[TexasPuppy]

My dd made initial contact via letter in april 07 and we have been exchanging letters through the agency since. I told one of my brothers and sent him an email with her picture in it just because i wanted to share this with someone who was around when it all happened. i can't bring myself to tell my other siblings or my mom yet.

I remember all that my family went through to try to "make it never happen". We moved right aver it happened to another city, nearby, but far enough away that no one knew me. It was never talked about and it has now been almost 30 years.

I believe, and my husband and sons agree, that I will wait until i know that this is something that is going to last. That dd wants to know the extended family. i am not ashamed of her but my mom is 76 and worked hard to help me have a "normal" life where i was not judged by what I had done.

I feel like i am different from so many of the other birthmoms i have read about because I don't hold my parents responsible for the adoption. I mean my mom told me it would be the best for us both but she did make me feel that I had a choice. Maybe i didn't really, and maybe things could have been handled different but I believe what I did was the right thing for her and me.

Point is, I am holding off telling any family for now. I am having enough of an emotional rollercoaster, I don't want to have to deal with other peoples emotions too.

Don't know if this will help. Just my thoughts and opinions.

[quantum]

Originally Posted by TexasPuppy

I feel like i am different from so many of the other birthmoms i have read about because I don't hold my parents responsible for the adoption. I mean my mom told me it would be the best for us both but she did make me feel that I had a choice. Maybe i didn't really, and maybe things could have been handled different but I believe what I did was the right thing for her and me.

Point is, I am holding off telling any family for now. I am having enough of an emotional rollercoaster, I don't want to have to deal with other peoples emotions too.

Don't know if this will help. Just my thoughts and opinions.

It does help! Thank you. I don't hold my parents responsible for the adoption either. It was my choice, I just didn't like the other choices made available (ie my parents adopting).
I know in my heart it was the right thing for all of us, I just can't help but wonder.
I also wish that I could have known how it was going to affect me over the years, but how can anyone know, right?

Now I fight with telling people, I guess I don't need to rush, it will be clear when the time is right, but it's frustrating!

Thank you so much for sharing.

[susieloo]

This is such powerful good healing talk ladies. Let it empower you all.
There a cpuple of points I want to make ( About 1,000 in my head ).
One is that we are all a product of our time. I rationalize my forgiveness of my parents coercion by telling myself this. I was privileged to have known both my great grandmas till I was 13, and my grandmas till I was 44. In my grandmas day, her and her sister were never told their mother was pregnant. They would be sent away for a while, and there would be a baby. My grandma would tell me how they would find the baby clothes hidden under the bed!!! LOL! This was the early 1900's. So my dad was brought up from that sort of moral stance.
Point number two girls...is that in the 1920s....70% of first born children were concieved out of wedlock!!!!!!
my grandma was pregnant with my dad when they got married. My mum was pregnant with my brother when they got married...but I chose not to marry the bfather, oh what a sin. The hypocracy! Arrrrrrrgh!
But I do forgive him.And my mum.
And I have said this before....the irony is that she is the most like him out of his 12 other grandchildren. I saw the tears in his eyes when they met...she was 18. We can only learn from our mistakes, and try to move forward.
Hope all this makes sense.

[kakuehl]

I know I've said this before, but many if not all of us need to mourn the parents we didn't have but wanted/needed, before we can accept the parents we have, limited and imperfect as they are. (As I write this I remember that I am also a parent!) My mother, and perhaps some of yours, felt that my failures were her failures, that if she had only been a better mother, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant outside of marriage (etc...). Susieloo, I suspect that even though so many of your relatives "had to get married" there was still a shame factor instilled in them that they passed along to the next generation.
Also, I have learned to my pain, that our children don't learn from our mistakes... they insist on making their own! (Thus my son J fathered his first child at 17. As a parent that was very painful.) Parents, as well, need to grieve that their children are not going to fullfill the dreams that they have for them before they can accept reality of what is. Sometimes I think they remain silent, because they don't know what to say, even how to apologize when their first response was to "lose it."

I was blessed in that my parents were supportive of my decision: they didn't yell or threaten to kick me out. Admitting I was pregnant was one of the hardest things I've ever done because I knew how badly I was disappointing them. Mom had difficulty with my decision to place and it took her a while to recognise that I did (and do) love D deeply. I am blessed that she actually told me that. I'm still not sure she ever quite forgave me for "giving away" her oldest grandchild and I am sorry he never got to meet her. D has met my Dad, but Dad is not one to overwhelm any of his grandchildren with outpourings of emotion. D, by the way, looks more like Dad and my side of the family than either of my other children.

As a number of posters have pointed out, we need to forgive for our own sakes. If we don't, the anger and pain can eat away at us. Our parents are who they are... they aren't perfect, anymore than we are. Healing begins when we can accept them as they are.

[TexasPuppy]

Our parents are who they are... they aren't perfect, anymore than we are. Healing begins when we can accept them as they are.

But wait, I have tried so hard to be perfect. Wishful thinking.

If we as parents, can remember that we are far from perfect, then we can start to forgive our "Perfect Parents". I look back now and try to figure out how my mom raised six kids (four by herself after dad left when I was 4) and I was the only one that really screwed up. I mean now-a-days, i think it's a major accomplishment if you are able to raise your children to adulthood without them getting thrown in jail, doing drugs, or drinking too much and it's a great thing when they graduate from high school (college is icing on the cake).

My mom raised us all and encouraged us all to do whatever we wanted to do with our lives. She never held it against me that I screwed up and affected so many changes in her life (she changed jobs and moved to another town just to get me away from everyone that wanted to treat me like crap - basically everyone who i went to school with and the people that lived in our neighborhood) My brother even moved during the middle of his senior year of high school just to help me out.

At the time all of this was happening, i could not see the love and support they were all giving me. But as I look back now, I realize that my family did the best the could for me and my child.

I can only hope that i can do the same for my children when they need me.