But once we were back home and the boys were asleep and the calm settled down and around, I picked up the phone to call Dee back. She had texted a Happy Mother’s Day message earlier in the cacophony, and I wanted to return the sentiment.

She was busy with JD and reading, so we exchanged a quick “Happy Mother’s Day” and “I love you,” and then she handed the phone off to the Munchkin. After the “hellos” and “how are yous?” and “did it rain all day theres?,” a slight pause happened — as does when talking to children on the phone — and she said, “Happy Mother’s Day.”

I had a brief moment where I had to stare at the corner of the ceiling and blink rapidly — but instead of trying not to laugh, it was to keep from becoming a complete blubbering mess on the phone with this amazing, fabulous, best little girl ever. Once I composed myself, the conversation continued as you might imagine with some “thank yous” and “I miss yous” and “I love yous.” Then she asked to speak to my husband so she could tell him Happy Birthday. He also had a moment. She is, quite honestly, the best little girl on the planet. I don’t care what you say.

There are little moments along this open adoption journey that stand out as big, important things. Maybe not to the rest of the world, but to my heart. My daughter told me Happy Mother’s Day.

I can count this year as not only having survived, but having enjoyed Mother’s Day. That, in itself, is a huge milestone.

Write to someone else in the adoption constellation (someone specific or a general group). What do you want to say to them on Mother’s Day?

I want to write three very brief letters to my three favorite adoptive moms this Mother’s Day. They are all very different letters as each of these adoptive moms are vastly different. But all three of them are my friends. I always get offended when I hear that adoptive moms and birth moms can’t ever be friends. I’m all, “Pfft, whatever. I do what I want!” I don’t deal well with being told I can’t do something, so I seem to collect adoptive moms. And, of course, you know, that one that comes with the territory of being a birth mother. I do kinda like her too. (But, let’s face it, she also just kinda fell in my lap.)

Without further adieu, my letters. (Be forewarned, one of these is very irreverent. Because friends can do that.)

– __ — __ –

Dear Dee,

Thank you. You are a strong, amazing, compassionate, loving, funny, great mom. I love that you trust me with parenting questions. I am thankful for the way you love the Munchkin. I am also thankful that we can make fun of stupid people together; what would I do without you?! I wish the world for you in the coming months. I’m always here for you. Can’t wait to see you soon!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Love,
Jenna

– __ — __ –

Dear @2princessmama,

Thank you for proving that adoptive parents are equally crazy by getting a divorce and then shacking up and living in sin. You make birth parents look good. Thanks for taking the time to go to that celebration of stupid crackwhore birthmoms this Saturday, though I know it’s because you want to see for yourself that we have a day that qualifies us as less than you. Also, you owe me wine.

(Don’t you love making people gasp in horror? I do. We’re awesome.)

Happy Mother’s Day — you really are a great mom. Don’t let the young’ns tell you otherwise.

Love,
Jenna

– __ — __ —

Dear @fouragainsttwo,

I won’t be as irreverent as I was with our other Amanda-named-friend, but know that I think you are a fantastic mother to all of your daughters. I am thankful for our friendship, for your mothering, for the way our stories have intersected. Thank you for tolerating me and my noisy boys.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Love,
Jenna

– __ — __ –

I promise you, innocent readers, that none of these letters, even that one in the middle, are written in a mean way. I am super thankful for each of these amazing mothers. They have all taught me something about mothering, about birthmotherhood. They have all laughed with me, cried with me and been angry with me. And, well, uh, probably been angry with me. They have all forgiven me. They are friends. And they are moms who deserve a high five this Mother’s Day.

And wine.

Happy Mother’s Day.

So what the heck?

As I opened a document for work this morning, it all made sense: Ah, Mother’s Day.

It’s kind of hard to ignore it when I work as an editor whose specialty is Moms and Family. It’s been in my face for week. It likely took me this long to realize what my problem was because I’ve been treating Mother’s Day as work. It has been. I’ve been focused on it for weeks now, featuring posts and writing them and generally being knee-deep in a day that I don’t even like. Swell.

Now I’ve realized that the treating it like work doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, hence the tears bubbling over into other random parts of my life. I should apologize to my husband tomorrow for weeping through almost all of our TV watching last night. He probably thought I was losing my mind. Then again, he probably understood and didn’t want to point it out. He’s smart like that.

On Saturday, I’m attending the Birthmother’s Day ceremony in Cleveland at Adoption Network Cleveland again this year. Again, I am faced with the fact that I don’t believe in having a separate and unequal day for birthmothers — but that I also long for a sense of community and understanding. Again, I think it helped to have a separate day for my loss, to acknowledge both the joy and pain in the relinquishment of my daughter. It still has an “ick” factor to it, in that I hate being shoved to the side. But I go. I need to be with other people who understand, who support me as I continue on this sometimes difficult path. I’m dragging one of my best friends with me this year who also happens to be an adoptive mom. We should have a snot-filled time together.

Sunday will come and go. My boys will give me hugs and kisses. My husband will love on me — and I will love on him because he unfortunately shares his birthday with Mother’s Day sometimes and that sometime is this year. The sun will set and the sun will rise on Monday and it will be over for a year.

I’m always asked what I want for Mother’s Day and I never have an answer. You can’t wrap what I want. You can’t have it delivered. You can’t cook it or bake it or order it from a store. My dream is always to have my children in the same place on Mother’s Day. Time and distance make that rather impossible at this stage in life, so I just keep my hope to myself that someday it could happen.

However, I will also accept Marigold Fiesta. What? I do like to unwrap presents.

Last week was hell. I mean, it was really a personal hell for me. I think I drank my weight in Rescue Remedy, but I probably just cried it right out. It was a hard week and I haven’t even really had time to deal with some of what I’m feeling because life tends to get in the way of emotional healing.

But I just had the most wonderful Mother’s Day ever.

Sometime shortly after seven-zero-zero, my oldest son was thisclose to my face. “Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy.” I smiled and told him thank you and that his daddy was in charge. My husband left the room with him shortly thereafter and I hung out in bed, not really sleeping, but definitely enjoying the cool quiet of the room. Then my husband made me breakfast. And later, lunch.

I watched cheesy chick flicks. I read. And I napped.

I played Hungry, Hungry Hippos. I played cars. I read a few books. I chased my kids down the hall. We took photos in the yard. I talked to my mom, my dad and my mother-in-law. I wasted time on Facebook (and didn’t do any work online… well, until the kids were in bed). I left a message for my daughter’s mom. I opened cards (and laughed). I enjoyed my beautiful new plants and newly placed bird feeder (in a perfect spot for photography). I sent messages back and forth with some of my favorite moms.

And then my husband announced, “Appetizers!” And he put crab legs that he had been grilling (which I didn’t even know you could DO) on the table. NO FREAKING LIE. And then he served steak wrapped in bacon, mashed potatoes and zucchini for supper. And then butterscotch pudding (a fav) for dessert.

And the whole day, I felt light and airy. My sons repeatedly wished me a Happy Mother’s Day and told me that they loved me. Without prompting. I got kisses and hugs. And lots of food. And even more laughs. And it felt good.

I felt joy.

I said a special prayer with the boys before bed, thanking God for all of my children and went into the different ways that I am their mother. I thanked God for my mom, for my mother-in-law and for grandmothers. I got long-winded, but my kids were patient. I got more kisses after that.

Tomorrow will be a new week and I still have stuff to deal with. But today was about joy. I don’t know if it’s about the separation of issues. Or if it was my husband’s over-the-top awesomeness (because he knows how I struggle) (and, really, he’s just that awesome). Or if it was just the year that I was finally able to grow into who I am and be at peace on this day. I don’t know.

But I sure I hope I feel this good on Mother’s Day next year.

I couldn’t figure out why I kept coming to the blog and leaving without anything to say. Or, rather, with so much to say but no way to verbalize it. I have six drafts from this past week; thoughts started, left incomplete. Sometimes because I couldn’t figure out what to say. Sometimes because I didn’t feel safe saying what it was on my heart at the time.

My husband brought up Mother’s Day during lunch the other day. It turns out that we’re kidless on Mother’s Day weekend as my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are kidnapping our kids. I said something to the effect of not realizing that it was Mother’s Day weekend when they’d be gone. He said something to the effect of having not said anything, he could have gotten away with not getting presents. He laughed and wiggled his eyebrows. I shrugged and said something about Mother’s Day being overrated, avoiding eye contact.

I kind of just want it to go away.

This Hallmark commercial made me weep. Weep. I mean, true, I’ve been known to cry at Folger’s commercials but, still, I wept. I wept because it was beautiful and sad and happy and totally unrealistic and something I think we all long for anyway.

I exchanged some tweets last week when I was asked what I thought was the best gift for Mother’s Day that you couldn’t purchase/buy. I wasn’t in the best of moods when I replied.

I’m not the one to ask about Mother’s Day. For me, and for others, recognition by society for non-traditional mothers.

Followed up with:

Stepmoms, birth mothers, adoptive moms, foster moms, mothers of miscarriage, mothers of infant loss. List goes on.

Apologies for anyone who didn’t fit into my 140 characters there.

It’s just such a hard day for too many of us. I probably won’t go to church. I will be grateful, of course, for anything given to me but I won’t ask for anything. My husband will probably get some new plants for our front flower garden as we’re redoing it this year. Perhaps the digging and physical action will take my mind off of things.

I cried in Hallmark on Wednesday. I just stopped in before my hair appointment to grab a card for my husband’s birthday. I stopped in front of the Mother’s Day cards. Nana. Grandma. Mom. Mother. Someone special. Friend. From your ex-daughter-in-law. All-inclusive. Almost. I read a few cards. I cried in the aisle. I was almost late for my appointment.

PR emails keep landing in my inbox. Mother’s Day this. Mother’s Day that. Could you mention this? Could you mention that? I think I need to put a banner at the top of my sites: “I DON’T DO MOTHER’S DAY.”

And it’s ridiculous, really. I’m so blessed. I have two wonderful boys. I am a part of my daughter’s life. She has a wonderful mom. It’s just such a hard day for me. I can’t explain the ins and outs of everything. There’s the loss. The lies by the agency. The grief. The lack of recognition. The stigma. The judgment. The stereotypes. I let it roll most of the year. It’s hard on Mother’s Day. It’s just hard.

A rambling, incoherent funk. Excuse me for the next week.

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…

I went to Hallmark to buy cards. I hadn’t gotten a chance to get out of the house all week because the boys were a bit, uhm, well, whiny. So, I walk into Hallmark. I pick up the obligatory grandmother and great-grandmother cards from the boys. I move over smidge, pick up some cards…

AND START CRYING. RIGHT THERE. IN HALLMARK.

For the record? Our Hallmark had Someone Special, Friend, Godmother, Like a Mother and just about every other mother variation. You know. Except me. Not that I want a card that SAYS birth mother. But I just wanted a small bit of validation. None available.

But yeah. I cried. In Hallmark. And not exactly discretely either. I tried. But failed. Tears. A bit of snot. Eye makeup running. It was classy. Sexy even. But the opposite.

Next year I’m sending the Husband for cards. Mental note. Right?

I spent the day planning for my future. Our future. I was just about to secure a job that I thought would get a savings built up for the arrival of the child I was carrying in my womb. I had no idea that I would, within three months time, be bed-ridden for the rest of my pregnancy. I had no clue what was just around the bend in my life’s journey. There was no way to know. I was pregnant and although I was single and scared, I was already in love with my child. That’s a special bond. And on that first mother’s day of my mothering career, I let myself feel that special bond.

My second mother’s day didn’t go so well. Just about five months after she was born, I tried to hold it together. I did. J and D did a great job on their side. A package was sent before the weekend hit so that I could choose when to open my presents. They sent a golden rose which I still display and adore. My then-fiance (now husband) spent the weekend walking on eggshells. He didn’t quite know how to handle me, the emotions that were swirling around our apartment. He gave me a card, bless him, with a letter that I never want to lose. He acknowledged my motherhood, my emotional battle. My Mom did not tell me Happy Mother’s Day. My friends didn’t do so either.

I went to church that Mother’s Day. I went alone as my fiance was working. I cried at various points during the sermon. I felt completely alone as the Pastor asked the mothers in attendance to stand for recognition. I sat, quietly crying, feeling desperate and rejected. I felt useless. What good was I to my daughter anyway? No one wants to acknowledge birth mothers, their grief, their loss or their journey to healing. It was one of the first times that I realized how the public wants to sweep birth mothers under the rugs. It hurt.

My third mother’s day was a mixture of emotions, joy and sadness. I was about eight weeks pregnant with BigBrother, still experiencing morning sickness. My Husband, having worked better to understand my emotions over the past year, worked to make an appropriate deal out of the day. But I didn’t go to church. I couldn’t. The prior year’s experience made it inconceivable to attempt.

And yet, everyone I knew wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. My Mom called. Friends called. My Husband’s family called. I hadn’t yet given birth to the child that would soon become my first son. But I was married. And expecting. And the red carpet was rolled out. I was kind of mad about that, questioning why it hadn’t been like that my first Mother’s Day. But I did enjoy the pampering. I won’t lie. It felt nice.

My fourth Mother’s Day was spent, once again, without my Husband. Firefighters work 24/7/365 as fire doesn’t understand holidays or family togetherness. My son was not quite six months old. I decided, at the very last minute, to go to a new church as we had just moved, three months prior, to the city in which my Husband work(s)ed. I dressed in something that camoflauged my still-present postpartum belly. I dressed the little dude in an outfit that matched a bib that said “I Love My Mom.” And I went. I sat next to another firefighter’s wife. And I stood when they asked the Mother’s to stand.

But I was there without my husband. And at the time, I had very, very long hair. And I looked even younger than my twenty-five years. (It’s a blessing and a curse.) And I noticed the glances. I felt them to my core. I heard what they weren’t saying. “Where is her husband?” Was some of it imagined? I’m sure. But after a discussion with the then-Pastor a few months later, I also know that some of it was legitimate. I spent that Mother’s Day angry at the fact that I was finally married and people were still passing judgment on me for having a child.

As a side note, it was likely that was the very weekend I got pregnant with the baby we lost in June of 2006.

Last year, on my fifth Mother’s Day, I was deep in the throes of morning sickness with the child that would become my second son. And, oh, I had never experienced morning sickness like that with any previous pregnancy. I couldn’t smell coffee, eggs or my Husband’s deodorant. But, I got dressed, in the same dress that I wore the year prior to hide my belly, hoping that this year it would show off the bump that was already growing despite the fact that I wasn’t all that pregnant. My Mom showed up and sat with my Husband who was lucky enough to have the day off. And I sang a solo at church. Then? Our District Superintendent told the congregation that they were moving our Pastor to a new church. I spent the day feeling crushed as that Pastor had been encouraging and supportive of my journey as a mother in all my many ways. He had been there through our miscarriage and I was angry he was being moved.

And that brings us to this year. How do I feel? What is going on in my life?

I’m sure that with the hindsight I’ll have by this time next year, I’ll have something more eloquent to say. But right now, I can’t tell you all that much other than I’m working (hard) on my healing. I’ve done a lot of work in the past year, especially as my anxiety hit an all time high while I was in my first trimester with LittleBrother. I’m making my way through this sticky, swampy mess of postpartum depression. I may still have to go on medication and I’m trying to be okay with that idea. I’m enjoying my boys even though the older one peed on my lap yesterday. (No, really.) I’m still writing (short) letters to the Munchkin every month because I know that it’s my job, as the adult, to cultivate and maintain a relationship however wide the distance.

I’ve made a lot of progress over the years. Nothing has gone as I have planned. And perhaps that is the point. Maybe I should quit planning. People have noticed, just in the past year, that my demeanor has changed. I’ve become less vehement about certain things. I’m more prone to think about my words, place myself in another’s shoes, before I spout off. Sure. There are still people I don’t like or issues that rile me up… but I’m feeling somewhat more peaceful as of late.

I miss my daughter. There’s no two ways around that one. It hurts. It sucks. And sometimes I still get mad. But instead of snapping at my Husband or taking it out on innocent parties, I’m learning to channel those emotions into some private writing. I’ve also learned that time in a flower garden is time well spent. Those things don’t take away the pain but they allow me to process that pain and find ways to cope that are healthy and productive.

Six years into mothering you would think that I’d know what I’m doing. But I’m just flying by the seat of my pants. And that, perhaps, is what makes me feel most like a mother. Because I know that the rest of you are just doing the same.

Happy Mother’s Day. Happy weekend. I’m off to enjoy the sunshine, the boys, the husband and probably make a phone call at some point in time. Blessings abound in my life and I cherish each one.