you- that makes all the difference.

The book I read over the weekend spoke of a hypothetical situation.

"If I walk out of my office today and get hit by a drunk driver, that will not be my fault. But it will be my responsibility to deal with the outcome. I am the one who has to go to the doctor and get surgery. I am the one who will have to go to the physical therapist. I am the one who will have to grieve. And I will be the one who has to work through the anger and do the forgiving. Those things are all my responsibility, even though I did not choose to get hit by a drunk driver."

The second paragraph really sunk in.

"People who do not take responsibility do not do that hard work. They stay angry, stuck, and bitter, sometimes for life. When they feel upset, they see others as the cause, and others as the ones who have to do all the changing. When they are abused, they hold onto it with a vengeance and spew hatred for the rest of their lives. When they are hurt, they wear it like a badge. And worst of all, when they are wrong, they blame it on others."

In my unplanned pregnancy and adoption situation I did have to sort out a lot regarding DNA, his unwillingness to help or be part of the pregnancy, his unwillingness to help or be part of the adoption decision. He certainly had a significant role in it.

However, the few months after placement I was filled with pain and heartache and I blamed him DIRECTLY for my adoption decision. I could not own it, I could not fully accept that I had come to this conclusion, that I had a part in it. I rationally knew that, but emotionally I refused to see it. I fell into a warped way of thinking that DNA absolutely forced me to choose adoption and I couldn't see it any other way.

I recently read an old email I had sent a friend and my words, verbatim, spoke to the thoughts that I believed that his utter refusal to help, acknowledge or be supportive in any way towards me, cost me the chance to parent my daughter, and I would never forgive him for that. I basically said, he cost me the chance to be a mom to my daughter.

Yes in many ways DNA's actions led me to take a sharp left-hand turn. I realized over time that I did not want her to be raised without a father, and worst yet, didn't want her to grow up knowing that he abandoned her. I realized over time that the fight and process to get any child support or help would be lengthy and a fight I didn't know if I had the strength or finances or ability to withstand.

I realized that what mattered to me more was her having a family and two parents. My wants and hopes and dreams for her did not include being raised by a stressed out, broke single mom. They did not include her having a father who didn't want anything to do with her. They did not include her not being connected to her paternal relatives. I had some definite desires and wants and dreams for her, and having DNA has her deadbeat dad would not allow the majority of those to come true.

But what I have come to realize, and what has gotten me through some really tough days, is over time, my ability to acknowledge my ownership of this situation, my part in the decision making, and ultimately, understand that I took the steps needed for me, to take responsibility for my life and Bluebell's.

By looking at my unplanned pregnancy and adoption in a different way- not as a victim but as someone who took action and responsibility and ownership of the situation, I can let go of that victim mentality and the "woe is me" attitude. I can let my anger towards DNA flicker out. (I still have no respect for the guy but it only hurts me if I hold onto the anger)

I am not saying that my unplanned pregnancy was 100% my "fault". I was intimate with DNA and that produced Bluebell. It was unplanned, but we were both 50% responsible for it. It was my choice not to have an abortion (no matter my personal or religious views about it, abortion is legal in the US and I could have had one). Ergo, my choice not to have an abortion gave me the only other alternative; to carry a pregnancy.

DNA chose not to be involved and said he didn't want to be a father or be involved in my or Bluebell's life. He did not take ownership of the situation or the circumstances in any way. He walked away. He painted himself as a victim so he didn't have to accept responsibility. "Oh well, she got knocked up, it's her problem" or "I told her I didn't want to be involved, she should just have an abortion". Those aren't grown-up, taking ownership, accepting the circumstances type of actions. Those are cowardly excuses. I honestly pray for him because at some point in his life he will realize the magnitude of his behavior and it will repeat somewhere down the line, where he is the one that needs help or compassion or caring, and he will not get it when he looks for it.

However, his actions prompted me to make another decision. I could choose to go forward and become a single mom and raise her on my own or have an abortion. (At the time he took off, abortion was still legally possible). Abortion was not in the cards. Already I had made two significant choices- to carry a baby to term and undergo pregnancy, and to become a parent, and a single parent with little resources.

Throughout my pregnancy I had other choices. To eat healthfully or to eat junk food. To go to my ob appointments or skip them. To exercise or not. To learn about parenting and newborns or not. To make a plan for our lives together, or wing it. As I made my choices one by one (eat healthfully, take those horse pill prenatal vitamins, go to every single appointment and then some, walk every day, give myself a crash course in newborns and babies, plan our lives as much as I could), there was another decision to make.

After analyzing all of the resources I had as an expectant single parent with little support, I realized that it greatly differed from what I hoped I could provide for her. It wasn't an insignificant gap. It was HUGE. My decision then was, do I go into single parenthood knowing that she is going to lack a number of things I want for her (not just material things but significant relationships, a father for example, or paternal grandparents for another) or do I honor my wishes and deepest heart's desire and consider adoption as a way to give her everything I want for her and more?

That was another huge decision. Obviously it was the most significant one, and I did make my choice. I have to own that choice. Going through my pregnancy and thought process and the circumstances, it has helped me own that choice by looking at each and every step as decisions and choices I made for certain reasons. Nobody forced adoption upon me.

I admit. An unplanned pregnancy, being unmarried to the father and with him not wanting anything to do with it, isn't much of a choice. It sucks. It hurts. It's not a happy surprise. As much as I believe in a woman or couple's choice, I don't think that decision is easy for anyone, even if termination is the end result. So I don't envy anyone in those shoes, not for one minute.

But instead of viewing this situation as completely out of my control, awful, a sure sign that God and the world hated me, that fate was "out to get me", that all men are evil, the very decisions that I made then helped me now, a year later, understand and see my decision as another action involved in taking responsibility for this entire situation.

My decision to place her with her parents, my decision to even look into adoption, opened up a big, bright, and yes I say, better world, for Bluebell, than what I could provide for her. In that sense I knew (despite any birthparent telling you otherwise, finances are ALWAYS a consideration, ALWAYS) that she would be better off financially. That means a home, a house, with a yard, in a good neighborhood, and a good school district or private school. That means family vacations and a room of her own and new clothes and money for tutoring or piano lessons or other hobbies. That means a college fund and a wedding fund and most of all, security. I'm pretty sure they have college funds set up for their kids, a rainy day fund, investments. The money I could earn would have supported us, but just barely. And no extra for vacations or hobbies or braces. Yes, money is always a concern.

Adoption also gave her two loving, committed parents, siblings, a huge extended family and relatives, a stable home, great opportunities for education and schooling, and so much more. I can certainly accept responsibility for giving her those things by way of placing her with her family!

Looking back now, I tie it to the example that the author gave. My unplanned pregnancy was, using his metaphor, like getting hit by a drunk driver. No it wasn't my "fault" but I was still alive, and in a certain condition, and it was now 100% of my responsibility to deal with it.

I dealt with the pregnancy. I dealt with DNA to the extent I had to. I dealt with my friends. I dealt with my parents. I dealt with educating myself about babies and single parenthood. I dealt with learning about adoption. I proactively sought out resources to help me with adoption. I found Bluebell's parents through a mutual friend. I followed through with getting to know them, and the adoption plan (no matter how hard and painful).

I took responsibility for the pregnancy. I absorbed 100% of the responsibility for it (DNA disappeared, never to be heard from again). I valued her life so much that I focused on her for 9 months, nothing but her for 9 months. I valued her quality of life and the hopes and dreams and wishes I had for her, this precious little girl, so much that I focused on how to give her the world. The way I could see this through was adoption.

I realize now that no matter the emotions or frustration or anger or pain or fear I felt being pregnant, no matter the disappointment and how unfair it seemed when DNA just got to walk away, no matter the unfair nature of the fact that all of my peers have children and are raising them alone or with partners, no matter how much I wanted to be a mom, the only thing I can truly do is take responsibility for and ownership of the what is in the here and now.

What is in the here and now is the fact that I am a birthmother, and the pregnancy and adoption happened. I am sad over it, it's painful at times to think about. Yet sometimes I feel so much joy. I see children playing with their siblings at a park and I secretly smile and am so glad Bluebell has brothers. I think about the solid marriage her parents have and am thrilled that she will have a wonderful example of love and commitment to be raised within.

I can choose to wallow in my grief and sorrow and ask people to feel sorry for me. That is the easy way out. My friends understand that it's sad. My parents understand that it's hard. Nobody would fault me if I wanted to join a convent and hide from the real world the rest of my life. Nobody would fault me if I married some random person off the internet in a month and had a child nine months from now. (Ok my sister would because she knows that is just not like me) I'm a birthmom and therefore wounded, and sad, and you should feel sorry for me.

Yet I don't want to be that birthmom. I know myself and marrying quickly to feel secure or safe and then having a child to become a mom again (for the wrong reasons- if I did fall in love with a great man and get married and have a child in nine months for the right reasons then that is a different story) isn't the right thing. Wallowing in my grief and blogging about how the world is unfair and how DNA and all men are jerks isn't either.

(As an aside, I do want to say that my specific situation has helped me accept and accept my personal adoption experience. It could be quite different for a younger woman to look at their situation the way I do. When you are living with your parents or being financially supported by them, or are a minor, you do NOT have the greater availability of choices that I did. My situation was that I was 31, supporting myself, living on my own. If I had been 16 and forced to choose adoption or be kicked out of the house, I hardly think I would be able to feel that I had the ability to "take ownership of" or "take responsibility for" my adoption decision. That isn't really a choice)

I can choose to take responsibility for this, to own it, or I can choose to flounder in a sea of self pity and shame and grief. Either way, I am choosing a path for myself.

Do I want to walk the path of taking responsibility for my past but not letting it define me? Or do I want to walk the path of blaming everyone else and the universe for my circumstances, and forever being defined as the "girl who got knocked up by a guy who left her to fend for herself and gave her baby away"?

The path I want to walk is one I have to specifically choose; and it's hard to choose the road where I am accountable for it all. I am accountable for my own happiness and my own optimism or faith or willingness to move forward and be happy with whatever life gives me.

It's easy to fall into the "woe is me" trap, there are plenty of other people out there who will join me in that pity party. There are a lot of people who are so shell shocked or stunned or defeated by the circumstances or events that they go into victim mode. It's easy, believe me, I've done it. I think it's a defense mechanism as well- you don't undergo trauma or hurt or pain and then instantly snap into "well it's up to me to make lemonade out of lemons!" overnight. There is a process of grief and acceptance.

But at some point need to choose to get up out of that bed. You can choose to lie there and feel sorry for yourself. Or you can choose to go to your physical therapy appointment and begin the steps necessary to rehabilitate your injuries (still using that car accident example). You can complain about how evil that other driver was or blame the rain for making the road slick. Or you can be thankful your injuries weren't more extensive and focus on moving forward, one step at a time.

My adoption experience is something I live with every day. Not a day goes by that I don't think about Bluebell or her family or how this entire experience has changed all of our lives. But it's over. My pregnancy is over. Her birth is over. Her first year has gone by in a flash. I can dwell on the past or move forward. No matter what, the choice is mine.

To Share or Not to Share

2011-08-11T02:41:00.000-04:00

Mrs. Wonderful sent me some recent pictures of Bluebell, and I was over the moon. They are everyday, normal shots, snippets of her life. Her eldest brother feeding her in her highchair, a trip to the ice cream parlor (ok that is so Norman Rockwell I could just die!), using a sippy cup, her with Geoffrey the giraffe teething toy, her in a new dress. I love seeing them.

The funny part is, I see DNA in absolutely every picture. His face, his cheeks, his eyes. Some expressions that she makes. Her smile.

There is a little bit of me in her (and I know that babies change and grow so much, maybe she'll look like me later on) but right now all I see is DNA. The weird part is, all I see is DNA's mother, and parts of his sister (Bluebell's biological aunt).

The weird part is, I have nobody to share this with. I have one or two mutual friends that I still talk to, who know DNA and have met his family members. I have never met his family members and do not plan to. I have only seen them in pictures. Yet when I see some of these pictures I am struck, immensely, by how much she looks like her paternal grandmother (in my opinion), and how much her cheeks and eyebrows and expressions look like DNA, etc. etc. The mutal friends have seen a few pictures and say that they "definitely" see both of us in her. Yet I don't share the pictures with many people, especially considering that DNA hasn't wanted anything to do with her or the adoption. I don't want the pictures to be accidentally "leaked" and him have full access to them. If he is responsible and grown-up enough to establish a relationship with her parents, that is their decision, not mine. To my knowledge he hasn't expressed any want, need or desire for information or pictures (aside from once when he had to "defend" his reputation- which had basically turned into- he's a no good jerk who abandons girls when they get pregnant by him, and he asked for a photo to appear caring and concerned). And it's not my responsibility to send them to his family or share them at all.

I just know that my parents get a lot of joy out of seeing the pictures and analyzing her features and her eyes and her sweet smile, and probably, in some way, comparing it to the memories they have of me as an infant and a toddler. It's only natural; she is their biological grandchild.

Yet I remind myself (and I don't need reminding- the day I signed those papers I knew exactly what I was doing) that although biologically we are related, socially, and familially, and emotionally, we are not. I hope that I can establish a relationship with her over the years, within the parameters her parents decide (if they feel that is neccessary). I really hope that I don't have to wait 18 years to meet her again. However, I am completely aware, at peace, and ok in the fact that she is not my daughter.

My dad and stepmother, bless their hearts, consider Bluebell their grandchild. They love seeing pictures and hearing about the updates I get. They honestly have a twinkle in their eye when they talk about her, or I show them a new photo.

My mother, well.....she has expressed grief over the situation, but nothing else. For her it is business as usual. I am certain that deep down she has a lot more feelings and emotions about it but she doesn't paint a rosy pictures of it, she doesn't ask details about Bluebell's parents or family, she doesn't ask for their address so she can send a gift or a card (which is honestly perfectly ok with me).

From the beginning, adoption was solely my decision. DNA was so afraid of getting stuck with child support that he arranged and threatened me with, the fact that he was moving to Thailand a few months after my due date, and his absolute indifference to her existence or my needs was apparent. He said this was not in his life plan, he did not want it, he was turning his back on it.

So, by my carefully planning and heartbreaking decision-making, I relinquished rights to Bluebell as my daughter. I hate phrasing it that way, it makes it sound like she was a possession. Honestly, when I met her parents in person I had this overwhelming feeling of "they are her parents". I did not think "they are the best couple who can adopt her". I thought, "her parents are here". So I do not have any hang ups or latent feelings about being her mom. She has a mom. An amazing mom, Mrs. Wonderful. Back to the point, DNA made his decision by abandoning me when he found out I was pregnant, avoiding his friends and family and lying to them about it, and signing off his rights a few days before she was born. So he has no rights or privileges to her either.

I just feel sad that his mom would probably like to see some photos. Would be curious about how she is growing and developing. Might have some insight or funny stories about when DNA was a toddler.

Yet, I need to remind myself, I don't need to hold grudges, but also, it's not my place. It's not my place to share photos, even if they are the spitting image of DNA or his mother or his dad or his sister. I will NOT invite his relatives (who are innocent bystanders in this whole thing, honestly) into her or her family's life. It's up to him to establish or request the chance to establish a relationship with The Wonderfuls, and I can't overstep those bounds.

So, they will never see the pictures. I am very protective of her, information about her, photos. I just know how much my parents appreciate the photos and updates. Yet DNA made his choice. He was a 32 year old man at the time. He is now 23 days shy of turning 34. His decision affects his family. My decision affects mine. The cord was cut.

Just Because It Makes Me Smile

2011-08-10T16:24:00.000-04:00

Just An Ordinary Day

2011-08-07T21:35:00.001-04:00

Today I was running some errands, just a run of the mill trip.I popped by the neighborhood Kohls store (for those who don't know, think of it as a better Mervyn's. It was of course, busy because of the weekend, back to school, and the fact that everything at Kohls is usually on sale. I love the place.

I found a few basics (got out of there for under $40 with a few new shirts, shorts, skirt and tank tops, yeah!) and was absentmindedly observing a mom with two kids checking out at the register next to me. Her daughter seemed about 7 or 8, her son a little younger, maybe 4 or 5. They were well behaved and very cute, and caught the attention of everyone in the checkout line.

The cashier was making small talk and said something to the mom like, "Gosh your kids are just so cute! Who do you think they look more like? You or your husband?"

Without missing a beat, the mom said, "Why thank you! My son is adopted, and my daughter actually looks more like her dad than she looks like me." She then finished her purchase, and walked out.

I happened to trail her in the parking lot, our cars were parked right next to each other. There was no "Mom!!! Why did you tell her I was adopted?". There was no "I love you just the same as Jane, buddy!". There was no mention of the comment at all. The trio had long passed that topic of conversation and the children were talking about the upcoming school year and their school clothes. There was no hushed moments of "Do you remember what it means to be adopted, Bobby?" and there was no cel phone conversation between her and her husband, or sister or mother in law about the cashier's comment. It was just a mom and her kids, walking to the car.

I was actually bursting to pull her aside and say, hey lady! You are an awesome mom! I love how matter-of-fact you were about the fact that your son is adopted. Like it is "no big deal"! I'm a birthmom and that's what I want for my daughter too. To have adoption be a part of her life, and the way she came into her family, but honestly, I didn't want it to be a secret, or a big deal, or something you are awkward talking about in public.

But I didn't. I watched her put their bags into the trunk, buckle the kids into their seats, and drive away.

Like every other, ordinary day.

I am not saying that adoption isn't special, and loving, and amazing. I'm not saying that children shouldn't be introduced to it or that it shouldn't be a topic that any family (whether their children are biological or not or a mixture of both) should discuss. Adoption is not taboo, and it's also a special thing.

Yet I love how this mom had obviously made peace with discussing the fact that her son was adopted a long time ago. I love how the son didn't bat an eye and the daughter didn't either. The little girl didn't think anything different, this is what she knows. The little boy didn't react in a surprised or embarrassed way. Obviously their family have integrated adoption into their life, but don't define themselves by it.

Just like every other, ordinary day.

Way Better Than An Alarm Clock

2011-08-05T15:12:00.001-04:00

I was jolted awake this morning by a text message. Then another, then another. My phone settings make a specific sound when I receive one. It was around 5:15am and I was really hoping it wasn't my sister with an emergency or someone on the East Coast needing something for work urgently.

All in all there were eight text messages, and it took me a minute to rub the sleep out of my eyes and hold up my phone to look at it. I am not a morning person, that is a fact.

Yet I will gladly be awaken any time, day or night like this!

Bluebell's mom had sent me eight pictures and a short note. Said that she was working on the latest update and pictures that she hoped to send this weekend, but wanted to share some in advance.

After looking at them, and uploading them to my computer so I could see them more clearly, all of the melancholy and "funk" I had been feeling lately just completely dissipated. Yes it's hard being a birthparent. Yes I still regret the circumstances I found myself in a year ago when I didn't have what I felt I needed to raise Bluebell. I'm especially sad when I see pictures of her as a newborn, in the hospital, of that incredibly difficult time.

When I see pictures of her at home, with her family, relatives, holidays, sharing a snack with Big Brother 1 or reading a book with Big Brother 2, there is absolutely no sadness. No bittersweet feelings. No grief or anger or sadness. Honestly, there is only joy.

Yes I am on the outside, looking in. But this is what I had dreamed of for her, and through my adoption plan, chose for her. I love getting pictures and updates about her and her family. I do not think "How strange, those people have my baby". I do not think "I should be raising her, she's mine!". I do not curse the world and feel hurt and sad.

I am ecstatic about seeing her grow, and develop and learn and thrive. I am 100% happy and fulfilled when I receive the pictures and updates. There is no room for sadness, only joy.

I don't regret my adoption decision. I don't regret giving her two amazing parents, and brothers and family.

And by the looks of it, she is as happy as can be!

At the local ice cream parlor

Pretty in pink, Mama's girl

Cruising the furniture, yup she's walking!

I Wish I Didn't Know What I Was Missing

2011-08-04T03:14:00.000-04:00

In an odd turn of events, and not entirely planned, I am at my mom's house in California for a few weeks. She is a teacher and travels during the summer, and mentioned she could use my help to house and dog-sit for a few weeks. Since my "life moving forward" plans are still pending, I said sure, and flew out here.

One, as I've mentioned, my relationship with my mom is just....different. It always has been. She was NOT the baking cookies type, or the girl talk type, or even overly protective type. I have been told by her and my father that she was ambivalent about having kids, never thought she would have any, but voila, my sister and I came along anyway. She was an ok mom, not abusive, tried the best she could, but she was honestly, just not good at it.

I now, looking back, am 100% convinced that she must have had some sort of postpartum depression which probably altered her parenting experience immensely. Add to the fact that she is European and was pretty isolated (we moved to a suburban town in California about 6 months after I was born, and we moved from an Air Force Base in Germany, which was closer to her comfort zone- the Germany part, not the Air Force part- than a sleepy bedroom community in Northern California). So imagine that you move to a foreign country with a six month old, your husband has a demanding job that takes long hours, English is not your first language, and you are expected to assimilate, care for two young children, set up a house and household, navigate your way around town, get used to the driving, the grocery stores, the neighbors, etc. My mom had lived in the US for a few years before marrying my dad, but talk about a fish out of water.

I now see that my mom probably had a difficult time adjusting, both to motherhood, her new role as a wife in the suburbs, a "military wife" (she hated it and all the politics and pomp and circumstance that went along with it), to a new country and town where European languages are not all that easy to come by, and to her status in life in general. She was 32, not exactly that young, but still, it must have been overwhelming at times, especially with an infant to care for.

Anyway I've learned along the way to forgive her for things from childhood, accept that is how they were, but is not how they have to be now, and recognize that we all come from certain backgrounds, experiences, hurts, life paths, that shape us, and in turn, shape the way we treat others.

It's not always easy but I try to remind myself that she did the best she could at the time, and it is what it is.

Don't get me wrong, I am pretty confident that a lot of struggles I've had in life have been directly related to my parenting. Growing up you don't understand that your mom might be homesick and questioning her life choices and wishing that she could raise her kids in her native country, or struggling with some sort of depression. You just wonder why your mom doesn't make you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like everyone else and feel let down when she would rather take the dog on a walk than take you shopping for back-to-school clothes.

From an early age I felt resentment from her. Not because of who I was exactly, but because she did not like or want her role as a mother. As a kid you don't automatically assume it has to do with issues that she has. ones that are completely unrelated to you. You think it has something to do with you. You become a bit of a people pleaser. You look for maternal attention in your teachers or friends' moms.

As we got older, my mom became more distant. I moved out at 17 to go to college, and began my adult life. My mom and I had the occasional phone call, but aside from that, I was on my own. I went to college in LA, which of course is in Southern California. My mom hates Southern California. So can I count on one hand the number of times she visited me? Twice. Twice in four years. Once to drop me off at college, and once to see me graduate. After I graduated, she visited me once (passing through on her way to San Diego). Once in 10 years. I can't explain it, most parents have trouble "letting go" and keep up a close relationship with their kids, even after they go to college. I felt like my mom was some distant aunt or relative to be honest with you.

My mom and I....we don't hate each other, we don't fight. My sister and mom are too much alike- they are like cats and dogs. My mom and I get along fine, but as I've written about before, she was not really that involved in my life and left my sister and I to fend for ourselves at an early age. I have never felt unconditionally loved by my mom, ever. It took up until the last few years for me to realize that nothing I do can make me the perfect daughter, will turn her into the kind of mom who wants to do lunch and get pedicures. I'm never going to have a special mother-daughter tradition with her, even if I have future children she's not going to be a cuddly and attentive "grandma". She is who she is, and nothing I do can change that.

(Wish I would have gotten those Cliffs Notes back in junior high school)

I hated not having aunts and uncles and cousins. I felt sad that other kids had cousins to go on vacation with or grandparents to take them to the beach. It wasn't that I was jealous of material things, or the attention. I always felt a longing for family members. A support system. Cousins to share memories with, an attentive aunt to learn recipes from or a grandparent to pass on family traditions. It is not my parents' "fault", but I knew from an early age a feeling of isolation and never wanted Bluebell to feel that. It wasn't her fault that DNA didn't want to accept his responsibility, but I would not put her through feeling alone and unsupported and insignificant due to the lack of family ties. I knew too well the feeling from my old childhood.

Well, she is travelling and I'm in my childhood home. Last year around this exact same time, I was also in this house. It was a few weeks after Bluebell was born and I had placed her with her parents, and my life had fallen apart around me.

I gave notice at my apartment, packed my things, and began the process of figuring out where my life was headed. My company had run into financial problems and I didn't have a paycheck. I had just placed Bluebell and wondered if life even mattered. I knew I didn't, and couldn't, stay in LA. The memories were too strong, too fresh, too hard, too potent. It was everything I could to do pack my car and ship the rest and get the heck out. This was a city I had known and loved and grown to call home in a span of 12 years.

After Bluebell was born, every stretch of road, every corner, every "favorite" restaurant or memory I had was clouded with my memories of being pregnant with her. If I had stayed in LA I would have to drive by the hospital she was born at, the Safeway where I bought those pieces of birthday cake that I craved when I was pregnant, the ultrasound place, my ob/gyn. If I had stayed in LA I would constantly have to be reminded of the romance that DNA and I shared, and how broken it became. I would have been reminded that DNA lived 26 miles away from me and yet during my entire 9 month pregnancy hadn't had the decency or concern to even care that his unborn child was growing and developing and I was completely on my own with it.

If I had stayed in LA I would have been beaten over the head with memories of my pregnancy, her birth, the placement. I was lucky enough that I could make a judgement call and leave. Even the previous 11 years of memories, friends, traditions that I had made in that city, way before Bluebell, couldn't stack up against the Bluebell memories. I knew I could never live there again. So I came back here, to make plans and store some of my things.

That was when I started blogging. I had read a few blogs during my pregnancy but hadn't hit upon all of the birthparent blogs I read now until after the placement. I felt like I had at least, a lifeline. I wanted to throw myself out the window every day, yes that's true, but reading the words and finding out that other women had gone through similar experiences, that they were mourning their motherhood, their relationships, asking the same questions I was, trying to work through the tough experience of being a birthmother, I grabbed onto what solace I could find, and started my own blog to process and work through this experience.

So, nearly a year later, I sit at the same desk and type on the same computer and wonder just where my life is going, and if anything has changed at all in the past year.

For one, I'm not a crying, blubbering mess. Secondly, the pain and grief I have over the adoption is still there, but it's not a heart-wrenching, twisted gut feeling anymore. Yes it's sad. Yes I still have to hide friends on Facebook who post ultrasound and newborn pictures. I anxiously await my next update and pictures of Bluebell. But it's a little better. There is more of a light. I see some ways forward.

What has changed?

I have let go and processed a LOT of the anger and disappointment and hate I had for myself. After the placement I was in a very bad place. People kept calling me a saint, that I did what was best, that I was so strong. I felt like a jerk who abandoned her child. I second guessed my decision every other minute. I was filled with pain and hurt and anger towards DNA. I was mostly filled with pain and hurt and anger towards myself. I felt like a failure. I compared myself to others- friends raising children. College friends, high school friends, old work colleagues, who were married, or pregnant, or had multiple children. My heart cried to the universe that this "wasn't fair". No, it wasn't, and that part hasn't gotten easier to accept, but I have accepted the adoption.

I know that the reasons I chose adoption were valid. They were what I wanted.

Now, sleeping in my childhood bedroom, and being faced with the memories of elementary school me, junior high school me, high school me, even college student in the summers me, I am in a whirl of memories, time and space.

I remember the me that I was last year, broken and shattered. I want to hug her and tell her that it will feel better. Not immediately, not even months from now, but that she will regain some parts of herself that she thought she had maybe lost. I would tell her that her reasons were clear and justified and honorable, and those are the things that will keep her sane through her acceptance of the placement and adoption. I would tell her that getting pictures and updates is bittersweet, but far more sweet than bitter. I would tell her that as much as she thinks she can't put one foot in front of the other, she can, and she will.

Yet my life isn't "fixed". I'm still floating along in a sea of uncertainty. I'm trying to make job possibilities happen, I'm trying to focus on a move, I'm trying to save money so I can regain my adult life and independence. It hasn't been easy going.

I have had the benefit of being able to stay with family, but I feel like this entire year has been stuck in limbo. I stay with my parents, I stay with my sister, I stay with my mom. I have taken a few trips to see friends. I keep trying to find more stable work and job opportunities. Yet I don't have a place of my own yet. I don't have my own privacy. My clothes and belongings and possessions are all in boxes. I live out of a suitcase. I don't have anywhere to really "unpack" yet.

It has occurred to me that this is also hindering my ability to move forward, meet new people, go towards the future. I'm really not interested, but I haven't had the opportunity to say, meet a nice guy or go on a date. It's pretty hard when you are "temporarily" bunking with your sister or your parents. Why would I start up an interest or even make an effort to get to know someone if I don't know where I'll be living in a month? It has placed me in a feeling of stuck in gear, and I'm pretty reliant on other circumstances (a job opportunity, if I can earn more money, etc.) to get me unstuck.

The ironic part is, I have so much free time it's not funny. I feel like a housewife or a stay at home mom because I have the freedom to sleep till noon, watch Oprah, run errands or go to appointments during the day (things that I could never do when I had a full time office job). It has dawned on me that I have had safe and secure places to live/stay over the past year, and a little bit of income coming in once in awhile. I have not had to travel for work. I have not had to attend important or big meetings. I do my work from the computer and phone. In almost a year I've had the most free time and freedom to set my own schedule than I have had since pre-college days! It has not escaped my attention that I could have, very well, been taking care of Bluebell and devoting lots of time and effort and energy to caring for her, over this past year.

When I placed her, all I could think was, I don't have a lot of money, I have a full time job that I depend on to earn money to eat, pay for gas, pay rent, pay bills. I cannot afford a nanny or a babysitter. I travel, go to meetings, have important conferences for my job. Without a partner or DNA or someone else to help me, there's no way I could keep my job. She would live at daycare. She would practically grow up not knowing me! She deserves a mom and two parents with more resources and time and ability to parent her, and raise her, and nurture her.

Yet what happened? The important job with the solid paycheck disappeared. The energetic puppy who I couldn't handle went to live with my mom. The career prospects (new job possibilities that kept popping up while I was pregnant, but I couldn't apply for them because face it, nobody wants to hire a 6 month pregnant woman, no matter how illegal it is not to) went down the tubes with the economy. My "fresh new start" that I had hoped to grab and hit the ground running when I moved back to Florida took more than six months to get off the ground. Even now I'm not sure when my next paycheck is coming, if I can afford to discontinue this gypsy/nomad life, and get grounded somewhere.

Placing Bluebell for adoption did not suddenly improve my life. It did not allow me to keep my decent paying job, or gain a more lucrative or stable one. It did not allow me to keep living on my own and continue my single, independent adult life. It did not suddenly open up opportunities or send me lottery winnings in exchange for my "sacrifice". Life didn't get easier, or rosier, nor did good karma shower me with love, opportunity and a bright future. It got stuck in a holding pattern.

I know I need to keep positive, and just keep pushing through. The "me" that is writing this post is certainly a lot tougher, wiser, and in some way, more evolved, than the "me" that was sobbing into her keyboard last August, trying to make sense of this all. It's just hard when I feel like this entire year was devoted to me trying to make some peace with the adoption, and not much else.

The worst part of this all is now I know. Now I know what I'm missing.

A very good friend had her first daughter a week ago. When she told me she was pregnant I went overboard trying to give her advice, telling her about my pregnancy experience, encouraging her. She was very afraid of the childbirth part, scared to become a parent (though I'm sure she is doing great!), nervous, and had so many questions. I spilled my guts to her about the good, bad and ugly about being pregnant. Everything they don't tell you and people are "too polite" to say, yup I spilled it. I gave her a pep talk that would have made Mother Mary proud. I was just so happy for her and her husband, and really excited for them, I couldn't contain myself. This was only a month or so after Bluebell was born. She is a close friend and I was just full of genuine love and happiness for her and their family. No envy, anger, grief about it.

She sent me a picture of her baby girl last week, and I was amazed at how little and precious and perfect she was. Then it hit me, HARD.

Having a baby with someone you love and who is committed and devoted to you (or at the very least, the child) is a completely foreign idea to me. Having a baby on purpose with someone you love and is committed and devoted and married to you is another foreign idea. Having a baby that is welcomed into the world with fanfare, and balloons, and flowers, and cigars, and Facebook photo postings and joyous phone calls, is utterly and completely impossible for me to understand. More than five of my girlfriends are pregnant this year and they keep having baby showers- having a baby shower is just as alien a concept to me as flying to the moon.

And that still makes me very sad.

I don't know if I will have other children. I hope to, but one never knows. I would hate to know that my first and only experience with having a child of my own is the last one I will have. Whether it be having a child biologically, or having an adoption fall through, or finding out that my future husband can't/doesn't want to have children, well that will just be heartbreaking.

I'm also 100% convinced that I don't want to do it on my own. Not even if I'm 45 and the clock is ticking and my eggs are expiring. I can't justify it, I don't want to raise a child without a partner, I want to give a child two parents and a family. I will not be using a sperm donor or adopting a child on my own, ever. I know it in my bones.

I hate that I know what I'm missing. I'm done with high school, finished college. I set many career and professional goals for myself and reached them all. I'm not a brain surgeon but I worked hard and had my experiences and built a fulfilling career for myself. At the end of the day though, the career isn't as meaningful as being a mom or a parent. It's not, for me anyway, a replacement for being a wife and a beloved and the keeper of a family. Those things are still possible for me, I hope, but I just hate knowing that I had to go through an unplanned pregnancy and adoption placement for it to really hit home how important and meaningful these things are to me.

I had the maturity and ability to think ahead- to think years from now, decades from now. I thought about how I wanted Bluebell to be raised and what I could provide and realized that my resources and circumstances couldn't give her much but love. Love was not enough, for me, it wasn't.

I hate knowing that. I hate knowing that I'm not her mom because I deliberately chose not to be, and I hate knowing that I'm missing all of her firsts and raising her and nurturing her and teaching her. I hate not being able to be the mom I never had, the mom who would let her grow her hair long and always tell her she was pretty and smart and courageous. I hate not being able to buy her that first Barbie doll or take her to Disneyland or teach her how to bake cupcakes. I hate that my opportunity for motherhood didn't happen at the right time, that DNA wasn't "the right guy", that I felt so strongly that I didn't have what I needed to be her mom.

Because I know what I'm missing. I'm old enough. I know exactly what I'm missing. And that definitely hurts.

Um, They Are Not Orphans

2011-07-27T22:26:00.023-04:00

So I recently read an article in which a popular actor expressed his desire to adopt.

Gilles Marini is a very handsome actor, and is probably most recently known as the love interest of the "Sarah" character on the show "Brothers and Sisters". I watched the show (it's been cancelled) since it started and enjoyed the storylines and character relationships. Marini played a handsome French artist who meets Sarah when she was vacationing to France, and eventually he moves to the US to be with her, proposes, and they get married. Of course the show is all about dysfunctional relationships, family, complications of everyday life, and more, so it wasn't exactly that cut and dried, but that was the gist of it.

Recently, Marini gave an interview to People magazine (or, most likely, made an offhand comment to some member of the press and it was turned into an "interview" for People)

You can read the article HERE

Marini and his wife have two children (biological). He mentions that he is definitely willing to adopt and that he is eager to add to his family. Here are some of the quotes:

“In my mind, I’m like, ‘I have both of my kids. Done. Check. Let’s help someone who has no parents. It makes sense.’”

Another gem:

"Let’s see what my next two years work-wise are about, and if they’re bright, then easily. Even kids from the region — there are a lot of orphans in L.A. You’d be surprised.”

I have a few thoughts on this.

(Especially in light of the recent adoption of a newborn by Denise Richards, an actress)

As much as I support and am appreciative of adoption, it hasn't escaped notice that Ms. Richards adopted a Caucasian newborn. Or that actress Mariska Hagartay, aged 47, recently adopted a daughter (again, a newborn from the US). Richards has two daughters with ex-husband Charlie Sheen, and Hagartay has a son with her husband.

Richards and Hagartay already have biologically born children. Marini himself stated "I have both of my kids". I feel that he is insinuating that adoption would never be his first choice, but since he has two biological children, and what about that, a boy and a girl, a "matched set", now he can jump into the saintly world of becoming an adoptive parent for "children in need".

Ugh.

And to play devil's advocate, let's not even get into the discussion about celebrities who, at older ages, have children (and use egg donors). Bear with me I am NOT speaking poorly about IVF or measures to help or assist with fertility or conception. What bothers me is that some of these celebrities (who have the unlimited financial means to pursue these avenues, money for full time nannies, etc etc) emphasize newborn babies. They do not look to foster care or older children or international adoption of older children. It's all about newborn babies.

One amazing exception is the actor Willie Garson (otherwise known as "Stanford", one of the sidekicks of "Carrie" on Sex and the City), who adopted his son at eight years of age from foster care in Los Angeles. I am sure there are others, but they are sadly, the exception.

It has not escaped notice that Kelly Preston (Mrs. John Travolta) recently had a baby boy at age 48. (It is almost 99% certain that she used an egg donor, because at age 48, it is not common or easy for women to become pregnant without intervention). Father John Travolta is 56 years old. The Travoltas lost their son, Jett, to an untimely death at age 16, due to a unexplained seizure in 1999. Their son Benjamin was born exactly a year and a half later.

I do not begrudge them wanting to grow their family, but why such an emphasis on a "biological" child? Could they not have extended their love and compassion and desire to build a family by fostering a child or adopting an older child? Apparently not.

I do not begrudge these people in growing their families but really? Newborns? When they have already had the privilege of biological born children, not to mention the financial success that their careers have brought, fame, notoriety, other perks, what have you, it seems like a slap in the face to us "regular folks". Birthparents. Couples struggling to conceive. Couples in the long wait of the adoption process- domestic or international. Families separated by divorce, or death, or other situations. Regular people who can't replace a deceased child with a newborn at age 48. Birthparents who could have and wanted to parent but were working minimum wage jobs and felt financially unstable to do so. Couples eagerly awaiting an adoption match but who can't afford it, or for some reason, just have an unusually long wait.

I know it's not the Travolta's "fault" that they have the resources that other people do not. They are both actors and have earned their fame and financial success with their profession. They are part of that 1% of the people on the planet who were born with a talent, or appearance or that special something "else" that allows them to be paid astronomical sums for acting, or posing for advertisements, what have you. They did not pull the short end of the stick.

Yet their newborn son, who is I am sure, a joy and a delight, and partly a way to help them grieve the death of their son, was not borne (pun intended) out of a happy accident. They deliberately chose to pursue another pregnancy after their son died in order to "replace" that son. That cannot be denied. Come on.

I don't even want to get into the psychology of this but I am sure that there are other couples and families who have been through similar circumstances and for whatever reason- biological, financial, etc. it was not possible. I wish them the best but I hope for Benjamin's sake that he doesn't grow up in the oppressive shadow of his older brother that he can't shake.

Incidentally, I'm sure an older child from foster care could have benefitted from the love and resources and stable home that the Travoltas could have provided. When is it about WANTING TO BE A PARENT and when is it about WANTING A BABY?

Parents who have adopted their children are people who want to parent. They want to nurture a life, help guide and teach a child. They want to raise a child into adulthood. They have undergone leaps and bounds and then some to become parents. I feel like a lot of people (since 50% of pregnancies are unplanned by the way) "want a baby" or need unconditional love, or have a baby to try to fix a troubled marriage........

I don't believe that 100% of all children born are brought into the world with the crystal clear purpose of nurturing and guiding and unconditionally putting that child first because as a parent, that is your duty. I feel like a lot of kids come into this world for a lot murkier reasons than that.

At this point, as much as you want to groan, it seems like Angelina Jolie and Bratt Pitt are the only ones in Hollywood who actually deliberately seek out children from other countries who DO "need" a family.

Back to Marini.

One, I am very happy that he and presumably his wife, are looking to grow their family and are open to adoption.

Two, I hope they consider fostering children and then the process of adoption- children that actually DO need homes, parents, and a family. The ones that, as they get older, remain in foster care and then age out. Those kids are the ones that deserve a family, parents, siblings, a room of their own, a support system. Those are the kids whose life you can REALLY make a difference in.

In my opinion, unless the mother is a drug addict, or violent, or psychologically unstable or unsafe, a newborn or soon to be born child, already HAS parents. They are NOT "orphans".

Honestly, in 99% of the cases, such as my own, it is the biological parents who do not have the support, or resources or other abilities to raise or support their children the way they want to, the way they have dreamed of, the way they feel their children deserve.

I have observed women keep and raise children because they could not fathom considering adoption. I have seen teenagers- young moms and dads- who should not be allowed to babysit a child yet alone raise one. They are unprepared, not stable, smoke, drink, curse, what have you. Yet there is no "license" required to birth and bring a baby home from the hospital. (There should be)

As I wrote about in this post, 42.8% of all children in the United States will be terminated by abortion before they can be born. 53% of all children concieved in the United States will be brought to full term and born (barring medical issues). .0054% of all children conceived in the United States will be brought to full term, born, and placed with adoptive parents.

That's a hell of a chance.

53% could be raised by unprepared teenagers, broken homes, drug or alcohol addicts, or abusive parent(s). I am betting the house on the fact that the .0054% who are placed for adoption are not at risk of at least: unprepared teenage parents. Parents who have drug or alcohol problems. Parents who are abusive. Parents who have unsafe homes or living conditions. Parents who are extremely financially unstable and are at risk of homelessness, joblessness, etc.

Obviously, prospective adoptive parents are screened heavily and everything from their finances to parenting style to what kind of car they have is evaluated, judged, noted, and attached to some sort of file. I am not being prejudiced or saying that all women should consider adoption. I'm just pointing out the fact that by sheer process of elimination, those .0054% of children are at much less risk of being raised and cared for by unstable parents.

It is not a matter of, "Oh I can only afford a Honda Civic and my child deserves to ride around in a Brittax carseat in a Rolls Royce, so I should consider adoption".

It is usually a single woman whose "boyfriend", "partner", "lover", "fiancee" or otherwise, has abandoned her once he found out about the pregnancy. It is usually a smart, intelligent, compassionate woman who has realized that whatever her circumstances and resources are, all alone, she feels she cannot provide the life her child deserves.

My child was NOT an orphan. Adoption is not like picking out a dog or a cat from the shelter and bringing that pet home.

Incidentally, DNA (my daughter's biological father) is friends with Marini. Apparently they met on some audition or otherwise bumped into each other in the revolving door of Hollywood. DNA does construction and remodeling work on the side, while he's waiting for his "big break" into acting. He became friends with Marini after he did some work at his home, and they are now actual friends. They hang out together, grab dinner, ride motorcycles, what have you.

I wonder if Marini had known about Bluebell, and my pregnancy, and knowing DNA, would be be so eager to classify every child that is adopted as an "orphan" or "someone who has no parents".

DNA is alive and well. I am alive and ok. We are Bluebell's actual biological parents.

Before the adoption, we were two people expecting a child together. Regardless of DNA's behavior or lack of desire to help me, accept responsibility, be a father, (or, let's face it, acknowledge that this situation was even happening) we were HER PARENTS.

I hate the world that put me in the position to not be her mom. I hate DNA for being such a jackwagon. I hate comments like "Adoption is so great because it is giving a child who has no parents parents".

DNA was her father. Regardless of if he wanted to accept the responsibility, he was, and he failed her, and that's that.

I WAS her mother. I was prepared and tried to follow through with that . At the end of the day I couldn't.

And now people like movie stars and actors want to adopt children like my Bluebell, because they mistakenly think that children placed for adoption are all "orphans" who "have no parents".

It's not Oliver Twist.

**NOTE: It is not my intent to offend or disparage any parents- whether biological, ones who have adopted, or ones trying to become parents (whether by adoption, biology, IVF, foster care, relative custody, etc.) Please take these thoughts with a grain of salt; I am a birthmother who is grieving my "lost chance" and opportunity to parent my first and only child. I obviously am not unbiased.

Too Posh To Push

2011-07-20T22:01:00.001-04:00

I've written out Bluebell's "birth story" in bits and pieces and have set a goal to have it finished by Christmas (along with a photo book I will have made). Yet since not much of it has been told here, I'll gladly go down memory lane today.

Where did we leave off? Oh yes, when I was watching CSI: Miami and ravenously hungry. I had gone to the hospital for a routine NST and was told that day would be IT!

So, around 8:30pm on July 19 I was trying to watch CSI Miami and keep calm. I was hooked up to an IV and had some sort of slight pain medication. I was feeling some cramps but not much motion.

Having been lying in the hospital bed since about noon, I had watched the beautiful California sun rise, brighten, set, and now outside my window was the dark of night. It was a surreal feeling that all of that waiting was almost over. The past 9 months. The anxiety. The happiness. The fear. The anticipation. It was all running through my veins.

I still could not quite believe that come hell or high water, this baby was coming out of me. Somehow, some way. For the record, I think that is an emotion/experience that a lot of first-time moms have, regardless of an adoption decision. Holy heck, the baby is supposed to come out where?!

I'm shortening this a bit, but if I didn't I'd never get this out! The hours passed with some tv and some attempts to doze off. My doctor finally arrived around midnight, took one look and promptly told me that I had not dilated. Not at all. I wasn't having contractions, hadn't dilated, and if left to my own devices, this baby wasn't making an appearance any time soon.

Thank GOD for "What to Expect When You're Expecting". Because the next thing that she decreed was that she needed to strip my membranes. I only knew what that was through my obsessive research and preparation.

Ouch. It was uncomfortable. Especially since, well, I was pregnant and had a baby pushing down on my bladder and other important organs. It was probably the most uncomfortable part of the labor experience, to tell you the truth.

For you ladies out there, a doctor takes an instrument to detach the amniotic sac from the uterus. I saw something like a chopstick or knitting needle wrapped in that sterile paper. My doctor used that to rustle things up in there. This sometimes happens naturally, but not for me. This procedure releases hormones that help start or speed up contractions, and labor.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Three hours later and NOT a budge. No contractions. No shooting pain. No baby trying to wriggle her way out. No urges "to push". Bluebell was cozy and she wasn't coming out.

At 3:15 am my doctor came back to check on me and announced that I needed "a section". She was concerned that Bluebell's heartbeat was slowing and that I needed some manual help in getting the little lady out.

A secret I will tell you now: I have wanted a c-section my entire life. The minute I knew what childbirth was (I saw those videos in health class!) I wanted a c-section. I am TERRIFIED of anything medical. I can barely get my teeth cleaned at the dentist let alone give blood, handle a needle, or any sort of injury. I was convinced that whenever I would have a baby I would faint in the middle of labor (I have a reaction called Vaso Vagal Syncope that causes a sort of panic attack and frequent fainting episodes and my triggers are medical stimuli, injuries, injections, needles, blood) and it would be a life or death situation.

As much as surgery sounded terrifying, I honestly couldn't imagine pushing a baby out either. At least with surgery I knew there would be drugs, or a spinal block, or an epidural. I am no "hero". I don't believe that my body needs to be ripped apart in sensitive areas without painkiller to "feel like a woman".

Does anyone honestly believe that men could handle any aspect of childbirth, including a c-section? Um, no. They would request to be put to sleep like in Victorian times, have the baby cut out, and wake up later, whining and complaining for the six month government mandated bed rest. For all of you that have known a man who has had a cold, you know what I'm talking about!

And I digress....

So I got my wish. Except when she said "section" I started crying. I looked at my sleepy-eyed sister in a panic. "She said c-section" I wailed softly, tears forming and spilling out.

I wasn't crying because I was afraid of surgery or the c-section or didn't have confidence in my doctor. I was finally releasing all of the fear, loneliness, anxiety and sadness I felt over this day. I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant. I was thrilled when I found out she was a girl. I was in awe when I saw her features on the ultrasound. Yet at the end of this day, at the end of this ordeal, I would no longer be pregnant. She would no longer be inside of me. And the clock would start ticking until she would become no longer my daughter.

My sister, concerned and thoughtful, jumped right up and tried to prepare herself. Yet she was more nervous than I was! I immediately recognized that she would not be able to go into the delivery room with me. She has the same condition that I do (basically we faint easily and black out in any medical type of setting) and the number one thing that the nurses told us during the hospital tour was that if a husband or boyfriend or baby daddy or relative wanted to go into the OR with us should a c-section be necessary, make sure that person could handle it, because the most common and preventable complication in the OR during that procedure is the "support person" fainting on the floor and the medical personnel having to devote their time or energy to help them.

No joke.

I immediately told my sister to grab my camera, wait for us, and to stay put. She felt awful, but I knew it was for the best.

They wheeled a cart into my room and asked me to slide onto it. I asked about the epidural and the kind nurse let me know that the anesthesiologist was waiting in the OR. I remember it all clearly; the dead still of the hospital at 3:30am, the bright white lights. I asked if I could keep my tank top and bra on (I always saw pictures of mothers in hospitals completely naked and I didn't see the point of that and preferred to keep my modesty). They said yes (a little victory for me!). Then I was wheeled into the OR, the room I had seen during the hospital tour.

Sidenote: I was very happy that I took the hospital tour. It was hard to do it alone, but it familiarized myself with the maternity wing, the exits and entrances, and helped me feel a lot more comfortable. I had never been to that hospital before and having points of reference really made a difference in an uncertain situation. I also asked so many questions and took it so seriously (I was one of those kids who raised her hand in class a lot, forgive me) it prompted the nurse to take me aside and congratulate me on how prepared and thorough I was for the impending birth of my first child. :( She did not know about the adoption)

They wheeled me in, and slid me on the operating table. At this point, the handsome anesthesiologist introduced himself and explained that he needed me to sit with my legs hanging down, in a "crouched over" position so he could administer the epidural. I still wasn't feeling any cramping or swelling or anything strange. The epidural was a horror story I had read about, but when all was said and done, I never saw it, and it felt like a pinch. When he was done, I thought to myself, "That's all there is?" and thought everything was fine.

Uh oh. All of a sudden a wave of the drugs and the weird sensation of not feeling my legs overwhelmed me. (That means it worked). I could see my legs but had no sensation. It was enough to make me....

Puke up the McDonald's cheeseburger my sister had smuggled in for me to eat to tide me over.

"When did she last eat?" the handsome anesthesiologist said to the nurse, visibly annoyed. I was embarrassed but what could I do? A nurse wiped it away and the issue was over. The drape was put into place and we got down to business.

I had read many accounts and talked to women that had c-sections. I heard horror stories of not being able to lift your baby, your arms, of never being able to regain those abdominal muscles. I heard horror stories about huge scars and weird numbness from incision site down. I heard horror stories about women being able to feel a pulling or tugging sensation while the doctor is delivering the baby. I also heard a lot of women saying that they felt disconnected because of a c-section birth, that they felt deprived not being able to have their child "naturally", that they felt that the birth experience was taken from them because of it, or that they did not properly bond with their child due to it.

For me, I found it to be fine. I know no other way and to be honest, am glad that I don't have the memories of a hard and strenuous labor, of tearing or pushing for hours, or a true "emergency" where my life was at stake. My best friend pushed for 10 hours, and THEN it was determined she needed a c-section. The poor thing was swollen and stretched in places she didn't know existed, and her recovery was extremely painful and long due to that. I'm thankful that mine was easier.

For all intents and purposes, my delivery was classified as an "emergency c-section" and it was. My doctor was concerned that Bluebell's heartbeat was slowing down, and since she had detached the amniotic sac from the wall, labor had to happen, for her to be delivered safely, within hours of that. I could not lie in a bed for days and push when I felt like it. It was a medically-warranted c-section.

My doctor gave my body approximately 14 hours to do its thing naturally, and when that didn't happen, she chose medical intervention to deliver a healthy Bluebell. That is all that matters to me.

All I know is, an incision was made, Bluebell game out, they wrapped her in a towel, held her up to my face for a minute, and whisked her away to get cleaned up.

All of my intentions of "I want skin on skin contact immediately!" were for naught. I had no support person in the delivery room so I didn't get any pictures of her greeting the world. I heard her cry, and knew she had made it. I saw a shock of black hair, and long chubby legs. I was in awe that I GREW A BABY.

Instead of joy I was immediately racked with sadness. I had held a nurse's hand during the delivery and something kept flashing through my head, like a billboard at Time's Square. I kept thinking to myself, "IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY".

I wasn't supposed to go into an operating room to deliver a child without any support (I am not blaming my sister at all, Bluebell's biological father should have been there to support me, no matter what). She wasn't supposed to come into the world as an anonymous "Baby Life Being Lived". There was supposed to be an excited daddy, or some family in the waiting room. Someone should have smuggled in a bottle of champagne. Anxious friends and family should have been awaiting updates or news.

Her birth should have been celebrated from the rooftops. It was quietly celebrated, of course, by the skilled medical staff. It was an awe-inspiring and life changing experience for me, absolutely. Yet my biggest failure was that no matter how well my intentions, her coming into the world wasn't a joyous and amazing celebration. It was a quiet entry into the world, with only the resources and love I had to give her.

She deserved more than that.

Bluebell Wonderful was born at 3:40am on July 20, 2010. She was 7 pounds, 10 ounces.

The minute I held her the thought struck me that I knew that no matter what else I did on this earth, I must be a mother again before I leave it.

I was already starting to say goodbye.

I love adoption. I love Bluebell's parents, and family. Yet aside from death, there is no more painful experience than that of giving birth to a child and knowing that the literal minutes are whizzing by until you give up the role of being that child's parent to other people who can give, raise, provide or be, the parent you feel you cannot.

Yet little girl I'm still so happy about this day. You are one. Happy Birthday.

What A Nice Way To Start The Day!

2011-07-20T10:54:00.001-04:00

This is what I received in my email this morning:

Dear A Life Being Lived,
I wanted to drop a short note this morning on Bluebell's 1st birthday. I am working on her update letter, but likely won't finish until next week as I want to include the update from her one year checkup and that is scheduled for Monday morning.

Today certainly brings back a rush of emotions for us - we feel incredibly (this morning, Mr. Wonderful used the word "breathtakingly") blessed by Bluebell's presence in the life of our family and we celebrate that especially on her birthday. And, yet we can't help but recall how painful and difficult this time was for you last year and must be in some way even now. I have been reading a book recently called "What I Want My Adopted Child to Know" - written by an adoptive mother as a sort of letter to her daughter. Of course not every book captures one's personal experience, but so far I've been very moved by the writing and the message conveyed in this book. One passage in particular struck me, as I think about you (again, it's written in the form of a letter to the child):

"Some people say they don't understand how a mother can place her child for adoption. They say they don't understand how a mother can entrust her child to someone else, knowing she may never see that child again. I don't believe them. I think they do understand. I think they understand exactly the wrenching, searing pain of not being able to take care of your own child. I think they understand exactly the visceral fear of not being enough. I think they understand exactly the terms of sacrifice adoption requires. I think they are awed and humbled by your birth mother's decision, and they doubt they have courage enough to do what she did."

Anyway, in this short note, we don't want to re-open any wounds for you, but rather, we want you to know how deeply we admire your courage and sacrifice for Bluebell, and how grateful we are to you for entrusting her to us. In another part of this book, the author writes, "When I first held you, I was acutely aware of having been "chosen" and was surprised by the profound obligation I felt to your birth mother...in the sense that she entrusted her personal miracle to ME. It seemed vitally important that I honor her sacrifice by raising you well.... I will always be grateful for the sacred trust that is the core of our relationship. Your birth mother trusted me with you, and that has always been extremely important to me. I'm glad I can give that knowledge to you. Whatever else you know about your biological parents, you know they made an adoption plan with faith in me and you."

I couldn't have articulated this more beautifully and I think it expresses a profound aspect of our experience.

So, on this first anniversary of Bluebell's birth, Mr. Wonderful and I want to thank you for entrusting us to raise this beautiful little girl. We strive every day to be worthy of your sacrifice and of her.

We love you.

L & W

I am so touched.......honestly what a great way to start my day!

July 18, 2010

July 20, 2010

The Waiting

2011-07-19T23:46:00.002-04:00

I cannot recall the episode but I tried to calm my nerves
by watching CSI: Miami while waiting for the
contractions to kick in.

This time last year I had been checked into the hospital, infused with Pitocin, and was absentmindedly watching CSI: Miami in an attempt to distract myself from the fact that I was a) going to have a baby b) had no idea how said baby would be coming out (literally....I was too ashamed and embarrassed to go to any Lamaze type classes because I didn't have a partner to attend with me) and c) had set up a tentative adoption plan and just could not wrap my mind around how all of that was going to work.

I had some minor cramps but nothing major and nothing I would characterize as whatever they call "labor pains".....it was uncomfortable but they were giving me low doses of some sort of painkiller.

I vaguely remember the red-headed detective (Horatio Caine, as played by David Caruso) looking stern and determined in his quest to put some sort of wrongdoer behind bars, and finding it oddly comforting that they kept panning to panoramic shots of the Miami skyline, because that's where I had previously lived before moving to California and it reminded me of happier times.

My sister had gone to my apartment to pick up my hospital bag (dutifully I had packed some comfy pajamas in a size medium, thinking that I would need some loose-fitting and larger pj's during my hospital stay, warm socks and slippers, lavender essential oil to relax me during whatever the push-push-breathe sequence was going to happen, toiletries, a carefully put-together scrapbook of all of Bluebell's ultrasounds (that I planned on giving to The Wonderfuls), my cel phone charger and laptop computer, new pillows and colored pillowcases so the hospital staff didn't think they were routinely issued linens and toss them in the generic laundry, a stack of the latest magazines I had been saving up to read, my digital camera, a comfy robe, a newborn outfit, and lastly, some chocolate-covered caramels with smoked salt on top, one of my favorite candies.

Sea Salt Caramels. The package I brought was forgotten
in the bottom of my hospital bag and tossed into the
backseat of my car a week later. They melted and
just the sight of them brought me to tears so I
threw them out. I had no appetite for pretty much
six months after Bluebell was born.

(I figured that if I was going to go through all of this, I deserved the $20 candies bought at the obscenely gourmet grocery store that I rarely allowed myself to shop at)

My sister, trying to provide me some comfort brought champagne, a bottle of red wine, a soft blanket for me, and, something she wouldn't give me until later, something that I could literally hang onto: a soft black stuffed animal, a dog with a cute grin and a red bandanna around its neck. She had read somewhere that having something to hold onto after the baby is gone sometimes helps birth mothers. Very sweet.

At 8:38pm, this evening last year, I was prepped and what I thought was "ready" for Bluebell to be born, watching an episode of CSI: Miami.

I was completely unprepared for the intense and life changing experience that would happen just six hours later.

I have seen many of my friends' pictures of the birth of their first child, even real-time updates posted on Facebook or Twitter, with the dad to be dressed in the blue hospital gown, or family and friends anxiously gathered in the waiting room. It hurts me to see those pictures because guess who was in that room?

Me. Me, myself and Bluebell. My sister had to run around to drop my dog off at the dogsitter, grab my hospital bag, drop off some work paperwork, and get her own belongings together. I was alone, anxious, afraid, and emotionally spent. Yes my sister finally came back, but the entire hospital experience hammered at me every tick of the loud clock on the wall.

My kind sister wanted to "toast" to Bluebell's birth,
and me being a wine-lover, she thought Sofia Blanc
de Blancs sparklng wine was just the thing.
The hospital was sadly, never a place of
celebration, only sadness. They sat in
my fridge for a month until I moved out.

I had no family in the waiting room. No mom to hold my hand and tell me it will be ok, "she survived and so will I!". My friends were trying to keep a respectful distance, and a lot of them, once they heard that adoption was a possibility, sort of fell off the face of the earth. (Granted I think they did this out of respect, but it was still very, very hard to go it alone).

My sister finally showed back up around 8pm, but she has never had a child, isn't comfortable at hospitals and really wasn't a part of my pregnancy at all. She was very fearful of the medical "stuff" and couldn't stand to see me hooked to an IV, etc.

I am grateful and so thankful that she was there, but this was not HOW IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

I should have had my child's father by my side- no matter if we were married, dating, just friends, or simple acquaintances. I wish my parents had not been so stubborn at their grief and had just come to support me, regardless that I was hell bent on choosing adoption (funny thing is, I don't have a lot of family or family support which is a major reason why I chose adoption. Them refusing to be there for the birth or to support me during that time is a glaring reason why I actually chose adoption!).

I really wish I had hired or had access to a doula or a nurse or someone who could have just been there for ME, who was comfortable in the medical setting, or maybe had a friend who had given birth before, to be at my side for that initial 24 hours. My best friend did come the very next morning as early as she could, which I will forever and always be grateful for.

Yet if I could do her birth over again there are a million things I wish I could have changed.

But I couldn't. I can't now. It is what it is.

The fact of the matter is, it was Bluebell and I, just her and I, from the get go. And it would be her and I through the huge hurdle we still had to go.

A Year Ago Today

2011-07-19T18:12:00.002-04:00

A year ago today, Bluebell was on her way.

My due date was July 15, but it came and went. On July 19 I had a routine NST (nonstress test) scheduled at the hospital so they could monitor my amniotic fluid levels and her heartbeat. I was scheduled to be induced on July 22, so figured that this appointment would be an in and out situation.

My sister had arrived the week prior, and we were really ready for this show to get on the road. I figured we would go in, Bluebell would be fine, and we could leave and go about the rest of our day.

To be perfectly honest I was craving Huevos Rancheros and was anxious to eat breakfast.

After arriving at 10am and being monitored for an hour, the nurse called my doctor. Apparently she didn't like Bluebell's heartbeat levels because they were slowing. My doctor made the call. I was going to have this baby TODAY.

The fetal monitoring belts that they use. This is a
stock photo, not me, but I have two very similar
belts (sans the plastic contraption) saved in a
box I have of her things.

Did I mention that I was hungry? Starving, really. In all of my research and preparation, the number one thing I heard was to EAT BEFORE YOU GO TO THE HOSPITAL. I heard horror stories of women being denied food for hours, entire days even. (This is of course for purely practical reasons; basically they want your stomach empty in case you need anesthesia or other drugs and they do not want you regurgitating the food and choking on it).

I like to eat, and had my heart set on Huevos Rancheros that morning. Of course I naively thought that they would let us leave and I would show up on Thursday to be induced.

It was not to be.

Bluebell was on the way.

My doctor wanted to induce that day, so they checked me in, settled me into a room, and told me to wait.

I will save the rest for later, but Bluebell was born at 3:20am on July 20, so it's a rush of emotions today trying to remember and comprehend what happened just 365 days ago.

It's amazing to be in the shoes I am in now, knowing how some of my story turned out, and looking to the future anticipating what else there is to come.

I can honestly say that the past year has been the hardest of my life. Not the year I was pregnant with Bluebell, but the year immediately afterwards. I am in awe that I survived, to be honest with you.

Her birth was also one of the most gratifying and tangible experiences I have ever had. Not only did I GROW A HUMAN BEING, I am forever humbled and grateful for the chance to bring her into this world.

Bluebell's heartbeat was slowing down,
meaning she was getting ready to make
her big debut! (In case you were
wondering, I never got those
Huevos Rancheros)

I trusted God the moment I found out I was pregnant and promised that no matter what I would bring her into this world. I would not choose abortion, no matter what her biological father wanted. I would do my best to take on this amazing responsibility and privilege, even if I had no idea how it would all turn out.

I am so glad that I trusted myself and God enough to keep us safe and watch over us during my pregnancy. He had a plan, one that I have seen partial pieces fall into place. I am so glad that I did not take the "easy way out", which would have been abortion (for the record, I do not think any of the choices in an unplanned pregnancy are easy).

I may not be raising her, I may not be her mom, but I can still feel proud of the determination I had to honor her life, to nurture and love and protect her, to bring her into this world, and then get her where she needed to go.

Tomorrow, I aim to write out her birth story as I remember it. Since tomorrow is her first birthday I want to honor her and my experience somehow.

I honestly cannot believe that I had a child a year ago!

I wonder if I should call her parents.....I feel sort of shy about it, but it seems much more personal than a text or email. I have been away from home so wasn't able to get together the photo book I had wanted to finish for her. I feel bad that I didn't send them something, but she's only a year old, I can't imagine that it will matter if she gets it a little late.

I am also preparing for tomorrow to be quite an emotional day. I guess I should get ready for it.

I also cannot wait to get a picture or update from her mom tomorrow (which I am certain will come). One picture would honestly be all I need. Yes, I wish that we lived close enough that I could see her in person, but that's the thing about adoption, even when it's ideal, well, it's not ideal.

So I will settle for my ideal, which is to eat Huevos Rancheros for breakfast and a big piece of birthday cake.

My only source of sustenance in the 10 hours
before Bluebell was born!

(If you were wondering if I had anything to eat before Bluebell was born, I had a contraband Power Bar, McDonald's cheeseburger and organic gummy bears from Whole Foods that my sister had smuggled into the room in her purse).

The most charming part of having my epidural was hearing the very handsome anesthesiologist exclaim "when did she eat last?" after I promptly threw up said cheeseburger in the operating room because, let's face it, not being able to feel your legs is one of the weirdest sensations in the world, and my body does not take kindly to whatever drugs they put in there)

I am actually visiting my sister right now, so we can reminisce over a nice dinner tomorrow night (sans McDonald's cheeseburgers!) and marvel at the fact that this time last year a very special little girl was born.

Whoa.

The Things We Cannot Change

2011-07-17T23:48:00.001-04:00

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference.

-Serenity Prayer

Being a birthmother is not something that happens "naturally". In an ideal world, pregnancies of all kinds are supported and welcomed and blessed. Mothers would raise their biological children; the fathers of those children as well, or in some way will take responsibility to at the very least, assist financially, physically and emotionally, to parent and nurture that child; and biological relatives would be available to help support and build that family and establish that child's very valued place in the world within the context of those two biological parents and the extended family tree.

Teen pregnancy, unwed pregnancy, unplanned pregnancy...the stigma of the circumstances would take a backseat and society, family, friends and the support system of the people involved would band together to help and support this new life into the world. In some cases that happens, but in most cases it doesn't.

In an "ideal world", couples who wish to be parents all will have the opportunity (whether biologically, through adoption or foster care). There won't be heartbreak over biology or couples spending their life savings on IVF. In an ideal world there would be no pain or hardship to anyone when adoption is chosen, it is simply a means to an end, the beginning of a family, no pain or grief or regret for the birthparents.

Well, we don't live in an ideal world. Abortion is an oft-employed reaction towards an unintended pregnancy. Some biological fathers choose to turn their back when a pregnancy occurs, no matter that by doing what it was that they were doing, they knew the risk involved. Some women who experience an unplanned pregnancy are not ready, or are too immature to be parents at the time. Some women or couples simply find that their finances, support system, family, employment situation, the raising of other children or other circumstances make the ideal scenario as described above, "impossible" for them to care for or parent the child on the way.

I love adoption for what it provided my daughter. Don't get me wrong. I am not drinking kool-aid or blind to the forever repercussions that relinquishing her to adoption has brought me, and will continue to relentlessly bring me. I still appreciate adoption for giving her what I simply couldn't.

I wish I never had to be in the position of deciding whether to parent or not. By not choosing abortion, I was choosing single motherhood. I am no saint who believed from the start that my daughter was "meant" to be with other parents. I am no selfless person who wasn't eagerly anticipating a beautiful daughter, and excited and looking forward to all of the things I would be able to teach her, that special mother/daughter bond I was hoping to build with her.

Adoption was not my first choice. When I went to the crisis pregnancy center to talk about my options, I was asked if I wanted information on adoption or if it had crossed my mind. "Of course not, I could NEVER do that" I haughtily told the counselor.

It breaks my heart that I decided in the month or so before she was born, that I couldn't provide what she deserved as a single mom. I hate that my best wasn't good enough.I hated that I was in that position and I hate that I had to place her for adoption. I don't hate what came out of it- a beautiful family grew, two brothers became big brothers, a mom welcomed her longed-for little girl, a father fell in love instantly with the little miss.

I still hate and will forever feel shortchanged by, the fact that life and circumstances put me in that position, though.

I grieve for myself and for her, in that her birth wasn't planned and her biological father was not man enough to take the awesome responsibility and privilege of becoming her father seriously. I deeply regret that I was unable to parent her, and always will. That is a simple fact. Yet I still appreciate and embrace adoption for what it gave her and nothing can change my mind about that.

This had me thinking lately about the issue of control in our lives. I am not a "control freak" type of person, but like anyone, I prefer things a certain way. I will take poached eggs over scrambled. I like my home and surroundings to be neat, orderly and organized. I do not particularly care for motorcycles, in fact, I hate them, won't ride one, and would not consider dating anyone who had a passion for the things.

Does this mean I am a control freak? No, it just means that I have opinions and preferences, just as we all do. If I am a guest in someone's home and am offered scrambled eggs, of course I will eat them and do so gratefully. If my sister's apartment is more messy than I prefer, I roll with it; it's her space and her preference. (For the record, I'm not backing down on the motorcycle thing).

Simply because we have likes, dislikes, opinions and preferences, does not make a person a "control freak" or inflexible. A large part of life is the struggle to control things- and a lesson I relearn every day is just how much we don't control a darn thing.

Some people believe in fate, others the fact that God has a divine plan for us that we will not know of or understand, some people believe in karma. Some believe that life is just a series of random happenings, cause and effect. I have learned many times that someone or something is in charge of this life, this world, and it's most definitely not me.

A person, in my opinion, can't simply "stop trying" at life and expect God to take care of them. You have to wake up every day, face the day, meet your responsibilities of school or work or job searching, you need to take an active role in your own life.

It's also really hard for met to see the purpose or understand the bigger meaning when tragedy, accidents, crime, etc happen.

For example, just two days ago my car was broken into. My car has an alarm, had no visible valuables or fancy accessories. I could have done without the broken window and resulting repair, mess, and fear that my personal belongings or information had been compromised. Incredulously, the only things taken out of the car was a cel phone charger, the GPS, and a toiletry bag full of toiletries, and a makeup bag full of makeup! A little inconvenient, but I'm just glad that my suitcase and brand-new pair of sneakers were left alone.

Yet I have a hard time accepting why exactly, my car had to be broken into. I had an alarm. It was parked on a safe street under a streetlamp. I did everything I could to ensure that my car was parked safely, locked, and protected from theft. It happened anyway.

Considering that a month or two ago I also had some items stolen out of luggage (my makeup and toiletries, what are the chances!), I was really unhappy when I realized that my brand new toiletries and makeup were once again missing (not to mention pairs of expensive contact lenses that I absolutely need to see and function). In a period of a month I've experienced two random thefts for no reason, just arbitrary occurances.

What is the meaning here?

I've tried, in the past year or so, to let go of my attachments to anything physical or concrete in my life. I have moved cross country and back, carefully packed up belongings, mementos, photos, what have you, and shipped them. My first move ten boxes were stolen. My second move five were stolen. (These were all shipped via FedEx, sealed and insured, but FedEx denied every single claim!).

I moved across country after the adoption, for a "soft place to land", staying with my parents. I haven't seen my best friends in almost a year. They are having babies and buying houses and I haven't been able to share in any of those celebrations because I'm far away. So I have lost out on the intimacy of my friendships. I couldn't take my dog with me so my mom is taking care of him; I lost his companionship. Even with DNA, who I have completely erased from my memory, I lost at the least, his friendship and that of some mutual friends. Living with my parents (which has been nice, and I am very grateful), I lost my independence and privacy in my life. I moved away from a city I had known and lived in for 14 years, and all of my favorite restaurants, beaches, secret coffee shops, local hangouts.

Loss. Loss. Loss.

I realized that the less attachment I have to things, the less disappointed I am.

I hate feeling this way, but honestly, I can't convince myself that things are going to be better.

Of course I have a more skewed view than most; having to give up a child for adoption due to the fact that you don't feel that you can provide for her ranks very high up there in the "things don't always work out", "not everyone gets to be a parent", "not everyone gets the American dream", "not everyone gets Prince Charming and a white picket fence" and "even if you can have a baby doesn't mean you will become a parent" mantra that keeps looping through my head.

The fact of the matter is, we can't choose our parents. We can't choose the family we grow up in. We have no influence over certain things in our lives such as if our family is well off or living in poverty. We can't control if we are raised by a single parent or have two parents. We have no say over if we have siblings or not.

To an extent, we can make choices. As a child I was given the option to take piano lessons, join a soccer team, join a softball team. I was lucky in that my parents encouraged extracurricular activities. Yet I could not control whether I had the natural talent and aptitude for those activities to turn myself into a college scholarship earning soccer player, or if my musical ability was enough to get me to a solo performance at Carnegie Hall.

I could work hard, practice, keep a positive attitude, make the best of the talents or abilities I had been given, but aside from that, I couldn't control whether I was sitting on the bench or starting at shortstop. Hard work and determination only get you so far.

In choosing adoption, I did make a choice that changed, ultimately, Bluebell's life, forever.

I of course, also, changed her parents' lives, her brothers' lives, my family's lives. I changed DNA's life. I changed his family's life. To be honest I was thinking 99.9% of how I believed Bluebell's life would be changed. I was so hung up on the things I could not provide for her as a struggling single mom.

I was despondent over the heartbreak I imagined she would experience growing up without her biological father in her life, the negative repercussions that I imagined would encapsulate her forever in a cloud of want, need, emotional damage and negative consequences of being raised by a struggling single mom with serious financial concerns, no access to her paternal side of the family, of course, the most important being her biological father.

I hated myself for the fact that DNA was her daddy, that I made such a poor judgement call in even dating him. I hated myself for imagining her struggling and wanting and not feeling "whole" because she would not have a two parent family. I wanted her to have, at the minimum, what I had growing up- a two parent middle class household with a sibling- and I knew there was no way I could, on my own, give it to her.

Yet honestly, for most people expecting a baby, they aren't choosing adoption. They are choosing to parent. Even if they worry about not learning how to diaper properly or are terrified about "breaking" the baby if they hug him or her too hard, the very thought of giving their child to other people to raise isn't part of the reality of most people expecting a child; unplanned pregnancy or not.

Making an adoption plan is somewhat unnatural. You are eschewing biology and mother nature. You are altering biological and generational lineage. I wouldn't go so far to say that you're playing God, but you are certainly asserting control over pretty much the only thing you have control over in the situation.

In my case I did not have control or influence over whether DNA would stick around or leave me. I did not have control over the state of California and its benefits or lack thereof for single women in unplanned pregnancies. I did not have control over the family support I did or did not have. I tried to assert control over my finances, but came up short of an amount that I felt we could be comfortable with in living on. I could not guarantee that one day I'd meet a good man and be able to provide a stepfather for Bluebell.

All I knew, at 8 months pregnant, was that feasibly, 72 hours after she was born I would be sitting in a tiny shared apartment, without the financial, physical, societal or emotional support I needed to raise her on my own as a single mom. I would not have health insurance, I would have at max, one month's worth of living expenses in cash. So adoption became crystal clear.

It was the most natural thing in the world for me to worry, plan, pray for, learn about, prepare for, and anticipate her being born and raising her. Even in considering adoption I thought that I was motivated by the most important thing- her needs- and so in that, it felt natural. Yet it is not a natural thing for a woman to consider adoption, to choose two other people, to raise her firstborn (or second, third, fourth, fifthborn, etc.) child because circumstances in her own life prevent her from doing so.

Unless I had mental or psychiatric issues, a terminal illness, was too ill or dangerous or weak to raise her, unless I was addicted or abusing illegal substances, unless I was a proven child abuser, unless I had been proven unfit to care for or being around children, there is was no natural reason, for me to not raise my own daughter.

Yet the world doesn't work that way. In my last month of pregnancy I exhausted all of the resources and avenues in figuring out if I could really keep her and raise her on my own, with whatever community or private resources that were available. I checked into low cost medical care, low cost or subsidized housing, food stamps. I had done all of this while I was pregnant and did not qualify for any such programs.

The mere fact that I had a job (despite the fact that it had no health, medical, dental or life insurance benefits, sick, disability or maternity leave) immediately disqualified me.

Apparently in order to qualify for food stamps or vouchers I would need to literally be homeless, with other minor children living with me, and be indigent. Well, I paid my rent and could buy groceries and pre-natal vitamins, but my budget didn't extend beyond that. How did living paycheck to paycheck somehow preclude me from any type of aid?

I was literally beaten into submission the day I realized that even if there were some short term children's health insurance programs she could qualify for through the state, there weren't any for me. I would be discharged from the hospital within 48 hours if I was due for a natural birth and 72 hours if I had a c-section. Then I would have a newborn to take back to my tiny apartment which wasn't safe, clean enough or sound enough to bring a baby back to, uninsured for any possible post-partum complications or needs.

I felt like the worst person on earth. I had been working at some sort of job since I was 14 years old. I have paid handsome taxes for the 17 years I had been working. I had never taken unemployment or any other kind of state or federal aid. I was an upstanding citizen with no marks against my record, an upstanding citizen who just needed a little help. I was smart enough to look in the right places and make the enquiries. Yet apparently I wasn't needy or desperate enough to qualify.

Something had to give.

Biology, mother nature, and the natural order of things is powerful. I only hope that my decision- adoption- wasn't a way for me to "Play God" or try to control what shouldn't have been controlled.

My ego is not so big that I truly believe that my actions and influence has that much effect on other people, events or circumstances. Yet I know undoubtedly that my adoption choice had the most powerful effect that a singular decision will ever have in Bluebell's life. She will only understand how much when she is on her way to becoming an adult herself, and that's a pretty big imprint to have made.

It's An Honor Just To Be Nominated!

2011-07-15T11:45:00.002-04:00

Tan at Never Say Never has nominated me for a Blog Award. ! I'm so touched, thank you Tan!

(I apologize for not recognizing this honor sooner, I had written a post on it but it got lost in my "drafts".)

Tan is a birthmom of a daughter, and is raising two older daughters. She has also experienced being a surrogate! I am always in awe of her optimism, dedication to doing the best for her children, and determination to reach her goals. Her adoption is open, she receives updates and pictures and has visits.

I really appreciate her voice in adoption "blogland" because she has had the experience of pregnancies, parenting children before placing, and also surrogacy. Her adoption decision was a culmination of her circumstances and also very much a consideration of all of her children's best interest. It must have been truly tough to make that decision, already knowing how much joy comes from being a mom. My hat is off to her!

The acceptance rules are:

- I have to nominate 5 others for this award
- Let the people who I have nominated, know of their nomination
- Thank the person who nominated me

My Nominees:

1. Elizabeth, who writes at My Little Blessing in Disguise. She placed her beautiful daughter in October or November of 2010 and tells her story with such honesty. It is very easy to recognize some of her emotions and thoughts, as she tries to move forward with her life and make sense of her adoption experience. I also love the way she has built a relationship with her daughter's parents and no matter how hard things are for her, finds hope and joy in being a part of her daughter's life.

2. Brittani at Just Breezy. She placed her adorable son, Isaac, in September 2010. She has a close relationship with Isaac's family and speaks honesty about her experience, her struggles, her joy, her pain, and the lingering questions that I find very common in birthmothers (could I have done it? What if things were different? Why did this happen?) She is an intelligent, hard working girl who is trying to build her faith and move forward in a positive way with her life. Bri is also raising money for a medical missionary trip to Africa (details here) and is a little shy of donations...any little bit would help!

3. Rebekah at Heart Cries. She is a momma of one, a wife, a MBA student, an adoption and foster care advocate, and from what I've read, just an amazing woman in general. She has a very close relationship with her son's birthmother (who coincidentally is also named Rebekah, yup same spelling!), who blogs over at Sailing My Way Through. Their story lets me understand more about Open Adoption through both side's "eyes" and they have such a special appreciation and love for one another. Rebekah's unwavering faith is something I am continuously impressed by!

4. Benjamin who reveals the perspective that is not often shared or written about- that of an expectant father participating in an adoption plan. At Baby Darling, he writes of his and his ex-girlfriend's unplanned pregnancy and his thoughts and feelings about choosing adoption for his daughter. He's intelligent and thoughtful and honest in his posts.I believe she was born a few weeks ago, he needs prayers and thoughts right now.

5. Jeanette at Heartslinked. She is a first mom, having placed her first daughter Alyssa, at 16. She is married and raising three children and is now in reunion with Alyssa. Heartbreakingly, Alyssa is also a first mom and placed her precious son, Owen, in July or August of 2010. I say "heartbreakingly" because Alyssa's parents and support system were not supportive of her keeping Owen, and she was not yet in full reunion with her biological family (of whom her adoptive parents refused to maintain contact with or encourage any information about during her entire childhood and teenage years) who would have definitely helped her keep and raise him. Jeanette's perspective as a now 30-something wife, mother and "first grandmother" is a wealth of information and first hand examples of how adoption loss can and does affect everyone involved- generations even. Their story shows just how wrong it is for anyone involved in adoption to think that a newborn child is a "blank slate" and how important it is to integrate the biological ties into the child's life. I hope and pray that by now being reunited, Alyssa can find the love and acceptance she has been missing her entire life.

The Quote That Caught My Breath Today

2011-07-12T23:16:00.000-04:00

“I don’t know if there’s any change more significant that a human being can make than that of a woman become a mother. There’s no change more dramatic.”

-Actor Eric Dane, to PEOPLE magazine, speaking of his feelings after his wife, Rebecca Gayheart, gave birth to their first child, daughter Billie Beatrice.

Open Adoption Roundtable #27

2011-07-12T14:17:00.000-04:00

It's time for Open Adoption Roundtable #27.

This roundtable prompt: Write About A First Meeting.

I've been trying to write on this prompt for a week now. My first inclination was to write about when I met The Wonderfuls. Yet that was a hard one to figure out. We wrote emails for a month before Bluebell was born and I felt like I had gotten to "know" them pretty well at that point, yet the first time I met them was actually the day after she was born, in the hospital.

I then thought about writing about when I first met Bluebell. That one is also difficult to write about. Do I write about when I took my first or sixth pregnancy test? When I went to the crisis pregnancy center and saw a little bean on the ultrasound? When I was so nauseous that I couldn't eat anything but Jamba Juice smoothies for two months? When I saw her on the 3-d ultrasound? In the delivery room when they held her up and then whisked her away? In the recovery room about eight hours later when I could finally sit up and comprehend what the heck had just happened?

I also thought about writing about when I met a "real live birthmother" for the first time, when I met my social worker for the first time, and even when I met DNA for the first time.

I'm also tempted to write about the two weeks after her birth when I was finally at home in my little apartment, surrounded by baby clothes and supplies and gear and no baby. When I first truly met myself, as a birthmother, for the first time.

I'm going to kick this one around for awhile.

The Words We Don't Say

2011-07-04T23:48:00.002-04:00

Recently, a friend, "Scarlett", confided in me. I had sent her an update and some pictures of Bluebell (this is one of my best girlfriends) and thanked her for all of her support, emails, phone calls, encouragement and love during my pregnancy.

She was one of the first to send me a congratulations card, came to visit me, bought Bluebell her first stuffed animal and children's book. She was over the moon excited for me, and genuinely happy for me. When I revealed that I was thinking about adoption she did not judge or push me either way- she simply said that she would support whatever I chose, and repeatedly reminded me that I was prepared to do it, that I would be a great mom, and no matter how hard or uncertain the future looked, we would be ok, and Bluebell would do great because I would be her mom.

That meant a whole lot to me, because the pregnancy was emotionally hard and I was alone during a lot of it. Especially considering adoption, you start to beat yourself up on the reasons why you don't feel prepared or ready or equipped to parent, and her unwavering faith in me was really supportive and needed at that time.

Well, in her reply, she apologized for not being able to be as present and available to me during my pregnancy (she lives out of state) and wanted to apologize for not coming to the hospital for her birth. To be honest I had never expected her to fly out to be with me and she kept in touch with me pretty regularly during my pregnancy.

It never crossed my mind that she was distant, or not keeping in touch, or anything but supportive and loving. She was way too generous with shower gifts (I gave some to Mrs. Wonderful and donated the others) and checked in on me often. I had no idea what she was talking about!

Then she revealed that she had been pregnant, and was about four months along when Bluebell was born. She is 35, and her and her husband are eagerly anticipating starting a family. However, right around that same time, she lost the pregnancy.

Apparently she had been carrying monoamniotic/monochorionic ("mono-mono") twins. This only happens in about 1% of twin pregnancies, and it is when the egg splits after the amniotic sac has already developed. So basically the babies share one amniotic sac and each have their own umbilical cord. However, it presents a lot of risks especially of cord entanglement. The likelihood of the pregnancy going to full term is 50/50. Not great odds.

She lost the babies to cord entanglement and had to go through a D&C, etc. Obviously this was a traumatic and emotional experience for her. She had not told anyone except immediate family about the pregnancy because it was so high-risk, and wanted to take it easy and just go on the advice of her doctor. She saw her doctor multiple times a week, had blood tests and scans and checkups every time to monitor the babies. This was a very high-risk pregnancy. She had top of the line medical care, but at the end it couldn't make a difference.

And I had no idea.

So, while I was handling Bluebell's birth and relinquishment, she was dealing with grief and saying goodbye to two babies. While it wasn't the same circumstances, we both know all too well the grief over losing children.

The horrible part of this is, Scarlett was a roommate of mine years ago. She experienced an unplanned pregnancy when we lived together. She wasn't married, but her boyfriend at the time was supportive. This wasn't part of her "life plan" but she rose to the circumstances in amazing way. She began, much like I did, to plan and prepare for "life with baby".

She took classes, researched birth options, scouted a new neighborhood and looked to buy a condo, saved money, bought clothes and gear. We read baby name books together, I held her hand as she broke the news to her mom, watched her grit and bear it when she told her boss. She was bound and determined to be the best mom ever, and she was going to be.

Unfortunately, at her six month ultrasound the doctor found that the baby's lungs were not developing and were not going to develop. The baby couldn't breathe and would not be able to survive outside of the womb. The child (a boy) would never live past birth. They could not operate, or do anything for the baby. She had to undergo a D&C at 6 months.

This friend is an amazing woman, and that experience is something I did not think she could ever "get over". (Who could blame her?!) She has always wanted to be a mom, and at 35 she has waited long enough. She finally married the love of her life (after sifting through some real jerks!), focused on her priorities and what she truly valued and wanted out of life. I was so happy to read the news of her pregnancy, until I scrolled down to the second paragraph and found out that once again she had to say goodbye to now three, babies.

She doesn't know what the future will bring. I think they are willing to "try again" and are working with a specialist, but there are no guarantees that this will be an easy road for them. I know she is open to adoption, but having lost the babies less than a year ago, don't think she is ready to try quite yet.

Actually knowing a close friend go through pregnancy loss, having dried her tears, seen her in such pain and grief six years ago, and hearing that a similar scenario played out in her life again, really shakes me into perspective.

I do not know the depth and ache of the pain that my friend does. I have not had to involuntarily give up parenthood. My body did not betray me and refuse to nurture the child growing inside. Yes she has a husband to lean on, yes she has a wonderful home and stable environment and family around. She is ready and more than prepared to be a mom. Yet I don't now the depth of her pain or suffering.

I can imagine some of it, certainly, I can cry tears for her, I can cry tears for all of us who mourn children in some way. It really makes you ask, though, how can nature be so random, and uncharted? So much is just the luck of the draw.

It's amazing how much you find out about people, and often only in times of pain or crisis. I pray for Scarlett every day and hope she has the chance to be the mommy she deserves to be.