Motherhood » The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

I Knew Everything. I Knew Nothing.

Adoption, in General, Motherhood 3 Responses »

Nov 162009

Four years ago today, I was a mother but I wasn’t a mom. I knew what motherly instinct felt like, that deep-seated need to protect at any cost even if it meant my own personal misery. I had felt the unconditional love that a mother felt. I thought I knew everything there was to know about being a mother. I had watched D parent the Munchkin. I had read some books. I was ready for it all.

I wasn’t ready for anything.

On this day before my oldest son’s fourth birthday, my oldest parented child, I am feeling nostalgic and introspective. I am feeling overwhelmed with emotion. I’m also somewhat amused at my past self. I think of how I felt and the things that I thought on this day, four years ago. I didn’t know that my kidney was shutting down and that I’d be induced the next day. I was just a 38-week pregnant woman who was uncomfortable, more so due to my kidney disorder. (My uterus at this point had totally pinched off the ureter out of my right kidney.) I was excited to finally be a mom after having been a mother for two years. It was a weird place to be and I felt alone in that thought process.

The things I didn’t know are the meat and potatoes of actual, everyday parenting. I didn’t know that my me time would be hard fought after my oldest parented child’s arrival. I didn’t know that you could love a child so very deeply and still be aggravated and frustrated. I didn’t know that everything you thought you knew about parenting was usually made null and void at some point. I didn’t know that the issues I thought I had overcome regarding the placement of my firstborn would rear their ugly heads and make it impossible for me to move forward as a mom until I got professional help.

It’s that last “didn’t know” that leave me feeling sad at times. I know that every mom claims that the first few months of her child’s life are mostly blurry, a series of sleepless nights erasing some of the memories. I worry sometimes that the blur was brought on by an inability to focus on the task at hand, caring for my son, due to a preoccupation with missing his older sister. I was so overwhelmed by the memories and flashbacks and guilt and feeling of loss regarding his sister that I found it difficult to truly enjoy our time together. I hesitate to take it so far as to say that I didn’t bond with him; I think we are truly bonded, deeply, on levels I didn’t know that I could be bonded with someone else. But I do feel that I cheated him out of some special time during his early days, weeks and months. I wasn’t as present as I could have been. I was lost in a world that the adoption industry doesn’t discuss with mothers who are considering placement. As I took care of that tiny infant who is now a smart, funny little boy, I kept wondering if I would have done the same things with my firstborn. I kept wondering if it would have felt the same. I kept wondering if I could have done it had I parented her.

I still wonder at times. Not as often as I don’t play the what if game (as much) after all of my years in therapy. But I wonder. Who doesn’t wonder?

I am so thankful that our small infants don’t remember their first days, weeks and months. I would feel eternally guilty if my oldest son asked me, “Mommy, why did you cry so much when I was a little baby?” (Of course, as I battled some pretty heavy postpartum depression with my youngest son, he could ask the same.) I love both of these boys with the fire of a thousand suns, just as I love their sister. As I reflect on this particular day in my history, I wonder how I would have changed my parenting had I known everything that I know now.

Would I have spent more time just cuddling in bed with my oldest son? Would I have allowed myself some more room to feel instead of ignoring the emotions for (approximately) three months? Would I have asked for more help? Would I have been more honest with myself, with those who loved me, when they asked me what was wrong? Would I have been easier on myself? Would I have laughed more at some of the things that I flubbed up? Or would I still have been tense and anxious, demanding perfection of myself since I felt, in my core, that I had failed my firstborn? I don’t know. I do know that I have managed to get one child to four (tomorrow) and another to almost two (next Tuesday) and they seem to be generally well-rounded. Despite my issues, they seem to love me. Despite my issues, I know that I love them.

So is it even worth asking all of these questions? In another four years will I look back on this post and laugh at everything I didn’t know about what was just around the next bend? I assume so. Life is like that most of the time. I’ve learned so much in the past four years, both about being an everyday mom and a birth mother. I assume that the next four years will bring about more things that I never knew I didn’t know… and hopefully a lot of wonderful memories.

I Held it Together… Until Now

Motherhood 2 Responses »

May 052009

I had played it off like it doesn’t matter. I stated a disinterest. I talked about how I wasn’t participating and, darn it, it is just a stupid Hallmark holiday anyway. And then I read a poorly written poem and my walls came crashing down.

I still hate it. Mother’s Day, that is.

The day makes me so angry. It should be a day of celebrating but it never really will be. You see, since my three living children don’t share a birthday, I can grieve on the Munchkin’s birthday and not feel guilt. Well, that’s not 100% true because when I am in attendance at her parties, I feel guilt that I’m grieving because I should be rejoicing that I am one of the lucky, blessed few to get to be in the same room with my relinquished daughter as she grows a year older. But when I’m feeling that grief, I’m not short-changing my parented sons.

On Mother’s Day, when I’m left with grief for the daughter I placed for adoption or the daughter that we lost to miscarriage, I am short-changing the two boys that crawl all over me. The older one who puts on a super hero cape, firefighter boots and runs around the living room. The one who told me the other day that he does not, in fact, have a uterus in his belly. He just has food. The younger one who stands up and sits down and stands up and sits down on my lap and yells, “SIT!” over and over… which sounds funny as it is toddler speak and makes me giggle. The one who gives open mouth kisses any time he walks past me. The two boys who hug each other after they fight over a toy. The two boys who call each other friend. The two boys who smile at each other each morning like the sun sets on the other’s heads.

I should be rejoicing on Mother’s Day to be their everyday, awesome Mama.

But I do that every other day of the year. I love being their Mom and anyone who spends more than five minutes with me knows that fact. And that, in essence, is what I hate about Mother’s Day. The whole concept of only honoring mothers, in all of their many forms, one day per year. What about the other night when I stood by my youngest’s cribside and just rubbed his back as he was whimpering in his sleep due to teething pain? What about a few days ago when I held my oldest son in my arms and told him that it was okay to miss his daddy and yes, it was okay to cry? What about when I scattered roses on our local lake for the daughter I would never see, never hold, never hear? What about that first time I placed my oldest child into the arms of another mother… and what about every time I let her go again after a visit? And every single second in between?

I have been a mother since I saw the line on that pregnancy test in that badly tiled bathroom in 2003. I went into Mama Bear mode quite quickly and did everything in my power to protect that child. I was of failing health and I still made decisions with her best interest in mind, not even my own. And people want to tell me that doesn’t count? That was just a trial run? It was nothing?

In the end, I know that I am in charge of the definition of my own motherhood. And I am okay with that 364 days per year. Mother’s Day, however, trips me up. I can’t get around the fact that they don’t make a card for me and my strange motherhood. I can’t figure out how to celebrate and grieve and honor every part of my motherhood at the same time. I can’t figure out how to properly channel these emotions and put them to their best use. I can’t enjoy a day that refuses to acknowledge so many of my sisters… not just birth mothers but every single one of these mothers that is in a situation in which society doesn’t want to honor their mothering, their motherhood.

And so, the tears fall even though I swore that I would ignore the hoopla this year. I’ve been ignoring tweets on Mother’s Day. I’ve been ignoring gift guides. I’ve been ignoring it all. And it’s all smacked me in the face and reminded me that some people in this world view me as “less than” because I get pregnant easily and because I made choices along the way. And to that I say: my children, all of them, have something amazing in me. I may not be perfect. I may not have all the answers. But I have a heart so full of love and compassion. I have an amazing gift in my children and I’ll be damned if someone tells me that I’m not good enough simply because of x, y or z.

And maybe that’s the attitude I need to work on this year…