[Courtney Frey]

As some of you may know ... my sons birthday was yesterday. In all of twelve years I still ask why it doesn't get easier ... I should stop asking such a silly question. lol perhaps just out of pain I demand a reason.

Most of you know me well enough by now that I feel safe enough to come here ... to my Confession Box. So ... light a candle, and hopefully I won't be bombarded with Hail Mary's. (he he. I'm not even Catholic, but I've always wanted to do confession. lol)

Every year on February 3rd I do three things.
1.) I buy myself 12 dozen yellow roses.
2.) I write the "birthday" letter.
3.) I get smashed. (Not recommend and fully accepting total sin of my actions, but hey, it's confession remember you can't hold it against me.)

Last night with the bottle of It'll kill ya, (ever play MadGab? lol)I started going through the first few years of letters and pictures that I've kept for Jonothan. I was shaken up at how my emotions, then, still very much mirror my emotions now. What was amazing was to watch myself go through all the stages of reality and healing through the last twelve years ... angry letters, letters full of denial, desperation ... it was like going back in time and re-living it all. (I was amazed at how little I've suppressed)

This year was the first year I let my husband sit in on my ritual. As I read letter after letter to him ... his tears flowed. Though he rarely ever spoke, just having someone there hearing my pain, going back in time on the journey ... validating the ache ... was so healing for me. When we were done, James excused himself and came back to the bedroom about ten minutes later with a small cheesecake with twelve candles on it. He sang Happy Birthday to Jonothan.

I just wanted to share this with all of you - the truth of it - my truth - that I still get down in the hole once a year ... I let it hurt, I cry, I rage, and I go through it all again. Two things that have remained constant are my love for my son and also something else that I've realized .... I mourn and ache for the infact that was seperated from me ... but I have no idea who the child is. That realization is painful.

So .. I confess ... yesterday I gave in to it all.

And man it felt great.

To birthday's, good friends, old letters, and that one person in your life who always knows exactly what to say and do.

I think we should start a birthday list so that we all know when everyone's children have a birthday ... I could have used some cards and phone calls. How about it?

I love you all.
Courtney

[Courtney Frey]

Miranda .. thanks girl.

court

[shirleyville]

I just wanted to let you know how wonderful and courageous you are! I enjoy reading your posts and understanding what you go thru, as a birthmother.
My own birthmother denied contact with me a few weeks ago....and I have spent a lot of time concentrating on HER pain. I hear myself, so often, saying things like "I understand her fears, and I respect her decisions." I worry for her mental well-being, because I know that she has endured a lot of pain over the last 39 years........I actually "ache" for her and wish more than anything that I could hug her and tell her that it's "okay"....but I can't. She wouldn't let me have the chance to help -- at least not in that way. The only way I CAN help is to respect her wishes, and leave the past where it is. Hopefully, now that she empowered herself to say "no", she can begin to heal, and stop living in the dread that I would "resurface" as she described.
The other night, I was with my best friend (whom I consider to be my sister), and we had a couple of glasses of wine, and I finally cried for ME........it was wonderful, actually. She held me tight and let me cry, and for once, the tears weren't for Mary Ellen (my mom), they were for ME...totally selfish and totally self-consuming. My friend made it okay for me to hurt for me.....and didn't judge that I wasn't being "sympathetic" or "selfless". I needed that. I needed to feel like it was okay for me to say, "please don't leave me all over again, Mary Ellen." It won't make Mary Ellen come back, but it made it okay for me to grieve a little.
I am glad you are here for all of us!
Hugs,
Sally

[Addie02]

I think it is a great idea. That way when some one needs support the most the rest of us can be there. Ready to help. Without any one having to ask or remind us that 'It is that time of year"

[reneetaylor]

Courtney - my thoughts and prayers are with you as you go through this painful time of year. I'm not Catholic either, but some of my family is... does that count?

I too have thought about how cleansing it must be to enter into a little dark box and just let loose with all your thoughts and feelings and know that you are going to be forgiven. But you know what? You don't need that confessional to bare your soul. God is always listening and watching over you and He knows how you feel. He understands your anger and sadness and guilt, etc. and He doesn't hold it against you. He forgives you and loves you no matter what.

Your son is getting closer and closer to being able to look for you, and hopefully one day he will appear on your doorstep, or call you on the phone and want to sit down with you and read all those letters you have written to him throughout the years. He will know that you love him and he will wrap you in his arms and cry with you for all the years you both have missed out on. And then you can start fesh and learn to love the man your son has grown to be.

You are in my thoughts......

Renee

[Courtney Frey]

I woke up slowly this morning ... (perhaps due to my friend Captian Morgan, man he stayed up late. lol) and almost dreaded the day today. I even considered just taking it off ... leaving the computer on freeze and just lazing around. But, of course, I couldn't. What was on my mind was how aweful it felt that no one remembered my son's birthday. How terrible it was that even the people that were there at his birth and relinquishment had forgotten. And it hurt.

So .. knowing me (lol) I thought .. I've got to do something. No one should have to feel this way. I was on a mission! lol

I wrote "Confession Box" this morning, crying. I came up with the idea to do a birthday list, crying. Then, I read your letters to me Nancy, and Shirley, .. and all **** broke loose.

I must have not gotten all the tears out yesterday.

Nancy, I am so moved and so humbled at your words. So amazed at the power of love, the power of connection - the courage that it takes each one of us to hold on just long enough for someone else to grasp the rope as well. If my journey, my experience prompts the inner desires that you have to do something - the greatest reward for me comes in the many that you too will reach as well Nancy. The circle continues, the ripples reach vast and wide ... and that, my dearest friend, is what makes this worth the tears. You have brightend my day today, you have touched my heart, still broken, and provided me with the understanding and sincerity that I needed. And I thank you. I thank you also for the hope in your message and as I consider that one day I might be sitting on my bed toasting my son with a drink going over years of letters .... I smile .. for the first time in two days.

And dear, dear, shirley! Thank GOD for what you wrote!!! I am so grateful for that sisterfriend of yours ... (is she available by appointment? lol) To have someone who loves you and knows you well enough to see what you needed and to be there for you when you realized it as well! What a Godsend. Truly. And you are SO right. I concentrate so much on worrying about my son and his parents, praying for them, hoping they are good parents, wondering what I did wrong and wishing I'd known more ... that sometimes I forget to GRIEVE. Doesn't it feel GREAT? I am so, so, deeply, deeply, sorry for your bmoms inability to allow you into her life .. this breaks my heart. Last night as I was sitting on the bed with my husband going through the last twelve years of things my husband said the BEST thing he could have EVER EVER said to me ... he said, (bear with me it's abit lude lol) He said, "You are every adoptee's wet dream." I was taken a back and asked, "What the heck does that mean?" With tears in his eyes he said, "Look around this bed ... you've got a lifetime of love here ... evidence that your arms never closed and that you never walked away." I bawled.

Two the both of you .. for both of your journeys and for your amazing compassion for me today .... I am truly touched and so very inspired. Nancy ... to the continued success of your budding relationship with your son - and Shirley, to your continued success as an absolutely amazing woman of courage ... thank you.

I really needed your support today.

I may just have to have one more birthday night tonight - and I'll be sure to toast the both of yoU!

Courtney

[shirleyville]

Thank you for your kind words, Courtney.....sometimes I don't feel like a very courageous woman -- but then again, the part of me that is hurting isn't the "woman" part of me.....it's the child part. The adult side of me is the one who has such an incredible outpouring of compassion for my mother. I will love her and respect her decisions always -- both her decisions made in 1964, and her decisions she made a few weeks ago. She made the decision to relinquish me 39 years ago, for my "betterment", and now, 39 years later, I must make the painful decision to relinquish HER for HER betterment.
The child side of me wants her mommy, plain and simple....and I had to give myself the right to feel that, and to grieve for it. There are so many wonderful birthmothers here at this forum that want to know their children and can't.....and my mother has the opportunity to know me, and won't. It's hard to understand sometimes.....it doesn't make me angry with HER....none of this is about either of us and our respective pain....it is about a system that taught everyone involved that "supressing" and "forgetting" is the way to go. She must have tried SO hard to forget.....but she just couldn't, and I am sure she has suffered immeasurable pain and guilt over the years. I can feel it in my soul. She carried this "secret" with her for 39 years.....she never felt she could share it with her children because she was afraid they wouldn't understand, and that had to kill her.
I don't know where the rest of this journey will take me....but I know it is easier because there are people like you who share it with me!
Hugs,
Sally

[Courtney Frey]

I did not see your letter until I posted the last one to Nancy and Shirley ... but thank you. Thank you so much for your words of comfort and the reminder that though I may feel overwhelmed by the loss once a year on a certain day ... God has not forgoten and every day of the year is comforting me.

Truly, without faith I would not have survived the last twelve years and without God's love I would not survive the next.

As I was going through the letters last night (mind you, the water had turned to wine) I realized that in most of them I write about my faith, my trust in God that all things will result in a purpose. I see, looking back, that most of my strength came not from knowing I had done the right thing ... but that regardless of my decisions ... God was watching over it all. That my choices, from that moment on were crucial to the future outcome. Accepting God's love and forgiveness meant growing stronger ... being ready ... having the wisdom to steed myself for what will come.

In one letter in 1995 I was very angry and wrote in my journal to my sons parents, "I gave you my son out of love ... but you stole him out of fear." In 1998 I had come far enough in my journey to deal with the anger and wrote, "Regardless of our choices, each of us, we are accountable to Christ. I have forgiven you." In 1999 I again grew a bit more and wrote, "My purpose here on earth is to grow closer to God and to learn how to love and be loved in all things ... and I choose to love you no matter what."
In 2000 I slipped again and wrote, "It's not fair that I have to forgive you and pray for you and love you when what you've done has gone un-seen and has the power to hurt and destroy a decision I made so long ago for the right reasons." Then, in 2001, I got back up again and wrote, "Lord ... put your love into my heart so that when I see my son again .. that's all he will see."

The journey is so hard, and so long, and every year a new lesson is learned. Will I choose fear in my emotions or will I choose love? Once a year I must grieve, not just to cleanse myself emotionally but also physically ... it is in those moments that I am most comforted becaue I am most vulnerable. When I am broken, it is then that God can build. It's just so darn painful. lol

Thank you Renee ... for your words of wisdom and your comfort. My mother's name is Renee and if she'd have called me .. that's probably what she would have said too. So you touched me in a way that I desperately needed touching. I mourned my mother's not remembering and being here for me on such an important day .,... and then God sent you. I am blessed.

I love you.
Courtney

[Courtney Frey]

Man I really needed this today - you girls wanna just come over and we'll listen to music and do this all day in our pajama's????? lol I need a chic pow-pow badly.

I WISH james had a brother - I would totally hook you up. lol Unfortunantly he's the only boy of three - youngest, two older sisters. He's superhuman I think - not of this world. lol You wouldn't believe what I've put that poor man through and yet he's always bouncing back and amazing me. I always buy myself 12 yellow roses (On the first mothers' day after I relinquished Jonothan my father bought me a dozen yellow roses with a card that said, "A good mother does what is best for her children .... you are a good mother." So .. I remind myself of that every year with my own darn flowers. lol Well, this year James came home with a dozen RED roses ... and the card says, (oh man I'm gonna cry AGAIN!!!!!) ... "A good mother bleeds so her children don't have too ... I know I can't be your band-aid, but I'll share my heart whenever you need to re-fill." (And he didn't even try to get lucky last night ... just held me till I fell asleep.)

Maybe I should get him to write a book for "Spouses and significant others of birthmothers: What to do to be a hero and stay sane at the same time." lol When Jonothan turned 10 James brought home a little black lab puppy - had a purple jeweled collar (February's birthstone is purple) and had put a little birthday hat on the poor dogs head. lol Tucked in the coller was a note, "I'm a birthday present for Jonothan, but he can't have me for a few years. Would you mind loving me until then?"

I've attached a picture I have of me with Jonothan when he was only a few weeks old - I was 15. It was taken at the adoption agency on the DAY I handed him over to his adoptive parents. It's only one of two that I have of him as an infant that my mom had taken. That's another regret that I have ... I was so emotionally havoked that I didn't think about pictures ... thougth my mom was taking them .. little did I know she wasn't. Oh well. Shoot - the pic won't upload. I'll try again.

Thanks guys ... for letting me do this today ... I really needed this.

Courtney

[Courtney Frey]

my picture must be too big. oh well.
court

[loveccl]

Courtney,

All I can really say is I hope you got the article that I submitted to you. Please read it twice and let me know if it offers you any comfort. For those of you who don't know I submitted and article to Courtney for FM and it delt with this very subject. So all I can really say is in my article. I celebrate my son's birthday every year and the day I gave birth to him not the day I'm in pain living with out him. For the last 8 yrs I've cried and felt numb but every birth-day I've celebrated. The rest is in the article.

I did like your idea about the list so we can send out cards. Its nice when I get flowers on mothers day from my boyfriend. You all know how much it hurts so it would mean alot to get a card on my birth-day to let me know your all thinking of me. I'm not sure who likes to give out thier personal info just so any weirdo scanning these things could read it. So maybe we can do online cards or something. This is a wonderful idea.

Oh and Courtney, Happy Birth-day to you!!!

Darcy

[slowdrowned]

Oh, Courtney, can I come to your pajama party? I'll bring popcorn and a bottle of JD .... I'm needing some girl-love, too, desperately. And music and gigglefits and teary confessions sound pretty good, too.

I signed my relinquishment this morning, irrevocable here in OK. I suspect in the future *this* will be my day to grieve, not his birthday - that day was too full of love. This one hurt more than I could have ever expected.

Much love to you - and everyone else. *hugs*

[dl]

As an adult adoptee I truly appreciate your emotions. I just want to remind you that considering the circumstances that you have posted on previous sites you did what you thought was best for your child. Hopefully that child is celebrating a wonderful birthday with aparents that you chose to surrender that child to. I wish you peace with your decision and hope your child was as fortunate as I was to have wonderful adoptive parents.

[shirleyville]

I know this doesn't really "belong" on this thread, but I wanted to tell you all that when my CI located my birthmother, and she denied contact with me, I was allowed to send a short "thank you note" to my Aunt, who offered to compile my health history for me......of course it had to be non-identifying, but I put a couple of pictures in it of my fourth birthday party....one in particular, was of me wearing a party hat, and blowing out the clown candles on my cake. There were presents all over the table, and I sent it, because I had hoped that my family would know that I had GREAT birthdays, and that I was loved by a lot of people. My CI chose, (made the decision for me) to NOT include the pictures, because she felt that seeing them would end all curiosity about me, and that they may never feel compelled to see me in person. At the time, my mother hadn't signed the papers to seal my records yet, and I guess my CI thought that maybe, if my Aunt chose to share the pictures with my mother, she would definitely sign them, instead of reconsidering.
I was SO furious.........I felt like in all of this, I had little to no power of decision -- sure I made the decision to search -- but other than that, all of the decisions were out of my hands......and I had made the decision to send these precious pictures to provide some comfort to my mother in the event that she DID decide to go ahead and sign the papers. It was the only chance I had..........and now it's too late. She signed them anyway, and will never see the pictures, or know that my birthdays were always special. :-(
I wish she could know that I have spent every birthday of my adult life thinking of her.
It makes me so happy to know that you ladies are out there, celebrating the births of your children, and thinking of them....it is a very comforting feeling. I admire you all very much and I feel privileged to know you!
Hugs,
Sally

[schatz]

Courtney,

Wow! Your husband says the most perfect things. What a blessing he is.

I'm so sorry to hear that no one remembered your son's birthday. Please know that there are many of us here who have hugs and well wishes to offer you.

I hope that someday you will have an evening with your son, and I have a feeling that he will see nothing but the love you have carried for him all these years.

Give that puppy an extra kiss and hold onto hope for the future. You do so much for all of us. I offer a toast to you for your wonderful words and kind heart.