It is weird sometimes. I mean, weird in a sense of that all I went through, and I can matter of factly tell someone some of the shit that happened and it doesn't bother me. Or better yet, it does bother me, and maybe I'm at an acceptance stage. It is what it is.

I still sometimes want to take a sledgehammer to my mother's grave. I hate hate hate it when people tell me to forgive. Yes, I will in time, and maybe I already have. Some things are just unfuckingforgiveable.

I'm not like a lot of baby scoop era birthmothers. I'm not anti adoption. I'm not at all. I am just against taking a baby from a mother who wants the baby. It was never a choice for me, adoption. It was forced. I didn't want to give my beloved daughter up. I never stopped longing for her, I never stopped loving her, and I will never stop. It is just something that I cannot do. There was no ceremony, just being forced to sign the papers. To this day, I'd rather die than have to live through that again.

So just to clear the air, I'm not anti adoption. Adoption isn't what it used to be for birthmothers. Yes, I will use the b word here. It is what I am. Her birthmother. I don't feel it demeaning to me. I don't feel it being disrespectful to me. It is what I am. Her birthmother. The one who gave her life, and the one who backs her up. No matter what.

It was never my intention to reunite with her and then become mom. That would be totally disrespectful of her mother, the one who dried her tears, the one who brushed her hair, and the one who told her that it was a lie when people would tell her that her "real" mother didn't love her. Yes, you read that right. She backed me up. So for that and other reasons, I back her up. I do because I love her mother.

The only mother I had a problem with is my own. It stems from that and a lifetime of abuse from her. It is my cross to bear, my pain to bear, and mine alone.

We move in three weeks. My daughter called and wants me to spend the weekend with her.\

I am so blessed. I will NEVER take her for granted, ever...........

I'm moving. We bought a home, we close on July 8th. Although I'm scared shitless at the thought of the difference of a mortgage and rent, I'm in a bittersweet mood. I'm leaving this room. This room, my bedroom, where my life changed...............

March 2, 2005......
It was a long day at work. I was tired. My computer was slow, I was ready to go to bed but thought that I'd log on and at least see if the email would load. I was working almost sixty hours a week (still am) and was just .........tired.........
I logged on and there it was. "(My name), you have a response from adoption.com" I took a deep breath when I got the ability to breathe. I couldn't believe it. My years of waiting, praying for an answer, waiting for this day to come and it was.........here..........
As I reached to click the mouse, it was almost as if I had a moment of silence for things that I knew were real. Because I was about to find out, and I knew it, that my life was about to change in a big way for the better or for the worst. I knew it would be better, but I just knew that my life as I knew it was about to change........I would never be the same. Just as I was never the same girl after the relinquishment, I would never be the same person I was after I clicked the mouse. So many years of just wondering and heartbreak would be over, but as I found out soon enough, there was a lot of heartbreak afterwards. Afterwards, I began to remember things that I had forgotten. The hell I had been through was about to be revealed to me. It was as if there was a barrier and all the things I had mentally blocked from the past were now unblocked and unleashed to my psyche. I'm normally not a believer in that so called psychobabble, but I'm now a believer that people who experience such an emotionally tragic period in their lives can block things and then when they get unblocked, watch the hell out.
Anyhow, I clicked. All my years of praying for this day, counting down one birthday after another until I could legally search. I left work that day claiming to have one child. I'd go to work tomorrow saying I had two. It was singlehandley the greatest moment of my life. I don't mean and would never want to take anything away from my husband but it was planned. We had done it before. Yes, it was great that we got married. I love him very much. More than I ever thought possible, more than I could ever love a man.
But this is different. My whole life as I knew it ended on that day. For me, my life is divided up into sections. Before she was born, after she was relinquished, the pergatory period, (the waiting years) and finally, reunion.
And it happened here.
So while I'm happy to be moving, I'm kind of sad to see this go. I found out a lot of things that night. I found out how unsupportive my (now ex) husband was. I asked him to call off work and stay the night with me. He worked nights. He didn't. He had so many vacation days, but to him, it was easier to just go to work than deal with everything. I think, really, at that moment, I checked out of the relationship. Who the hell wouldn't? After all those years of him having to deal with me on her birthday, all the therapy paid for that did no help, and he just goes to work?
I will love moving, but I will miss this place..............

Relinquishment day. It used to not bother me so much as her birthday, but now with reunion, it bothers me.

I know it worked out in the end. I know that I should concentrate on the positive.

But yesterday and today, I felt again like the helpless 15 year old girl, pleading and begging the nurses, the caseworker, my mother and anyone who would listen to me that I didn't want to give my daughter away.

I heard the click of the heels that with each step came closer and closer to my room, and closer and closer to having to tell my daughter goodbye. The same person who didn't even give me a copy of the papers. To the world, she never existed. I had no paper trail. No adoption papers, no birth certificate, nothing. She never existed.

I saw my mother again, sitting in the chair, arguing with me that "daddy already works two jobs. and where is he now? so obviously, he doesn't care either. I can't do it. You are such a burden on us. you want to break us up." (I never thought that. I heard later that my mother said that if I kept her, that she would divorce him and after she was born, he said "so be it.") So the only person who would ever be on my side on this was at work. Convienent. Convienent to do so and to remove all guilt because "I'm at work." If I know my grandchild is in danger of being adopted and I don't want it to happen, you can sure as shit bet that I'd be there. So, sorry dad, that excuse doesn't fly with me anymore.

They failed. The people I trusted most in my life failed me. Then they made me relive it day after fucking day with pictures on the wall. Just as soon as I'd take it down, she would put it right back up to "remind people of what you have done." She even wished that "you have a hard labor so you will learn your lesson."

Guess what mommy? I screwed again and again and again. I just used protection from then on. It didn't matter because from the day I said I was pregnant, I was the family whore. Still feel that way too. Good God, when I saw my Aunt at my mother's funeral, I was still ashamed because my mother made me write letters to my extended family to explain that I was pregnant, the baby would be adopted and how much a whore I was. My mother was blind, and to add insult to injury I had to read the letters back to her.

I had to do it to at least four members that I know of and one FUCKING ONE response came back. My aunt from Winchester. That was it. Oh, one family member wrote back, to adopt the baby, but oh, they are in the fucking witness protection now.

I reverted back to that girl who was so helpless, and was crying and screaming while leaving the hospital that it was a silent scream. You know, like Al Pacino does in Godfather III when his daughter gets shot.

See, it altered my personality. Forever. The person who walked in on a Saturday night in labor is way different than the girl who left. Broken. Fucking broken. Soulless. Because adoption took my soul. Yes, I still feel that way.

Yes, it worked out for her in the end. For her.

It destroyed everything I thought to be true. I found out that the only person you can truly depend on is yourself. I learned not to depend on anyone for anything.

I learned to walk away from people that other people would give second chances to. Like a couple of years ago, a good friend got mad at me and told me not to call her back. I'm sure that she was stunned when I didn't call back. No cooling off time. Goodbye, see you fucking later. And I wasn't all that pissed. I just walked away.

It is hard to explain to others, especially when one they wasn't in the situation, and two, when they didn't know me back then. My best friend did. She told me early in reunion that she was so happy that I was turning back into the friend she had before, but it stopped. She told me later that she loves me regardless, but that she believed that it had changed me so profoundly that I would never be that person again. And I believe that she is correct.

It is like last night, I was reliving it all. The fight. The crying. The trying to do everything I could to keep my daughter. The caseworker telling me I could NOT go to a foster home, only to find out that a girl in school did just that. She was in a foster home with her baby when MY baby was in the same home, crying for me and I wasn't there.

BECAUSE THEY FUCKING LIED TO ME. She also told me that I didn't qualify for welfare because my dad made too much. I would have to pay the hospital bill.

You know why I believed her? BECAUSE NO FUCKING BODY WAS ON MY FUCKING SIDE. SURE AS SHIT ANOTHER CARING ADULT BY MY SIDE WOULD HAVE CALLED HER FUCKING BLUFF, BUT MY FUCKING MOTHER GOT HER FUCKING WAY.

That is why a lot of times, I don't ask for help. I keep most people at arm's distance. It is safe. They can't hurt me that way.

Hopefully, someday, I can help that 15 year old me that is crying and inconsolable. Just not today.

The adult me can't comfort the teenage me. How fucked up is that? But it is how it was. Fucked up.

Things adoption has taught me

Adoption has taught me many things.

1. I can make it through anything. Divorce? Piece of cake. Parent dies? No biggie after the shock. If you can make it through being forced to give your kid up for adoption and the many years of the emotional toll it takes on you, you can get through anything.

2. I can and have walked away from people I hold dear. Husband. He took eighteen hundred from the checking without an explanation. Gone. see you later, bye. We were forced to walk away from our children, and society wants to know why we are stone hearted bitches? The only two people in this world I cannot walk away from and vanish from their lives are my children. I will NOT do that to my daughter again and I will not do it to my son.

3. We are all alone in life. You can say "no you are not". Yes, we are. We are the only people that we can count on. I mean REALLY count on. Us. That is it. If you think otherwise, you are fooling yourselves.

4. My mother made me give up my daughter and then emotionally tortured me over it for years. Sometimes, I'm glad that my mother is gone. If you are shitty to your kids, you won't be remembered well at all.

5. People who have not been forced to give up their children will never understand the emotional toll it takes on our souls.

6. Adoption sucks the soul out of the birth mother.

7. I would rather die right now than to relive having to leave my daughter at the hospital. Once, she asked me if I could relive day after random day, would I? I said absolutely not. I would not relive random days because I know that eventually the relinquishment day would come back. No, can't do it.

8. Instead of saying "I do" , we should say "I might." If you marry shortly after relinquishment, chances are you are settling and you are in a period of low self esteem. Reunion changes everything. It was the beginning of the end of my first marriage and I am better for it.

I've been bummed. My post vision bum has been long. I realized something. She was better off without me.

It has taken me a long time to say this and it hurts. It really fucking hurts to say that your own baby is better off without you. I can't provide all that my son wants. Should I have given him away also?

BIRTHMOTHER, GOOD MOTHER: Her Story of Heroic Redemption
By Charles T. Kenny, Ph.D.
After working through their fears and conflicts, birthmothers choose adoption because they believe that it is best for their children. They realize that adoption is not abandonment; it is a loving, responsible act. By choosing what is best for their children, birthmothers see themselves as good mothers. Instead of feeling like bad mothers for abandoning children or “giving them away,” they now begin to see that placing their children with loving couples is what it means for them to be good mothers. They redeem themselves, transforming their mistakes into positive outcomes. Adoption allows them to recover their self-esteem, restore their identity, and renew their dreams and goals.
Purchase - Birthmother, Good Mother:



I haven't vomited due to sick shit like that for a long while. Usually it is due to booze. But this, it made me fucking puke.