4

Hypotheticals I’d Rather Avoid

A hypothetical question was posed in a community I frequent:

If, hypothetically, Roe v Wade was overturned. You find yourself pregnant, with no desire to keep it.

What would you do?

Oh, the hypothetical! Don’t birth parents live in the “What If” enough without questions like these? Despite wanting to launch into a lengthy debate with people who have little to no knowledge about adoption, I didn’t respond. Instead, I mulled it over for awhile before realizing, “Oooh! Blog fodder!”

And so, what would I do?

First of all, this is hard for me to now imagine. Having been through the placement of a child, knowing that relinquishment is almost always less about a desire to “keep” a child and more about circumstance, I really doubt I would find myself lacking a complete desire to keep my child. I also would move hell and high water to parent my child if I was ever again in a position in which finances or parenting situations were not optimal. So, I’m having trouble jumping into this hypothetical.

All the same, what would I do?

I would not place another child for adoption. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to be the parent I need to be for the two boys living under my roof should I have to relinquish another child. And so, imagining that something has gone entirely wrong in my marriage and with my finances and has left me thinking and acting in crisis mode while pregnant?

I’d parent.

I know everyone was expecting me, Mrs. ProChoice Activist, to say that I’d cross the line into Canada and have an abortion. Or that I’d risk it and have some illegal abortion in the United States. But while I will fiercely protect a woman’s right to choose what she does in this kind of scenario, I don’t think I have it in me to have an abortion. I’m weird like that, perhaps. But unless it was a life or death decision on the table between myself and the child, I don’t think I could have an abortion. (Reason for the previous statement is because I need to be alive for my living children. Of course!)

And so, the naysayers are about to say, “OMG! YOU’D RESENT YOUR CHILD! HE’D RUIN YOUR LIFE! IT WOULD BE HELL! GIVE IT TO SOMEONE WHO WANTS IT!!!111??~~!” Well, all I’ve got to say is: I’ve been a mother. I am a mother. I know that there are good days. There are bad days. There are days when parents who desperately did everything in their power to bring a child into their family find themselves thinking, “OMG! WHAT DID WE DOOOOOOOO?!” And I know that guilt that crosses over you for thinking such a thing that very next time your son walks up to you and says, “Mommy, I love you,” after he’s been a complete heel all day long.

And so, I’d parent. I’d do it umpteen times over. In a crisis pregnancy situation that even had me contemplating such questions and actions, I’d high-tail it to therapy to help me sort through the issues before the child was born. But I’d parent. Hands down. No other option for me.

(And then I commented anyway! Headdesk for me.)

6

Invisibility

I’m about to talk politics. Kind of. In a way. In my own way.

I cried last night. In bed, in my comfy weather-transition pajamas, watching Hillary Rodham Clinton give her amazing speech. Actually, I cried a few times. I admit it. I’m an emotional person. And other people who are passionate about their issues move me as, I’m sure you know, I’m pretty passionate person when it comes to those issues of my own. And so, seeing Hillary, all passionate about America, well, simply put, moved me. To tears.

But it was this line that really brought the tears. (Text of speech.)

Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years.

Of course, I cried harder with her very next line when she formally and boldly declared her support for Obama. I wanted to run up there and say, “ME TOO!” But back to this line. My writing on this line has less to do with the political race for President and more to do with a group that is truly invisible. And no, I’m not even talking about birth parents.

I am 100% sure that Hillary was not talking about adoptees. I am 100% sure that Obama wasn’t shaking his head while thinking about adoptees. I’m sure McCain’s staff, rolling their eyes and thinking that she wasn’t saying anything of merit (when in fact she was), wasn’t thinking about adoptees.

But I sure as heck was thinking about adoptees.

You want to talk about an “invisible” group in our country? What makes a person feel more invisible, more insignificant than not being able to access their most basic of information? You know what makes that person feel more invisible, more insignificant? Asking their government leaders to support them in the fight for that information… and being told that, no, they can’t have it because then scared little pregnant girls will be less likely to place their babies for adoption and thus stop making millions of dollars for people who already have millions of dollars!

THAT is an invisible group of people in our country. And they haven’t been invisible for the past eight years. Our country has a long history of making them invisible. It’s not about republicans or democrats when it comes to this issue. No candidate has addressed this specific issue. Nor do I assume that they will because they, most likely, view it as inconsequential to the winning of the election.

But is it inconsequential to you? Is it inconsequential to your children? Is it inconsequential to those adoptees who just want to hold in their own hands, for the first time, their Original Birth Certificate?

No.

But they’re too invisible to even blip on the radar of important issues to discuss. And, sadly, I don’t see it magically changing no matter who is elected.

01

It’s Not Your Fault I’m Ignoring You

I’m finding it hard to read blogs by “new” birth mothers. Not “new” blogs by “old” birth mothers. But blogs written by mothers who have recently relinquished their children. And it’s not their fault. It’s totally, 100% my emotional issue.

It’s my absolute inability to step outside of my own healing right now. Selfish as that sounds, I don’t have the energy to help someone find their own path right now. I don’t know where that drive and that passion have gone to… but I simply don’t possess it right now. Even on various forums, I can’t bring myself to read through an entire post of an expectant mother considering relinquishment or a new birth mother describing her experience. Something in me just stops comprehending. There’s a mental block. Maybe it’s my brain’s way of reminding me that I need to be focusing on my own healing right and physically shutting me down so I don’t slip up and regress.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I feel like a heel because I haven’t been replying to posts and questions and thoughtful pieces. And I wish that I could. Perhaps I will again someday. But right now, as I’ve finally started to see light at the end of this tunnel that has been a mish-mosh of postpartum depression and adoption grief and loss, I just don’t want to step back into the darkness. Right now, I don’t want to be forced to remember the bad things. I don’t want to dwell on the negative. I don’t want to read someone’s story and be angered and saddened by the fact that the adoption industry is still acting unethically.

I just want to breathe for awhile longer as I make my way out of this tunnel. I’m getting there, slowly.