I’ve Walked That Mile in Those Shoes

 Pregnant with Munchkin, Stereotypes  8 Responses »
Sep 222010
 

I’ve never fully recounted my experience with state assistance, Medicaid and food stamps that I received while pregnant with the Munchkin. I still hold a lot of shame, not specifically attached to the receipt of said assistances, but from the reactions of others while I was utilizing government funded programs.

People were downright nasty to me. Family members. “Friends.” Co-workers. The staff at my doctor’s office. The staff at the hospital. The social workers themselves (and it got worse later on). My landlord. A pharmacy worker. The people at my current church who didn’t know I was once on assistance but launched into a tirade about those who are. The list goes on.

But there were compassionate people. The first time I showed up at the grocery store to use my EBT card, I had no idea how to go about it. The cashier was kind. Her tone was one of compassion. She taught me not only about my purchases at that store, but how to use it elsewhere. I still have a vivid memory of leaving that store and thinking that good people did exist.

It was really hard for me to stay on assistance due to my kidney disorder that landed me on bed rest at 18 weeks. Level 3 bed rest, mind you. I was unable to work. I was also unable to drive. So, when I would miss a visit with my social work regarding my lack of employment seeking, they would cut me off of assistance. I would then break bed rest, whcih was really dangerous for me to do, and get back to the office. Remind them. Show them my forms. And be fine again. For awhile. I was cut off twice during the pregnancy… and again right at the end. I paid for Munchkin’s birth out of pocket… for years. I just recently paid it off.

I’ve been asked why I didn’t go back in right after birth and get put back on assistance. The social worker on my case was so incredibly rude to me when I admitted, somewhere in the 8th month of pregnancy, that I would be placing my daughter for adoption. She verbally lashed me for “working the system” and taking money from people who really needed it. She yelled for a good twenty minutes. There was no way I was going back in to that office and asking for my birth to be covered when I didn’t have a baby to show for it. I left Pennsylvania six days after Munchkin’s birth.

I am grateful that the assistance did cover what it did. As I said, I had a ridiculously complicated pregnancy. The assistance covered my first lengthy hospital stay when my kidney disorder was found. It covered that first surgery. A second lengthy hospital stay. A third surgery and that hospital stay. Four L&D trips in which I was in preterm labor due to said kidney disorder and the medications I needed to take to combat the labor, dilation and constant contractions. An ER visit for heavy labor, a subsequent trip to Pittsburgh via ambulance (lights and sirens) and that lengthy hospital stay. That last hospital stay was actually what ended up cutting my benefits. I missed an appointment at the office while I was fighting for my life and my daughter’s life in a hospital bed in Pittsburgh. Two weeks later, they cut me, but I didn’t receive notice as my parents had me staying in their house as my doctor’s had said labor would be soon. I found out about my cut benefits about six hours after the Munchkin arrived.

Due to my experience, I have a lot of compassion for people on assistance. That’s why I felt a lot for this writer at BlogHer who talked about judgments passed on people who are on assistance having things like cell phones or the Internet. And that’s why my vision kind of shakes and I can’t form coherent sentences when people spout of nasty things in the comments or on Facebook in reply to posts like that. I can tell, immediately, that those people have never had to fight for their life, for their unborn baby’s life, while trying to stay on assistance. That they’ve never had a social worker yell thisclose to their face. That they’ve never felt the shame and stigma of both accepting assistance and relinquishment. I try to force myself to realize that not everyone wants to understand the plights of others, but it just breaks my heart for those that are continuously stereotyped by those who don’t even want to understand.

I get so discouraged with society when we let the negative define a whole group of people. If we all did that, we should say that everyone who is not on assistance is a nasty, prejudicial, compassion-less meanieface. If we know that not to be true, why can’t we stop stereotyping those utilizing services?

BlogHer ’10: Adoption Overload, but Still Not Enough

 Adoption, in General  17 Responses »
Aug 092010
 

Everywhere I turned at BlogHer ’10, I heard the word adoption. Some of that was because I traveled with two adoptive moms, both of whom I am lucky enough to call friends. Part of that is because I am a known adoption blogger, even though I’m on the birth parent side of the triad. Part of that is because a large number of my online-formed-friendships are with others who identify in one way or another with the adoption triad.

But, man, I got saturated with adoption speak this weekend. Early in the weekend.

At one point, I simply had to ditch everyone and everything and stick my fingers in my ears and yell, “LA LA LA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! WHAT IS ADOPTION?!” Then I remembered to do my deep breathing techniques, pulled out my coping techniques and basically got over myself. I must say that I’ve come a long way in managing my own anxiety. Yes, I still have to take a moment and step aside and actually remind myself to breathe, but let’s be honest: Jenna of four or five years ago couldn’t have handled crowds that big, constant adoption speak and the general hub-bub of the conference. I count the brief moment of saturation and subsequent breathing as a total win for myself.

And then I realized something. Despite all of the adoption speak being constantly thrown around, the number of birth parents in attendance was low. I can’t even count the number of adoptive parents in attendance. And, thankfully, they were mostly adoptive parents that I know and love. But birth parent wise? Me. Claud. Shannon. Another one who isn’t actively blogging her story but follows the discussions. I heard of two (I think, though the two might be the same person but described differently) others that I never managed to run into myself. (Adoptee speaking, I ran into a handful, but still not as many as the adoptive parents.)

I wonder why.

Of course, it’s perfectly representative as to what is going on numbers-wise in the blogosphere. For every birth parent blogger, there are scores of adoptive parent bloggers. (Same goes for adoptees.) When you factor in things like any birth mother from the closed era being told to keep her mouth shut and move on with her life with the fact that those in open adoptions who dare to blog the “hard” stuff of the reality of the journey are told to shut their mouths and be grateful, well, it’s not hard to understand why our numbers rise and quickly dwindle, rinse repeat.

I felt the number and entire issue acutely as I sat in on the grief panel. It was amazing. It was heart-wrenching. It was funny (no, really). It was something I needed to sit in on and consider. But it did, in fact, make me feel more alone. I did experience something similar to two of the speakers, being told that it was my fault anyway. I also experienced the “you should be over this now” in relation to both Munchkin’s relinquishment and Rose’s miscarriage. There were similarities. But so many differences. As of this year, with all the death my family has experience, I can honestly say that I don’t feel as though death related grief and adoption related grief are the same, much as Kim stated when divorce and death were briefly compared. Both griefs to experience and live through, but, for me, so vitally different.

And so I wonder where our voices are. I mean, I know where they are. They’re here, on the blogosphere, continuing to discuss the ins and outs of the experience. But do we shy away from bigger events to avoid the actual face-to-face “yes I’m a birth mother” discussion? Do we fear the look of panic in someone else’s eyes when we make that admission? Are we scared of the judgment, perceived or otherwise? I know the answers, as they were part of my answer for so many years. Sure, it was convenient that I couldn’t attend because of 50th Anniversary Parties and other things. But it was also easier.

When it comes down to it, I’d like to see larger representation of birth parents at BlogHer: on site, at the conference and on the panels. If we can talk about infertility and grief and death and loss and issues revolving around the importance of feminism and action by women, they we most definitely can talk about how ethical adoption reform is a feminist issue, and more over, speaking of the adoptee right to their original birth certificates, a humanist issue. So many blogging topics and activism things smooshed into one niche on the blogosphere… and very little representation. I think, perhaps, that was my only letdown of the entire conference: hearing all of this great talk about so many issues and not seeing any visible representation of the issues most near and dear to my heart. A minor issue, as I enjoyed myself so thoroughly, but an issue for me all the same.

I hope that other birth parent bloggers will consider heading to San Diego next year. I’ll be there. I hope to meet you face-to-face and thank you for being a friend.

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