Sometimes, I cannot remember what I did last week, but I can remember how I felt twenty five years ago like it was yesterday. Trauma tends to burn it’s impression into one’s memory banks. I saw a show on PTSD once ( It was on National Geographic or Discovery, so it’s quotable) that spoke of how memories created while there is excess adrenaline are the ones harder to conquer. I can’t say that I spent years in fight or flight mode regarding adoption, but yes, as anyone knows, those adoption conversations, especially when new, tend to make the stomach ball into knots and your hands to shake. In any case, I can say without a doubt exactly how I use to think and feel. It’s not selective memory.
Choosing Adoption: Being Selfless
After I returned home from placing Max for adoption, I thought I was the bestest thing since sliced bread. I really did. Not only was I stronger and smarter than any other women who got knocked up and then foolishly parented their child, but those wonderful strangers, aka the adoption agency, thought I was worthy and a good person. Best of all, and most important in my mind, of course, was that my son would have “everything” and would not be tied down with the likes of me as a mother. The added bonus was that I had “created a family”.
Yes, I was a self admitted adoption Kool-Aid drinker.
In those years, when I was proud of my sacrifice and suffering, I used to actually say out loud to people:
“If I happen to be run over a bus tomorrow, at least I have a chance of getting into Heaven. I know that I have done a truly unselfish act for these people I have never met.”
Yes, you may retch now.
The Benefits of a This Birthmother’s Life
Now, I don’t subscribe to any version of “it’s meant to be” in adoptionland. I was not destined to be a birthmother and lose my child unnecessary just to make someone else’s dreams come true, but there are silver linings to this life I have now. If I have to be a birthmother, I am a pretty damn happy one. Since I cannot change my past, all the hurt and sadness an anger have a healthy direction to go in. When I write, I let it all out and instead of festering and poisoning my soul, it fades away and is framed, safe and secure, on the screen. I blog for that very reason. I make Adoptee Rights important in my life for similar reasons.
I am the first to say, I am no one special. I’m not. I don’t do anything extraordinary or anything that anyone else could not realistically do. I’m one person, sitting behind a computer, typing away. I’m loud. I don’t give a hoot about what other people might say to me to bring me down. I refuse to be afraid. That’s it. I never set out to be like this, but my mother taught me to be a fighter and to stand up for what is right. My mother told me that I have to rely on myself to make things happen. I never thought this blog would become what it has, but as they say “A funny thing happened on the way to the forum”.
My life has been truly enriched by the many people who I have had this adoption journey with. From other moms who came before me and shed the light on my way, to the adoptive parents who listened and acknowledge me as a person, to the adoptees who spoke for my son and taught me how to listen where it matters.
Tears and The 2012 Adoptee Rights Day Video
I just finished this year’s Adoptee Rights Demonstration video and even though I have now seen it and heard it a hundred times, when I watch it and remember, I get tears in my eyes. I love my friends in adoptionland so damn much. I watch and see such joy and determination on all our faces. It’s my favorite week of the year and I can’t wait until Atlanta so we can do it all again.
Plus, there is that feeling of resolution. There is the optimism of knowing that you fight for good and the empowerment of seeing that what one does actually matters. To watch the Adoptee Rights Demonstration growing bigger every year, to see those feelings shared, the hugs, the tears, to be part of this magic. THIS is the work that helps people. THIS is doing things for millions of people that I have never met. It’s not unselfish because I get so much out of it too, but it is a surefire better way of helping than giving one’s baby away.
Adoption Irony
And that’s the irony in adoption. Or one ironic point since there is more irony in adoption than there are black flies in Chardonnay; sharing this loss and pain has helped way more people than the initial pain and loss ever could. I get the emails. I am floored. Again, I am no expert. No authority. I am often overwhelmed with how people will pour out their hearts to me and I am brokenhearted because I cannot fix them. All I can do is listen and acknowledge. I say how sorry I am. How honored that they tell me what leis in the depths of their hearts and their stories. And I am for knowing that somehow, in whatever unintended way, I do help people is a huge responsibility.
“This piece was a lifejacket that saved me from drowning.”
“Thank you, Claud you saved me today”
No, we save each other. We are all in this together. No matter what, we do have each other and whom ever you all are, where ever you are.. I thank you for that.
An unselfish act? Child abandonment? Traumatizing a baby? Selling callously your own flesh and blood to create the illusion that you were a good girl? Wow, you had seriously disturbed values.
I had the values taught to me by society and the adoption industry. Disturbed? Yes, but at least I am trying to make up for it. I couldn’t save myself or my son and I will regret that forever, but I can’t change my past. Perhaps you might read some more before you cast more stones.
I guess my problem is rather that I read too much at your site 🙂 The way I read your owning it piece, suggests that you could have easily saved your son, if you would have tried, I know that may be caused by unrecognized sarcasm. Now, I grew up and live in a country where if the government orders research into the use of adoption to decrease abortion numbers, the researchers point out how to decrease domestic adoptions instead, I experienced the life and family destroying results in my own family, so forgive for merely pointing out that your previous value system seems extremely ungood to me.
I do understand. And the truth is.. I should have not relinquished. There was no real reason for it. And it was unglodly. I can own that foolishness, doubt an fear were my guides and I was failed by those i trusted to help and protect me. I call it regret pie : http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/i-own-it-making-mistakes-accepting-responsibility-and-regret/