Point made. I win!

I've been annoyed as of late. By whom? By a large group of people that I spend far too much time with on a daily basis even though I never see their faces, hear their voices. Ah, the joys of internet forums. I'm sure you know of what I'm speaking.

A good (and beautiful!) (online) friend of mine and I have been talking on an almost daily basis (via the wonders of Google Chat!) about the atrocities that come across our computer screens on a daily basis. At multiple points in time. Not just by adoptive parents, mind you. By all sides of the triad.

My absolute favorite is when anything a birthparent says is immediately dismissed simply because of their position in the triad. People doing such things will actually listen to an adoptive parent who is saying the same exact thing. It's mind-numbing. It's frustrating. It's conflicting. Sometimes, we both agreed, we just want to give up, walk away. But isn't that just letting them win?

I stay in hopes of teaching someone that calling an Expectant Mother a birthparent before she signs that Termination of Parental Rights is coercive. I stay in hopes that people will learn that, oh my goodness, birthparents can be successful. Birthparents can be (pretty damn good) parents to other children. Birthparents don't deserve to be in pain because they "chose" it. Birthparents can be your next door neighbor. I stay in hopes of encouraging Expectant Parents to FULLY research their options; not just adoption, but parenting. So many don't know everything that is available to them. I stay in hopes of finding just one more person who understands how it feels inside. I have my Nikki Jo and I thank God for her daily. She's the only birthmother I have met in person. (And she's making me food this weekend in her new house! OOH!) But I have met, through that place, quite a few other women who have helped me understand what the heck I'm going through. I'll be forever grateful. So I stay.

Maybe someday, a place like that won't make me feel like crap on a daily basis. I wear my heart on my virtual sleeve. Maybe someday, it will just be a place where people talk about their lives without judgement or finger pointing. Maybe someday I won't have to remind people, daily, that their language is disrespectful and coercive. Maybe someday people will understand the plight of all three sides of the triad. Maybe someday adoption will be understood as it is: a legitimate way of forming a family but smeared and coated in loss for all three sides of the triad. Maybe someday Lifetime will shut down, the news will start telling the good stories and we won't have to fight to correct the public's thought process about adoption.

Yeah. Doubtful, eh?

131,018. 131,022.