We got our Census form today. I sat down to fill it out immediately because it’s all big and scary on the front with its warning of Doom and Official Gloom if you don’t return it. I am horrible at returning things. I just am. I can email you. But I can’t go to the Post Office. I figure if I sat down, filled it out and immediately put it in the envelope, maybe my loving husband will see it and do it for me. Right?

I filled out the first person information about my husband as it’s his name on the mortgage. Then I filled out my information and checked the box next to husband or wife of the first individual without reading down the rest of the list. Then I filled out the info about our oldest son.

I was about to check next to Biological Son or Daughter when I flipped my lid.

I’m sorry. What? Separate check boxes for biological and adopted children? Really?

As a birth mother, I am offended not only for myself and my daughter’s mom but for my daughter. I’m offended for us all, everyone living within the world of adoption. I understand that the world, adoption included, has changed a lot since the last Census was conducted. But for pity’s sake, you’d think that the language and attitudes toward adoption back then would have made this differentiation even more deplorable.

Why are adoptive parents forced to differentiate between their children? Foster children who are not permanently adopted would be something I could understand due to the fact that they may not live there in the near future due to court dates and other factors. But legally, forever adopted children? We redo their birth certificates. We make it look as if the birth family never legally existed, despite any attempts at openness which isn’t even legally binding in all states. We tell these (adoptive) families that this is their forever child, to love this child “as if” he/she was their “own.” And then we make them check a separate box?

Really?

It upsets me, as a birth mother, because I have come to accept my role. I am not the everyday mom. I have no legal right. She may be my biological daughter but she doesn’t live here and she doesn’t go on my Census form. Had I parented, I’d be checking the biological box. I was told that she had a forever family, that she wouldn’t be loved or treated differently than any other children in their family. And now she has a separate box?

Really?

This makes me angry for all of the adoptees. Ever. And yet to come. Not only do we deny them their birth certificates but now they’re not the “same” as biological children. Really? Do we need to keep adding insult to injury? Do we need to keep reminding adoptees that we view them as different, as not quite the same, as less than? Do we need an official form that states, oh yes, adoptees are different?

I am just so saddened by this; more than is probably necessary. I know both in my heart and with the brain that processes everything told to me and seen by me that my daughter is loved, fully and wholly, no different than her brother. I know this and I have no doubts. It just angers me that the government which allows unethical adoption agencies to continue to exist and refuses adoptees their Original Birth Certificates continues to demean adoptees in Official ways.

I don’t even know to whom to properly complain. Not that they’d listen to a lowly birth mother, anyway, right? I signed papers so I don’t get to have an opinion as to how my daughter and her family are treated and/or portrayed, right?

Edit: If you don’t enter a real email address, your comment will automatically be marked as spam.

Second Edit which is REALLY annoying: If you’re going to spam my blog with comments to other people, berating them for their comments and generally act very nasty toward those who have been sharing here, your comments will not be approved. They will be trashed. I will NEVER understand the need to troll, throw about nasty words or generally be so inhumane to other human beings. You can be nasty to me as this is my space. You may NOT troll my commenters. Ridiculous.

The Census and Adoption is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

As I make my way back into the groove of blogging and working after the loss of my grandfather, I’m thinking a lot about a question I asked over on BlogHer just yesterday. Basically, the question was:

How much do you share regarding your adoption story? How much is too much?

After I asked that, D let me know that she has purchased a domain and is going to blog! I will not link you as of yet. I will wait for her to find her comfort level and out herself. That said, it was perfect timing for both this question and the one I plan on asking next!

I’ve learned a lot about what is mine to share and what is D’s to share… and what will be Munchkin’s to share. I have learned these boundaries by making mistakes. I like to learn the hard way. I have over-shared at times though D has really only called me out on it once. I fixed it and we got past it, like most of our blips and bloops on our adoption journey.

I think that’s what makes adoption blogging so difficult.

I can write just about anything about the family that lives under my roof. I’m participating in the making of these stories. As long as I am not putting my husband’s job in jeopardy, I am pretty much free to share what I please. I do censor myself in some ways, refusing to share anything about our sexual relationship not really because I’m a prude but because my husband’s grandparents read our blog. (There’s an ick factor there when it comes to sex, no?) Again, while I may share about fires, I don’t share details of the fire itself and more often share about what I experienced, at home, while he was off fighting. When I share about the kids, I don’t post pictures of naked tushies or anything overly embarrassing. As Dawn said in her comment to the question, I will always give the family veto power.

But it works differently in adoption.

It’s not always possible to share only my story. Our stories, as they pertain to adoption, get tangled together in different ways. We also view things differently, react to them differently and experience them on different levels and in different ways. I think I mostly make that clear in my writing but I suppose that can get lost in translation.

I rarely write about the Munchkin herself here, sans-really cute stories of our conversations or the occasional discussion of something she is experiencing. Why? I don’t want to step on D’s toes. The truth is that when it comes down to it, she’s the mommy and should therefore be the mommyblogger. You know? I tend to back off in that area, moreso than I used to do. As Shannon pointed out, I’m more apt to talk about theory and ethics and what not rather than the ins and outs of our story. Or my own healing process which still has to be edited at times. It’s difficult, this adoption blogging.

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the lines in the sand of this topic shift from time to time. During difficult times, I find it safer, for all, if I hold back a little. During times of ease, I find that it’s a bit more acceptable to go back and rehash some things (respectfully) or share a little more about current stuff. Shifting shifting. It’s probably more about learning what and when than about a hard and fast rule. At least for me. For us.

Some Thoughts on Sharing, Over-Sharing and The Like is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

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.

Invisibility is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

I was sitting here, editing pictures and listening to my LastFM. For those who don’t know, LastFM lets you input a singer/band or song and then plays similarly genre-ed music for you. I discover some great music this way. Currently, I have Nina Gordon as my input singer (don’t know her? you should!) and so I get some nice female rock this way. Liz Phair came on.

Now, the mainstream world doesn’t really know of Liz Phair before her 2003 hit, “Why Can’t I?” You may be surprised to know that she had quite a few albums before her self-titled one was released. Dating back to the early 90′s, Phair has been around the music world for “quite some time” when you think about it.

The song that came on was not one I had heard of and I wasn’t looking at the name of it when it changed songs. I just heard the first line. And I choked on my coffee. Ready for it? Here it goes.

My black market white baby dealer

Oh. Yeah. Heard that right. I immediately opened a Google window, found the lyrics to “Black Market White Baby Dealer” and read along as I listened, eyes bulging out of my head and ears shocked. The song was recorded by Liz herself on her first duo-tape (yes, tape) set in the early 90′s, Girlysound. It was the first track on Tape One.

Now, the quality is low, of course, being recorded in her parents’ basement. Add that into the fact that these lyrics will not be any internationally adopting parents favorite and the song may not sit well with large groups of people. But I dare you to read them in full. (Won’t copy/paste all due to copyright infringement.) But, even if you don’t want to read, here’s the chorus, which changes and gets progressively worse each time to finally include the word “expensive.” Honesty, no?

My black market white baby dealer
Is hunting around overseas
My black market white baby dealer
Brings back clean, fresh white babies to me

Other words for hunting include rooting and, yes, kidnapping. No, Phair sure isn’t making friends with the adoption world, now is she? She takes it further. Read on.

My smile is dime a dozen
My lips are cherry red
My eyes are blue like the sky is blue
I got good shoulders under my head
I look like your mother
I look like your great-aunt
So sit me down in the family photo
And everyone tells me that I, I look just like you

Ah, yes. And I started to wonder. These lyrics are the personal form of “I.” While singer-songwriters often take on stories that are not their own, this is an awfully big topic to take on without any prior knowledge of the adoption world. And so I asked myself, is Phair an adoptee?

Yes, yes she is.

This page has a Phair biography regarding her childhood and it discusses her adoption at various points. As opposed to the lyrics in her song, she was adopted domestically by a Doctor and his wife. She was the second child adopted into the family. Some of her quotes hit me hard. Read on, of course.

About five percent of my ambition is the idea that if I get visible enough my (biological) parents will come to me. And I won’t have to go find them. I thought that was a really good idea. Connecticut doesn’t release files. They might not want to be found, and if they did want to be found, what would that do to my sense of the possibilties in life? I’ve been given a free reign to create myself. I could be anything because, frankly, one doesn’t know what I’m destined for.

Wow. She puts up a tough front but the first sentence says it all: she does want to be found in some way or another. Isn’t that what all birth parents fear? That their relinquished child will balk at their arrival into their lives once again? And who thinks Phair could be a great spokesperson for opening records? Hmm?

She goes on:

It (being adopted) motivates my songwriting. It gives me that free space — I’ve got this mental idea that I’m not really, deep-down, fully attached to anything, like that floatable world that artists create for themselves. I’m a member of that world, intrinsically. I don’t have a biological mother to refute. Bad behavior in a child, you can frame it up against your parents — you know, ‘You’re just like your father.’ Since I don’t have that model, it frees me up to pursue what I want to perceive as myself.

I get her point. Sometimes I look at my (biological) family and think, “Well, I’m either going to turn out like this or like this.” Phair is stating that, because of her lack of knowledge about her nature, she’s free to nurture herself into whatever she wants to be. I bet that does feel freeing in a way. But I also know, still looking at my family, that I can be whatever I want to be as well. We all have that ability. We do. Some are just unwilling to take the steps to be what they want and fall into lazy patterns. Don’t deny it. Even I do it.

And there’s your daily history adoption lesson. I’m off to download the song and add it to my playlist(s).

Have You Heard This Song? is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

Hit up The Daily Bastardette for some important news to adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents who live in, were placed in or relinquished in Ohio. That said, it’s important news for the triad in general! Man, I’d love to see Ohio pass this one. Someone should make a graphic.

Ohio Adoption Record News is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

While not in direct reply to the questions I posed yesterday, a blogger has answered everything I asked, and more, regarding the hard questions adoptees can throw at birth parents. His post goes hand-in-hand with what I wrote about yesterday. It leaves me even more speechless, less prepared, for anything the Munchkin might later dish out over coffee, tea, telephone wire, internet cable or snail mailbox.

It is not an easy read. However, that said, it is an absolute necessary read for every birth parent, closed through fully open adoption. It is an absolute read for every adoptive parent, international and domestic alike. You want to know the range of emotion? You want to prepare yourself? You want to feel what it would be like if it was your child asking you these questions? My mind spins.

A few snip-its of what leaves me absolutely immobile inside:

Did I cry? Did I understand the totality of the
decisions made on my behalf? Did I latch on to
anything that was willing to comfort me, or did I know
you already in my inner being and long for you with an
invisible bond? Do you know what I felt when you
left? Not even I can know the pain of separation from
a love at that vulnerable age.

Oh. Oh. I’m taken back to the day of discharge. Being wheeled from the hospital, holding my Munchkin, as eyes… my own eyes on her little face… stared up at me. With questions. I had no answers. I didn’t know what I was doing. Or why. But it was being done despite the lack of complete understanding. And all the time I’ve focused on that unbearable pain that I felt… at the core of my being… and I’ve never stopped to wonder, beyond that look in her eyes, if she missed me when I walked out the front doors of the hospital. If her heart was torn in two like my own. Oh. Oh.

If you knew me would you do it all over again?

Oh. Oh. No. And yet, I wonder what the protocol is for voicing a regret like that to an adoptee. Is there an appropriate age? What if she voices this question early on? “If you could go back and change things, would you?” If I say yes, and she’s too young to process, does it make her resent her parents? Does it make her resent me if I say no? Do I avoid? Do I try some politically correct speech? And if she’s an adult when she asks? A happy, well-adjusted adult like I can only pray for? Does she really want to hear that I’d take it all back? What is the protocol? I’m so lost.

To answer this question I must know that moment, in
your deep unconscious when you knew, really knew, that
I would not be yours, but given to another. At that
point my psychic connection to your psyche felt a
rift.

Was there a slight tremor, shock, or disturbance that
alerted me to set up a defensive wall. When was it,
before I was born or at the moment of my birth?

Was she already defensively against me when she was born? Did she know my plans? I was bonded to her, deeply, especially considering everything I went through during the pregnancy to keep her safe thanks to my health. But could she feel the effects that coercive language was having on my psyche? Did she feel that I was actually believing that I meant nothing to her? That she wouldn’t need me? That there would be no problem in transition and therefore no grief or loss for either of us beyond saying goodbye? Was she thinking, “Oh, for Pete’s sake, woman, gullible is written on the ceiling. LOOK!” She could have been; she would have been right. Oh. What did I do?

At the same time reading the words that are so moving, I know now a few things: between now and then, I need to let go of the anger, even towards the adoption agency from hell. I’ve forgiven just about everyone else but them and I can tell you as I sit here tonight, having just read that post that brought me to tears, I’m still not ready to forgive them just yet. In time, I hope. I pray. And secondly, I need to be ready to answer ANY question she throws at me. Any question, even if it sucks the life out of me to answer it, honestly, without reservation. That causes me to pause now, dig deeper. It’s hard. It’s big. It’s scary.

It must be done.

I will love my Munchkin no matter what ; nothing she can do or say will sway the love I have for her. Nothing she can become or be will change that unconditional love. Having read that, a few times now, taking a break in between reading to collect my thoughts and my seeping eyeballs, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my consistent and loving presence, whether she says “I love you” or “I hate you” will be something that I’ll lay my life down to offer her. Knowing that I’ve left her once kills me. I won’t do it again.

I would rather die. I would rather die.

(Read the post. Seriously. Read it and try not to be moved. I triple dog dare you not to question yourself in some form or fashion.)

The Answer to the Question: We Gave Up A Lot is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

From The Secret Life of Bees (which is finished and a MUST. READ.):

I wish she’d been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don’t give up their children.

Ouch, right? Yes, I felt the sting. In fact, I had to set the book down, get a glass of water and retreat to my back yard thinking spot. I think I cried a little. Words like that only sting when they’re true or have some semblance of truth… or when you know that, like the teeanged girl in the book, your own daughter could view her own adoption in the very same manner. While it may not be true in action on your part, the realization that you could hear those words from a girl that you love so very much is … daunting.

I have a post going up on Monday at the birth/first parent blog (I wrote IT first instead of having to stop a mid-stream thought over here to go write over there). However, I’m curious as to how this quote affects other birth parents, adoptees or adoptive parents. What does it make you feel? What does it make you think? How does it hit at your core? Have you had this conversation with your placed child already? How did it go? How did they respond to your answer? How did you phrase your answer? If you haven’t yet had this kind of conversation, are you mentally preparing for it? Or mentally avoiding it? Reasons as to why? Adoptees: have you felt like this? Why? How did feeling like this affect your feelings towards your birth mother/father? How did you deal with those feelings? Adoptive parents: have you had to field a question like this from your child about his/her biological parents? How did that go? How did it leave you feeling? If you haven’t, are you preparing for something like this?

I’d like to do a follow up post (as mine is mostly personal) on the bp/fp blog with words from all three sides of the triad. You can comment here or write something in your own blog and I’ll link you while quoting.

The sentence really moved me. (As did a few others that I’ll be talking about over time.) The book itself is not even about adoption in the way we understand it (and! wow! did I learn a LOT about bees!) but so many of the themes (anger, grief, loss) resonate to the very core of adoption (and many other life issues, really). I was just flabbergasted by the way certain words, sentences and paragraphs would hit me. I need to buy this book for my own shelf.

Anyway, please, if that sentence piqued your interest, can you blog about it or comment here? Or e-mail me personally? I’d really like to know how others feel and then force my readers to digest it. Oh, bless my readers. Heh.

If I’d Been Smarter or Loved More… is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

Even crusty old Jenna.

A story that melts my cold, icy core.

Those two children have a brother in Heaven, saluting them. Welcome to America, kiddos.

Because We All Need Some Heart-Warming is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

This one is a story about an adoptee whose firstfather, a name we all know well by this point, died on September 11, 2001. She never got to meet him. But his family welcomed her. This is a story of love, grief and a future.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/15476714.htm_

Another 9/11 Adoption Connection is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.

Boundaries are often important in adoption. We talk about them… a lot. We encourage them. We chastize those who either have none or have built a brick wall around themselves so that no one can get through on any level. I feel that boundaries are personal to each individual adoption and, honestly, necessary. But I feel the need to switch gears and talk about adult firstparents, their adult birthchildren and boundaries. For just a moment.

I, personally, have some angst regarding how my Mother treated me during the pregnancy and then handled the placement. There are times when she talks about Munchkin that I feel like my entire soul is going to explode within me, leaving me nothing but a pile of broken pieces and dust. She has contact with J and D and sends things like birthday cards and Christmas presents. Why? Munchkin deserves as many people as possible to love her, even if I am at odds with one of these people.

If my Mother and I were, for some reason or another, to come to an impasse in our relationship, I would not want for her to stop contact with the Munchkin. Especially when Munchkin hits the adult years, psh, who am I to tell her what she can and cannot do and who she can and cannot interact with in regards to her birthfamily.

I'll even take it as far as her firstfather, Lincoln.

He hurt me. On levels that I don't even talk about in therapy (yet) and will have a hard time putting into words on that fateful day when Munchkin decides that we need to have a sit down about the issue. On the times that Munchkin makes a face that looks like his, my heart cracks a bit as I'm reminded about the hurt, the pain. I hope to someday recover from all of this but, truth be told, there are some things that can be healed but will forever leave a scar. Like on my face; a dog bit me when I was nine months old. Stitches and antibiotics healed up the wound but I will forever walk around with two teeth marks and stitch marks on my right cheek. Not many people notice them. I do. I can feel them without touching my face. I see them without looking in the mirror. It is not a gaping, open wound. But the scars are there. They are real. They are a part of me forever. And that's really how I'm beginning to view my relationship with Lincoln.

I digress.

I don't know how my future healing process with him will continue to go. If I come to a point where I can no longer have contact with him (we still speak on occasion about the Munchkin but he's coming to a place where he will be contacting J and D on his own) due to his or my choice, I would never, absolutely never, tell my daughter that she could not meet, talk to or interact with her firstfather. And you know what? He can be a real asshole. I've seen the good side. I even once loved the good side. And while I am as protective of Munchkin as I am of BigBrother, once she's an adult, she is free to do as she pleases. Who am I to deny her a relationship that could, in hope, be good? Who is to say that in sixteen years he won't be a loving adult in her life? Or, she may find that he is, in fact, an ass and that she wants nothing to do with him. Know what? It's her decision, folks. Just the same as it's her decision, when she comes of an age to voice her opinion, whether or not she wants to continue contact with me. Whatever she wants? I will comply. I simply cannot tell her, "No, you can't see him, speak to him or speak of him. To do so is to completely disrespect me."

To say that is to completely disrespect her.

My opinion may not be popular. But, eh, I never am. No biggie. I will treat BigBrother in much the same manner. Here's that example: my parents and I had a falling out during the pregnancy with BigBrother. Upon his birth, I called them from the hospital to inform them that he was born. Why? Because my Son deserves to know his grandparents; they are good, genuine people and, frankly, kids benefit from having older adults and extra love. They came to the hospital. Why? They realized and believed the same thing. We're now repairing our own relationship so that my Son may continue to benefit from extra love.

This issue isn't a case of a specific adoption problem: it's a case of respecting your children no matter what.

Firstparent & Adoptee Boundaries; It’s About Respect is a post from The Chronicles of Munchkin Land. Want more Chronicles? Like our page on Facebook! If you have questions, please contact me or @ me on twitter.