Difficult Choices

 Adoption, in General, Parenting  2 Responses »
Mar 202011
 

Today my sons have a soccer game.

Today is the monthly meeting of the Ohio Birthparent Discussion Group.

Originally, I said I wasn’t going to go to the meeting. After some soul-searching and inner woe and discussions with a few trusted friends (adoption and non-adoption), I decided that I should go — to the meeting.

That sentence was hard to write. While I do not place my entire self-worth on my perceived parenting perfection, I still find it difficult to admit when I don’t place my children first. Even knowing that the healthiest and best moms among us have priorities and obligations and a true need to take care of themselves, I always have this deep pull to put my kids first. Above even taking care of myself. And I know that’s not healthy. That’s why I decided to go.

It wasn’t an easy decision. I love to watch my sons play (indoor right now) soccer. Our oldest son adores the sport. The pure joy that crosses his face when he scores a goal, blocks a goal or maneuvers a fantastic defensive move is something that makes my heart soar. Our younger son is new this season and is improving. When he looks to us after he misses a kick or just doesn’t know quite what to do, I know that my “thumbs up” and a positive reinforcement make a difference. I love watching them together; when our older son takes his brother’s hand to lead him out of the court, I am just so moved. I love being their mom. I want them to know that I am there for them. Always.

boys

But I also need to take care of me.

Sometimes I miss bedtime because I go to the gym for yoga, zumba, hip hop cardio or to get a run in for the day. (Note: They don’t put themselves to bed. They do have a dad.) Sometimes I can’t play with them when they want to play Hungry Hungry Hippos because I have a conference call or an immediate deadline. Occasionally I get sick and have to sleep and let my body heal itself. This is no different; going to this birth parent meeting is part of my emotional healing process.

However, unlike the bedtimes missed for physical fitness or the games missed for career work or the sleep due to physical illness, allowing myself to prioritize my healing — for this issue in specific — is difficult for me. I don’t ever want the relinquishment of the Munchkin to make the boys feel like they are somehow less than — that the loss of their sister somehow makes them less important than the elephant in the room. They are so important to me; anyone who knows me understands that fact. So admitting that I need to skip a soccer game to participate in a once-a-month group is hard for me to do. They are important. I am important. I don’t want their sister’s placement to take away from their childhood. But I need to do things for me so that I can be the best mom I can be.

And ’round and ’round it goes.

Despite going and knowing that it was the right choice, I will fight guilt over the choice for days and weeks (and months? and years?) to come. This is just one example of a difficult choice I keep facing in the weird world of parenting post-placement. I don’t suppose they’ll ever end.

But I’ll be really glad when indoor soccer ends and t-ball begins. T-ball is on Thursdays. The decision won’t have to be made, and I’ll feel more at peace with allowing myself some me-time.

The If-Only Game

 Adoption, in General  5 Responses »
Jul 292009
 

I’m currently on a huge reading spree inspired by lack of technology last week while camping. I read four books last week and, while unable to keep quite the same pace here, I’m still reading, reading, reading. I’m currently five chapters into The Shack. A sentence near the end of the fourth chapter reached out and choked me.

It is so easy to get sucked into the if-only game, and playing it is a short and slippery slide into despair.

I nodded. Been there, done that. No desire to go back.

I struggle with my current place in my healing journey. Why? I am neither overly joyous nor deeply depressed about the things that have happened with regard to the Munchkin’s birth, placement and the continuous contact we have had over the years. Again, as I have talked about quite frequently as of late, I am in a place of peace.

Don’t misunderstand peace for joy or an overabundance of positive feelings. Peace is trickier than that, I believe. I cannot change what has happend; I accept that. I have little control over the future; I accept that. Right now, things are good; I accept that. Things in the past, in various situations, were not always good; I accept that. Things in the future may be good or they may be bad; I accept that. For me, peace is that acceptance, that acknowledgment that what will be, will be.

I don’t often play the what-if or the if-only game anymore. I don’t have time, quite frankly, to dwell on the past. I barely have time to live in the here and now, drowning as I am in ten days worth of camp laundry, the laundry that formed at home while I was gone and, you know, the making of meals and the bathing of children. And cake baking for no particular reason other than I like to do things with my kids. But there are other reasons that I don’t jump into questions like, “What if I had parented,” or, “What if I hadn’t gotten caught up with an unethical agency?”

It does no good.

True, if I had parented, my life would be vastly different. But I don’t like to entertain that train of thought. It does no good to begin to doubt that decision which, in essence, brings up a string of doubt regarding each and every subsequent decision I have made since the time I placed her in another family’s arms and walked out of the hospital. I try to be a confident (but humble) wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. I can’t be confident if I am constantly thinking, “Well, if I would have done this or if I wouldn’t have done this, then this, that and the other thing may or may not be in my life.” The constant doubt brought about by the what-if game is a blow to my confidence and my ability to be the best that I can be in my various roles.

Furthermore, and more importantly, I just can’t change anything. My decisions are my decisions, whether they were pushed by other people or not. I signed papers. I walked out doors. I continued to keep my promise that I would always be available. I have parented other children. I have continued to live a life, however broken some pieces of that life remain.

I don’t have time and energy for the anger that others seem to want me to have anymore. I held onto that anger, clutching it as tightly as I could, far so very long. The only inkling of anger that remains is toward the unethical agency as they are still doing to other mothers what was done to me. And, still, even that anger is only fanned on occasion. I don’t think of them unless they show up in discussion or I’m writing a post of this nature. I can’t change it.

I won’t apologize for the way I feel about everything that has happened. I will continue to support adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents interested in reform. I will continue to support adoptees in their fight for their original birth certificates. I will continue to offer help when asked, though I’ll admit that I don’t always have the answers. But I refuse to be poked and prodded for not feeling the same way as Birth Mom A or Adoptee B or Adoptive Parent C. I refuse to even acknowledge “what-if” questions anymore as I don’t feel that they are a healthy way to explore this journey that I have been making over the past six years. I refuse to be made to feel less because I have found a place of peace. I refuse to be told that, because of that peace, it means that I’m not a truly loving birth mother.

I refuse to let others ruin this place where I currently reside. Peace suits me well.

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