10

Primal Wound Book Tour

I signed up for the Primal Wound book tour not realizing when the post dates would be. There is absolutely no world in which I want to think about possible irreparable damage that I may or may not have caused my daughter by relinquishing her… on her birthday. But, it wasn’t my decision and here we are.

I had paged through The Primal Wound in the past but I had never read through it in its entirety. It was a hard read. It was a very hard read. I believe, in some ways, it was a necessary read. But it was a hard read. And the fact that it was so hard and the fact that it is the Munchkin’s birthday just meld together to make me angry today. Thrilling.

Here are three questions I decided to answer.

If you had read this book as you were making your decision, how might this information have changed your decision-making process? Not necessarily the outcome (which you may or may not have regrets about) but the thoughts that went into the decision to place.

I don’t know. I hate questions like these. The “What If” game is so absolutely useless. To be honest, my unethical agency was never going to offer this book to me. I had no access to the Internet to learn about this book and I was on bed rest, unable to go to a library to find this book. I don’t know how it would have landed in my lap. If it had, I probably would have written it off as mumbo-jumbo. I mean, everyone in my life was telling me that adoption was fantastic! And wonderful! And the right thing! For all! Involved! I don’t know if I could have taken this book seriously without the added knowledge that I have gleaned over the past six years from others’ blogs, forum posts and discussions when I have spoken in public. It is through their voices and the acceptance of my own experience that I can even remotely begin to understand this book. And that, of course, is why I can’t answer the question fully. I can’t say what I would have done if I had been presented with all of the information simply because I wasn’t presented with even a fraction of it at the time.

Moving on.

On page 92 Verrier writes, “Birthmothers also have a sense of loyalty to that lost child. There is a high rate of secondary infertility among them (perhaps as high as 40%). Those who never conceive again say things such as: “I couldn’t be unfaithful to him. I have a hard time even holding my little nephew.” For me personally, (as a birthmother), I felt the exact opposite. I feel as though, in a way, I’ve been holding my breath since giving up my baby girl years ago, just waiting until the day when I could have another baby and get to keep her this time. (Which is what finally happened this year!) For the other birthmothers, did you relate to this statement? What has your personal experience been in terms of pregnancy and motherhood post relinquishment? Both in terms of what path you’ve taken and your feelings about it?

Fertility is such a weird thing. A fickle, angry, shameful thing sometimes. I can’t tell you why some birth mothers have experienced secondary fertility. I do believe that the theory may have some truth. But anyone who has dealt with fertility issues and been told, “It’s all in your head,” knows how freaking annoying that theory can feel. I wonder if some birth mothers didn’t avoid having children for fear of being treated as poorly as they were the first time around. Similarly, I’ve been asked if I(we) had children so quickly because we were trying to fill a void. In my specific case, I can honestly say no. Due to my health issues, we were told that we needed to have kids as soon as possible. So, we did. I thought I was ready, emotionally, to parent a child or children everyday until it was my reality. I had the very rude awakening that I had many adoption related issues that I had not even thought to start working on. I started therapy just after my first son was born. I still deal with issues (overprotective, helicopter parenting and fear… lots of it) but I’m in a good place now.

Of course, the agency told me that I could go on to have kids later, when I was ready. What the agency didn’t tell me was the statistic in this book. Nor did they discuss what my health problems, discovered during my pregnancy with the Munchkin, meant for my future fertility. Nor did they bring up the fact that birth mothers aren’t immune from things like miscarriages. I was just told that it would be okay. I’m lucky that my health held out and that we have two healthy boys and only one lost to miscarriage. We’re lucky despite their lack of truth.

Moving on.

At the time I surrendered my children I had to believe that adoption was in the best interest of my children. I would deal with the pain and the loss but adoption was the best thing for them. If I hadn’t done my own healing work I think my guilt would have intensified after reading this book. What about the mothers that haven’t had the opportunity to heal. How do you introduce them to the concept of a primal wound and its lifelong implications without causing more anguish and pain to a mother who had no choice?

You can’t. I know quite a few birth mothers who won’t ever accept anything this book has to say about the not-so-happy side of adoption. There are some who absolutely need to keep the world of adoption a happy place with storybook endings. I get that. I do. I mean, even in my world, I don’t want an unhappy ending to our story. But I don’t think anyone can be forced to read a book like this before they’re ready and somehow magically glean a new way of looking at the adoption industry. I think you have to be ready. I mean, I’m six years into this journey, have worked very hard on my healing, push for ethical reform and I just read the book. It’s not an easy book. It’s just not. I’m glad I read it though I feel mostly helpless at this stage in the game. I can’t change anything that’s been done. This book, having been written for a different generation with different rules, offers no direction for me. What am I, a birth mother in open adoption, supposed to do? How am I supposed to handle all of this? I recognize that openness doesn’t magically erase everything.

But WHAT am I supposed to do?

And that’s what I’m left with… today… on her birthday. Again, I’m glad I participated but today I just need to curl up with my family, gorge on some cupcakes and cry a little bit. I’ve had enough thinking for today. I’ll be back tomorrow on the Birth Parent blog over at AdoptionBlogs with three more questions. Maybe tomorrow will be easier. This was beyond difficult today. Beyond difficult. I know that the idea was to visit others’ in the book tour but, I’m sorry. I cannot. Maybe tomorrow. Though, again, maybe not.

To continue to the next leg of this book tour, please visit the main list at The Open Adoption Examiner.

01

Mount Everest and Creativity

I want to write more about the wedding but, I’m going to be honest. I’m still processing some of the emotions that accompanied the event. They’re mostly fabulous but they’re still very overwhelming. I did wear waterproof mascara to the event which was the right decision. And so, as I process those emotions, I thought I’d tell you a little bit about what else is going on in my somewhat-adoption-related-world.

At Swagapalooza, a book was in our swag bag. It’s entitled Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. It’s by Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void. I wasn’t expecting much out of a free book from a guy who didn’t even present at the event. I have been pleasantly surprised. Right now I’m on point/chapter ten and I had to share it with you, my adoption journey readers.

Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

The point goes on in a very encouraging manner.

You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

I wonder exactly what my personal Mount Everest is, what I’m journeying toward. I mean, I’ve been talking about my journey toward peace and healing for quite some time. However, is that just an attempt to get past the snow line? I don’t quite know. I know what I want to do, what I want to accomplish and I even hesitate writing it now because it seems as big and scary as a mountain that is known for killing people on their way to the top.

I’ve been getting nudges, for years now, to write a book. What book, exactly, is still unsure to me. I know everyone expects me to detail my adoption story, our journey that we continue on and will continue on for years and years to come, even after Munchkin is an adult and on her own. However, having paid attention to Dawn’s trials in this same exact area, I already know some of what rejection will come my way. The claims that it isn’t my story to tell. The claims that we don’t know how the Munchkin will feel about it all later on and, as such, the story can’t be told yet. Truth be told, memoirs are actually just supposed to be a glimpse at one part of a life story and not a full conclusion on a life lived. If everyone waited until the life journey was complete to write their memoir, the genre would die right along with the people who were thinking, “I wonder if my journey is complete enough to put pen to paper today. No? Maybe tomorrow.” Too late.

Then there’s the problem of knowing what I want to say. Or, rather, not knowing what I want to say. Or, really, if I get to the heart of the matter, being afraid of the reactions of people for simply saying what it is that I have to say. My adoption story and journey aren’t pleasing to either the super pro-adoption camp who believe that all babies conceived out of wedlock should be given to more deserving couples or the super anti-adoption camp who believe that adoption is inherently evil and should be abolished at all costs. This is, of course, because I am not an extremist and live my reality somewhere between the two ideas. Parts of my story do speak to the absolute and immediate need for adoption reform. The way I was lied to and subtly coerced by the unethical agency through which I placed are exactly what I want to see changed. However, other parts of my story do speak to the wonders of open adoption. I have many a moment, many a conversation that really end up making the long, arduous and grief-laden road worth the bruised knees and broken heart of my travels.

Of course, as I argue these thoughts with myself, I come back to a very important point of which I try to remind others writing on the topic of adoption, be it in blog or forum form: my story does not negate, dismiss or diminish someone else’s story; it is my own. As such, I really shouldn’t care what the extremists from either side think of my story. (Nor do I on a normal basis. But the book idea is scary!) I really shouldn’t even care what the everyday Jane and Joe Schmoe think. This should just be about me, my story and pen and paper. Or, fingers and keyboard. The truth is, I don’t know exactly how I want to portray my story. Truthfully, obviously. Honestly. With passion. But what to say. How to say it. And how to portray it. I just don’t know as of yet.

Maybe I’ll figure it out by the time I finish this book. I don’t know.

01

I Can Turn Anything into a Post on Adoption!

I’m still on a book binge as of late, devouring anything and everything. A friend of mine has let me borrow The Time Traveler’s Wife which I have wanted to read for some time but have never come around to doing so. I finished another book last night and immediately picked this one up, excited and curious.

The first few paragraphs in the prologue kept throwing lines at me. Sure, it’s a love story of epic proportions (from what I understand) but these lines spoke to me on different levels.

I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I’ve been there, done this. I’m sure most people have, actually, during a period of time in their lives when time otherwise dragged on and on. While I will admit that my children are growing too quickly, I do keep myself busy for a similar reason. The time between visits is long. Granted, as I come up on another visit, only four months separating these past two, I am very excited. But the months in between drag on and on.

I actually remember giving this advice, to keep yourself busy, to new birth mothers back in the day. I am not particularly sure that I stand by this advice. I understand the concept: keep busy so you don’t have time to think or feel. I wonder if that’s really what we should be teaching new birth mothers. I know that some don’t have time to slow down, reflect and truly delve into their emotional well-being. I wonder though how many would shorten their denial, Kool-Aid drinking period. I wonder if we told them to just take a few weeks and sort through their experience, to really experience that experience instead of shove it to the back of their mind, how many would seek help sooner. A rhetorical question but one to ponder all the same.

I didn’t like “free time” much in the months immediately after Munchkin’s placement. When my now-husband would go off to work, especially before I found a job two months after relinquishment, I would feel trapped by the walls in our apartment. It didn’t help that it was winter, though winter is a favorite season of mine, as I couldn’t take long meandering walks. Though I’d start out each Alone Day with the best of intentions, I’d eventually find myself holed up in our bedroom, curled under the blankets, sobbing into pillows as my breasts leaked and stained my bras, shirts and sheets. The idle time, the time when I had to think and feel and just “be”, was simply too much for me to handle. Perhaps that’s why we tell new birth mothers to keep busy. Perhaps the combination of free time and emotions is too much for any of us to handle. Perhaps reflection and consideration and true self-questioning isn’t possible until time has passed. Maybe hindsight is necessary for some of it. I don’t really know.

And then, another line.

Everything seems simple until you think about it.

I remember how simple all of this adoption stuff seemed prior to actually handing over the baby. In fact, adoption seemed very simple before I knew anything about it, before I found myself unexpectedly pregnant and unable to work due to my kidney disorder. The more I learned, even prior to placement, the more I felt overwhelmed and confused. Of course, our agency did nothing to prepare us, on either side, for the complexities of a fully open adoption. And, really, when you think about the definition of open adoption, it doesn’t sound all that difficult, now does it? “The continued contact between birth and adoptive families after the adoption of the child.” I mean, what’s so difficult about that? Shouldn’t “continued contact” be simple?

Sure. Until you factor in the inherent power struggle that exists even in the undertones of the most successful open adoption relationships. Until you add in the years of grief and loss of the birth parents compounded by any grief and loss issues on the adoptive parents’ part. Until you realize that the agencies don’t often mean that their counseling is available to you whenever you need it or, often times, doesn’t exist at all. Until you find yourself, the birth parent, ready to parent other children and suddenly you question everything about yourself, your abilities, the adoption and the world. Until the lot of you experience your first real big issue. And your second. And your third. Until you, as the birth parent, realize that adoptive parents are not infallible, that they, too, make mistakes, have issues and are generally just as human as the rest of the imperfect world. When you stop to consider all of these things, open adoption doesn’t sound so simple, now does it?

Still, knowing what we’ve been through and not having a clue what awaits us in the future, I am grateful for having put in the leg work. I am grateful for the relationship we possess. I know it’s complicated and messy at times. But I’m really starting to be of the opinion that the most meaningful relationships in our lives weren’t built upon Easy Street. These relationships dwell upon narrow, gnarly paths that we choose to walk and sometimes climb through toward whatever our ultimate goal might be. It’s not always an easy journey, for any family I suppose, but I keep hoping that, in the end, it will be worth it. I’m trying to enjoy the journey, snarly briars and all.

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[No, I haven't seen the movie nor do I particularly care to just yet as I tend to loathe movies. In general. But especially books-turned-movies. It's usually an epic fail for me.]