You Never “Get Over It”

*I know, I know, I’m WAAAAY late on this one, but it directly applies to my situation and I don’t feel like coming up with my own topic to blog about.  I just want to blog.

This round we’re going to consider one critique of fully open adoptions. Have you ever heard–or perhaps even made–statements like these?

“We have medical histories and can share the information we have about their birth parents with our children now. If they feel a need to initiate contact with their birth families when they are adults, we will fully support them.”

“The decision to have a relationship with her bio family should be hers when she is ready. Creating a relationship between them before she wants it might cause issues in the future.”

“Children deserve to have just one family during childhood and not to deal with anything adoption-related until they are more mature. A fully open adoption robs a child of a normal childhood.”

These statements are from people participating in closed and semi-open adoptions. I paraphrased them slightly, but left the meanings intact.

The writers share a certain point-of-view: that direct contact during early childhood between birth families and children placed for adoption may not be the best idea. Adopted persons should be free to initiate relationships with their first families–or not–on their own timetable. The parents (first and adoptive) in an adoption shouldn’t make such an important and personal decision for them.

What is your response? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

I must say I disagree.  After learning as much as I have about adoption, especially the open variety, I just cannot accept that forming a relationship with me is “just” my son’s job.  After all, I knew his parents before I “knew” him.  Shouldn’t THEY be the ones to set the example of accepting me, or caring for me, of making sure people know that I AM part of him?  I think so.  I don’t think they think so, though.

I’ve always felt like they just want me to disappear, to not be a relevant part of his life, and they use the above posted excuses to get away with shoving me to the side.  Of course, I didn’t really discuss how they planned to explain adoption to our son before he was born with them, so I suppose its partly my fault because I was just uninformed.

So much for informed consent, eh?

It’s a shame, because his family is so much like (or I sense is like) my family.  I really think we could forge a relationship that wouldn’t be painful or intrusive.  I like them.  Granted, they are closer in age to MY parents, so I would assume that they have more in common with them than me, but I like them as people.   I really do.  I feel like they don’t know ME as a person, though, so even if they are framing our son’s adoption to him, they can’t possibly be doing it correctly because they only have the slightest glimpse of me; the pregnant, scared, cornered me.

I’m just not sure how welcomed a detailed bio of myself would be.  I mean, if they’re not really talking about adoption anyway, what good would it do?  He would just have to find out about me on his own in the first place, and they have my address, so I could just tell HIM firsthand instead of writing letters and such to his parents with no knowledge of what happens to them.

Can you see my dilema?

• What do you/your family do to integrate open adoption and birthday celebrations?
• What do you wish you would see in future birthday celebrations re: involvement with your child’s adoptive parents/birth parents?
• Do you have an open adoption agreement that requires contact on/around birthdays?
• How does that agreement affect you? Do you wish it were different? Do you wish that you did have an agreement that requires such contact?
• If you do not have contact around birthdays, do you do something private to honor birthdays?
• If you’re an adoptee, how were birthdays celebrated in your family with regards to open adoption?
• How do you wish they would have been celebrated?
• And anything else you can think of!

Well, this is going to be the first roundtable that I actually am blogging about (if my computer can cooperate long enough for me to get this written, that is…)

For me, birthdays are a mix.  I am always sent a letter and a book of pics (collected throughout the year) the week of his birthday.  They have never been late, and for that I am grateful.  My reaction to those pics varies, though.  For example, when my son turned 3, it was the first year that I recall actually having a meltdown.  I got the pics in the mail and decided that it would be a good idea to open them before work.  That, in fact, turned out to be a very BAD idea.  When I got to work, I just couldn’t hold myself together.  Thank goodness my boss was also my friend, and she let me cry on her shoulder for 30 minutes, then even told me I could go have a drink before I started my shift.  Bless her heart, I told her that if I had one drink, I would have 10 drinks, so that probably wouldn’t be a good idea.  She went ahead and made sure my shift got covered and let me go home to wallow in self-pity.

I initially had hoped that I would be able to take a yearly visit to see my son around his birthday, since it’s a time of year when not much is really going on (like other holidays and such).  His parents told me in no uncertian terms that that was NOT going to happen.  Ok then.

This past year, I didn’t even open the package they sent me on his birthday until almost August; his birthday is in April.   I just didn’t think I could deal with the fallout-if there was to be any.  Sometimes the pics bother me, sometimes they don’t.  Most birthdays, I listen to a mix CD I made shortly after his birth which contains 16 of the saddest songs you have ever heard.   Around the actual time of his birth, I usually feel sick andweepy.  I try not to think about it, but the memories are SO vivid and clear that they invade my thoughts whether I want them to or not.

I have often toyed with the idea of having some kind of ritual for his birthday (preferably one that requires me to stay home and NOT go to work), but I just don’t know WHAT.  Nothing really brings me any peace about him being gone.  I have yet to find any ritual, any ANTHING that makes my soul less raw, my emotions less fragile on his birthday.  To be honest, I don’t think I’m up to trying.  It’s hard.  I’m emotionally lazy.

I have always wanted to send him a birthday card, but I never have, for a couple of reasons:

#1.  I just think it would be much too painful to buy a card for my son that doesn’t address him as such.

#2. I feel like I should send cards for his sisters birthday (and I don’t mind doing that) and I don’t know her birthday and I feel like an ass for asking.  I feel like they probably told me when I first met them and I should have remembered.

#3.  I kinda hate cards anyway, and I don’t know what else would be appropriate to send.  A letter?  What would I write? I don’t even know how his adoption is being “framed” for him, so I have NO clue what I can/can’t say to him.

I am such a chicken shit.  Seriously.

Maybe this year I will suck it up and send a card.  I SHOULD. I WANT to. The last thing I want is for my son to look back and go “gee, my mom didn’t even bother to send me a card on my birthday, she really must not have cared” because NOTHING could be further from the truth.

NOTHING.

Upon thinking about this subject for the past few days, I have some additional thoughts.

I would NEVER deny my son should he ever come looking for me. NEVER.

I am not so much in denial that I do not recognize that I gave birth to a perfectly healthy, beautiful baby boy. That much I did. I nurtured him, I gave birth to him. Easily, I might add, but I did birth him. Lol.

There are so many things that I wish I had discussed with his potential adoptive parents when I was pregnant. I just didn’t know any better. I didn’t use an agency. I used adoption.com. Smart, eh?  So, part of my denial is trying to excuse the fact that I didn’t do much research. My mom (whom I was living with) told me I was going to place my baby, and I went along with the plan, because, after all she’s my mom and she knows best and I am not good enough, right?

The first couple on adoption.com that didn’t chastise me for not having been to the doctor despite the fact that I was 2.5 months pregnant, I chose.  I hate myself for that. For not knowing I had options, as I sat at the library, alone, looking for adoptive parents for my son.

But now, knowing what my son may have to endure because of his status as an adoptee, I hate what I did. Even though his adopive parents ARE in general, good people. They JUST AREN’T ME.

And that sucks. For him and for me. And his full blooded sister.

Thanks to Suz over at Writing My Wrongs (http://writingmywrongs.com/2009/11/10/what-does-it-feel-like/) for providing the inspiration for a post for tonight.  I wanted to write, but was having a hard time pinpointing what to write about.  Now I have something.

My denial.

Sometimes I don’t think of it as denial.  After all, I have pictures of my son in my house.  I read adoption blogs.  I contemplate reaching out to my son’s family and requesting a more open relationship.  I own The Primal Wound and several other adoption related books.

But on the other hand, we have the overwhelming evidence that I most likely AM in denial: the absolute secrecy in my family about my son’s existence, the fact that I HAVEN’T yet reached out to my son’s family, my adoption books gathering dust on a shelf in the dark recesses of my walk in closet. 

Yeah, denial.

I’m not sure I know HOW to come out of it.  I spent most of my pregnancy convincing myself that my son was THEIRS.  I let them name him.  I sent them his ultrasound pics.  I was his keeper, but I don’t feel like his mother.  I really don’t.

My god that hurts. I don’t feel like his mother.

But tomorrow I will wake up and I may not get a chance to think about my son until later in the day.  I may not think of him at all.  I am kind of empty.  I honestly don’t feel anything when I think of him anymore (except on the rare occasion I feel like crying).   I know he’s got a good family.  I know he’s provided for. 

What I don’t know is…how (or if) his adoption is being presented to him.  That will get me all riled up every once in a while, but only because there is so much literature about openness and honesty in adoption and I know it won’t ever be utilized  by them.  Deaf ears and all that.   Whatever, I suppose.

My denial provides me with a place to exist where I was not weak, a place where I made a GOOD decision about my son’s future.  Because, in the deepest parts of my heart and soul, I hate myself for giving him away.  I hate myself for letting my mother “tell” me how I was going to deal with my unplanned pregnancy.  I hate that I was weak.  I hate that I gave up.  Hate, hate, hate.

Hence, I cannot dwell there.  There is too much anger, too much pain.  Until I can find a therapist in my area that can handle this, I cannot simply let it go unleashed.  So I tuck it away, make it abstract, and pretend it doesn’t apply to me.  It’s easy to think about my son if I don’t think about what it would be like to have him here.  It’s easy to pretend that he really isn’t part of me.  The last time he was was 6 years ago.  It’s hard for me to make the connection of blood and genetics when I can’t SEE it, can’t FEEL it, am not forced to parent it every day.

I mean, yes, I love him.  Yes, I would die for him, just as I would for my parented daughter.  

But when I don’t have the constant reminder, it’s easier for my heart to just not think about it too deeply.  Not to dwell on the fact that HE IS GONE.  I lost my chance. I gave it to someone else.

I miss my baby.