I’ve owned The Cradle by Patrick Somerville for a few months. I’ve been reading it for over a month, something that is quite unusual for me. The back of the book talked about a missing cradle, family, the war in Iraq and a “surprising journey into the heart of marriage, parenthood, and what it means to be a family.” Emphasis mine. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize that as code-speak for “this book is about adoption,” but I missed it.

Until a few pages in when the main character, Matthew, starts talking about having been in foster care.

I put the book down for a few days. If this isn’t evidence that adoption as a subject follows me around, I don’t know what is. I didn’t purchase this book. I didn’t seek this book out. I hadn’t heard of this book. It was given to me in a box of books. And, if we’re honest, I liked the cover. So, I started reading it. And there it was. Adoption. Figures.

A few days later, I picked it back up. And put it down. And picked it back up. And read a huge chunk of it. And then physically threw it across the room. And picked it back up. And then accidentally left it in the truck for a few days. Days turned into a week. I grabbed it when we got out of the truck yesterday, resigning myself to finishing it last night.

I cried.

I cry at coffee commercials. And movies and television shows and when my kids say “I miss you, Mommy” on the phone. I’m a crier. So, it’s not monumental that the book made me cry; it’s unsurprising at best. But I cried.

There are two stories within in the book: one of a family starting out and another of a family in which the mother is an acclaimed children’s writer, trying to get back into poetry. She, of course, is the birth mother of the father in the other family. The story talks about how she wrote 72 poems while she was pregnant and then stopped writing poetry for a very long time. I’m familiar with that notion, how poetry suddenly takes on a different form, one that is too heavy to carry for awhile. Our stories differ in that Munchkin’s birth father was not killed in Vietnam, but I related to the feeling. Too much.

In the other line of the story, another child is found to be a half-sibling of the wife in the family starting out. He is, at best, “unwanted” by those who are caring for him. A discussion arises and revolves around the “what is best” line of thought. In this particular case, it was obviously the best choice for him to go home with the young father-to-be, to have the boy live with his half-sister, to be adopted by a family that legitimately cared and wanted him. But the line of questioning, the “what is best” question, always hits me in that place I try to ignore.

“So I want your word then,” Matt said. “your word that when all the papers come, you’ll sign them and you’ll send them back. It costs you nothing., You and I both know it’s the best thing that could happen.”

“Is it?” asked Darren. “For who? I also question your use of the word best.”

“I don’t,” Matt said.

Later, the letter is given to the birth mother by the boy in question above. That’s a long and involved story, one worth reading. As you might guess, the letter is what really got to me. The letter hit me in such a way, was written in a way that I had not previous seen in all of my adoption fiction reading. Was it because it was written by a man about a man searching for his birth mother? I don’t know. But, oh, I cried at these few lines.

If you’re that kind of person then I’m writing to say I’m here, and I’m okay, and it’s okay, what you did, I have lived an okay life.

My wife’s name is Marissa. Our new boy’s name is Chris. He is seven pounds, nine ounces and he is seven hours old. He has expressed an interest in knowing you in the future.

The Munchkin was seven pounds, nine ounces.

The book itself has holes. I don’t know what happened to the birth mother’s parented son, off to war. This irks me. The story of the cradle itself, however, is really quite interesting and almost makes up for that large gaping hole of irk.

I wouldn’t have read the book had I known that it was about adoption. I’ve been on adoption overload as of lately in all of my usual fictional outlets. I use fiction to escape from the realities of my life. To be thrown into a tumultuous story full of triggering adoption speak, a few stereotypes and some emotional baggage — without warning — was not exactly a walk in the park for me. But I’m glad I read it. It has nothing to do with my story, though I found myself relating to some of the discussions, the emotions, the general feelings that accompany this life. Talk of repression had me nodding my head. The description of various moments and feelings. Perhaps they really are universal.

In the end, this book didn’t change my life. It didn’t enlighten me as to anything within my own adoption journey. What it did do, however, was bring me out of my adoption-fiction funk. Adoption can be written in a non-overly-cliched way. There are still fresh ideas out there for how to tackle the subject. It’s not all about the stereotypes and baby-stealing and mean adoptive parents and court battles. Somerville wrote in an essay in 2009 about the book that he originally started the plot for the book with the idea of a “person looking for something.” I didn’t know I was looking for this book either.

I’m glad I found it.

I just read I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War and Other Battles by Lily Burana. I haven’t been an Army wife now for almost three years. My husband decided that he was done with his service while I was pregnant with our youngest son. Sometimes he gets nostalgic for friends, days and maneuvers gone by. That happens on a much rarer basis for me but I love a good memoir.

Wow.

This book could also be entitled No Matter Your Life-Long Issues, You Will Be Triggered, Brought to Tears and/or Reminded of a Time When You Were Also Told to Suck It Up. I loved the book and couldn’t put it down despite the fact that it was Easter weekend. Thankfully, four hours in a car (not driving) left me with enough time to finish up the reading that I started on Friday. I finished it last night.

I found myself nodding along at the beginning of the book. At one point, Burana mentions that while Army men may not be the fanciest courters, you know when they like you. Have you ever seen a man blush with a high and tight haircut? As she said, it goes straight to the top of their ears. I remember being infatuated with all things Army in the beginning. I felt proud of him, of myself for going along with everything. On another level, I also felt attached to the book as her husband received his orders in January 2003 and was deployed in March 2003. He got to come home early when the war was announced as “mission completed” in May of 2003. My husband received his orders in February 2003. They mobilized for training in March 2003. As they were finishing up at the Fort of their choice in May of that year, the war was “over” and he came home on Mother’s Day of that year.

As Burana started a downward spiral, her words spoke to me on different levels. Burana had been stripper in the past. In fact, she was a very public stripper, having previously written a memoir about her experience prior to marrying her (Officer) Army husband. She describes the fear she felt in one paragraph that had me nodding my head harder than I thought I felt.

“And I realized that deep down, I was really afraid of being judged for having been a stripper, more so than I might ever let on. I feared someone yelling, “Whore!” down the length of the frozen food aisle at the commissary, or seeing someone’s smile drop when they saw me come into the living room at coffee group, like, “I know about you, and now you know that I know, and I want you to know that I don’t want to know you.” Even worse, I feared being excluded entirely: Pariah Wife. Just pin a scarlet letter on her now, so everyone knows she’s an untouchable.”

Probably more so with the Army than in any other situation I’ve been in, I feared people learning that I was a birth mother. The average age of a (new) Army wife is 20 years old. That’s two years younger than I was when I placed the Munchkin for adoption. Many (not all) go on to have children very soon in their marriages. And here I was, on some different time line. I know now that any adverse reactions to my time line would have been a result of fear on their part(s) that I would judge their time line. Though, having been judged many a time, I know better than to judge people for the whens and whys of their life decisions on these topics now. Whatever the case, especially as the relinquishment was still newer in my life at that point in time, I lived in mortal fear that someone in my husband’s batallion would find out my status and blab about it, causing the Army wives that I couldn’t seem to bond with to gossip about me behind my back. I pushed them all further away.

Burana goes on to talk about PTSD as she experienced abuse as a child. That part of her memoir, in which she deals with the issues from her past and flubs her way through a flawed system of help, broke my heart in many ways. Again, one paragraph was just what I needed to read.

“I was convinced that I was squandering some legacy of female resilience. But the reality is, telling a depressed person to “snap out of it” is like parking someone in front of a stove with an extinguished pilot light and saying, “Start making pancakes, b*tch.” It’s not laziness. There’s no will because there’s no way.”

I remember the therapist that told that the issues, depression and anxiety I was experiencing due to Munchkin’s placement would “be easy to get over.” I didn’t understand at the time why I felt, or rather, why I knew that was the wrong thing for him to say. But I knew it was wrong. Every time someone has said something similar, (“But she’s so old now,” or, “Shouldn’t you have gotten past that yet,” or, “It’s time to let that go”) I want to scratch out their eyeballs. Like the marriage and baby making time lines, I have learned that there’s no hard-and-fast rule for understanding and accepting the grief and loss that accompany placement. In fact, I’ve learned that it’s an ebb-and-flow healing process. There are days when I’m Super Great! There are days when I’m Lower Than Low. Yes, I’m nearly seven years in. Yes, I’ve reached a place in my healing journey where I feel mostly okay. But, oh, those lows? They’re low. And I’m entitled to feel them, experience them and move through them. As are you.

Burana went on to explain that the Army has an understanding that you need to “suck it up” when things are tough. In viewing one military wives’ website, she saw the sentiment thrown in the face of anyone who was struggling. Sound like adoption blogs, forums and sometimes even twitter much? Yes, I thought so, too.

“In a venue like a spouse’s group or a Web site purportedly accustomed to sisterly carping, a response like “suck it up” and its close cousin, “You knew what you were getting into when you married him,” seem annoyingly tone-deaf. I’m not sure which bothers me more — the lack of compassion or the finger-wagging Bossy Boots tone. Tea and sympathy are not among the perks of military service, but that doesn’t mean kindness should be dashed from the spousal ranks. And I’m unclear on the prize for placing first at the Suck It Up Olympics. What does the winner get — a medal? An ulcer?”

Oh, the Pain Olympics! Adoption bloggers have long been talking about how useful they are to us as a community. How many times have I been told by other birth mothers to shut up because I’m one of the “lucky ones” who gets to see and interact with her daughter? How many times have I been told by an adoptive parent that I chose this path by opening my legs and signing my name so my whining and ranting about supposed grief and loss is my own darn fault? How many times have I been told by an adoptee that I should have thought about all of these things before I carelessly gave away my child and that I didn’t have a right to feel anything now? How many times have I watched people troll one another, toss about “my story is worse than your story” rhetoric and generally tear one another down? What has it ever accomplished? Nothing.

It’s funny to me how a book that had nothing to do with adoption made me think so long and hard about my own journey. True, I was an Army wife. I still sleep in the Army shirt that my husband gave me. The definition of hooah made me laugh as my husband actually brought me home a shirt with a similar definition on it from one of his times away. But what this book made me realize is really quite simple: we’re not all that different.

The blogosphere, especially the mommy blogosphere, has long placed adoption blogs in their own niche. Niches are important, of course, and properly utilizing your niche is key to being a good blogger. But all too often, adoption bloggers are seen as different and, sadly, less than traditional mommy bloggers. Is it because this blog isn’t filled with happy pictures and cute stories like our family blog? Is it because this one gets too nitty-gritty? I don’t know the answers. But having just read this book, I am all too aware that our journeys, whatever they are, are not all that different. The similarities in any story, in any journey, should be bringing us together more than driving us apart. We have all been through something, even if it doesn’t quite seem like it. We all have stories to tell. We all know what it feels like to be judged… and to judge. I wonder why we don’t recognize that more often and embrace one another with more understanding.

Then again, sometimes I’m a bit idealistic, no?

Whatever the case, I’m proud to have been part of the Army community. And I’m also proud to be a part of the adoption community. I may not always have enjoyed the paths that have brought me to this point, in either one, but I won’t be reduced to having to hide my stories. I hope no one else feels that way either. Burana was brave enough to share her story which didn’t always speak kindly of the military. Perhaps we, the adoption community, should take note and find a way to still be proud but still speak out regarding the changes that still need to be made within the adoption industry.

Dealing with adoption issues takes a special kind of bravery. Let’s tap into that together.

_
Disclosure: Links above are through Amazon Associates. I Love a Man in Uniform actually comes out in paperback tomorrow. Cool.

Photo Credit: Oh yeah. That’s us in 2004. Wow.

© 2010 The Chronicles of Munchkin Land Suffusion WordPress theme by Sayontan Sinha