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Originally Posted by 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!)
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I saw your email in the newsletter.
Personally, I was pregnant at 15, still growing emotionally, and physically. I was fine the way I was, I didn't need to be stronger, more tolerant. I was raised to be tolerant of others.
What I didn't need was the pain that never goes away. Not even after reunion.
The loss, not knowing for 33 years whether he was alive or dead.
The fear when I married and had two more children that if I didn't measure up somehow, someone would come take my children away and give them to someone else.
Quite simply, why should I have to be stronger or better then anyone else. Can't I just be normal, a regular woman.
As for an adoptive mom being stronger etc, Lets be real, being a parent makes you stronger, more tolerant, hopefully a better person.
Adoption or relinquishment doesn't make you better then someome else. That is what it sounds like, even though it isn't meant that way. Being a parent can make us joyful and wanting to share the experince. Whether you give birth to, adopt or step parent, all these things things and more happen to you.
As a birthmother and adoptee lite (step parent adopted), I hope adoptive parents just become good parents, making a happy family.
Not one of us birthmoms sets out to make adoptive parents better people. That is not why our babies are given/taken away. We hope that our babies get loving familys, parents who just want to be parents.
No saving a child, no relieving someone of a burden, no being a saint because they adopted.
Just making a family, and I hope they are already strong loving people, who are tolerant before they step into agency to look into adoption.
The picture my avatar is me and my birthson after reunion. It has been 11 years this month.
I love him, he loves me, but I can never get back what I lost. No matter how much we try our relationship will not be what I beleive it could have been had I raised him.
I will never have those memories of his childhood.
I can't change it, fix it, wish it away.
I love him, I did from the moment I felt him inside my body. He was my baby, meant for me to raise. It was outside elements and people who change that.
God did not give me my baby for him to go to someone else. That was a human decisison made by my mother.
Yes, part of me is still angry, hurt, and pissed. Mostly that part stays hidden again, no one wants to live with that out front in life everyday.
Take care