A Mother's Love

I received the following comment on a previous post, The Ugly Truth...

But my other question is: How can a mother love her children all the same when one child has been kept and the other was given up? She doesn't know the relinquished child in the same way. :\

I needed a topic for today's post, so I will reply to that comment here.

I cannot explain the love I feel for ALL of my children.  I think it would be impossible to do so.  Every mother I know has loved their children from the moment they were born (and before).  A mother does not need to "know" their child as a person before they grow to love them.  A mother's love is immediate, is unconditional, is forever.  

If a mother's child would die at birth, does the mother feel less love for that child than any others she has had/will have in the future? 

I may not have raised Christopher, nor been able to show my love to him as a parent every day, but I felt love for him always.  With all of my heart. And I will love him forever.  No matter what. 

I cannot explain a mother's love, but one of my favorite poems tries.  (Emphasis mine)

A Mother's Love

A Mother's love is something
that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .
It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .
It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .
It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendoured miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God's tender guiding hand.

                        Helen Steiner Rice

The Ugly Truth...

This post is rambling, I've tried to get the thoughts to slow down, the swirling to stop so I can put everything I am thinking and feeling into written words.  But it is failing me.  It's like they are right there, so close, but I cannot grasp the words. 

It's almost like my brain is not allowing them to slow down, to be written. 

     Because then they would be real. 

          I would have to face them,

               and I just can't. 



I read the following on Campbell's blog today:

My parents, adoptive, are my first and only parents. My biological parents are just exactly that, the people that conceived me with my mother giving birth to me. They all have their importance, their value, their influence, but my parents are my parents, end of story. As much as I'm enjoying getting to know my bio mom now, she will never be a substitute for my first parents. How could she be.

And I felt the hole in my heart grow bigger.  Then I read it again.  And it's true.  The Truth.  The raw and ugly truth.  I am not Christopher's parent, as I did not parent him.   I know that, have always known that. 

But...

I am his mom.  I love him no less than I love my other children. 

But...

Is that love returned?  Am I simply just someone he is enjoying getting to know?  Like a pen-pal with the added benefit of ancestry & medical information? 

Just another wonderful thing about adoption that you are not told about.  

Your love for your child will never go away.  It will grow.  

But it may never be returned...

2nd Day of November

Another late post!  More than an hour is left in the day this time though.  I meant to get  a post up earlier, but for some reason I ended up on an adoption forum that I haven't visited for quite a while.  I don't know what possessed me tonight to visit there as it always makes me sick with their "adoption is rainbows and sunshine" outlook.  I think I may find myself reprimanded by a few of the good people there after a couple of replies I couldn't help but make!  Any mother considering adoption that finds that group will never hear the truth of adoption there.  There are a couple that try, but the PAP's and adoptive parents are right there negating anything truthful that is said.

I often struggle when writing about the ills of adoption.  After all, I myself at one time believed all the adoption myths.  How many people in my life looked at adoption as a good thing because I went on with my life and pretended like everything was ok?  I know a few other mothers that choose adoption after I did.  Could I have had any part in their decision?  I pray not. But I also fear that I did them a disservice by pretending like everything was fine, by not living the truth of adoption loss & grief.

I also struggle because I, as a mom who chose adoption, was not fully a "victim" of the adoption industry.  I went into this on my own accord.  I fed the machine that is adoption, willingly.  I feel a tinge of guilt every time I read about the hurt caused to an adoptee by adoption.  Because I was one who believed that adoption was best. 

It is my son who had no voice in any of this.  It is the children that are the innocent victims in the world of infant adoption.  And isn't adoption supposed to be about the children? 

Isn't it not supposed to matter what kind of hell I live in, how broken I am?  As long as my son got a "better" life?  With a mother AND a father?  Who were/are financially stable?  Who were ready and waiting to be parents? 

I chose adoption because I wanted better for my son, not because I wanted better for me.  If the decision had been made for my best interest, I would have raised my son. 

My son did have a wonderful childhood, he has parents he loves as much as they love him.  He has great love for his entire extended adoptive family.  He has had life experiences I couldn't have given him.  He has said he is grateful for the life I gave him, by giving him up for adoption.  He can't imagine life any different.  And isn't that what I hoped and prayed for?

So, who am I to bitch? 

National Adoption Awareness Month

"November is National Adoption Month, a month set aside each year to raise awareness about the adoption of children and youth from foster care. This year's National Adoption Month initiative targets adoption professionals by focusing on ways to recruit and retain parents for the 115,000 children and youth in foster care waiting for adoptive families."

I have come to hate November.  The adoption industry, adoptive parents, and the media choose to ignore that the meaning behind this month is to raise the number of children adopted out of foster care. 

Instead we get to have an entire month dedicated to hearing and reading about the wonderful world of adoption.  Not adoption of foster children though ~ adoption of newborn babies who have been born to parents who are deemed as less worthy than the adoptive parents.  A month dedicated to celebrating the destruction of natural families, instead of preserving them.  Celebrating, instead of seeing the truth about the harm done when children are not raised with their natural families.  Children who lose their identity, ancestry, medical history, and more.  A month that ignores the  mothers who are forever changed, who spend the rest of their lives without their precious child. 

I'm going to try to post every day this month ~ to do my part in spreading the truth about adoption loss.  I don't know how well I will do ~ I am posting on this first day with only 38 minutes left!

Other People's Blogs or Things I Wish I Had Known...

I don't know why I allow myself to read blogs by PAP's.  Or blogs by pregnant mothers choosing adoption and blogging about it while still pregnant.  It drives me crazy, makes me want to jump thru the computer and shake them until they listen and truly try to understand living life with adoption loss.  For both the mother and the infant.

There are so many things I wish these people would really 

think about, and understand,when considering adoption.  

Things I wish I knew when I was making the choice for adoption.  

Thankfully, with the help of some wonderful bloggers, 
I have been able to begin to find my voice, to tell
others the things I wish I had known...

Sadly, for the ones who are pregnant and considering adoption, it is impossible to truly know what it is like to live without your child until you are doing it.  And then it is too late.

Nobody is entitled to be a parent.  Especially when the cost for them becoming a parent is another parent losing a child.  It is so hard for me to understand how people do not see the pain behind adoption.  Even when adoption truly is necessary ~ it starts with loss and grief.  How can anything that starts out by tearing an infant away from his/her family be considered a good thing? 

The "Dear Birthmother" letters.  They are nothing but coercion, from the salutation on. 

The term "birthmother" should be banned from the English language.  Especially when it is used to describe someone who has not even given birth yet.  The people that use this term don't even allow the girl/woman to be a mother before the child is born, when she is the ONLY mother that baby has.  But the adoption industry knows how successful it is when the expectant mother takes this name onto herself.

When a mother chooses to give her child up for adoption, she does not suddenly stop being a mother.  She will forever and always be a mom, from the moment of conception on.  She will simply be a mother living without her child.  Any problems she had before becoming a mother, will now be harder to deal with as she will also be learning how to live without her child ~ on top of the previous problems.  She will not have a "fresh, new life", a second chance to get things right.  Her second chance just became a lot harder, as she will also be dealing with the biggest loss she will ever endure.

The pain does not get easier over time.  In most cases it gets worse as the mother gets older.  She comes to see that many of the reasons she used to choose adoption were only temporary ~ but adoption is permanent.

Some of the other things I wish I had known when choosing adoption:

• That I would spend years, decades believing that I was not good enough.  Because I was not good enough to raise my own child.
• That trying to prove myself worthy by putting everyone else's needs before my own wouldn't work.  It only made things worse, it reinforced my belief that I wasn't good enough ~ that I didn't deserve better. 
• That doing as I was told and keeping the birth and adoption of my son a secret, I was only burying myself in shame.  Doing so made me carry the burden of grief and fear alone, making it impossible to now speak of the grief and fear, causing me to lose my voice. 
• That choosing adoption effected not only the son I gave up, but the children I went on to have after him.  They were all denied being raised with their sibling(s).
• That adoption would leave a hole in my soul that even reunion cannot fill.  Because we will never get the lost years back.
• That adoption would close my heart and leave me unable to fully love and be loved.   Because I lost a part of my heart when I lost my son.
• That I would lose the ability to cry, the ability to face the depth of the grief and loss in my heart & soul.  Because I am afraid of falling into that deep pit of grief and being unable to find my way out.   
• That by choosing adoption, I was not only losing my son, but also my grandchildren, and a beautiful daughter-in-law.  
• That even in reunion, the pain continues.

Some final words, from another mother who is Surviving Adoption Loss:

If you are pregnant
and considering adoption
my only word of advice is ... don't.

Listen to the screaming of your heart. Stop smothering it's cries with a pillow. The birth of your child WILL change you whether you parent or not. Embrace that change, don't turn in into a trauma.

Adoption is not "the answer." No, it is only piling on another problem and your life will become encased in thinly veiled layers of bondage. Unless you're violent toward children - your child deserves for you to take him/her home with you, so you can continue nurturing the bond that the two of you started 9 months earlier.

He/She already loves you. Please don't break his/her heart -
Don't damage yours.

Authenticity

I feel as though I lived a lie during the years after Christopher was born.  One of the biggest impacts reunion had on my life was that I felt I was finally able to live my truth.  I didn't need to hide the fact that I had given birth as a teenager and given him up for adoption.  I was a mother to four children, not three.

In the beginning, I felt as though a huge weight had been taken off of me.  The weight of secrecy.  Unfortunately, I allowed other people to make me feel as though I could not live my truth, so I started putting that weight of secrecy back on.


Because they didn't understand that my son was still my son.
     Even though I did not parent him.  
Because they didn't understand that I had been a mother from the day that I became pregnant.
     My motherhood did not end on the day I walked out of the hospital alone.
Because they were uncomfortable with my truth.
     Because it went against everything they believed to be true about adoption. 

After writing my post "When Others Want You To Stay In The Closet", and reading the comments, especially the one from ms. marginalia , I realized that I was choosing to let other people's attitudes take away from my authenticity.

Nobody can take away my motherhood.  I cannot un-birth any of my children, even the son I did not raise.  I don't want to live in the damn closet anymore, nobody can force me back in there.

Nobody can tell me that Christopher is any less my child than the children I raised.  The love I feel for him is no less than the love I have for all my children.  When we were together on Saturday, it was as mother and son, not strangers.  If that makes anyone uncomfortable, I don't care.  It is the truth!

I have lived my life avoiding confrontation at all costs.  I have lived my life as though I wasn't "good enough".  I have lived my life pretending that everything was perfect, like I was perfect ~ trying to prove to everyone that I was good enough, even though I didn't believe that myself.

I lived my life as society expected me to after the loss of my son to adoption.  I never spoke of him.  I went on with my life, pretending like everything was ok, when it was so far away from ok it couldn't have been any further.  How can I expect people to know the truth of adoptions effects on the mothers, if I do not tell my truths? 

How can I expect anyone to know or understand the reality of adoption in my life, if I don't live my life authentically?  How can I expect anyone else to look at Christopher as my son, if I don't fully live life as a mother of four instead of three?

I choose to live with authenticity.  I choose to have the courage to be imperfect.  To acknowledge the role of adoption in my life.  I am shedding the weight of the lies and secrecy that adoption brought into my life 31 years ago.

I am Christopher's mother.  He is my son.  I have four wonderful children, not three.  I have eight, not six (and one more to be born in March!) amazing grandchildren.

I am a very blessed, very happy woman!

I Am Complete...

I met my son on Saturday!  It  had been 11,456 days since the first and only time I saw him when he was just 3 weeks old.  I spent a glorious hour with him, it was just the two of us. 

I was traveling east for a quilt expo, while he was traveling west to get some supplies for his new kiln.  We were going to be only an hour apart from each other for the day.  I suggested meeting for dinner, before each of us had to head back to our homes, since we were going to be so close.  His first response to that suggestion was that it probably wouldn't work.  Then on Friday he emailed me that he would text me Saturday afternoon if it looked like the timing would work.

Saturday afternoon I got the text that he could make it work, that we could meet on one condition ~ I could not cry!  I didn't think it would be a problem, as I have been unable to cry for years ~ a benefit of living in deep denial for decades, denying my feelings.  And from growing up in a hateful house where feelings weren't cared about anyways.  I am great at acting like everything is great when in actuality I am falling apart.

We met, appropriately enough, at a town off the interstate with a huge smiley-face water tower.  My smile was about as big from the minute I read his text.  I was so excited to finally be able to see, touch, hold, and smell my son again.

I got there early, I wanted to be the first to arrive.  I found a place to park near the back of the lot, where nobody else was parked.  I was so nervous while waiting.  Could I pull off not crying?  Every vehicle that pulled into the lot made my stomach jump.  Would it be uncomfortable?  Awkward?  What do I need to steer the conversation away from in order to keep my no-crying promise?

30 minutes later, I see his truck pull off the road, and head towards me.  Time stopped.  He parked next to me, we got out of our vehicles, he walks towards me, hands out saying "this first hug is going to be a dirty one!".  I told him I didn't care.  That hug was truly the best one I have ever, or will ever get!! 

We talked and laughed for an hour.  We talked about meeting again, this time with his family. At one point in our conversation, I commented that he was spoiled by his parents.  He looked kind of embarrassed and replied yeah, he was.  I simply smiled and said "good!".  I am so happy that he has wonderful parents, who spoiled him when I could not. 

There was not a single uncomfortable moment.  It felt so... right.  I could not quit staring at him, looking into his eyes, seeing my little boy.  He is beautiful, inside & out. 

I did not cry, I only felt overwhelming happiness and fullness. 

One thing I fully was taken by surprise over, was not expecting, had not thought about.  When it came time to leave, we were both in our vehicles.  I could not drive away.  I could not leave him again.  He was going to have to do the leaving this time.  I waited for him to pull out of the parking lot.  He looked at me, let me know he was waiting for me.  I was just getting ready to sign for him to roll his window down, when he gave me a huge smile and a wave and drove away.  I followed behind him to the interstate, he headed east, I headed west. 


Our journey has come full circle.  I truly feel (and hope and pray) that we will continue to move forward, along with his wife & kids, the siblings he didn't grow up with, our extended families. 

A friend sent me a text not long after I was back on the road.  She wanted to know how I was doing.  I replied:   I am fine.  I am... complete.