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Sometimes I get so angry because THIS is the stuff they conveniently don't mention when we are talking about relinquishment. THIS is the stuff that I hope that counseling immediately after relinquishment could have helped with.
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I think in my case, even if someone would have told me, I would have said "oh, I won't feel that way." It's hard to imagine that you will feel a certain way until you've gone through something. You can receive counseling like I did, and it did help tremendously, but none of my counselors were actually birthmoms, so I don't think most of them are/were even AWARE of many of the issues and nuances of those issues that we experience.
Here's a similar example from my experience: Even when I heard other birthmoms in a support group talk about the roller coaster of reunion, I kept thinking, "Oh, I don't think it can be THAT crazy! I know myself really well, I have my head together really good, I'll get counseling if need be, it won't be that way between me and my son, etc." Then WHAMMO. I'm not even IN reunion, but when I got identifying info from my son, the floodgates of emotion opened up and I was a banana
for awhile (and not in a "happy dance" way). So many people had said it would be that way and I "pooh-poohed" it. So I do think no matter what, unless and until we ourselves actually experience something firsthand, we can't always be convinced it will be that way for us. At least that's how it worked for me. And in my case, I was so set on adoption, I don't know if anything anyone could have said would have made an impact in terms of changing my mind. But I'm one of those birthmoms who probably wouldn't make a different choice if I could go back in time and was under the same circumstances.