To tell him that I was having his child and giving it up for adopton, giving him no choice on the matter, because the timing was too late was unfair.

I actually wrote that ignorance was bliss. I suppose it is, in a way. He knows nothing of all that was felt. In his memory, if I am in his memory still, I suppose it is just an old affair now. No bad things, no bad times. Quoting myself again:

“He had his affair. He paid his way – for dinner, for the opera, for just about everything. I paid in blood.”

Reading back, I can see how much I was hurt by his actions.

I wanted so to be able to love him. I had fantasies of living happily ever after.

“I had dreams of telling him I was pregnant and the two of us being happy about it. We would shock everyone we knew and get married despite the age difference for it was “love” Everything would be perfect. But it didn’t happen that way. The rules were written for an affair and an affair only. No love, no commitment, no tomorrows. I knew this. I hope different and much against my desires, I broke the rules. I could have loved him had I been allowed, but my love was just not wanted, just my body in a bed”

How much of my decision was done out of spite? How much was an adolescent temper tantrum because it would not go my way. If I could not have my ever after, then no one would have anything. I would not give him the chance to know his child if he did not take me too. That’s anger. It hurts that I did such a thing out of anger. Granted I had a right to be angry, but the actions I choose to take….sigh.

I still have my plane ticketsent to me by the agency.

The date says August 21st so I know that is the day I went to Boston to have my baby.

My mother and I were barley existing together at that time. There was at least two weeks between leaving work and getting on the plane. During that time, I had to pretend that everything was just hunky dory. That meant pretending to go to work everyday, but not going. My brother would go to school, my mom would go to work and I would stay home alone all day. That part wasn’t too bad. It was when my brother would get out of school that things got tricky. My grandfather would come over to meet my brother and hang out with him till my mom got home. It was about three hours a day. I was supposed to be at work , and couldn’t dare let Grandpa see me in my pregnant state. So from three thirty to sixish every day, I would have to hide out in my room ala Anne Frank: ”just lie on my bed, can’t move, can’t walk, can’t go to the bathroom, no TV, no eating” just wait it out in silence. It was unbearable. I felt like a leaper.

I was restricted from my brother least he should find out. I couldn’t go outside. I couldn’t see my friends, nor could they come over to see me as they were not to know. My mother was cutting me off from everyone and everything and also cutting herself out from me too. Her anger was thick and always present. She refused to take off work and drive me to the airport. How she thought I was getting there was a mystery. Had to get me out of there to protect herself from the now evil neighbors, but won’t help at all in the process. I think I finally told her I was going in a taxi, but I had made arrangements with my dear friend Diane. She would take me to LaGuardia and get me on my way.

The night before I was to leave, so August 20th, my mother received a call from her younger sister in Virginia. My Aunt and Uncle had finally had one son after many years of troubles and she had been pregnant again. Unfortunately there was some major physical issues with the new pregnancy and it had to be terminated. Yeah, the night before I was about to leave.

I could see it coming as my mother told me the news. I think now it was a last ditch effort on my mom’s part to keep my baby in the family, but it was too little, too late, too angry, too rash. She was almost stuttering as she stated:

“My mother always said that charity begins at home. You should give this baby to Lynda and Gene. They want another baby and can’t have one. Why would you give this baby to strangers? It’s not right”

All my brain could grasp was no way. No way could I pretend my child was my cousin. No way could I live this lie. No way could I do that to myself, make me watch my child from afar. I tried to explain it to her, but I think in her brain she had found a way to make it work and didn’t want to hear anything about what I might feel regarding it all. How I might feel in such an arrangement was obviously inconsequential. This was before the days of open adoption. Adoption was still in the midst of secrets and lies. In my gut, I knew it would be bad. In my gut I was right.

Even more angry at me now, I don’t think she said good-bye. My mother left for work like always and I boarded a Pan Am 12:30 Shuttle for Boston. Diane brought me as promised with a gift bag that included gummy bears. I think I liked them then. Maybe that’s why I hate them now.

Arriving in Boston was almost magical. I got off the plane and made my way to the limo area. I was met with a driver who carried a sign with my name on it. He loaded up my luggage and gave me a tour of the city as we drove out. He was a kind man who did a lot of this kind of work for the agency and was very good at making scared pregnant woman feel at ease.

I remember how beautiful the city was that day. It was like a movie. The crews were out rowing on the Charles. There was a familiar hustle and bustle like my NY, but more manicured, more proper in some way. I believe we drove out first to the agency where I met the director and my pregnancy counselor. Then he took me to the place I would now call home.

Though it was a matter of chance, I felt my agency was really very, very good. In many ways, I really lucked out. One of the brilliant things that they did was house pregnant moms with a family that has already adopted. I don’t know how they stipulated that to the adoptive parents like “you will get a baby, but we also might call on you to take care of a mom”, but that is indeed what they did. I have tried to look at it from a critical angle, but mostly, I think it just breeds great compassion, but then again I still have that emotional attachment there, so I can’t be 100% clear. There was no vested interest from either party so it becomes very much based on human relations. Subtlety, it allows the pregnant mom to see what kind of life is possible for her child and what kind of folks get OK’d from the agency. That’s the part that can get stuck in the ethics. While it is truth, it does err in favor, as always for adoption. More importantly, I think it gives an adoptive couple the time and willingness to really understand the plight of a relinquishing mother. While living there, I adored them.

“Them” was Ken and Joan and their new daughter Kari. Kari was just a few months old..three? A beautiful baby and she was adored completely. Ken and Joan were wonderful parents. They were really good people. Both were attorneys, but Joan had left her practice to stay home with Kari. She was warm and funny and did a great job of making me feel right at home. Ken was kinda goofy with an endearing from of OCD..he would walk around making sure that magazines on coffee tables were lined up at right angles, things in neat little piles..it was cute.

At first they had me set up in the finished basement so I could have my own space. About a month or so into it, I was moved upstairs to the guest bedroom. At that point, we had figured out that we all meshed really well and I was upstairs all the time anyway. Plus the real bed was better for a very pregnant me than the pullout sleeper. It’s funny the visions and memories that I have. I remember the yellow flowers on the sheets on the bed. I kept my few bags behind the bar in the basement. I spent a lot of time on a blue reclining chair in the guest/my room. I remember the layout of the bathroom, but can’t recall the color. I know the layout of the house still, but can only picture one specific piece of furniture..a large Chinese inspired hutch that had chipping paint. I ended up repairing it for them while I was there.

Our days were spent doing normal household things. We went to the supermarket and I was very impressed with the grander of Star Markets, plus you had to say it with a Boston accent to make it more fun. We would go to Boston Chicken, when it was only in Boston still, and get dinner. I helped fold laundry. Kari’s Christening went on when I was there and I was part of the celebration with the whole family. I kept the dress from that for years and years. We went away for a long weekend when the Fall foliage was in full bloom, driving up to New Hampshire and winding through mountain vistas. Ended up at the outlet stores and made a few purchases. Went down to the Boston waterfront and Harvard yard. Ate in Little Italy and saw the real bar from Cheers. I admired all the cute and preppy college boys and wished I could take advantage of all the young males about, but knew that with being pregnant I was completely out of the loop.

We did a lot of shopping. I was very impressed with the number of malls in the area. I got to see a lot of the area this way. Braintree, Waterford, etc. I would look at clothing I could no longer wear. How I longed for a pair of pants with a belt. Jeans never looked so good. We were able to buy more real maternity clothes as my camouflaged “real” clothing stopped working soon after arriving. Somewhere I bought a pair of “inspiration” pants that I coveted. Black and skin tight, they had little silver metal hooks up the fly. I was planning on being thin again. At one point, my feet got so fat that all I fit in was little Isotones slippers. I wore those silly shoes all over Boston.

And, of course, I helped with their adopted daughter.

I hung out with that baby all the live long day. I still have pictures of me and her sleeping together on the blue chair. It’s funny how I helped care for and raise my brother, I cared for Kari daily. Yet, it didn’t occur to me that I could do so for my own baby. I feed her, I changed her diapers, I sang to her and made her laugh.

I also watched a lot of TV. Days of Our Lives was a favorite. And Pictionary was new that year, so I would laugh my butt off and scream at the TV since no one could really draw. I also made a lot of friendship bracelets..little woven things out of embroidery floss that I would mail to Laura and keep for myself. I wrote letters very carefully and adorned them with pretty stickers.

I got back in touch with Darrin while I was there. We had not spoken really since my Senior prom. I went to prom with Bill. To me that was a great coup since we had broken up much earlier, but I had still fandangle it somehow. Laura was going with his best friend and her broken heart love, Christopher. So we were very excited by our dream dates. Aside from Bill’s car breaking down and Chris not wearing a tux making Laura’s mom squish her face into disapproving looks and muttering things about bad pictures, we were happy and excited. Darrin, I was mad at since I had just gone though the abortion with him and he was less than supportive. To add insult to injury he was at my senior prom as the friendly date of our mutual friend Liz. Because I couldn’t leave well enough alone, I had to add some stupid drama and tell the very Catholic bill about the abortion AT the prom which caused a ridiculous pissing contest between the boys and a great testosterone motivated desire to fist fight. While I could have adored all the attention over my honor, it did make Bill get in a foul mood and basically ruined all romantic plans that I had dreamed up. He pouted the rest of the evening.
Anyway, I figured Darrin was pretty mad at me too, but always the romantic, I reached out to him again.

It turned out that he was just about to go into the Army reserves and we were both away from home alone during the same time frame. It was nice to have letters go back and forth. It gave me some hope, something to dream about. A fantasy to think about for when we both “got out” and returned to real life. I was able to spend hours rereading his letters and looking hard between the lines for declarations of love and adoration. Not that there were much. More of descriptions of mud and gas masks, things about guns and firing ranges. His birthday occurred while we were both away and I careful planned a letter that would spring confetti on him upon opening. Not a good idea to do to one in basic training. Confetti and inspections do not mix well and I was advised not to do that again. Still makes me chuckle.

A good part of my time there was taken up by doctor’s appointments and time at the agency. I had not had any prenatal care, so that was in first order. The OB that the agency used was well versed in my situation and was very delicate and kind in his administering. I have to say that I was never made to feel bad or cheap or ashamed. They discovered I had a heart murmur and I had to get an EKG that eliminated all fears. I was taken care of very well and prepped for what was going to happen.

We also started going to Lamaze classes. It was decided that Joan would be my coach and be there for the birth. We were very close by that time. Having gone through an entopic pregnancy and then a full hysterectomy, my labor would be the birth experience for us both. I was happy and honored to share that with her. We did a really bad job of practicing our breathing, but went to classes leaving Ken home to care for Kari.

And there was time at the adoption agency.

They had recently moved to a brand new office. In fact they were still unpacking when I had first arrived. I spent a lot of time with Jeanne, my pregnancy counselor. I had a great fondness for her in my heart which makes things harder now, knowing what I know. Out of all the therapy I had had previously and even after, she alone did more to help me with understanding my mother than anyone else did. She turned me onto the brilliance of Alice Miller. I know we talked about my baby, and what adoption would mean, the whole process was worked on with the checklists in hand. I know she discussed with me the options of parenting and how it was in my right to do so and receive public support of it even if it was a five minute conversation that left the bad taste of welfare in my mouth. I know I was adamantly decided that adoption was the only way to go because nice middle class girls like me did not receive public assistance ever, no matter what the reasons. I know we also discussed what I wanted for my baby, what was important to me as a mother and what would be important in choosing the adoptive parents. I can tell you that the “parent profile” I received after that conversation now looks like it was crafted from that same conversation. I know we discussed how to go about dealing legally with the issue of father’s rights and they were happy to enable me to avoid them. But what I do remember most was discussing my mom.

The biggest issue was what I was going to do when I was done having this baby and placing him for adoption.

Would I go back home and how could I deal with her since Mom was not in any contact with me at this point whatsoever.

Previously with Jerry, my therapist in NY, we had spent a lot of time with me going over various messed up things that had happened in the past and him telling me how my parents were wrong, my mother a bit nuts, and how I was OK. Of course, we all know I was very far from being OK. It probably would have helped a bit more if I really told him what was going on in my life and it goes to show you that lying, or hugely omitting things, in therapy doesn’t do anyone bit of good. Maybe I was just not ready for it at the time, but now in Boston, I guess it could be said that I had hit a proverbial rock bottom. This time it seemed that I was able to really hop up and do the work.

Jeanne was also in concert with Jerry that my mom was a bit nuts, but we also focused a lot on the reasoning why she was damaged and in exactly what way. And figuring out how her particular way of dealing with her own issues directly affected my own life was probably a huge key to my future. It was great to be able to say more than “My mother is just a crazy witch”, and to assign a real noun to the whole experience of growing up in my house. Jeanne was quickly able to see signs that my mother was a narcissist personality and not only gave me to read, but a copy for myself, forever kept to this day, of Alice Miller’s “Drama of the Gifted Child”.

I knew nothing of Alice Miller and wouldn’t know anything for many, many years. My first thought of the slim little paper back tome was that the word “gifted” was applied in the same verbiage as all my schools. Gifted was a good thing. It meant you were smart, above average, high I.Q., took honors courses. Not necessarily so with Miller. “Gifted” is what one became when a child was put into an environment where their needs were made to be second and their existence was hinged on the approval and happiness of the previously damaged adult figure.

“Children who fulfill their parents conscious or unconscious wishes are “good”; but if they ever refuse to do so or express wishes of their own that go against those of their parents, they are called egotistical and inconsiderate”

In my 19 year old handwriting, I copies many quotes word for word, carefully in my early architectural penmanship. In the previous quote I had heavily underscored on the word “inconsiderate”. I haven’t thought about being so very inconsiderate in years. Probably because I am so conscious of being considered inconsiderate, that I just never am. And yet, I am still frequently shocked and happily surprised when I find out that people genuinely like me.

I was always inconsiderate in my mother’s eyes, I think often, just by my being, but it was after the great punk rock rebellion that I became the thorn in her side.

“It is one of the turning points in analysis when the sarcastically disturbed patient comes in to the emotional insight that all the love he has captured with so much effort and self denial was not meant for him as he really was, that the admiration for his beauty and achievements was aimed at the beauty and achievements, and not at the child themselves”

Growing up in my house, it wasn’t so much that I was even applauded for anything. My mother had to be aware of positive reinforcement and self esteem building, she did after all go to school for this stuff, but she didn’t apply it at all. I wasn’t doted on, wasn’t helped with the homework, asked about reports. It was more as if I was just expected to go about my own business and get my work done independently. Just bring home the straight A’s. One time in 5th grade, I was doing poorly in Spelling. It was like the ground tumbled apart beneath my feet. I was a horrible person to be relentlessly pressured to remove the dark seal of the “C” from my very visible forehead where all could see it. Forced to study until I was weary, my father would test me and be so frustrated and harsh if I was incorrect, that I dreaded the sessions and waited for every one to end in tears. They always did.

It was very much as if my parents did enjoy my achievements if they were able to share them. I was “good” if I was quiet and not seen, but if I ever did attempt to speak up for myself I was quickly shushed and made to feel guilty for daring to speak out. I think it goes beyond my own upbringing, as I can see the pattern in the occurrences at my Grandmother’s.

My cousin Michael was five years older than me. A product of his own dysfunctional life, he was an odd child. Also an only child, we had the brother sister relationship with each other that neither of us really had. Meaning he teased me terribly. Often in a very mean way. Sometimes, it was scary. Like when he picked me up to reach a tall branch for the huge Oak in Grandpas’ yard and left me hanging there. The neighbor behind the house saw the whole thing and rescued me. Or when he attempted to make me walk under the same tree where he had one of those huge metal Tonka trucks suspended by a rope and had planned on hitting me with it. He did miss. Thank God his timing was off and it crashed behind me, because that thing really could have killed me.

What I recall most clearly was the time he smushed me in the couch cushions. Sandwiched me between two sets and then sat on me. I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t laughing. And when he finally let me out, I went and told on him. I was crying. And I got in trouble for being such a spoilsport. I remember my Grandmother telling me to “Just hush, forget it, it’s OK” but it wasn’t OK to almost be suffocated in the TV room while no one hears you and can’t leave their coffee to check out the weird noises.

I think my mother grew up in a family and a time when appearances meant a lot. Even appearances played for the sake of those who were living them and knew, inside, the truth. I was taught to not rock the boat, not complain, and above all “be nice”. It didn’t help that I like to call a spade a spade and to point out illogic or misjustice..shussshhhh no, don’t say that. It’s OK..even when it wasn’t.

I think my mother also felt very invisible growing up there. She had a lot of anger towards her station in the family, not the treasured oldest boy, my uncle, not the bratty younger sister who got her way. She was the good one, the invisible one..the one who worked and put herself though school, who bought her own car, who got nothing. Maybe by time she had her own life, she needed for herself to declare her own importance, but in doing so, cast me into the invisible role.

In any case, it was good to begin to get an understanding on her. At that point, my father was gone, from my life and heart, and I was not willing to give up on my mother. That was a real struggle for me and I was sure of what I wanted as an outcome. So we spent a lot of time on naming all the issues and identifying the problems. What is interesting looking back is I do not remember discussing how my mother’s issues hinged on the decision on placing this baby. For sure her feelings and disappointments of me, had a great bearing on my decision and my wanting to please her by the great sacrifice and my doing the right thing. I mean, here she was, so disappointed and mad at me that she was not contacting me, and all I wanted to do was figure out a way for her to let me come back home when it was over.

Plus I was dealing with my own huge feelings of abandonment and hurt. Here I was, her only daughter, pregnant and alone, living among strangers and she would not even call me. That hurt a lot. It is easier to act out something almost atrocious if your own mother is providing a living role model for you. I don’t recall this being questioned.

My therapy about my mom was much more future oriented. As were my letters and correspondence to Darrin, my contact with Laura. It was more about carving a place where I could fit in when I returned. Talk of what I would do, and how I would leave Boston with a prescription for the pill to fill. Art school or not? Not about how I got there in the first place.

The other thing that I do, to this day, feel uncomfortable with was how we handled my baby’s father.

For whatever reason, I was still very sure that He could not be told. Since I did know who my baby’s father was and where he was, I was advised to not declare him on the birth certificate. He would be listed as “Unknown” even if he was, indeed, very known. The agency knew how to deal with this sort of situation and I was assured not to worry at all. It would be no problem. And as long as I didn’t tell him, I was happy. I didn’t care what they did.

What they did do was run an ad in a NY newspaper in the legal section. So much for any promises of confidentiality. One of those smarmy things that sometimes can be see even today that means that a man is being denied his chance to parent his child. If He ever saw the ad, which I doubt, he did not respond and he lost any right he could have and was made, legally, unknown.

I was convinced that the baby was a girl and I referred to her as Asia.

Asia meant life, and while always pro choice, I found some comfort in the meaning. While it felt like forever, time passed by and soon I was approaching my due date. Still completely healthy, with exception for a great need to drink Mylanta all night long, I was longing for it to be over, yet did not want to go on with what I had to do.

At one point, I got to “pick” the adoptive parents.

Other women tell stories of looking though tons and tons of profiles, not me. They listened to what I had to say, what I wanted and then offered me a profile of a couple that they thought I would like. Being ever so corporative, I liked them. I got the “Dear birth mother” letter, handwritten from both Mom and Dad, on nice stationary. I went further and received their photo album with happy pictures of their house, their cat, smiling happy family gatherings and lots of cousins in the same age range. The album was adorned with stickers. I liked stickers. I liked the Mom’s smile. So I kept the album and the letters and the profile and went home to begin to spin stories and visions of my baby growing up with these people.

The agency said that I could meet them if I wanted, but I had no use for that. I could not see the point of having to go through such a drastic, stress inducing, situation. What could I say?
“So , hi..you want my baby?”

These were the last days of completly closed adoptions.

I had never heard of real openness. To me, just that I could pick them, see pictures, was a god send. No one told me what I really might be looking for or how a meeting might have benefits in the future. No one made me think outside my comfort zone. The idea of meeting them scared me, so I didn’t do it.

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if I hadn’t had liked them. What if I had wanted to see more. I felt a little disappointed at the time, but I couldn’t see any reason not to like them. They kind of looked like my family and I did like that. They had the same religion, the same Irish Italian background, they were Democrats. Many years later, I would read the same parent profile with new eyes and see that it was too tailored for me. I don’t know how I didn’t see it then. It was almost written to me with certain triggers and appeals that they would have known that I was looking for. I don’t know if they were just the next couple on the list, or if they thought we would fit and then molded it just a bit to ensure that I would go for it. But I did without a backwards glance.

OK, they will do.

It shames me now.

I was due November 12th. The day came and went.

On the morning of November 13th, I felt “funny”. Actually, it felt like I was peeing my pants. A quick peek in the bathroom confirmed that I thought that maybe my water had broken, but just a little bit. Nothing else was happening so I said nothing to Joan.

Not wanting to be any trouble and get Joan all alarmed, I kept quiet and acted like any other day.

We went food shopping to my favorite Starr Market. I adored Starr Market. It was the first uber super market I had even gone to. They had everything and it was so clean..non of that rotting produce smell like the “been dead do long I can’t remember its name store” at home. King Kullen?? Anyhow, they had this conveyer belt and after you bought your stuff, they bagged it and gave you a number, then you got into your car and the grocery boys loaded up your trunk outside. It was so civilized.

We had to get a great dinner for that night as it was the big Friday night for TV watching. I can’t remember the rest of the line up but it included Dallas. I had not been a fan of Dallas, but I watched now, not that I had a clue still what was going on. Most important for Dallas was dessert, so we got a brownie mix of turtle brownies. Forever etched in my mind was making brownies while in the first stages of labor.

In any case, I had my first baby contraction in the Star Market while choosing an ice cream flavor. I kept on thinking that I should have a jar of pickles to drop incase my water burst forth, but nothing happened really so I stayed quiet.

So I made the brownies, ate the dinner, and sat to watch TV and pig out on the brownies and ice cream. While watching, I had a few more contractions, but nothing huge nor regular. I kept on looking at my watch, discretely, but there was no pattern. Three in a row, then nothing for 30 minutes, then one, then nothing, then two at ten minutes apart. Rather confusing, but I knew it was getting close.

After TV was done, Ken and Joan went off to bed, but I decided to take a shower since I knew what was to come. I washed my hair and French braided it so it would be out of my way. I shaved my legs as best I could considering I hadn’t been able to see the top parts of my thighs for months. And I started packing my still unpacked bags.

It was at that point as I rumbled about in the bedroom, now upstairs and close to Joan’s, that she came out ands inquired as to what I was doing up at 1AM. And then realizing what I was doing asked,”Are you in labor?”
“Yeah, I think so. Maybe”
“Oh my God!” she smiles, she is excited..”Should we call the doctor?”
“I guess so? Nothing is happening, but I think my water broke.”
‘When?”
“Umm, this morning”

So we call and they tell us to come in to the maternity ward at the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 2 am and went into the labor room and got all set up. One of the first things I did was promptly throw up my rich dessert of turtle brownies and ice cream. Apparently, when your body knows it is about to do a great feat such as giving birth, it has no need to worry about things like digestion. Buh bye Brownies. Right into the handy bed pan and time to change the lovely hospital gown.

I had a fierce collection of music I felt that I needed for birth, real mellow pretty stuff..Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil. I know I spent some time in the shower just trying to relax.
All and all, the timing was pretty good as when we got there, my labor had started to kick in.

Then came the back labor.

It wasn’t pretty. In fact, it really, really hurt. Back labor pretty much sucks, and all I wanted was Joan to literally pound on my lower back with the Thank God we Packed them Tennis Balls. She was so good…. I think she rubbed my back for hours. Eventually, she talked me into having some pain relief and the nurses gave me a Demerol injection.

I am not a good medicinal drug kind of girl. My system is very sensitive for whatever reason and a normal dose of Demerol makes me a zombie. I didn’t know that then as it was my first time with that drug. I went into lala land.

By now I had been up all night, and I was pretty damn tired. What the Demerol allowed me to do was pass out between contractions for some needed rest.

At one point, I remember thinking how much I really didn’t like all this and that the nurses were annoying me. Not that they were doing anything wrong and were, for all intents and purposes, a good bunch. They were aware of the circumstances and I would assume had had some sort of training to deal with the births of us agency girls. For I was treated probably kinder than even a typical mother. More babing and coddling. But they irritated me and somewhere in my drug induced brain I decided to “hide” my contractions from them. So I pretended that I wasn’t having every other contraction. Which meant that I willed myself to physically ignore very other one, no tensing up, no verbal warnings, no cleansing breaths. And I was pleased when the nurses reported to Joan that they were getting father apart rather than closer together and I knew I was confusing them.

Now anyone who has physically had a baby, knows that the key to quicker labor is to relax into the contractions. When you tense up then you are fighting the work of the contraction to get the baby OUT as your tense muscles hold that baby IN, so my “plan” actually worked for my benefit, though I had no idea of that at the time.

In any case, as daylight found us, I was told that it was indeed time to push.

And I was not having any of that at all. Still drugged, annoyed, and just dog tired, I was not feeling like doing what they said. Nope. The Demerol had really done nothing for real Pain, and pushing stings like heck!! What I recall most, was at this time all modesty was gone out the door. I was basically butt naked in a room full of strangers and I did not care. They were moving me about in all sorts of positions and holding me up..in fact, I had one woman on either leg, pushing my knees up to my ears. Hurt, hurt, hurt..and all of them commanding me to push and me being very sure that I just could not.

I guess I did though, for at one point his head was coming out and Joan excitedly peeked and reported joyfully about “So much Black hair!!”

And then it happened, the feeling of release, then the quick shoulder push, and then the swoosh as he slid out of my body. I can still feel that.

It was the most amazing feeling I have ever experienced.

Quickly went the cries of, “It’s a Boy!!” which shocked me, as in the days before ultra sound, I was convinced to his femaleness. A boy?? Who would have thunk? And then in the requisite white receiving blanket with pink and blue stripes, donning his blue hat, I held my son for the first time.

His eyes were open and he was very calm, just taking it all in. Big blue eyes, looking about with his hands folded in front of him, fingers entwined. He looks much more together than me in the pictures as I still looked terribly stoned, but that was it. He was born.

After a bit, they took him away to clean him up. And I had to sit still for the sewing. I think the sewing of me took longer than the birth, and I kept on asking “What are you doing down there??” Turned out I had suffered a stage five episiotomy and still had torn. All that stinging was the ripping of my flesh open.

He was weighed and measures…8 lbs, 3 ozs, 20 3/4 inches long. 7:35 am. Not bad for a first baby and young momma. He was perfect. And not at all a squishy banana head..perfectly round and so, so much thick black hair, he looked exactly like the baby pictures of me.

When I got into a room, they took him to the nursery for the first and only time so I could “rest”. Joan went home to shower, call the agency, get some sleep, take Kari so Ken could go to work, etc. I immediately called Laura at FIT, but she was out still since while I was in labor, she was at an Aerosmith concert the night before.

I also called my mother and spoke to her for the first time in months. She was up and according to her had woken up extra early that AM and had “known” that I was in labor. We talked briefly and while it was strained, it was good too. I think she was proud that I had done it, proud that it was quick, proud that he had the black hair and of a hefty size. The she had to go to work.

I tried to get some sleep, but all I could to was lay there in the amazement of what had just physically happened to me. I was in shock and in awe of myself, and that feeling of him coming forth, slipping out of my body. I replayed it over and over again.

Eventually, I did sleep and woke up to be checked and was asked if I wanted to see him.

He came back to me and did not leave until he was to leave forever.

The next 48 hours were nothing but the most intense hunger for my child. I burned ever moment into my brain forever. I looked at every inch of him, marveled while he slept. Checked out his fingers and toes, took endless pictures, dressed him, feed him, changed him, and undressed him. Took pictures of his tiny hinee, him sleeping, him crying, and held him close.

Eventually, I was asked to fill in the information for his original birth certificate.

Being that he was certainly not Asia any more, I had to think quick. And I decided that he would be Max. Max from “Where the Wild Things Are” a book of my childhood. The inspiration of Maurice Sendack as a children’s book author and illustrator was a gift I could give my child. Being part of a traditional childhood memory and to have his own book to which was an original part of him was a gift I could send him forth into the world. My Max.

Ken and Joan came to visit, Jeanne called and promised to come. I think she did when I was sleeping?? I know she saw him and gushed to me how beautiful of a baby he was. He really was. All the nurses complimented his hair, and his quiet stillness, his alert eyes, his round head. He was called the most beautiful baby ever. One nurse was particularly kind and came in and sat with me in the evening hours. I suppose she pitied me, alone from everyone, about to do what I was about to do. I can’t recall if she supported or questioned the adoption, all I remember was her kindness and we talked when she had a break in her duties.

I have from that time, and outfit that I had purchased for him before hand. A little baby bunting with a hood that I dressed him up in and took pictures. He promptly spit up on it and I have kept it, never washed, the stain now brown, ever permanent mark of it’s singular brief tenant of its warmth. I have a bottle of water and disposable hospital nipple that he was fed. The water long evaporated, but perhaps his residual DNA remains. I have this silly blue bear stuffed animal that came from somewhere…One of the nurses, found me scissors and we carefully tied off a lock of his hair and snipped it off for me. Still tied in a bit of blue embroidery floss from all the silly bracelets I wove, it has that baby softness and delicate shine. It has never seen the sun, nor shampoo..always lived it’s existence in a pure white envelope.

I made the most of my brief time with him.

Talking to my new son, loving him beyond all reason, trying to explain what must come to pass.
Only recently have I recalled the words I whispered as I held him close,
“I am so sorry. I have no choice. This is what must happen. But I will never forget and I will find you again my baby. I love you. I am so sorry”

It was all too brief and soon over. I was discharged after 48 hours and so was he and we would not leave together.

State law was that I could not sign until 72 hours after birth, so Max was to go from the hospital to a quick stay at a foster care home until I signed the relinquishment forms and his parents had the call to pick him up. They didn’t even know that he had yet been born. They were under the thinking that they were still waiting. Before they could even get excited I had to prepare to say good bye to our son forever.

Leaving that hospital was the single hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life.

Joan was supposed to come and get me, but I think at the last minute she realized how horrible it was going to be. She sent Ken instead. I was dressed, showered, and ready, but sitting in the rocking chair having my final moments with my baby. I know that I did not feel that I could physically manage to do it. I had no clue on how I was going to be able to walk out of that room and away from my baby. I think I said something to that effect. I doubted if I really could.
We took some last photos, and I knew that they were all waiting for me to do it. There were people watching, but they were trying to let me find the moment and strength. Finally, one of the nurses got the bassinette for me and brought it in. I am thinking she was kind of pushy and brightly insistent on my putting him in.

I held him and I cried now. No longer strong, no longer brave, just broken. And somehow, I walked over to the bassinette and placed him in. Somehow, I communicated that they could walk him out. And somehow I stayed within the confines of my body and managed to hold myself upright as she pushed him out and closed the door.

The click of the latch still rings in my ears. Final.

Somehow, after that, we left, Ken and I. He took my bags, and I left the only place I had known my child. Our cocoon of safety and miracles and love. On the way home I just stared and cried, tears silently rolling down my cheeks and when we go back, I just laid down and sobbed.

Found and lost, my child, my love..in just 48 hours.

I don’t remember eating. I don’t remember sleeping, I don’t remember talking. I recall very little of that first night truly alone without the constant presence of my baby. I think I talked to my mother again on the phone to go over the time line and how I was getting home. The agency would put me on the plane again, but my mother said she would drive up with Tom, her kind of boyfriend. Maybe we talked about that the next night. It is all a blur.

I do know that the next day, we went to the mall. What I would be sending through the agency to the new parents of this child for my baby, was of upmost importance. This was the only chance I would have to give him a piece of me, of us, of who he could have been. And much thought went into that.

When I named him Max, it was very clear. He would get his own copy of “Where the Wild Things Are” and thankfully, commercialism had taken hold, and they were making stuffed dolls from the book. So also, his very own Max doll, in the white wolf suite.

God,it hurt so much to just walk. Having had my unlimber legs pushed and held by my ears for the birth, made my muscles into screaming masses of jelly. My cuts and tears were also raw. Not only had they cut me for the birth, but I had torn terribly also. The doctor explained how I had a 4th degree episiotomy and five was the worst. So imagine the walking dead, with a butt on fire and legs of jelly, sunken stomach and breasts engorged, Yeah, let’s go shopping!

But shop I did. Trying not to cry as I made my purchases. Book store, card shop, new pen, toy store, then back to Ken and Joan’s..more blankness.

I recall late that evening, when the house was asleep, it was dark and I was trying to figure out how to inscribe the book to my son. I had a new “lePen”. The ink was brown..sepia colored.

Writing out first what I wanted to say and then painfully, in my best handwriting transferring it to the front cover of the book. This is what he would have to judge me. It all was important. This would measure my love for him. He could very well decide if he ever wanted to know me just by what encrypted message was made out with that brown pen. My link though time and love.
How I wish I had the rough copy still of what I did end up saying. I know I used the line:

“Oh no, please don’t go! We’ll eat you up, we love you so..and Max said
NO”

In my head, I was the monsters. I was the Wild Thing, that adored him beyond all else, but could not provide his “supper and it was still hot”. I could make him the king, and have a great time, but he needed to go home “where someone loved him best of all”.

I sent to him a few pictures of me. One of my long time favorites, of me in a dandelion field, freckles showing on my nose, pondering the petals taken by my freind Matt. The picture of him and I in the hospital, him close to my heart..my avatar. The only picture I had of his father, I had stolen it from him. He is on a big sail boat, full body shot but so far away, one can hardly make out his face squinting in the sun. His Max doll, and the book. These were my gifts to my child.

I don’t know if they got wrapped or not. I don’t know if they all made it to him.

The next day marked the end of the 72 hours that had to pass before I could sign the relinquishment papper. It was the 18th of November.

I don’t know where we went to. It could have been the agency; it could have been a lawyers office. I think that either Jeanne or Liz from the agency was there. And someone else..a judge, a lawyer?? I have no idea. I think Joan took me, maybe the baby was with us too? I HATED this part. I wanted it to be over. I don’t know how I could have done it either.
I know that they read it all to me, over and over again hearing the words.:

“You will no longer be the legal mother of this child…no more..forever, forever, forever”

It rang though my ears like a harsh tolling bell of death. The words cut me like razors, I just wanted them to shut up and be done with it. Yes, yes, whatever…just be quiet, stop saying that, where is the pen? I signed…witness signed? I think maybe Joan signed. I recall it being dark. Maybe it rained that day? The room was dark and depressing. I knew that after this, after I did this part, he would go home to them. He had been released from the hospital and was in an agency foster home until he was legally free of me. I know I signed custody of him over to the agency, but I have no idea if then, I received copied of the paperwork. I know I do not have them now. I very well could have thrown them out, so hated was the papers. The very thought of them, what I had to do, made me sick inside. I disassociated from it all, and just went on automatic. I would be strong and do what I ought, what would make them all happy and cleanse me, make them proud. No tears, no wavering, determination.

I think that it was on the way back from there, that Joan said to me,

“I know where he is right now. He is probably at the same foster home that we got Kari from. They will pick him up now and we can follow them home. Then you will know where he is”

Do you have any idea how tempting that was? Oh I could know where my baby was!

But still, in my attempted at strength, I knew better. I said no. I think I said that I could not do that to them, that it would not be fair. Also this was way before I had ever heard of the concept of open adoption, so it just felt wrong to me. It wasn’t how it was done. I also knew I could not do that to me. Just as I could not have allowed my son to be raised as my cousin by my aunt, I could not have allowed myself to be tied to a house. For that is what it would have been for me. I would have to watch his house then. I would have to come back and check on him. I would have something specific to watch and see. I would never “move on” as I was supposed to, as I would have to come back, relive it and check.

It’s odd now, looking back, how Joan, an adoptive mother, was the one who was most supportive of me parenting.

She saw the bond. She really did see my worth as a human, as a mother, as good with children, as parenting my son. I was not just to make a baby to her, but was a person and the pain was obvious and she tried to help me out of it. I know there was one time before when she inquired, so delicately, if I “had” to really do the adoption. I recal her asking if there wasn’t, maybe, some other way? My heart will forever be grateful to her for that kindness even if I was unable to take it then.

Back to more oblivion. I think we imagined the day of them picking him up. The joyful phone calls, the last minute scramble for diapers and supplies.

I believe I spoke to my mother again, confirming that I was done and she would come and take me home. No last minute glitches, I had preformed beautifully, made a perfect blue eyed boy and signed off with nary a whimper.

A perfect birth mother, an empty shell now. Time to go home.

****

I wrote this part of the story our over two years ago. I have editted it a bit and added to here and there, but no matter how long has passed, no matter how much sometimes it might feel like another life, another story, that happened to another girl, it gets me every time.

As I read my own words of Max’s birth, of the hospital stay, of leaving him, and signing those papers; it all comes back. I see things in my mind with such clarity, such detail, as if they had happened yesterday. I smell things that are not in the room I now inhabit. I feel the sensations still. And with that, the pure raw emotion is still very there.

I cry now, silently, in my nice home with my nice husband across the room and my nice chldren sleeping upstairs warm in their beds. Tears run down my cheeks as I type this, as I lived it then, as it lives in me still. In truth, I am horrified that I lived this. I do not want this to have been my life. I reject this experince now, but it is ever too late. And I can no more undo the past than I can shed it’s affects. I can only know, by the deep and still lasting emotional hold on my soul, that nothing ever has been so hard and nothing ever has scarred me so.

Trying now not to be affect is almost impossible. Telling this part of the story is like letting a demon out of a box and now it flies all over the room sheding it’s blackness. It is only with great practice now that I can resisit, but in all honesty, right now, if I were alone in my house, I would give in.

One crack in my resolve and I will be still in the same place I was 21 1/2 years ago. I will be 19 again and saying good-bye to my baby. One falter, at this second, and the wall will break and I will tumble. Right now, I could throw myself on the floor and, with out a care, allow the deep wailing to errupt from my gut. The sounds that I would make would be animal-like and not human at all.

It would be the cry of a mother who wants her baby back.

Continued: After you Give Up Your Baby for Adoption..