Posted: October 30, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Suz and Barb both posted this video. I waited to watch it until just a few moments ago… after dinner… after an emotional day as it was… but I don’t suppose it would have been an easy thing to watch this morning either. I want to share this with so many people. I want so many people to watch this and understand. I’ll be sending it to my Husband to watch later. He understands me but I want him to know… this isn’t just my reaction.
Anyway. Watch it. And pass it on.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENMZZdaHI64&rel=1&border=0]
Posted: September 3, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Obviously, I am still pondering the issues I talked about in a recent post which were brought forth by discussions in various forum type settings. D and I have had a few discussions since then, leaving me feeling further validated in our own adoption and empathetic towards families who aren’t as lucky. As I was writing my (long) post on my personal regret for the birth/first parent blog this morning, something began to nag at me. In my heart and mind. It followed me as I hit the sales for Labor Day with BigBrother in tow. As I sipped my orange creme frappucino, the treat for finishing all planned errands, it really began to yell at me.
I have to admit that there was a time that I was threatened by D’s existence. Let me get ahead of myself and say that is not currently the case. Now I can go back and talk about it without people flipping out on me. Or, I should be able to.
Truth be told, when I allow myself to be totally honest, I was threatened by D when our relationship began. Not as a human being; goodness, she’s no bigger than I am! She’s also not confrontational or overbearing. That said, she’s also not a doormat so don’t try to walk all over her. But when we began our match, I was threatened and/or intimidated. Here was this woman. The woman who was going to be parenting my daughter. What did she think of my meager apartment? If I chose to parent, which I obviously didn’t, would she say nasty things about how the child that she had grown to love would be raised? Was I “good enough” to be her daughter’s birth mother? Did I say stupid things? What if I said something that made them not want to have me in their lives? The list went on and on.
And then that threat kind of subsided for awhile after placement. I began to fall into the place I was meant to have in our family unit. I viewed D as a friend, not just the mother of my daughter. We fell into a nice give and take and things were easy.
Then Munchkin began to talk.
Then I heard her call D “Mom.”
And man, if the big green-eyed monster of jealousy didn’t rear his ugly head.
Not that I let it get in the way of our relationship. But it did take some adjusting. And I did feel threatened for a few months as I tried to figure out what my “role” really was for the Munchkin. It was hard to hear Munchkin verbalize her understanding of Mom and not know, exactly, where I fit in to her perception. Heck, I didn’t even know where I wanted to fit in or should fit in! The not knowing, the uncertainty, is what really killed me.
Thankfully, after I got involved with my current therapist, I was able to work through those emotions. I do not feel threatened when Munchkin calls D “Mom;” she IS Mom. I am one of her mothers and I have my own unique role in her life. I don’t do the everyday things. No. And sometimes that sucks and fills me with some regret. But, no, I’m just not threatened. I’m not jealous. It’s really, plain and simple, not D’s fault that I am not Munchkin’s everyday Mom. It would be completely out of line to place those feelings of resentment, frustration and fear onto D’s shoulders. It would be unfair. It would hinder our relationship.
So, yes, I’m in a good place. Does that mean I don’t expect to feel any of those feelings again? No, I probably will at some point, won’t I? Continuous milestones will probably bring up some issues that leave me feeling exposed and without knowledge of where I fit into the scenario. But now that I’ve had therapy to help me realize my own role in her life, I hope to get past any issues like those with relative ease. If not with ease, at least with an understanding of what I’m going through and what’s available on the other side.
In short: I’m beginning, however slowly, to empathize with adoptive mothers who may feel threatened by the existence of their child’s first mother. However, like me, I really think it needs to be worked through, as soon as possible, if we really want to keep the best interest of the child at heart and hand. Continued feelings of jealousy or fear towards D could have greatly hindered our relationship. I’m glad I was able to see my own fault and deal with it before it became anything serious in nature.
(Be sure to hit up my long-winded post on personal regret on the birth/first parent blog from this afternoon. It was an emotional chore to write.)
Posted: August 31, 2007 at 2:45 pm
I’m working on Chapter Eight in Lifegivers for the birth/first parent blog. It will be two days of talk on the subject because the chapter is so long. And so heavy. And mostly overwhelming. Regret is often feared. Even though I’ve written about it before and how it’s not so big and so scary, people freak out when you talk about birth parent regret.
And so, in conjunction with the chapter review posts on Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be talking about how birth parents in today’s world (which includes closed and open adoption mothers and fathers) are dealing with that regret, how the adoptive families involved with such people are dealing with it and how it doesn’t have to be this huge, scary thing that sends everyone running for the hills.
A quote to get some minds going:
Regret is no stranger to birthparents. It is, of course, a reality for everyone, but it is an especially common and prominent companion for birthparents. It may be as modest as a sporadic twinge of forlorn longing or as oppressive as a lifetimes of relentless remorse.
-James L Gritter, Lifegivers
So, no, I don’t want to hear, “Oh, I have no regrets.” Look up the definitions. If you’ve ever wished that things could have gone differently or that your child could have been present on x-day or that their birthday wasn’t such an emotional drain, you’ve experienced some form of regret. We train people to think that regret is totally negative, something to be avoided at all costs. I come to argue that regret, while not always a pleasant feeling, can motivate us in better directions. Regret doesn’t have to rule our lives; sure, it’s present but it doesn’t have to take over every aspect, every corner, every nook and cranny.
It’s such a big topic. There’s so much to say. So much to learn. So much.
