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The shift in self-concept that occurs when a woman gives up her own child is not just life-altering, as if that weren't cataclysmic enough. It is person-altering.
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susanne... your whole post resonates with me... and this is exactly what i am calling "rewiring"... this single event had the power to completely change my internal settings... and it did...
it was as if one day i looked in an unblemished mirror and saw myself.... and then relinquishing my daughter caused the mirror to shatter... when it was glued back together.. and i looked in it again... i saw a distorted picture of myself....
and it is in the integrating of all these broken pieces... that i will redefine myself.... rewire my insides...
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I am quite proud of her. In fact, after my reunion with my bdaughter, I realized that perhaps I had not done so badly after all. The children I have raised are far more loving than my bdaughter, have a better sense of themselves. A strong feeling of family. I suppose this could be blamed on the adoption, her feelings about it, but who is to say. Maybe we aren't so wrong. I have given it a lot of thought since I read this post, and I am beginning to think that we may be stronger than most Mothers. We have learned the hard way about loss.
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funny thing.... me too.... when I reunited with my birthdaughter, is probably when i realized i hadn't done such a bad job with the ones the i raised....
i have wondered about that, too.. if what we have been through made us stronger mothers.... i think it holds true for women who have struggled with infertility... or lost babies.... i think the loss makes us appreciate more what we have.... i know that i am endlessly grateful for my three daughters.... endlessly.... i know that i thank God for them every single day....
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I am a better parent but I feel I could never comment on parenting issues as I feel like a fraud if friends ever found out I was a bmother.
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i sat in a family reunion prior to contact with my birthdaughter... 6 babies (that i know of!) have been placed for adoption outside of my family... and when i sat in that reunion and they did not include any of those babies in the family tree.... i remember feeling so angry... i was at the beginning of dealing with all this... and i felt like a fraud... i felt like the whole family was fraudulant actually... because we all KNEW about the babies... well, most of the babies... some were still secrets i guess... including my own....
it may be why i try so darn hard in my mothering... so no one suspects i'm the kind of person who could give a baby away.... just hiding the truth.... still. even after all this....
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I do not know if I am going sort.. who I am.. I know what happened to me made me who I am..
And what that woman said to me.. sticks.. I am one of the ones that can cope..
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i am. i must. i must sort out who i am. i want to know. when i get old, and i look back on my life, i want to feel satisfied with what i see.... i want to be proud of myself and my contribution to the world...
i don't want to be one who copes.
i want to be one who lives... i am a survivor. i am a strong and courageous woman....
what happened made me who i was.... from the moment i started sorting this, i began the process of becoming someone else...
i am not through it... i may never be.... but i have more peace with it than i have ever known....
when my daughter walked out on us, she put a period at the end of the sentence. she offered me closure. I am accepting this offer....
this thread began as i wondered how i am passing on this legacy to my children... as i wondered if i have instilled in them a fear of loss....
and i don't think i have... i think i am instilling in them an example of how to live through loss... how to survive it and remain whole... or in my case, how to become whole again....
that is the legacy i want to leave them from my story of relinquishing...
that we survive loss.... that it doesn't kill us... that we can heal... that we can be whole....
i often think of relinquishing as only leaving a nasty legacy in my life and my descendants lives... but i think it can be more.
i think it offers an opportunity to leave a brilliant legacy in their lives....
julie