My opinions on adoption loss, as well as my stance on family preservation are often said to be irrelevant. My opinion, the opinions of other mothers who lost children to adoption decades ago, are dismissed as not relevant because "adoption is different" now. That is a whole different post though. This post is about the loss experienced by "new" mothers of adoption loss being no different than those of us who have lived with it for decades. It is painful, it is agonizing. How anyone can dismiss the grief of another is beyond me.
Here are the words of a mother who lost her child to adoption just over two years ago.
I feel so alone now,
The days pass by so slowly.
I feel I have been left behind,
Forgotten and pushed to the back of your mind,
The gift I gave you,
Has taken a huge toll
On my mind, body, spirit, and soul.
I alone paid the price,
Made the ultimate sacrifice.
And you were the only ones with something to gain,
I'm the one left with the pain.
The days drag on,
Until each one combines into the next one.
And I feel so alone,
I feel so alone...
I could have written the same thing myself.
ReplyDeleteHaunting and beautiful. If I'd had my head together two years after my son's adoption, I might have written the same thing. I didn't, instead got into bury the feelings mode, for self-preservation. I applaud that mother's honesty. Thanks for sharing her poem.
ReplyDeleteI remember feeling this same way right after placing my baby. It was very hard to integrate back into high school. While my other friends were planning what to wear to prom and where they would go for dinner, I was bleeding physically and emotionally and had engorged leaking breasts...and no baby to show for it as well as a mother who said my family was never to speak of what had happened.
ReplyDeleteIt was as if what I went through did not exist and only I could feel all the pain all by myself.
horrible feeling to feel alone. my heart goes out to her..
Beautiful poem. Sometimes I think it is a blessing in disguise that mothers from our era didn't get to know the people who were adopting our children. You're so vulnerable when you're pregnant, I'm guessing you start to feel included in their family while they are happily planning to raise your child, and then, after they are all home safe and sound, you are left standing in the cold all alone. It's a triple loss. Send hugs her way, please.
ReplyDeleteLinda, Reading it from your view ~ an entirely different story, yet exactly the same feeling. I wish that it wasn't this way for you...
ReplyDeleteThanks to all of you for your comments, hopefully this young mom will find some comfort in your kind words.
I'm so glad she was brave enough to let you share her words. My heart always breaks when I read such pain, hear the misery in what First Mom's struggling with loss have to say when they are honest with their feelings. So many of us buried our feelings and went into denial to survive. So many still do today.
ReplyDeleteI remember those first two years, I was in a downspin. Only graduated high school because I had earned extra credits in the two years before losing my son to hold me above water while I struggled to find some kind of normal life. I didn't even go to my senior prom because it all just seemed so worthless.
I'm glad this First Mom has somewhere she can go for support. Hopefully that will help her through in a way so many of us never had during the early years.