Just a Birthmother; a Obsessed Adoption Activist Birthmother

The last few years, as January rolls around, I have come up with we “theme” of the year. One year it was “killing two birds with one stone” and I tried to get a whole slew of things done with a single action. That made me feel kind of crazy, so the next year the them was “balance” where I really tried to juggle things better and instead of allow a complete obsession of one area of my life ( work, gardening, adoption) over take all my time. I have to say that even with trying that, I still felt rather unsatisfied.

This year, it felt like the universe was telling me something. Every inspirational quote I received, every email I got, every horoscope I read, every little tweet that caught my eye said some version of “Start Now”. From the “In a year from now, you’ll wish you would’ve started today” morphed a real observation that the universe was smacking me over the head with a two-by-four.
I keep on trudging alone and not listening.
The universe got louder.

Following my Heart

Now, maybe I am just seeing what I want to see to rationalize what I am about to do, but the more “messages” I kept receiving, the more life logic went out the window.

See, here’s the thing. For the last four and a half years, I have been professionally employed as a internet marketer. I spend my days on Facebook and Twitter and on blogs for clients and such. It used to be, it should be, the perfect job for me.
And I feel like it is rotting my soul.
This has been an ongoing struggle for the last two years. I love what I do, I love the internet, I love what I have learned, I love the people I work with, I love walking to my bright pretty office, but I hate marketing and I hate corporations. And what I think hurt me the most inside was seeing the internet, this amazing tool of power that can help s many people, being used just to make more money for the big corporations, to sell crap. And I was part of it.

The noises in my head kept getting louder: I don’t want to do this commercial work; I want to focus on the true good that the interweb is about.

Now logic would say that I can do both. I can work 8 hours a day and then come home and spend another 5 hours online doing adoption work and then I can be happy. Only it doesn’t quite work like that. I tried. ( see the year of balance). There is still laundry and kids and my marriage and things like food shopping and eating that gets in my way. I am not a robot that can be online 24/ 7, sometimes, too often; my back and shoulders ache too and I can’t be on past 10 hours day. So work still happens and we still eat and sleep and the list of things I want to do for adoption, the posts I want to write, the ideas I have.. the list in my head just keeps getting longer and longer.. and my frustration grows.

Yes, the universe was getting louder and I listened. I struggled. I talked. I cried. I tried to “shut up and put up” or “pull myself up with my bootstraps” and to ” get over myself”. It hasn’t helped. I identified my problem. I processed my feelings. I have looked at different options. I see a window. The universe keep on telling me to leap.

I’m Jumping, I Believe the Net Will Appear!

The details haven’t all been worked out and I still have a lot to do, but I have a plan and in my heart I believe it will work.
With the wonderful support of my family, especially Rye, and friends and co-workers, I am going to dedicate my time to the adoption community which has been a dream for the past dozen years.

I so want to take all the wonderful things I learned while working in social media and SEO and apply it to spreading the truth about adoption, life as a birthmother, and adoptee rights. I can’t wait to reach to new people who are struggling and be actually able to find the time to TALK to people again. For the longest time I have said that I speak out because I CAN. Now, I will be able to use all the skills I have learned to amplify all our voices, because I CAN! This was my last week working full time. For the next few months I have moved to part time.. like max 15 hours a week part time.

Big Changes

Other changes, I can only hope you understand. Like there is a good change that I will allow advertising on the site. My plan is to be able to control that so it is not too triggering, but the fact is that part of the plan of mine does require me to somehow generate some sort of income.
I don’t have a plan to get rich by any means, but if I can produce a potion of my previous income, then I can rationalize this move. In fact that was the last major piece of this puzzle that I needed to put into place before I could feel as good as I do about this.

I was at BlogWorld, the big blogging conference in NYC, and that was the one thing missing from this blog, but I have always struggled with the ethical dilemma of ads profit on a blog like this that was here for more of public service. We all know there is no money in this field unless you are an agency or a lawyer or involved in transferring the children. I kept asking,, why to people come to my blog. What could I package and sell? I know people come here for community, understanding, validation, acknowledgement, family, sanity- NOTHING that I could ever put a price tag on!
So I think I have a good work around. I’m not ready for a grand unveiling of that just yet, but I have a feeling that it’s a good idea and will work.

So the next few weeks, I plan on transitioning over to my new version of “birthmother life”.

Stayed tuned.