When Alyssa hit about 14/15 I decided I needed to do something about my grief and learn more about adoption. I never heard of any other nmoms feeling the way I did towards my daughter that I hadn't seen in years. I never heard of other moms continue to love their children and want to know them.. I never heard of moms still grieving years later. The media and Hollywood portrays birthmoms as crazy, psycho, serial killer, drug addicts, prostitutes, or saints. I wasn't any of those things. I did have sex before I got married and more than one time. But so has 99.99% of all of my friends. I have never done drugs, been to jail, or locked up in the loony bin.
Where do I fall into adoption land? I wanted to know that question. I also wanted to know what it is like to adopt, I wanted to know what it was like to be adopted, I wanted to know do other nmoms feel like me. I have always loved to read. I started reading books at first from the church book store. They don't have many on adoption but they have alot on how to adopt. I didn't care about how to adopt. I'm way past that point. I wanted to know about the aftermath of adoption. I even went to LDSFS and asked the counselor for books about adoption and how it affects the adoptee. He had told me he didn't know of any.
I signed up to groups on yahoo and google for birthmoms, search groups, and just plain old adoption triad groups. I found out alot on adoption and how the adoptee feels. Not all of it was great. Even adoptees from great families had issues. Wow, I never knew that. I seriously never knew that at all. I know adoptees in my personal life but that was not something anyone ever shared with me. I started getting books recommended from online friends. I read 6 to 10 books a year on adoption. I read up on Georgia Tann and the beginnings of modern US adoption. I've read about the current rules for European Nations on adoption. I read about what it is like to be adopted. I read a books about what adoptees want their adoptive parents to know. I read about reunions. I've read about what it is like to raise an adopted child. So for the last almost 4 years I have been doing this. I still do this, I'm reading 2 books right now. I feel like I'm getting a PHD on adoption.
Why you might wonder? Why would I torture myself like this. First of all my daughter that I placed for adoption is obviously adopted. I need to be the best parent for her. I know she has adopted parents too. But I needed to know of any issues or concern before she was ready to talk, so I could better understand her. Isn't that what all good parents do? We look into our kids problems and find ways to help them. I wanted to know what it has been like for her adoptive parents. I wanted to know if my feelings were normal.
I have read about some amazing Aparents who welcome their child's Nparents with open arms. Not only welcome the Nparents but helped search for them. Aparents who are exceptionally gracious and loving. Who understand that there will always be a bond between Nmother and child. The best thing for a child, even adult child is to build that bond. It doesn't take away from the bond between the child and Aparents but brings more love and acceptance into the adoptees life. Aparents who aren't jealous of Nparents. That is what I had hoped my daughters aparents were like. I assumed they were like that. After all they had written me for 11 years, they were good Christians, they went to church every Sunday, and went to the temple. They loved her unconditionally.
As I started to get into adoption blogland I found alot of sugar happy adoption blogs. Mostly from Aparents but a few Nmothers too. I don't dissuade those feelings of other Nmoms, because I was like that too at one point. I know that is how they feel right now. I was even asked to sit on a birthmom board. I had been on the sugar high. That is okay because it is much easier to live in the sugar happy place then come down for that sugar high and look at all the demons. Look at the things wrong with adoption and make them right. How do you fight a billion dollar industry? Not only look at the demons but that you help create that in your adult child. You are the one that placed your baby for adoption you are the ones that gave your child separation anxiety. You gave your child abandonment issues. That is an incredibly hard pill to swallow. I have had so many tears over that. Especially when my daughter told me a few months after reunion that she has abandonment issues. I know that was my fault, even if I didn't know that would happen when I placed her. It was still my actions that hurt my daughter, my first born.
I understand also the Amoms happy blogs after all they got their child out of the deal. Their child will learn to love them. They will be the only real mom their child knows. God helped in getting their child after all. It couldn't be money greasing the wheel help get their child. To actually say yes we paid for our child and put someone else through immense grief for the rest of their lives. Yes that is what God wants. That would be too hard to say. So they just say God helped me "get" my baby. Ohhh my favorite term for adopt is "get a baby". Yes god took a sacred love between a mother and child and tore it apart so another women could raise that child. And then God took a birth certificate, sealed it, and reissued another birth certificate, a false birth certificate, a lie. Yes God has his hand in all of that. No my God that I have worshipped does not do that. People do that. People playing God do those things.
Was the reunion between my daughter and I as I imagined? No, not at all, it was better, we are closer than I could have imagined, we talk several times a day, and we completely understand each other. She is smart, beautiful, caring, generous, hard working, funny, I can laugh and cry with her. We just get each other. We can read each other and almost know what the other is thinking.
What about her aparents? No they still aren't ready for me to be in her life. I have picked up Alyssa from her aparents house when her amom was home and her amom wouldn't even come to the door to meet me. Yes she knew it was me at the door, but she wasn't ready to meet me. I guess that is her insecurities, but it still hurts. I gave them my daughter to raise and 18 years later they can't meet me in person and hold a conversation.
One more blessing of adoption.
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