I need to blog so badly. LOL I need to get a lot of things off my chest. But the funny thing is, I am afraid of who might read those things here and how that will affect me IRL. So now the very thing that I started in order to help me is something that I have to be very guarded about. Hmmm. Not what I intended.
I am telling you, I live two parallel lives: the one where I have the seemingly perfect situation with my marriage, my children, etc... and the one where I am constantly fighting off a panic attack because I have been grieving the loss of my daughter for 15 years.
My friend at church lost her precious son this week at 22 weeks into her pregnancy. I am so very sad for her. I cannot imagine the crushing grief she is living at this very moment. It has all been very triggering for me, yet I cannot speak about it with anyone. I don't want anyone to think that I am comparing my loss to hers. Because I could never do that. I do believe that losing a child to a closed adoption is similar to death, but I certainly do not know what it is like to hold your baby in your arms for 10 minutes and watch them die. Or to bathe and dress a little person who no longer has life in them. Or to drive to the funeral home to make arrangements to bury your child. What sickening, crushing grief. Please remember my friend Beth and pray for her.
This is a recurring theme in my adoption life, you see. There are often triggers, yet no outlet to work through them in a healthy way. Thankfully, with my friend Beth, her baby's death has triggered feelings in my gut, yet I can focus on just being with Beth and praying for her. It puts my loss in perspective and helps me move outside my own self. It gives me compassion for her.
But I am having a hard time dealing with other triggers. For instance, an acquaintance of mine and her husband are talking about adopting. They are a very sweet couple with two biological children. But they are absolutlely, positively, 100% clueless about adoption, as evidenced by all of the misguided comments they have made regarding what they think they will be achieving by adopting. They are out to save the world and speak as if they are bringing a new "pet project" into their home. It is hard for me. I sit in silence during those conversations because I know I will be very misunderstood if I open my mouth. I don't want to upset anyone or to make them feel bad. If I do open my mouth, I want it to be with kindness and a calm spirit. I am not in that place, therefore, I say nothing. It is not that I would want to say anything ugly - no way. But I have a physical reaction: I start to sweat. My neck starts to break out in hives. My heart begins to race and to pound right out of my chest. I feel a burn in my gut. It is not anger. It is panic. I still panic in real life whenever I am faced with anything adoption related.
A storm is brewing. There is A LOT going on inside my head and my heart. I feel like the Lord is leading me to try to contact Ellen's family. I want to let them know about Susannah and Caroline. I want to reach out and take that gigantic risk and ask a few questions about Ellen. Is she well and strong? Has she made a profession of faith? How has she adjusted regarding her adoption and does she speak of it? How can I best pray for her at this stage of her life (a teenager). I am SICK over all of this. I don't know where to start, but I am afraid it will have to be Bethany. No wonder I am sick. I am so scared that I have to go through them. Ugh.
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I have felt a pull to be praying for you regarding your last paragraph for a long, long time. Ever since you mentioned it MONTHS ago, probably in passing on the boards. In fact, the Lord put this on my heart again last night. How "funny," indeed. :)
ReplyDeleteThinking of you, sweet friend.
First, I am so happy that you blogged! I have missed your writing, Jenni.
ReplyDeleteSecond, just when I think, as an a-parent, that I have settled into a content/easy/good place with adoption, something takes me back to that uneasy, disgusted feeling---it might be a friend's pregnancy, the look on my friend's (who placed) face when she holds my daughter, a profile online, etc. I realize that nothing about adoption is or even should be content/easy/good.
This week my daughter turned one. I was an emotional wreck. How can I celebrate when I know my joy only comes from another woman's pain? I woke up each day saying to myself, "This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." I had to force myself to be happy. I tried to turn my worry for E into prayer. Thankfully, I was so busy on daughter's b-day that I was joyful.
Anyway, I am NOT trying to compare pain (as we know that is totally dumb to do). But I want you to know that I hear your pain in your words, and your hope. And I hope that your hope :) turns into something beautiful.
I am bored and have nothing to do but read your blog. Okay, I could clean but I don't want to. I will keep reading to see how things have been going. I just want to tell you that I really feel for you. I tried to contact my daughter's parents and wasn't prepared that they would not respond. They choose to not respond twice. I wasn't prepared for that. I am going to keep reading for now.
ReplyDeleteJenni, OH MY GOODNESS, can I just say right now that you say the things I think in my mind all the time but never say.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I feel like I have no one to talk to about this because how could they possibly understand? I feel like we are soul sisters, WOW. I almost feel like coming across your blog was an answer to my prayers recently of needing to talk to someone about my son so badly and having no one. Tears are streaming down my face as I type this.
I placed a son for adoption almost 18 years ago (in April). My adoption was also closed and has been very hard for me all these years. I know this sounds cliche, but I feel the exact same way that you do. (Although the gift reference does not bother me because I have always looked at my son as a gift from God and chose his name to reflect that...his name literally meant "a gift asked for".)
I came across your blog because you made a comment on the blog of another birth mom who reads my blog. I haven't had time recently to read many blogs and do not go searching for adoption blogs to read because the haters are too ugly, but tonight I couldn't sleep and decided if I was up I would go read some blogs, anyhow this is turning out to be a much larger comment than I intended, but I wanted you to know i can so closely relate to what you are going through and would love to chat with you some time or even exchange emails. I need support in my journey right now in a really bad way.
I wanted to share two other things, I recently "found" my son and started corresponding with his adoptive parents (two years ago just after he turned 16) and it sounds like you are about to embark on the same journey.
Second, adoption is hard to describe from our perspective because we are not left with the warm and fuzzy feelings that the people who adopted our children get to have every day with that child. For me, I was 17 years old when my son was born and placed for adoption so I returned home to friends who were trying to decide how to do their hair for prom or what dress they wanted to wear while I was sad, bleeding, and had engorged breasts that were leaking to feed a child I no longer had...there are no words to describe how that feels and I felt like I had to cover it all up so the people around me would be comfortable. I never dealt with this or talked about it openly to anyone until two years ago.
Adoption for us is the one thing that doesn't feel good even though we know we made the best choice for our children. Our perspective is not often considered. My point in all of this is that once I found out about my son and saw his pictures and got an update from his parents it helped drastically to heal the pain I had felt for so many years. I don't know that it will ever be gone, but I do know it made my choice worth it to find out he has had all that life has to offer. I know it will only help me to heal more to know him one day (I am keeping my fingers crossed that he will want that).
My blog is not as eloquently written as yours and I have not been brave enough to just post about my feelings like you do, I am certainly not as well spoken, but I FEEL THE EXACT SAME WAY YOU DO.
I look forward to digging deeper into your blog as I have only started reading, but I couldn't read one more post without letting you know that you are speaking the words of my heart.