[Janeytwo]

Hey everyone!

Wow! As always, you guys lift up my soul!


SStuart -

Your time to meet your kids will come. There is a bigger plan than us.

I love this that you said! :-) There is a bigger plan.....I like that. It brings some center to all of this and you're so right. There is a time for everything. Thanks, Stacy!


Dickons -

I find myself frustrated over and over again in this 'strange triangle' and decide to 'give up' and 'go away' but that isn't the right way...to not speak up and tell my feelings so others may hear

Oh, I have done this! Eeekkk!!! But luckily for me, this place is like an addiction or something! LOL!! I can't stay away and I've come to understand that it's because it's so very important and so healing. Even though there have been days when I've thrown up my hands and said, "That's it! I'm done!" And of course I've embarrassed myself once by announcing that to friends in here. Good grief!! Ah well....my friends are good folk who just sit back wisely and quietly saying, "she'll be back!" (You guys know who you are!)

For me it was just that I'd bottled it up for so many years....so many. Finally, I just couldn't contain it all anymore. Maybe that's what happens to the rest of us? Maybe we come running in here from whatever point we happen to reside on in this triad....we come running in screaming "Somebody! Anybody! I've got something to say!! Help!!!"

Maybe then it's just so overwhelming that we can't hear. Thank goodness the "wise ones" are in here with us. Those that've traversed the highway, fallen into the potholes and drug themselves back out. And they're wise enough to know that we have to fall into the potholes too and that their job is to stand on the other side with their hand out waiting to pull us up.

All of you have certainly been that to little ol' Janey here!


Kim Thank you sweetie! Thank you so much! I needed to hear that today!

Cetally

I am honored to have learned from you

Nah! Actually it's the other way around bud. You see I had my own prejudice against us birthmothers. Hard thing to admit. But I had this line going in my head that we all made the choice to relinquish and we'd better darn well have the nads to fess up to that. It took almost a year for me to learn that there are bmoms like you out there who were truly taken advantage of.

I will remain forever sorry for misjudging you and some others in here. I think I did this due to a tendency to fear having compassion for others because then I'll have to have it for myself and then I'm a loser. Sigh...that's the rules I was raised by. Kick your own butt so that no one else can get the jump on you.

If it were not for your story, I wouldn't know that about myself. I felt it was important for you to hear me say that too. When someone is wrong they ought to at least have the guts to admit it and I was wrong about you. So sorry my friend.

MommytoEli

i admit i didn't know much about the third side of the triad until coming here.

First I wanted to say hi! I'm not sure if we've ever e-spoken before but thank you for responding to my post. :-)

And you know, it's okay. How can any of us understand what we haven't experienced, right? I've said before in here that foster parents have a tough road because I think they get judged more than anyone else. The media has given them a bad rep IMO. :-(

And I've learned from reading Crick's posts and from Kathy and Raven what kind of things foster parents see that color the way they see us.

So much to undo and I'm glad we can all try to undo it together!

Crick

Yet, I too was guilty of some of these thoughts when I first came here. Sounds so lame to say "I didn't know any better", but that's the truth. I had this idea of "even if they didn't abuse their kids, they must not have really wanted them."

I would never think of you as lame, Crick. Not in a million years!! Strong, confident, true-of-heart....yes. Lame? Nuh uh.

And you know, I can see how people might jump to the conclusion that we didn't want our children because as Paige said further up this thread, we're seen as "giving up" our children. That term "giving up" brings so many wrong connotations with it.

I am remembering almost a year ago reading a post by Michelle in which she talked about how much she hated that term "giving up". And I can remember being upset by that because I used that term "giving up". I thought, "What does she mean? What is she saying?"

Now I finally understand what she was talking about. So how can I judge you or anyone else for not understanding what I myself didn't know?

You're right. We didn't know any better. And maybe those agency folk...maybe they didn't either. The learning curve on this one sometimes drops off the known map doesn't it?

Rainbow Mom

On the days my children came home I can assure you there was a broken piece of my heart wondering how their first moms must feel that day. How painful thier soul must feel.

Thanks for responding to my thread and for the kind words you offer. I was worried that I might upset some of the foster parents which wasn't at all my intention.

I have a dear friend in here who is an aparent and we meet for lunch once a month. There is always this little stab of pain in my heart for her because of what she has to negotiate simply in order to keep peace for her children, for her husband and most importantly for herself. And then the echo of the pain behind that for her kids' bmoms. We talk of these things and of the dear friends we have in here. And sometimes we talk of the people we'd like to throttle in here! I'm sure the feeling is mutual!

When I drive home from lunch with her, I remark on how we are all sort of like a baklava. Lots of layers. Layers of hope, layers of sorrow, layers of truth, layers of anger, and the love we have for our children holding it all together like the honey on that wonderful dessert.

Next time I go to Greektown, I am going to have a slice of baklava in honor of us all!

Love you guys more than words can say!