I’m aware that I process things in “unique” ways from time to time so I don’t know why I’m shocked. But I am. Perhaps my mind is playing semantics games. Or I really just feel totally different. But I need to ask other birth mothers: was your first year, immediately post-placement, the hardest of the years you have experienced?
I ask because Coley just posted something on the Open Adoption blog that states that many birth parents feel that the first year is either easier or that we (birth parents) just learn to cope better in the following years. I read it, thought about my experience, scratched my head and left this initial reply:
Actually, my first year was easier than anything I’ve experienced since.
I should qualify that to refer to the processing of adoption emotions and dealing with various situations and emotions in adoption. It was not easier than, say, planning my wedding. I was not trying to trivialize that first year by comparing it to life in general but comparing it with the adoption issues that have come in subsequent years. Coley seemed shocked by my comment… which in turn left me wondering if I’m totally out in right field, playing baseball, while everyone else is at a hockey game.
I have my reasons, which I will further expand upon next week in the bp/fp blog, but I need to know: am I the only one that views their adoption journey in this way? Was I the only mother blinded by agency rhetoric and birth mother bliss? Am I the only mother on the planet that feels that some of this stuff has gotten increasingly harder as the years have gone by? (Obviously, my coping skills have continued to improve but, still, I am constantly experiencing new emotions, new losses and new issues and it just feels… much more overwhelming at times.)
Obviously, it’s cool if I am totally alone as my experience is unique to me (and our family). But I can’t help but wonder if I’m really that far off the wall. So, either tell me to get to the hockey game or tell me your baseball story.
20 Responses to “The First Year”
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My name is Jenna. I blog here, 
So far, the worst year for me was that first year. I went through it all with one official counseling session, and one meeting with my pastor.
I think that in itself speaks volumes.
I’m in tears looking back to that year and how awful it was. I signed the papers before even getting to see my son for a second time. I saw him for a minute while on my belly the previous day. That first year of grief work was based on maybe 30 minutes of seeing my son with my own eyes, and 12 pictures.
I was called awful, horrible things before I birthed him, my birth experience was lonesome and alienated my mother from the man I loved. (Thankfully that rift has healed.) And afterwards, I was left alone with my thoughts. I worked in a toy store and watched people with similar aged children be beastly to their children. They got to keep their children, and here was I without child but knowing full well that I could have parented and parented well if given the opportunity. I failed myself and I failed my son. And even worse was knowing that I was still flunking out of school. I couldn’t even meet my full potential with my slate wiped clean as promised.
And people would talk about other women who had unplanned pregnancies and how they fell away from God. I never once felt like I fell away from God. (that was my one meeting with my pastor)
And I wanted to do this again! What a wonderful thing I did for his parents. I should just get pregnant again and let them have another baby since they want another so badly. It wasn’t *that* bad. =oP
Oh those baby wants when 9 months to a year hit. CLUCKY!
I was a wreck. It wasn’t until sometime after that year was over and led into to two years that I could pull myself somewhat together.
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For me, I was still “flying high on adoption koolaide” the first year (and for several there after). I had thought that I’d done this great thing, and redeemed myself.
The first “hard” year for me was the first year I parented my first son. It was then that I realized what I was missing out on.
It’s gotten harder yet as I start to explore that loss and grief. It was like it was easier to deal with as long as I pretending I hadn’t lost anything. But as I allow myself to grieve, the time gets harder and harder. As the years go by that I don’t know, I wonder more, I dwell more, I look a little harder.
So no, the first year was easy. Each year has gotten progressively harder for me since then.
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Jenna,
Yes, the first year was one of the easiest for me as well. I’ll even go as far as saying that the first decade was easier than the last six months has been.
For some reason, M turning 11 kicked me in the gut and I have still not recovered.
Coupled with her:
1. Starting her period
2. Growing breasts
3. Shaving her legs
All of these things have just waylaid me to the point that I barely function…
I have become emotional (crying at the drop of a hat)
I have become angry (lashing out at others)
I have become resentful (I have actually, for the first time ever, started to have real OHMYGODWHATINTHEHELLHAVEIDONE feelings…like, I really really really regret placing)
These are all feelings totally new to me – as a first mom who has had more than a decade to ‘deal’.
So – while you may have ‘dealt’ during the first year – I waited a hella long time.
I wonder too, if dealing in infancy is preferential to dealing when the child can actually see you react – I know that M is/has reacted to my ‘emotions’.
Brandy
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Magic; I didn’t have any therapy/counseling during that first year either… mainly because I didn’t think I needed it. (And then when I did ask for it, my agency refused to provide, further making me think that I honestly didn’t need it.) It’s really heartbreaking to read about your first year. I know others have experienced that same thing and I thank you for giving a voice to that experience. Can you do a brief comparison as to how subsequent years have either improved or changed for you?
Nikki Jo; as I’m sure you can probably guess, my hardest year was also the year that BigBrother was born. That was just a really, really hard time. (I’m writing about it on the bp/fp blog on Monday.) It really, really threw me for a loop.
Brandy; What a comment. I wonder if you’re right, if dealing in the first year would be better than dealing when your child is old enough to notice changes in behavior, action or word. (Thankfully, Munchkin was still young enough during what I consider my worst year that she (hopefully?!) didn’t notice a difference.) Your comment gives me a lot to think about regarding the future and what is yet to come.
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Also, it took me that first year to get my brain to fully embrace the adoption koolaid. Wrestling with what I had been just wasn’t healthy for me, I had to get in that denial place.
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Oh, sorry, I didn’t see the reply comment.
Okay, so after that first year, adoption and birthmotherhood didn’t define me anymore. What someone thought of unplanned pregnancies, faith with God and being unwed pregnant, or thoughts of the character of those who place their children for adoption just didn’t bother me as much anymore. It wasn’t someone slapping my burns and me wincing with emotion. By that second year I felt like I was in control of my life again and that I was a decent person who could make good decisions, or putter along without feeling like a failure. I was just me again and the scarlet letter wasn’t neon and blinking anymore.
The hard times after that were when I would receive the pictures twice a year. Each time was a different emotion and I never really knew how I would feel. But it was no where near as lonely and raw as that first year.
Even once I made this transition the last few years of coming out of denial haven’t been nearly as awful as that first year. The girl I was that stared at the walls that first year is still within me though…
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Jenna~ The first year was the easiest for me as well! Every year has gotten harder and this past year has been the worst thus far. 16 kicked my butt, he is almost 17 and I still can not pin point exactly why 16 has been so hard. I also think that for me, it was a bit harder the first couple of years to “really” realize what I was missing out on and not until I had my 2nd son did I finally understand fully what I had done. I don’t think it was “real” to me until then.
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Oh! Also, parenting children since then hasn’t really made that similar kind of impact that you and the others describe.
I think that has to do with the fact that my little sister is so much younger than me. She was born when I was in 8th grade and I provided a lot of her day to day care, even when I was pregnant and afterwards because I was living at home. Between knowing how well I had been doing with her, and being in the Early Childhood Education program at school, plus working at a toy store, that impact was the first year of raw I think. By the time Juliet was born, what I grieved was not being able to see my son as a person for how he saw the world. I know so much about my daughters, and so very very little about my son.
I don’t know what else I can say. (until I see another comment and need to clarify more, lollers)
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Years one and two were not a cakewalk, by any means… I cried, sure, and had to move out of the kids’ section at the bookstore where I worked, and the aftermath of the first visit sucked, and I was in a sort of panic about whether they would ever really come to visit US at OUR HOME. But those first two years were way, way, way easier than year three, in which I finally realized what I had done. In which the adoption koolaid high finally wore off.
Having Sunshine was also my catalyst for waking up from denial and avoidance.
By comparison, I look back on the first year and think, “Wow, if only relinquishment really were that easy.”
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the first months after relinquishing were awful, and then for many years I managed ok by forcing myself not to think much about it, except what a good thing I did and how it was “right”. The next worse times were my next pregnancy 13 years later (and the first weeks of that child’s life), and the first year after reunion.
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Right after I had my son he was gone, both he and I left the hospital about 4 hours after he was born. He and his parents came over to my moms house and we all had breakfast. It was like I never was pregnant, never gave birth. When I looked at him, he wasn’t even a real person then. I was parenting my first son at the time and he was 2, I don’t know how I could have thought the way I did. He was just this unreal creature. I was up running so I could’t have just given birth could I? I was fine. I saw him every couple of months. He got bigger and started doing things but I tryed so hard not to notice, but he looked so much like Ben, my first. I wouldn’t really play with him when I visited. I would hang out with his Mom and we would talk about how our live were going and how the kids were but it was still so unreal. I was sad but I still thought I did the best thing anyone could have done. I don’t know when it changed, he became a child, my child, and now I don’t know what to do. I can’t visit. I still talk to his mom on the phone but the idea of driving the 20 minutes to there house leaves me shaking. He is almost 3 now. I am hoping it gets better.
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For me, with my first girl I placed, I remember the first year being really hard and falling into a black hole of depression and then finding myself pregnant for a second time.
Then with my second girl I placed, it doesn’t seem like I really had a dark time like the black hole of depression during the first year with my first until my second girl turned 2. Some of my delayed reaction to experiencing that black hole of depression had to do with the nasty bdad situation with my second girl though.
I don’t know that the first year was necessarily easy for me especially with my first girl I placed, but I do know that I have felt that with both my girls as time keeps going on, it does seem to get a little harder with each birthday that goes by.
I thought from what others said that it was suppose to get easier, but it hasn’t always got easier for me with each birthday that has passed. I still cope and because of a lot of therapy I had at the beginning both times, I think I do better than I would have, but even with the therapy I had , it still seems somewhat harder with each birthday that passes at times.
I know I’m still relatively new at this compared to others as A is about 4 1/2 and K is almost 3 – this Nov, but I still don’t necessarily regret the choices…I regret that I was in the situations I was where I had to make the choices and that I got myself involved with the guys I did.
Anyway, I do think and feel that it gets harder and not easier with each birthday that passes and it gets harder when the aparents don’t keep up regularly with communication with me at times.
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Maybe I am the one who is in left field playing baseball Jenna!
I was talking with Charlie’s amom about this last night and she thinks that one of the reasons that the first year was so hard for me is because I saw him so much that first year that I really didn’t have time or space to deal with any emotions or process anything. Hmmmm, maybe she is right?
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Hmm; Coley, that might be a decent point. I only saw Munchkin four times during the first year (as almost every other year) because of our distance. What an interesting insight she had there… hmm! :)
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Like Najah, the first few months were horrible, but then I packaged up my feelings and buried them and was mostly ok. The first year of reunion was when I REALLY came out of denial and after 32 years realized the impact – a very tough year. That first year of reunion was as bad or worse than the year after I relinquished my son.
Reunion or other life events trigger the most difficult reactions from many mothers. I have heard of many women who thought they were fine until one day something happened and then….bam..they were not fine. Denial is a powerful coping mechanism for first/birth mothers and is extremely common.
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Jenna,
During the first year, I saw Charlie at LEAST every month if not more. I have since moved but at that point, we lived very close to one another and there were times I’d just run into them in the store or something like that and I think that those instances were even harder than scheduled visits.
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[...] wrote about the first year after relinquishment recently, saying that she believes that first year for her was one of the easiest. I totally agree. In fact, [...]
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First year was the worst for me. But I agree that there is no right or wrong way or time to process this stuff.
For me, the realization was immediate – there was no kool-aid period. I’d love to do a real study of how many of us grieve fully and immediately as opposed to first undergoing a little denial.
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No year has been better or worse. I have suffered every day for nearly 37 years. Some events have made it harder, like the births of my placed children.
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The first year the hardest? No.. not really. Granted the first month… well, let’s just say of that my friends and family kept a close eye on me and my father switched to an electic razor rather than the old blade he had for years.
I spent the first year mostly… numb. Desperate to just do what eveyone said “Just move on”. After the first month I just shut down everything that reminded me of what happened and tried to forget.
The second year? Walls built on sand crumble, and when they start to go its NOT a gradual process.
This coming November will start the 5th year. Hard moments, hard snatches of time, the wind still gets knocked out of me… but I’m learning life isn’t over. As guilty as I feel for that thought… I have had to learn to move with life or drown in the rising tide.
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