Dear Munchkin,
I am so sorry.
I hate when I deny your existence, even by a lie of omission. It’s not who I am, who I aspire to be or who I want you to think of me as in your life. I want you to know that I am proud of you, that I am proud of your existence and your presence in my life. I don’t want you to ever doubt that pride.
But I didn’t tell someone about you this week. And I feel horrible.
A friend from camp who hadn’t made it in ten years walked through the door of my cottage. She hadn’t aged in that time and I knew her immediately. Both boys were sitting at the table, eating their lunch, and she asked their names. I told her. We discussed our husbands, her current (first) pregnancy, jobs. I never found a way to tell her, even though I know her to be a loving and kind person, about you and the joy you are in my life. It was hard enough to talk, between convincing my oldest son that he needed to eat his cottage cheese and my younger son to stay seated.
But there’s no excuse.
It’s true, of course. That I have two sons, a wonderful husband and a job that I love. It’s true that I still sing and am still a big book nerd. It’s true that I’m busy and happy and that life is good. But there’s another truth: I gave birth to an amazing, smart, beautiful daughter. I believed that I wasn’t who I needed to be at the time and I placed her in the loving arms of another mother. She has grown up in love and continues to wow the world. She may not be an everyday presence in our home but she is a presence in our family.
I’m sorry I didn’t just say it, that I didn’t break the flow of conversation and just lay it out on the table. I can tell you things like, “If she would have been there for more than a day,” or, “If the boys had taken a nap.” But it still sounds cheap.
I’m not a perfect mother. And, so it seems, I am not a perfect birth mother. I will let you down from time to time, just as I sometimes let these brothers of yours down. I don’t do it intentionally. I am proud of all of you.
And… I hope… someday… you might be proud of me as well.
Please accept my apologies and my love.
Forever and always.
My name is Jenna. I blog here, 
I feel you on this one… it’s a really difficult call, because if you don’t spill your entire kiddo story within moments of meeting, it’s pretty darn hard to bring it up in later conversation. REALLY hard. I have many true and beautiful friends who don’t know that I am a first mom. I feel horrible about it, but with any lie, even a lie of omission, it becomes harder the longer I keep silent.
So when a grocery store clerk asks you… “Soooo darling how many kids do you have?” what’s an easy-truthful-warm-honest response?
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I know just what you mean, Katherine. I am starting to wonder if people think I have trouble counting. My number of children changes with the situation. Being from the Baby Scoop Era, I spent so much time in hiding, it became a way of life. I often do what is easiest because I just don’t want any more pain in my life.
Jenna, you are awesome. You have done so much to communicate to Munchkin how much you value and love her. Not the least of this was the painful decision you made to provide her with what you believed would be a better life when you were ill and did not believe you could support the two of you. You do so much to you do to communicate your passion for her. You fight for things like ethical practices in adoption and to support women/couples in crisis pregnancy and birthparents. You raise Munchkin up in your columns, etc. etc. etc. I believe she will grow up to be proud of you and to feel compassion for your humanity.
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I am so sorry that happened. Your letter just made me say “wow!” You really truly are amazing and your love for all your children just resonates through and through all of your posts. Sometimes we are all just caught. I can surely bet you have processed this over and over and over and will be fully prepared at how to present your sweet sweet and so dearly loved Munchkin if a similar situation ever comes about again. I think you are a TREMENDOUS mother and hope you never feel that way again. I think Munchkin will melt someday when she really understands that you think about her every second of every day and love her so very much!
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Oh, Jenna. This is so heartfelt. So genuine in its simplicity. Your love and commitment to Munchkin just seeps into everything, and because of this, there is no way, positively no way, she will not understand just how much she is a part of you — even when you’re caught off guard and her name isn’t mentioned. She is never far from your mind and your heart, and all of us here can so easily see that. Certainly your own daughter, who carries with her at every moment of her day your essence and parts of you, will see and feel this. And during any moments of waver or uncertainty in the years to come, as she grows and makes sense of everything, one peek at your writings here and she’s ever-enveloped in your love. No worries, Jenna. No worries.
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I just want to chime in from a “bad” adoptive mother standpoint.
There are times when I want to apologize to my son and his birth mom because I failed to mention to someone new that he was adopted.
If they comment on how much he looks like me, I do not always say, “well, his birthparents share very similar physical features with us, so it’s uncanny how that worked out”. Or in response to, “I didn’t know you had a child!”. And I state his age, but not that we adopted him at two days old.
Not for a moment during these times am I NOT thinking of his first mother. Not for a minute do I not treasure his adoption story and the way our family was created.
Some times, I just want to keep it all in and not share it with the world. I don’t mean for that to belittle the woman who helped create him and brought him to our family OR the way he became our child and we his parents.
So, probably more often than I need to, I share. But I don’t do it every time. And I have mixed feelings about that….
I hope you some day get the chance to see this friend again and show her a picture of your gorgeous girl and tell her a bit of your story.
Because it might make you feel better, and I know you’ll have a positive impact on her and how she thinks of birth and first parents!
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