[SchmennaLeigh]

I'm not sure, myself. I think I fall somewhere in the middle.

I know, for a fact, that I can be dragged through the fire and make it out on the other side. With burns? Yes. With scars? Yes. Alive? Yes. So, stronger, yes, I can agree with.

Better is, however, a little harder to pin-point. Better how? I am less trusting. But I was made better by the existence of my daughter in the fact that I want to make her proud of me. Again, flipping it, I am living with lifelong grief and loss. But, again, flipping it, I feel blessed to have such an amazing girl in my life at all. I'm thinking that the "better" is a toss up. To put it simply: I AM better for having known her. But it has not bettered every aspect of my life.

More tolerant? Hmm. As I said, I'm less trusting. And am now frequently on the receiving end of a lot of criticism and judgment. I do think, because of those judgments, I may be compassionate towards others who are more prone to such judgments. (Other young mothers, other birth parents, adoptees' plights, adoptive parents who get grief for caring about birth parent and adoptee rights, and, of course, those outside of the adoption world that are treated just as poorly.) But I also have harsh feelings towards those that don't care about ethical adoptions or reform or adoptee rights. But, at the same time, I wouldn't even know about those issues without my connection to adoption and I think I'd feel that way whether I had placed or adopted or been adopted. So, I'm not quite sure where I fall on the more-or-less-tolerant scale.


(This thread brought to you by an interesting, opposite-side-of-triad post. No attacks for adoptive parents meant. Just copying the idea. Hurrah!)