[pingaa3]

I have had my daughter Lily for four months now and I still struggle with apprehension and insecurity over my right to be her mother.

Imagine a woman who can't conceive of her own child first having to dealt with the issues of being unable to conceive.

Then add in the guilt of feeling like you are the cause of so much pain for someone else by having them place their child with you.

Throw in getting to know perfect strangers. Working with four distinct personalities (amom/dad and bmom/dad), a lawyer, a social worker, the midwife, and everyones extended family.

Toss in a little irritability from being pregnant.

A dash of fear that the birth parents could at any second change their minds all the way through time when you have taken the child home and aren't getting any sleep while you care for them in the first few months of their lives.

Combine this with state social workers who ask you intimate in-depth questions about your sexual/emotional/family/financial past and present.

Be sure to throw in a tons of well meaning friends, family and strangers telling you what you're doing wrong and what you should be doing instead, and asking you what the real parents are like. Family/Friend/Strangers thinking you're insane/wrong to have an open adoption, let "those people" know where you live and "why are you continuing a relationship with them afterwards aren't you afraid they'll change their minds.

A group of adoption columns/books etc that tell you that by adopting this child you have mortally wounded her spirit forever and you will never be a real mother to her.

A pinch of feeling like in order to deserve this baby your have to be super/perfect mom.

Oh yeah and don't forget in most cases to cram all this into about two short months of prep for a baby you may or may not get to keep if you even get to bring him/her home.

Add one harrowingly painful and emotion birth for 24 hours.

And..Lastly, a dash of birthparent visits where the birthmom refers to herself as mommy and is constantly telling you how much like her the baby is and will be.

What do you get at the end..... one really apprehensive, insecure, exhausted, possibly guilt ridden adoptive mom who really worries if, even though the time is up for the changing of minds, her birthmom might decide to grab that baby and run like heck out of town with her at the next visit.

So yep, some of us adoptive moms are a bit of a mess for the first year or so. Most of us aren't bad/evil people purposely out to hurt anyone. A lot of us are just tired scared humans afraid to lose something we love and still spinning from the same whirlwind you've were just in with us.

I know for myself that most days I really want to have a great relationship with Lily's birth mom. Most days I can be kind, empathetic, caring, and put my daughter's relationship with her birthmom first before my fear, insecurities and needs. But sometimes something happens and I lose it. I say something I don't really mean to say, something that hurts someone else, something I wish I could grab and stuff back down like it never came out. Because just like everyone else I'm only human and despite my best intentions, my fervent hope, and lots of unwanted advice from everyone... I'm not perfect.

If I have unwittingly offended anyone I apologize. Thank you for letting me share a little bit of my opinion.

I

[SKiefer]

And..Lastly, a dash of birthparent visits where the birthmom refers to herself as mommy


I'm sure I'm going to get slammed for what I'm about to type but oh well

ok I'm an adoptee and I know that is just wrong. You are the mommy. I think you & your husband need to sit down and set up some boundries and then discuss with your case work and the birthparents. It sounds like to me that this woman just wants you to raise her child and that's just wrong on way too many levels.
Also please remember that all of your feelings are valid and you do not need to justify them to anyone.

[echaos]

pingaa3


That was very eloquent and really sums up what adoptive parents go through. It would be interesting to have a birth mother do up a similar dialogue from their perspective.

Very eye opening. Thank you!

[Volfe]

I know the first year is roughest (I say 1st two). I'll be completing my second FIRST year as a bmom if that makes sense.

I'd guess that with all that pinching and dashing, a buncha handfuls of understanding should be served as the meal for every visit

I really liked what you wrote and your style of getting it out. I am nearly at the end of the first year of my baby's adoption (she'll be 1 in Oct) and I've come a long way. Perhaps you could tell in my posts. What cleared the air best between the amom and I, I think, was actually a little emotional tiff. I've read that sharing heavy emotions can bring people together (or push them apart). Perhaps there's some truth in it.

Sometimes I think that if only we could each have insight on the other (like um some cyborg brain scan thingie) we'd all do so much better! LOL. Oh well. Good nite
But OK I felt like trying to respond in kind:

Imagine a woman having to deal with the emotional struggle - the issues - of whether parenting her child is the wisest course. Imagine having this hang over your head for 7 months or more.

Imagine suffering through nausea, swollen ankles, anemia, exhaustion, physical discomfort, etc. Months of Dr's prodding/ poking. Testing, measuring, urinalysis, weight gain (and getting yelled at for that). Imagine how many times she told the Dr. to STOP because when they said they just want to check your uterus and it will be uncomfortable for a minute, it was friggin HURTING for a lot longer!!!! Imagine having to look forward to that every monthly visit or so.

Labor, birth, delivery, dealing with issues in the hospital: emotional, physical, medical, social, familial... None are easy.

Imagine the pain of the physical seperation of someone you lived next to for 9 months. Imagine the body's maternal urges having no one to exist for. Imagine a grief so great you feel sick, an anger at life's unfairness, emotions so powerful, they overwhelm.

Then add in the guilt for not being able to be there for your child. Guilt for feeling weak, powerless, imperfect.

Toss in needing to not cry in front of strangers: your friends, your childs parents. A pinch of raw emotion, mixed with exhaustion, guilt, feelings of ineptitude. Mix well and pray a relationship is created.

Toss in a LOT of YOUR irritability from being pregnant, and now being full of physical aches in your back (if an epidural), your gut (the uterus and guts getting readjusted), your hips (gotta get back together), your insides (if there was surgery). I was so tired, that I didn't feel normal until after my maternity leave was over. I'm serious!

Add a fistful of THEIR irritability from wanting to sleep because that's become rarer than the dodo.

A dash of fear that the adoptive parents could at any second change their minds and you never see your child again, like you'd planned. And everytime you can't reach them or they are late, your fear is realized.

Combine this with the prospect of living with the social stigma of being a birth mother (a stigma I'll be trying to change).

Be sure to throw in a tons of well meaning and not-so-well-meaning friends, family and strangers wondering why you think you might have the right to still SEE your child. Or saying it's best this way... Or are obviously disapproving of your choice... Or are just plain mean. Telling you how the contract is meaningless legally and the aparents can do anything they want. "Well, it's their child now." Imagine how nerve wracking it is to have that fed to you over and over when you are depressed and anxious about the whole thing...

Oh yeah and don't forget in most cases you are trying to cram getting-to-know-you into two short months before the baby is born in order to decide if these will be the people who should raise your child (a huge decision) and who you will be trying to create a relationship with - for life and just feeling under pressure to be RIGHT about everything.

And..Lastly, a dash of visits to see your child where evey one is nervous and tense and unsure of how to act and where you can see how much like your family the baby is and will be and that is both neat and really sad too.

What do you get at the end..... At the "real" end, you're going to have some friends and the child who united them. You also get to sleep Oh and this went for birth parents too I think:

" A lot of us are just tired scared humans afraid to lose something we love and still spinning from the same whirlwind you've were just in with us."

Maia

[GE_Glows]

VERY well said ladies - by both of you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, feeings, emotions, and fears.

[michellemartin]

That sums it up well over here on this end, too, as a firstmom in my first year (3 months and 2 days now) My fear of them closing the adoption would have been the only fear that would have changed my mind. I had a fear they would never contact me again once I signed the papers, but instead I went to the court hearing, signed my rights away, and came home to check my email and see if anyone was around to chat. On my email was a beautiful letter from her parents reasuring me--as I had been reassuring them for so long I would not change my mind, they were now telling me the same. We're coming up on our first visit, and the only thing I'm nervous about is will they recognize me without the maternity clothes!?!

Yes, we all have fear, but we all have the courage to continue on despite our fear- and the courage to not let our fear define us.

[pingaa3]

Maia,

Thank you for a birthmoms perspective. You are right, this is a very unsettling time for both birth and adoptive parents.

I really appreciate your input.

I

[Opting4Adopting]

I want to thank you all for such a caring dialogue here!

As a perspective Adoptive Mother, I was immediately drawn to Ping's description...cause I've gone through that! well, most of that!

But Maia's description just clarified it all for me...we're ALL in pain (emotionally and physically) over the act of conception...
I've read in someone's signature something about the fact that we may be taking different courses???? but "we're all in the same boat"! We all just want to love that innocent little soul and make sure that his or her life is THE best it could be! And...we're all feeling very insecure about the "IFs" in life....

To all Birthmothers and Biomothers, please know that for all the fear and insecurity that we adoptive mothers (and hopefully, soon-to-be-adoptive mothers) maybe feeling, we all would gladly give our right arms (not that big a thing for me since I'm left-handed ) to be able to conceive and nurture our child for 9 month...though I'm sure that none of us would want to have to go through the devistation that any of you had to endure in making an adoption plan for you child...and though there may be some selfishly motivated aparents out there, I'm sure that the majority of aparents just want the very best for the child that you both share.

I want to thank you all...bioparents and adoptive parents alike, for the sacrifices that you have made and continue to make in order to bring up a very normal, loving and well-adjusted child!

Kat

[J'sBMOM]

I had my first son 24 yrs ago and I still struggle with apprehension and insecurity over my right to be in his life. I had been told I gave up that right with adoption. We are in early stages of reunion-closed adoption.

Imagine a woman/child who conceived of her own first child first having to deal with the accusations of being unclean and irresponsible because she had sex too soon. Deemed unfit by society- told she had no right to be so selfish as to keep her own flesh and blood.

Be sure to throw in a tons of well meaning friends, family and strangers telling you either nothing or saying you're doing "The right thing". OR...Family/Friend/Strangers thinking you're insane/wrong to give up your flesh and blood, then hoping for a relationship with them afterwards.

Toss in a little irritability and confusion from being pregnant/post-partum and being forced to make a permanent decision for a temporary problem.

Oh yeah and don't forget in most cases to cram all this into less than nine months of preparation for a baby's lifetime; one whom you may or may not get to know as an adult because he hates you for leaving him.

Combine this with social workers who ask you intimate in-depth questions about your and the father's sexual/emotional/family/financial past and present.

A pinch of feeling like in order to not deserve this baby you must have been defective in God's eyes.

Add one harrowingly painful and emotional birth all alone!!!!Then not being able to even see my baby or hold him.

A dash of fear that the adoptive parents could also be unfit in your or your child's eyes.

Then add in the guilt of feeling like you are the cause of so much pain for someone else by having to break the family chain. To place their family elsewhere to be raised.

A group of adoption columns/books etc that tell you that by relinquishing this child you have mortally wounded his soul forever and you can never be a real mother to him.

Throw in getting to know perfect strangers in reunion. Working with four distinct personalities (amom/dad and bmom and achild), and everyone's extended family.

Add to this aparents belief that all is well. Their surprise that "It still hurts" me.Their denial that adoptee is well adjusted and painfree.The only Winners see things that way don't they?

And..Lastly, a dash of aparent visits where the amom is constantly telling you how much of a blessing and struggle it was to raise your child over the years. While you were silently mourning the loss of him all that time.

What do you get at the end..... one really apprehensive, insecure, exhausted, guilt ridden first mom who really worries if, even though the time is here for a meeting of souls, his amom might decide to grab that baby/man and make it hard for her to arrange an ongoing relationship.

AND.... hiding all the worry and pain so your first child doesn't worry about your health!

So yep, all of us first moms are a bit of a mess for the first century or so. Most of us aren't bad/evil people purposely out to hurt anyone or steal their child. A lot of us are just tired scared humans afraid to lose something we love and still spinning from the trauma of loss. We are trying to accept what is.

I know for myself, I really want to have a great relationship with my son's amom. I fear she can't be empathetic, caring, and put my son's relationship with his first mom first before her fear, insecurities and needs. And I fear he will feel guilty for wanting me in his life.

Sometimes something happens and I lose it. I say something I don't really mean to say, something that hurts someone else, something I wish I could grab and stuff back down like it never came out. But I can't do that with my birthson-he has enough on his mind. I try to be an adult when I still feel like that broken girl sometimes.

Just like everyone else I'm only human and despite my best intentions, my fervent hope, and lots of unwanted advice from everyone... I'm not perfect.

If I have unwittingly offended anyone I apologize. Thank you for letting me share a little bit of my opinion.

[AMom2Two]

(((pinga33))))

I can so relate to you. I've been there once and I'm there again. We are hoping to adopt a baby next month. We have been matched for two months. The last time, the match feel thru when the baby was born, so I'm very nervous. Everyone keeps telling me this is not my child and I know that. Everyone tells me not to plan and I know that.

I went out today to try to find a coming home outfit for him. I found the cutest little outfit but I couldn't buy it. I stood in line with it, held it, but before I got to the register, I had to put it back. I left the store feeling awful with nausea and a headache. The last time our match feel thru, I had to return all the things I bought so that memory is still so fresh.

I can relate to everything you said and you said it so well. Thank you for sharing it.

((Volf)))

I loved your post too. It brought great insight to me of what a bmother goes thru. Thank you for sharing that with us.

(((JB'sMom))))

I loved your post also. It was very insightful. Thank you for sharing this. I am sorry that you were made to feel dirty. I am sorry that placing has such a negative image attached to it on the bparents side. While people often tell me how kind I am to adopt. (makes me want to puke really) I often hear, how could she have done that and judgement in their voice. I spend alot of my time educating people. My final comment to those who want to knock bmothers is

...at least she choose life and wanted to give her child a better life. Many, many people choose the easy way out and abort. Certainly it takes more courage to place then to abort.

....they all shut up at that!

As someone else said earlier, we are all in the same boat, Aparents and Bparents. We are both just trying to do the best for the children that come into our lives.