[jhenrie]

"Ponderings of a Birthmother"

I exist here
In my middle class home
With my handsome husband
And beautiful son
And I wonder how your vacancy will ever be filled.

I ponder on the nine months
When you lived inside my womb
Receiving nourishment and warmth from my teenaged body,
As time blurred by.
For I knew,
There would be no other moment in my life
That I wished more
To be able to stop time.

I remember the jeers and repulsion
That were carelessly flung my way
And how people spat in my general vicinity.
I will never be strong enough
To erase from my memory
The names I heard directed at me…
Crossing the lips of people
I once adored.

Then, I would crawl back into my overly matured,
Seventeen year old mind
Shut my door,
Build my wall,
Block out the world
Just to be with you,
My arms wrapped tightly around my swollen abdomen
Knowing…
This was the closest
I would ever be to holding you.

In desperation,
Thoughts raced through my clouded mind
Of how I could keep you in my life
Wrap you in my arms forever
And keep any adoptive parents
From touching you.

How could it ever be?
I needed you to have the best,
Of everything-
Everything I never had-
Everything you’d never do without,
Since, truly,
My decision had already been painstakingly made.

Clandestine
And precarious
As my situation was,
I held my head high
And expected the respect
That I never received…

Yet,
The rest of the world didn’t matter
I worried how you would regard me…
Would you ever forgive me?
Would you think that I didn’t love you?

The dreaded day arrived
Far too rapidly
And I was numbly somber,
As I bore this beautiful baby girl.
Never could the definition
Of the word “bittersweet”
Be given more precisely.

I drowned you with kisses
On your amniotic covered skin
And wished with all my strength
That the adoption part of this experience
Was a mere nightmare.

Yanked, too soon,
Out of my hospital bed,
It was time to say good-bye
And there in that hallway,
Like no other time in my life,
I felt no shame.

Every other human being
Bustling around the hospital that day,
Vanished,
As I gave my final caresses
And words of love.
My heart stopped beating
As I held you out in my arms,
To relinquish you to your new parents.

Fleeting thoughts of running crossed my mind,
But like a robot,
I performed as I had promised…
As I had rehearsed…
“Here is your new daughter.”
I almost collapsed as your skin left my fingertips.
And as emotionless as I have been known to be
I let the rivers of tears flow freely
And publicly
As I exited the hospital
Without feeling my feet touch the floor.

Many moons
And many events
Have come and gone since then
Yet you are a constant
Even without your physical presence.

Now,
And in the five years of his life-
I have felt tremendous guilt
For gleefully watching the joys and triumphs of my son-
Your brother-
Guilt…as though I am betraying you
By being happy.
But do I ever deserve to be happy,
When I started your life as an automatic disadvantage?

How do I tell your brother
That he has a sister?
Upon more than one mentioning,
He has failed to comprehend
Will he fear that I would give him away too?

How unnatural is it
To give away a child?
How can one ever truly cope
And move on with their life?

I live day to day
Reminding myself that I have made the right decision-
That you are the happiest girl alive
But that ever looming doubt slips in more than occasionally
And I can not help but wonder,
If I am simply trying to convince myself,
Rather than reaffirm
My actions.

Oh,
To have you here today!
Yet where would I begin to tell you,
Of the enormous love I feel for you
And explain that one not need be present
To feel daily love?
How would I justly describe
That my love for you,
Parallels my love for my son?

I momentarily allow my imagination to run wild
With all the musings of who you will be
And the great things you will do.
Yet I slip back to the here and now,
And wonder how you are,
But more fervently,
I wonder who you are.

And I am left
Quiet and alone
To ponder this thought.

[Waiting4Skip]

That's beautiful. Thank you!

[jhenrie]

Thank you!

[tlee70]

Your poem brought tears to my eyes. It made me have so much more empathy for my bmother. Helping me to understand, if only just a little, where she was, what she went through, and how she may have coped.

You have a gift for writing. Thanks for sharing.

tlee

[jhenrie]

Thank you so much for your reply! It has given me tremendous comfort to know that an adoptive mother has read my words & has a heart big enough to feel empathy for me. Let us birthmoms only hope that all adoptive moms are as loving as you!