[kelceesmom]

What a wonderful post you put out here. Sometimes speaking the truth can set you free of some of the guilt you are feeling. But, I believe you shouldn't feel guilty at all. You are who you are and admit that and that is progress. Maybe someday you will be able to reunite the bmom and feel totally at ease. I think you speak for a lot of us who aren't brave enough to admit what you are writing about.

I also believe if only for a brief moment we all have those feelings. Take care of yourself and your family. You are doing a fantastic job at being a mommy.

[KristineM]

Mom2Max,

I was trying to think of how to put my feelings into words about our daughters birthmom, but your words have helped me. I feel much like you do. I love our daughters birthmom so much, I feel a "bond" and I tend to try to "mother her". However, I do feel threatened by her. It is not that she had done anything inparticular to make me feel threatened, but I just do. I want to be enough for my daughter, I don't want her to tell me when she is a teenager that I am not her "real" mom and then go running to her birthmom. I worry about how and what to tell my daughter about her birthparents. I want my daughter to have contact with her birthparents on a regular basis, but after our visits I feel so strange. I worry, does she think I'm a good mom, what did she think about this or that, does she totally regret her decision. I drive myself crazy with these questions. I hope as the years go by, it gets easier...

[nikkianni]

Far from sucking, I think you are very brave. Not only to be so honest here, but with yourself. It's a powerful thing to do.
So here's my truth: I live in total abject fear of losing my DD. What if someday she looks at me and says, "I want to be with my REAL parents" and walks out the door forever?
That thought hovers over my head every day. As much as we love her, as honest as we'll be about her adoption, bparents, etc. Regardless of us supporting her meeting them when she's ready to, what if she just decides we totally screwed up and she wants nothing to do with us?
How can we stop it from happening? Are we already starting down that road?
When I let myself think about it I start obsessing about it. And the worst part is there's no way to know until it's too late.

[Vogi2002]

My adoption truth?

Basically....I'm selfish in my role as my son's mother. I don't want to share it, and I don't want him to share his feelings he has for me for anyone else but his mommy and daddy.

I have a relationship somewhat like what you have with the bparents but not that extreme. My truth? I want to quit. I want to run. I want to forget that he could have a bond with someone else and want to know them.

Another ugly truth? I don't want him to find anything in common with them. I want him to only feel safe and at home with us.

We all have these ugly truths. They are a part of the process. Some, if not most of them, we will have to come face to face with and deal with on our own. Just knowing they are there and what these emotions are that you are feeling can help though. Believe me, we each have some ugly truths about ourselves...and it's much better to just dig them up and bring them out in the open...then it's easier to ease them....to put them aside. I don't know if they ever completely go away...but at least we know WHAT we are feeling and that it is normal to feel that way.

I just posted another ugly truth about the word "mom" earlier today. Must have been a confession day for me!! LOL

[Lilly's Mommy]

Wow. I'm amazed and relieved to read so many others who struggle with entitlement to parent our children. While our daughter's birth mom has never done anything to undercut us as parents, I almost always wonder if she thinks I'm a good enough mom. I feel like all of my weaknesses are huge and obvious to her. I too wonder and fear sometimes that Lilly will grow up and wish she had only had her first mother.

I never heard any of this before adopting, but I'm glad. It may have scared me out of an open adoption, but that would have been a mistake for us. In our situation (notice I'm not suggesting that this is true for every situation), our OA benefits all of us. The fact that it raises doubts and concerns in me is something I have to work through. I feel like the blessing that my daughter receives from knowing her (wonderful) birth mom is worth some hard work on my part.

Thank you Gottahave for posting this. I think many are helped in knowing that variations of these thoughts are common among adoptive parents.

[aallen25]

Thank you very much for your post, Gottahavehope. DH and I are "in the process" to adopt. We hope to be parents by the end of next month. I've often wondered about every feeling you said you've had. I'm worried I will feel resentment towards emom or Shiloh will grow up and feel more "at home" with her biological family. It greatly helps to know that if I do experience any of these feelings I'm not a bad person and it's just something I'll work through. It's nice to know you're not the only one.

[tanmansmom]

[quote=Runyan2002]My adoption truth?

Basically....I'm selfish in my role as my son's mother. I don't want to share it, and I don't want him to share his feelings he has for me for anyone else but his mommy and daddy.

I have a relationship somewhat like what you have with the bparents but not that extreme. My truth? I want to quit. I want to run. I want to forget that he could have a bond with someone else and want to know them.

Another ugly truth? I don't want him to find anything in common with them. I want him to only feel safe and at home with us.

You read my mind! I think we are all so grateful for our children that we feel that we have to be willing to say that we will, in some way, share them. I'm not willing to share! At what point can I stop being his amom and be his mom? I resent putting an "a" before mom because although I appreciate that someone else birthed him, I have been there every second of his life. I will continue to be there. I understand that his bmom may love him and birthed him, but I love him and mother him every second of every day. We still aren't final because the bfather can't be found so we have to now go through the papers. I resent, RESENT the fact that this man (and I use this term loosely) can run out of fear of obligation, but can at this point waltz back in and decide to parent. Thank you for this thread that allows us to put aside the politically correct rhetoric of adoption and voice our raw emotions. Logic and understanding will prevail again for me tomorrow, but for today it was nice to vent.

[gottahavehope]

I don't even know where to begin. I want to respond personally to every single one of you...but for lack of time I'll just say Thank You for listening, for caring, and most of all for sharing your own truths. I was terrified to turn on my computer and read this thread. How amazing to know that others have felt what I feel. How affirming to know you all don't think I'm a monster. I'm so moved right now...there are no words.

I really want to try and write, talk, think and live with more honesty regarding my son's adoption.

Please keep your truths coming.


Peace and love,
K

[Hadley2]

gottahavehope, you give me hope, you know that.

--To other posters, please understand that I am responding very specifically to ghh's situation as well as my own and am not in any way generalizing or stereotyping.--

In your situation, like mine, you have many valid reasons for having at least mixed feelings. Some of those if you didn't have, you wouldn't be a responsible parent because this person is capable of harming and actually already has harmed by way of terrible threats and disruption of your household, your child.

Unlike you, I have far less anguish, especially guilt, about setting boundaries stronger than what would be ideal in an ideal situation. The thing is, we are not in ideal situations. It can be hard when the need for pushing away and the feelings it takes to do the pushing gets tangled up in the idea of what a "good" person "should" think and feel and do for another human being who is clearly suffering. It is not that I don't care about fd's birthparents, who are, after all, actually part of my family, or wish them well, it is that I learned many years ago to detach with love. Of course, I still can get exasperated, angry, resentful...then even more resentful for not being who I want to be when I think of their inability to be any different. Still, as much as possible, for me, detaching is the only healthy way to have any contact at all with addictive, abusive, or otherwise toxic persons.

Al-Anon, the 12-step support group for families of alcoholics and addicts, is a wonderful resource for learning this and, more importantly, actually transforming one's reactions to others, letting them be who they are with dignity while caring about them without being enmeshed in either their issues or guilt over them or our feelings about them.

As for the other part, separate from the issues, of just wanting to be mom without all the "extras," so many of us are there with you. It is not a character flaw, it is a human trait. Thank you for giving it a voice.

[thanksgivingmom]

Gottahave, I think the way you have approached your truth and presented it is what truly gains my admiration.

You have every right to have your feelings. This is YOUR story and your experience.

It's awesome that you found the courage to share your truth, and to know that it's not everyone's truth. To not take your truth and say, See? This is how it is for everyone and every situation. You own your truth and how you perceive it can't be wrong.

I wish I knew the truth from A's mom, no matter what it was. At least I would know....

Your truth gives me hope though that maybe DD's mom is working through some really confusing truths of her own. That maybe it doesn't have to mean that she doesn't want me in thier life....Thank you

[live4rachael]

Thank you for this post. I've nearly been brought to tears, in that I know I'm not alone. I have zero reason to be upset/angry/fearful towards our birthmom. She is wonderful; in fact, her entire family is and I love having them as part of our family. But that "entitlement" issue is what's been eating at me. I want DD to see her birthmom, I want her to know where she comes from, I want her to be able to ask those questions, I want her to see what a good person her birthmom was AND is. But at the same time, I hate fearing I will ever play second fiddle. She's given me NO reason to think it. Our friends/family think we're "great" for doing the OA and can't imagine how we can - that they never would. I can't imagine doing anything else for DD at this point... but does that mean I can't still have this range of emotion, both good and bad?

Oh thank you for this post. Knowing that others are juggling this makes it seem easier, that I'm not just overanalyzing myself to death.

[lovemy2boys]

gottahavehope - your honesty, and that of everyone else, are humbling. I have the exact same feelings but sometimes (oftentimes) I feel like I don't have the right to them. I've seen so many great examples of adoption and have heard of such great bonding between birth/adoptive families that I often wonder what's wrong with me when I have those thoughts. Thank you for making me feel like I'm not alone!!

[bajj]

Originally Posted by lovemy2boys

gottahavehope - your honesty, and that of everyone else, are humbling. I have the exact same feelings but sometimes (oftentimes) I feel like I don't have the right to them. I've seen so many great examples of adoption and have heard of such great bonding between birth/adoptive families that I often wonder what's wrong with me when I have those thoughts. Thank you for making me feel like I'm not alone!!

Awww, love, I imagine a lot of us have had those feeligs.

The first time my ds met his bbrothers, we took a pic of him with them and Bmom. I have to tell you, as happy as I was to see all of them, my heart just broke because a part of me thought, "This is where he belongs." I was so afraid of that thought. It was the first time I doubted being his Mother and he was 3 years old!

I talked it over with dh and he felt that because there was such a strong physical resemblance that it probably just tugged at some old insecurities. I am sure he was right and since then have not had that thought again. It was just that first time.

Gottahave, thank you for being so honest. I know I've gone through a huge array of emotions myself. I think acknowdging them is a good way to sift through them and start to make sense of them.

(((((((Gotta)))))))))

[lonni]

This thread is wonderful.
For myself, I have always had trouble reconciling the fact that my joy comes on the back of another familie's devastation;~((

[joskids]

Originally Posted by bajj

The first time my ds met his bbrothers, we took a pic of him with them and Bmom. I have to tell you, as happy as I was to see all of them, my heart just broke because a part of me thought, "This is where he belongs." (((((((Gotta)))))))))

My daughter met our 9 year old son's birthfamily and saw photos of his birth siblings and met his Aunt (not birthmom). She said it just hit her so hard that her little brother really belonged to another family and, even though she has always considered him to be her brother, to see his first family was very overwhelming to her. She was just shaking when she left them. These are powerful feelings. Again, my point that adoption is not ideal for anyone in the triad. Loving and functional biofamilies are ideal but we just don't live in an ideal world. It's nice to be able to voice our truths on this post.