I LOVE talking to people and listening to them tell me about their lives. It is always so interesting to me to get below the surface and find out who somebody REALLY is and what makes them tick... you know, what types of experiences have influenced them and shaped who they are. I am always amazed at how much more beautiful a person is to me after I have been given a small window into their life for a few minutes. It has helped make me a more compassionate person and taught me WAY MORE than I could have ever known that I didn't know! How is that for confusing! LOL
Anyway, if you are like me and want to soak up more and gain a better perspective on the very complex world of adoption, I encourage you to check out the Open Adoption Bloggers Interview Project over at Production, Not Reproduction. You can also click on the button to the right to find out the details. I am excited about participating and getting to know another blogger, not to mention, finding new blogs to read. Don't be shy! Jump in and learn from someone else! And have a voice! :)
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Growth and change... The first of the story
Well, for those of you who stay pretty connected with me, you know this has been a rocky adoption week. The blog was private for a couple of days while I was getting more information on why in the world some total stranger would contact my agency and meddle in my personal situation. I was told that the person (who is still unknown to me) was coming at it from an angle of "concern" for me. I still maintain that it was completely inappropriate for someone to show "concern" for me by going behind my back, going to the agency first instead of to ME first, and jeopardizing an already delicate situation. I will completely own the responsibility for writing on a public blog. And I do have analytics, so I happen to know that my agency has been reading... I knew that before I got the call. Just do me a favor, friends (and foes). I ask that if you disagree with me (and I know you will at times), please have enough compassion and decency to come to me personally, or respectfully join the discussion on the blog. I welcome differing viewpoints as long as people keep it civil. Afterall, the whole purpose of the blog is to facilitate discussion and give a voice to people who are often dismissed. I stand behind what I believe. But I am fair. Please be fair to me. And don't punch me in the gut in anonymity or in a passive aggressive way. If you can't respect me, can you respect my family, my precious little girls, and my first daughter? Because those are the people who were affected by your "concern" this week.
With that said, I thought it might be a good time to explain a few things about where I started out and how I got to this point. I was asked this week how I could go from being supportive of Bethany and speaking publicly for them to having a blog that talks about so much that I believe needs to be changed. I think that is a very legitimate question and one that is worthy of a sincere response. If you are going to be able to see where I am coming from now, you have to be able to see where I started out. This may take a couple of posts so as not to bog you down completely in one sitting. :)
I grew up knowing about Bethany. I grew up in the church and in a Christian home. My church was very heavily involved with Bethany. I knew people who adopted through Bethany, people who kept foster babies and who did interim care for Bethany, and people who opened their homes to women who were relinquishing through Bethany who needed a temporary place to stay. I did not know anyone who had ever relinquished a child. We regularly had "Sanctity of Life" Sunday each year, had elders in our church who were on the local Bethany Board, etc... Bethany was always a very good thing in my mind. So naturally, when I became pregnant right around my 17th birthday, it was THE place to go. My parents were as lost as I was, and it was as if when we called Bethany, the cavalry was coming. Help was on the way. ( I promise I don't mean to sound like I am making light of this. I am just spilling it all out, and this truly is how it was at the time.) We, my mom and dad and I, had HOPE that they would help us sort through the possibilities. Our heads were spinning, and we honestly were in a panic. Well, my parents were in a panic. And heartbroken. Crushed. I was humiliated by what I had done, the circumstances surrounding HOW I got pregnant (not ready to talk about that here) and basically scared out of my mind. No, more like TERRIFIED. I had just finished my junior year of high school and had taken Senior English in summer school.
My mom and I went to Bethany and talked with the person who had been there for years and years... someone beloved by our church and many families we knew. She was a gentle woman, very kind and compassionate and calming. We used up a lot of tissues in her office, but we breathed easy after we left. We had more clarity. I was only 8 weeks pregnant. To this day, I truly believe that everything she said and did was from a heart that desired to help us and to show us the love of Christ. Her heart was in her work, and she was a person of integrity. She is now retired from Bethany.
Over the next few days after that appointment, my mom was on the phone with the Bethany office. I was not involved in those conversations, but it was revealed to me soon after that the social worker and my parents believed I should not go through my pregnancy in my hometown. Too many outside influences. Too many people who would offer opinions and advice. So... drum roll please... I was going to go live in another city, one hundred miles away, and live with what Bethany called a shepherding family. In a matter of a few weeks, it was all said and done... totally arranged... and I was packing my bags and driving my little red beretta down the freeway. It didn't matter that I sobbed and begged and pleaded to PLEASE be able to stay at home. I had no say in it. Off I went. I stayed in the other town the entire time I was pregnant, coming home only for a few days at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas. I am not usually a vulgar person, but frankly, it sucked. Bigtime. I had never felt so alone and in despair. If I thought I was terrified when I learned I was pregnant, it was nothing compared to how I felt when I was sent away. Oh, and I forgot... First we had to tell my church that I was pregnant, that I was remorseful, and that I was working with Bethany. THEN I had to leave home. Of course, at the time, it was explained to me that it would be better if we told the church all at one time instead of just letting people gossip and spread misinformation. Actually, it was pretty much the most humilating thing that has ever happened to me, and separated my heart from the church for quite some time. You have to understand that at age 17, when everyone is already so disappointed and so angry and so crushed that you have messed up so badly, all you want to do is make it go away. Make it better. Try to repair things. Do what it takes to make your parents and the other adults in your life approve of you. At least, that is how I was wired, but I'm getting off track...
I don't want to go into much detail about my time in the shepherding home. I do remember a great deal about that time, but I honestly don't want to drag anyone else into my story at this point. As lonely and debilitatingly painful as it was to be sent away, I do have to say that the mother in the home was the first person to ever question if I truly had a relationship with God. Of course at the time, I couldn't have been more offended! LOL But I do credit her with asking me some hard questions about spiritual things, and causing me to evaluate my heart... all the while being very angry with her! :) I am not proud of that, but that is how I felt at the time.
While I lived in the home, I spent my days finishing my senior year of high school via correspondence and getting some college credits through the university in the town. Ironically, this involvement with the university would help me years and years later when my husband and I moved back to that town, because everything was familiar to me. Actually, I find it very, very sweet that the happiest memories of my life up to this point are in that town, because for years it contained my darkest moments and was a place of instant pain for me whenever I had to visit . I believe it was God's tenderness with me and a personal gift that he gave out of love for me, but I'll talk more about that at another time. In addition to finishing school and starting some college work, I had some responsibilities around the house (which were good for me) and I met regularly with my social worker.
I want to go into a lot more detail with that, but it is extremely late. Like almost 3 am late. And since I have two little kids, I don't have any business staying up any later. :) But your eyes are tired by this point anyway. I'll pick back up next time.
With that said, I thought it might be a good time to explain a few things about where I started out and how I got to this point. I was asked this week how I could go from being supportive of Bethany and speaking publicly for them to having a blog that talks about so much that I believe needs to be changed. I think that is a very legitimate question and one that is worthy of a sincere response. If you are going to be able to see where I am coming from now, you have to be able to see where I started out. This may take a couple of posts so as not to bog you down completely in one sitting. :)
I grew up knowing about Bethany. I grew up in the church and in a Christian home. My church was very heavily involved with Bethany. I knew people who adopted through Bethany, people who kept foster babies and who did interim care for Bethany, and people who opened their homes to women who were relinquishing through Bethany who needed a temporary place to stay. I did not know anyone who had ever relinquished a child. We regularly had "Sanctity of Life" Sunday each year, had elders in our church who were on the local Bethany Board, etc... Bethany was always a very good thing in my mind. So naturally, when I became pregnant right around my 17th birthday, it was THE place to go. My parents were as lost as I was, and it was as if when we called Bethany, the cavalry was coming. Help was on the way. ( I promise I don't mean to sound like I am making light of this. I am just spilling it all out, and this truly is how it was at the time.) We, my mom and dad and I, had HOPE that they would help us sort through the possibilities. Our heads were spinning, and we honestly were in a panic. Well, my parents were in a panic. And heartbroken. Crushed. I was humiliated by what I had done, the circumstances surrounding HOW I got pregnant (not ready to talk about that here) and basically scared out of my mind. No, more like TERRIFIED. I had just finished my junior year of high school and had taken Senior English in summer school.
My mom and I went to Bethany and talked with the person who had been there for years and years... someone beloved by our church and many families we knew. She was a gentle woman, very kind and compassionate and calming. We used up a lot of tissues in her office, but we breathed easy after we left. We had more clarity. I was only 8 weeks pregnant. To this day, I truly believe that everything she said and did was from a heart that desired to help us and to show us the love of Christ. Her heart was in her work, and she was a person of integrity. She is now retired from Bethany.
Over the next few days after that appointment, my mom was on the phone with the Bethany office. I was not involved in those conversations, but it was revealed to me soon after that the social worker and my parents believed I should not go through my pregnancy in my hometown. Too many outside influences. Too many people who would offer opinions and advice. So... drum roll please... I was going to go live in another city, one hundred miles away, and live with what Bethany called a shepherding family. In a matter of a few weeks, it was all said and done... totally arranged... and I was packing my bags and driving my little red beretta down the freeway. It didn't matter that I sobbed and begged and pleaded to PLEASE be able to stay at home. I had no say in it. Off I went. I stayed in the other town the entire time I was pregnant, coming home only for a few days at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas. I am not usually a vulgar person, but frankly, it sucked. Bigtime. I had never felt so alone and in despair. If I thought I was terrified when I learned I was pregnant, it was nothing compared to how I felt when I was sent away. Oh, and I forgot... First we had to tell my church that I was pregnant, that I was remorseful, and that I was working with Bethany. THEN I had to leave home. Of course, at the time, it was explained to me that it would be better if we told the church all at one time instead of just letting people gossip and spread misinformation. Actually, it was pretty much the most humilating thing that has ever happened to me, and separated my heart from the church for quite some time. You have to understand that at age 17, when everyone is already so disappointed and so angry and so crushed that you have messed up so badly, all you want to do is make it go away. Make it better. Try to repair things. Do what it takes to make your parents and the other adults in your life approve of you. At least, that is how I was wired, but I'm getting off track...
I don't want to go into much detail about my time in the shepherding home. I do remember a great deal about that time, but I honestly don't want to drag anyone else into my story at this point. As lonely and debilitatingly painful as it was to be sent away, I do have to say that the mother in the home was the first person to ever question if I truly had a relationship with God. Of course at the time, I couldn't have been more offended! LOL But I do credit her with asking me some hard questions about spiritual things, and causing me to evaluate my heart... all the while being very angry with her! :) I am not proud of that, but that is how I felt at the time.
While I lived in the home, I spent my days finishing my senior year of high school via correspondence and getting some college credits through the university in the town. Ironically, this involvement with the university would help me years and years later when my husband and I moved back to that town, because everything was familiar to me. Actually, I find it very, very sweet that the happiest memories of my life up to this point are in that town, because for years it contained my darkest moments and was a place of instant pain for me whenever I had to visit . I believe it was God's tenderness with me and a personal gift that he gave out of love for me, but I'll talk more about that at another time. In addition to finishing school and starting some college work, I had some responsibilities around the house (which were good for me) and I met regularly with my social worker.
I want to go into a lot more detail with that, but it is extremely late. Like almost 3 am late. And since I have two little kids, I don't have any business staying up any later. :) But your eyes are tired by this point anyway. I'll pick back up next time.
Friday, February 19, 2010
May I recommend...
My friend Michelle has a fabulous post on recognizing loss in adoption. She did such a great job of compelling the naysayers to acknowledge the reality of WHY adoption contains loss, nomatter what kind of adoption you have. Her perspective comes from being in the role of adoptee, mom to bio children and mom to a child through international adoption. She is gracious and articulate. Go check her out!
Friday, February 12, 2010
A checklist from God
Overall, I feel good. I feel positive. I feel scared, but I'm alright. In working on my letter, I have hope, and I can only live in the present. I can't forecast grief. I have to do what I believe is best, with the information that I have available to me (not much), and step out there. I have continued to go through all the stuff I saved from my first pregnancy, and it is so very interesting to look at it with older eyes, an older mind, and an older heart. It makes me want to go back and put my arms around the 17 year old who was so lonely and heartbroken. I have tried to read some of my journal entries, but I am not quite ready to go there, yet. When I start to read the words, I can actually go back in time in my head and see the room I stayed in at the shepherding home, think of specific moments, songs, smells... It is a sad thing for me. I don't have a good reason to go back to those places right now, so I am going to set the journal aside until I am able to take on some of the reality of it.
I did come across some notes, though, that I thought might help some of the people out there who have a hard time understanding what my (and so many others') big beef is with Bethany. I'm not trying to just spew ugliness about them. Honestly. But I have begun to realize in this grieving process that a very LARGE part of my grief is that they still counsel women in the same manner I was counseled, and people LOVE them for it. I mean, they LOVE it. They praise Bethany's ministry and just can't say enough good about them. And if you bring up anything negative... look out. LOL
Well, folks, here's a glimpse into one of my counseling sessions during my pregnancy. I would often take notes while I met with my caseworker, and this is the gem I pulled out of my files today. It is a list of questions she wanted me to think over and answer for her during our next meeting together regarding my desire to keep my baby. Hold on tight!
1) Am I truly searching out God's will or my own?
2) Am I being realistic about being able to go to college if I parent?
3) Am I remaining firm in my desire to parent because of outside influences and opinions?
4) Am I doing what is truly best for my child with the right motives?
5) Is my relationship with my parents suffering because I want to parent?
6) Is my relationship with God suffering because of selfishness?
7) Am I willing to humbly obey God's will as He reveals it to me?
8) Do I love God more than my baby?
9) Am I closing my eyes to the doors God is opening because of denial?
10) Am I thankful to God for what He has delivered me from so far?
Surely anyone who will be honest knows that what they just read was very sad. Do you think that was ministry? Was that unbiased? Appropriate for speaking with a 17 year old who is purposefully separated from her parents? Do you think that is something that I should look back on and respond with a "Thank God Bethany helped me see the light!" I know the word sad is not very descriptive, but honestly, sometimes a simple word says a lot. Sad. That is what I am every time I have read back through that today.
It is not ok to counsel women in this way. It is using guilt and God to manipulate a desired response from someone who is in a vulnerable state physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The woman who asked me to think on those things was not a tyrant. She was a sweet, sincere woman in her young twenties who was working on her masters in social work. She was nice to me. She wrote kind little notes at the bottom of my form update letters for the first few months of my updates (until she left employment with Bethany to be closer to college friends.) She was as sweet as candy, but she was SERIOUSLY misguided. I have no doubt that she was well-intentioned. I'm sure she felt sorry for me and felt somewhat uncomfortable with my emotional struggles. I'm sure she probably entered her career with the hopes that she was going to minister to women in unplanned pregnancies and couples who suffered through infertility. I believe I've heard the career referred to as being a "dream-maker" before? (Tongue in cheek.)
Anyway, pure intentions or not, she bombed. But she isn't the only one. She is one of many, many social workers asking pregnant women if they are searching out God's will for their baby, all the while sending women home from their counseling appointments with those "Dear Birthmother" letters and profile books full of people already calling them a birthmother and praising them for being so selfless and mature and telling them their woes of being childless and having so much love to give. I'm not being snarky. I'm letting you into my life for about two minutes. I'm trying to show you how something that is so important to me, my belief in God and my desire to make a right decision, was used to convince me that I needed to give my baby to someone else who God approved of more. Go back and read it again if you need to.
I am not angry tonight. I'm not bitter. As I said before, I'm sad. I'm sad that people raise money for this to happen. I'm sad that when women talk about their experience, others are there to add insult to injury and tell them they just need to find some peace in their life. I'm sad that so many, many people would suppose that they know God's will for other people's lives. Maybe that is why they continue to charge so much for their services. I would imagine that supernatural wisdom like that is worth a pretty penny. LOL
I love my God. I am at peace with my God. I trust my God even though I am not certain of what he is doing in my life and my daughter's life. I live in forgiveness and freedom because He not only died for me, but then rose from the grave to show that he had overcome every evil thing, including death. Nothing, nothing, can confine Him or test His love for me. I do not have to accept someone else's definition of who He is or what He asks of me because He reveals Himself to me personally. This is the hope that everyone in Christ can claim. If you do not share my faith, I do not expect you to embrace what I am saying, but this is my source of strength and courage and confidence.
I want to write more, but I'll sleep now.
I did come across some notes, though, that I thought might help some of the people out there who have a hard time understanding what my (and so many others') big beef is with Bethany. I'm not trying to just spew ugliness about them. Honestly. But I have begun to realize in this grieving process that a very LARGE part of my grief is that they still counsel women in the same manner I was counseled, and people LOVE them for it. I mean, they LOVE it. They praise Bethany's ministry and just can't say enough good about them. And if you bring up anything negative... look out. LOL
Well, folks, here's a glimpse into one of my counseling sessions during my pregnancy. I would often take notes while I met with my caseworker, and this is the gem I pulled out of my files today. It is a list of questions she wanted me to think over and answer for her during our next meeting together regarding my desire to keep my baby. Hold on tight!
1) Am I truly searching out God's will or my own?
2) Am I being realistic about being able to go to college if I parent?
3) Am I remaining firm in my desire to parent because of outside influences and opinions?
4) Am I doing what is truly best for my child with the right motives?
5) Is my relationship with my parents suffering because I want to parent?
6) Is my relationship with God suffering because of selfishness?
7) Am I willing to humbly obey God's will as He reveals it to me?
8) Do I love God more than my baby?
9) Am I closing my eyes to the doors God is opening because of denial?
10) Am I thankful to God for what He has delivered me from so far?
Surely anyone who will be honest knows that what they just read was very sad. Do you think that was ministry? Was that unbiased? Appropriate for speaking with a 17 year old who is purposefully separated from her parents? Do you think that is something that I should look back on and respond with a "Thank God Bethany helped me see the light!" I know the word sad is not very descriptive, but honestly, sometimes a simple word says a lot. Sad. That is what I am every time I have read back through that today.
It is not ok to counsel women in this way. It is using guilt and God to manipulate a desired response from someone who is in a vulnerable state physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The woman who asked me to think on those things was not a tyrant. She was a sweet, sincere woman in her young twenties who was working on her masters in social work. She was nice to me. She wrote kind little notes at the bottom of my form update letters for the first few months of my updates (until she left employment with Bethany to be closer to college friends.) She was as sweet as candy, but she was SERIOUSLY misguided. I have no doubt that she was well-intentioned. I'm sure she felt sorry for me and felt somewhat uncomfortable with my emotional struggles. I'm sure she probably entered her career with the hopes that she was going to minister to women in unplanned pregnancies and couples who suffered through infertility. I believe I've heard the career referred to as being a "dream-maker" before? (Tongue in cheek.)
Anyway, pure intentions or not, she bombed. But she isn't the only one. She is one of many, many social workers asking pregnant women if they are searching out God's will for their baby, all the while sending women home from their counseling appointments with those "Dear Birthmother" letters and profile books full of people already calling them a birthmother and praising them for being so selfless and mature and telling them their woes of being childless and having so much love to give. I'm not being snarky. I'm letting you into my life for about two minutes. I'm trying to show you how something that is so important to me, my belief in God and my desire to make a right decision, was used to convince me that I needed to give my baby to someone else who God approved of more. Go back and read it again if you need to.
I am not angry tonight. I'm not bitter. As I said before, I'm sad. I'm sad that people raise money for this to happen. I'm sad that when women talk about their experience, others are there to add insult to injury and tell them they just need to find some peace in their life. I'm sad that so many, many people would suppose that they know God's will for other people's lives. Maybe that is why they continue to charge so much for their services. I would imagine that supernatural wisdom like that is worth a pretty penny. LOL
I love my God. I am at peace with my God. I trust my God even though I am not certain of what he is doing in my life and my daughter's life. I live in forgiveness and freedom because He not only died for me, but then rose from the grave to show that he had overcome every evil thing, including death. Nothing, nothing, can confine Him or test His love for me. I do not have to accept someone else's definition of who He is or what He asks of me because He reveals Himself to me personally. This is the hope that everyone in Christ can claim. If you do not share my faith, I do not expect you to embrace what I am saying, but this is my source of strength and courage and confidence.
I want to write more, but I'll sleep now.
"Let those who fear the Lord say, 'His love endures forever'. In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
Psalm 118:4-6
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
I dit it.
I wrote the letter. And I feel strange. I haven't done anything with it, but I guess the next step is to have another set of eyes read it. I probably need to change a few things that I am not yet aware of. :) I just kind of poured it all out and there it was.
It feels good to finally have something on paper. I have procrastinated for so long for what I believed to be very valid reasons. But it is time to stop hiding behind those reasons and just take a step in faith.
The bad news is that I will have to call Bethany in order to set up a meeting with them and then have them forward the letter. The good news is that I'm no longer 17, and I don't have to feel intimidated. It took me a long time to get here, but I'm actually pretty comfortable in my thirty-something skin. I have some things I'd like to say, and I don't mind saying them. It's amazing what 15 years of life can do to boost your confidence.
For the first time in a loooong time, I will have some genuine rest as I put my head on my pillow tonight. I don't know what the future holds or if there will be a lot of heartache because of this letter. But I have been praying about this for years, and very intensely for the last few months. I believe it is right to move forward with it.
It feels good to finally have something on paper. I have procrastinated for so long for what I believed to be very valid reasons. But it is time to stop hiding behind those reasons and just take a step in faith.
The bad news is that I will have to call Bethany in order to set up a meeting with them and then have them forward the letter. The good news is that I'm no longer 17, and I don't have to feel intimidated. It took me a long time to get here, but I'm actually pretty comfortable in my thirty-something skin. I have some things I'd like to say, and I don't mind saying them. It's amazing what 15 years of life can do to boost your confidence.
For the first time in a loooong time, I will have some genuine rest as I put my head on my pillow tonight. I don't know what the future holds or if there will be a lot of heartache because of this letter. But I have been praying about this for years, and very intensely for the last few months. I believe it is right to move forward with it.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Is there such a thing as a safe letter?
I've been reading through what little correspondence I have between my first daughter's family and me. There isn't much to read, but there is a lot to take in. I have been reading through it in preparation to send them a letter around the time of her birthday. Her birthday is in a few weeks, and she will be 15. FIFTEEN. That is very strange to me. And yet those years have not passed quickly.
I have realized something very important tonight. It may seem like a no-brainer to some, but try to be patient with me as I sort through the chaos in my life known as adoption grief.
I have realized something very important tonight. It may seem like a no-brainer to some, but try to be patient with me as I sort through the chaos in my life known as adoption grief.
I really detest Bethany Christian Services' abhorrent practices,
but I love my daughter's family, and I want them to know that. I want them to know ME, not some idea of who I might be.
I separate the two entirely in my heart. It is strange, but true. They are not Bethany. They are not doing the same old stuff over and over again to women after me. They are probably just living their lives the best that they can, and they don't know the heartache I live with. I believe that they love me, in some way that I cannot explain, because I know that they love my daughter. So I separate them from the people who still can't seem to understand that they have some major problems in the way they run their business. And it IS a business. (Another post for another night.)
I have struggled a lot with the fact that I have to rely on an agency that I don't trust to be the go between for me with a person who holds an enormous part of my heart. As I have read and re-read the several letters I have from my daughter's family, I see so much to love and to trust. I see much to respect. I just have a hard time believing that all those years ago they said they did not want to hear from me anymore. That is what I was told by the social worker... That it was too hard for my daughter's adoptive mother to be reminded of her adoption. It was painful for her and hard for her to write back, and they hoped that I would be willing to move on with my life.
I have struggled a lot with the fact that I have to rely on an agency that I don't trust to be the go between for me with a person who holds an enormous part of my heart. As I have read and re-read the several letters I have from my daughter's family, I see so much to love and to trust. I see much to respect. I just have a hard time believing that all those years ago they said they did not want to hear from me anymore. That is what I was told by the social worker... That it was too hard for my daughter's adoptive mother to be reminded of her adoption. It was painful for her and hard for her to write back, and they hoped that I would be willing to move on with my life.
We could spend a lot of time talking about that line of thinking, but I don't want to focus on it tonight. We all know moving on after losing a child in that way is bunk. Living through it? Living alongside it? Living a "real" life and an "adoption" life? I am familiar with all of that. But moving on? (Enter silent pause and crickets chirping...) It doesn't exist. Yeah, I moved on for about 8 or 9 years. Then I finally admitted that I was dead inside because I was grieving something everyday that no one would acknowledge. I was expected to be grateful and healed and look back on all of it as a growing experience. ?????
Anway, I don't have the emotional energy tonight to do justice to my adoption story. Maybe I can do that at a later time. The bare bones of it, though, is that I had a semi-open agreement where I was told after TPR that I couldn't know my daughter's name (not even her first name), where I was told that I could not have any more pictures of her after the first year, and where I was told by the social worker that I needed to move on and not ask for update letters after the 5th year. The end. Have a happy life. You are a special person. God bless you, honey.
(Huge exhale.) I've written a hundred letters since then that have all said something different. None of them have ever been mailed. I have always been too scared, or felt like I would somehow "be in trouble", or felt like I would be misunderstood... an irritation, threat, or annoyance to them. Fifteen years not knowing my daughter's name. Fourteen years without a picture of her. Ten years with no word on how her life is going and who she is as a person.
So much has happened in those years. What do I share with them? I want them to know I am happily married and that I have two wonderful children. I want them to know how I have changed and grown as a person. I want them to know about my cancers and our other family medical history. There are some important things there. I want to know what my first daughter is like. I want to know her first name. I feel like it was something that was just stolen from me... Something that I had a right to know... Something that my grieving heart needed to know... I did not have a closed agreement. I would never have let her go if I had known how the contact would play out. It was part of the "sale" to me, you know? "Nowdays, you don't have to wonder about your relinquished child. You can choose the family and stay in touch through letters and pictures. You never have to wonder how she is doing." Um, it hasn't really worked out for me that way, Bethany. But I know you still sell it like that.
I want my first daughter to know she has sisters who share some of her DNA. I believe as a human being she has a right to know that. I want her to know her adoption story from the person who lived it rather than someone who doesn't know me. That is something that has always left me scratching my head because I read something peculiar very often in people's online profiles who are waiting to adopt and wanting a semi-open or closed agreement. I want to know how you can promise to always tell a child about their "birthmom" and how she loved them so much when you will basically know nothing about her? I guess it can go back to that quote, "If I loved my child any less, they'd still be with me." It has to be that the couple has already bought into all of that mess. But I digress. Back on track...
I didn't know that my state had no revocation period. I didn't know that I didn't have to sign. I didn't know that I was abandoning her. I didn't know that I would be writing all of this 15 years later. I didn't know that I would think of her every single day for the rest of my life. I didn't know that I would be a great mom. I didn't know. I didn't know. And I HATE myself for that.
So what do you write to someone when you stick your neck out and try to contact them after so long? Will they be less wary of me since their children are all so much older? Have they learned more about what adoption is really like just as I have? DID THEY REALLY DESIRE TO END CONTACT LIKE THE SOCIAL WORKER SAID? Have they been wondering all along why I haven't written? Will they rejoice or hold me at arms length?
I have been thinking over the last few months about whether or not to write a real letter or a safe letter. I think I know now that there really is no such thing for me as a safe letter. I just have to put my heart out there and know that I might be rejected. The problem is that I am afraid of how I might react internally if that is what happens. I'm not asking for anything different than what we originally agreed to. I'm not asking them to let me into their lives or to have visits or to even write a letter directly to my daughter. I just want her to know me from my own words. And I want to know who she is and how she feels.
I'm going to choose to believe that her parents were as ill-prepared for and uninformed about adoption as I was. I am going to write that letter as if they are ecstatic to be reading it. I am going to tell them about my life and ask about theirs. I am going to do all of this with expectant hope. I am going to do it. Now I just need someobody to prop me up as it all shakes out. It is not an option to not send it this time.
My chest hurts. Breathe, Jenni.
I'm going to choose to believe that her parents were as ill-prepared for and uninformed about adoption as I was. I am going to write that letter as if they are ecstatic to be reading it. I am going to tell them about my life and ask about theirs. I am going to do all of this with expectant hope. I am going to do it. Now I just need someobody to prop me up as it all shakes out. It is not an option to not send it this time.
My chest hurts. Breathe, Jenni.
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