Bringing out the Snarky in Me

I saw this link on the Adoption News and Events page that I follow on Facebook.  What is it they say about not learning from the past and having history repeat itself?  Here are a few "facts" from their Info page:

Advantages to Closed Adoption:
-sense of closure and privacy for birth parents: Wow, not knowing where my child was, what his name was, how he was, etc. created a real sense of closure for me over the last 32 years.  And I'm oh so happy that he couldn't find me EVER, not to mention medical facts about himself because of those privacy protecting closed records.
-reduced fear of having to explain reasons and prevent confrontation: God forbid anyone should have to explain adoption to their adopted child and even scarier, to have to confront, I don't know, anger? confusion? fear? from their adopted child.
-protection and less threat to adoptive parents: That's right, better protect yourselves from those hatchet waving, crazed, grief stricken birth parents who I'm sure are going to call you every chance they get and threaten you.

Why Keep Record Closed:
-opening records causes more birth parents to debate if adoption is the right decision.  Well, that is definitely a no, no.  Wouldn't want birth parents thinking too hard about this.  They might actually *gasp* decide that raising their babies is the best thing.
-invades personal privacy that birth parents were promised:  Hellooo???  How many times do we have to say this?  We were never promised privacy!!  This is a myth of, oh, I don't know, mythical proportions? Not only were we not promised it, most of us don't want it.  Personally, nothing pisses me off more than someone using me as a poster child for something I DON'T WANT!

There are more beautiful tidbits on their page, but nausea has taken over, and I feel a threatening rant coming on that I might have to explain to someone.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Well, I meant to post this the day after my last post, which was a bit of a much needed pity party for myself.  When I was dancing professionally, I had a rule for myself.  I gave myself one day of pity partying after an audition if I didn't get the role I wanted.  I would skip ballet class, eat mac and cheese and ice cream, cry, watch stupid tv, sleep and basically give myself permission to mope.  Usually, towards the end of the day, I would start to ponder what went wrong at the audition, things I did well, things I could've done better, why they may not have cast me, etc.  Next morning I was (usually) ready to hit it again and was regrouped.

Same thing happened here.  I was really low the other day, not sure exactly why it came on when it did.  Towards the end of the day I started taking advice that I'd heard on here (thank you!) and started configuring a plan of sorts.  I'm a planner.  I can go with the flow as long as there is a general plan in place to keep me focused.  (Actually, now that I think about it, maybe that's why I got so blue.  My original plan wasn't working anymore, time to come up with a new one!)

So, I'm going back to the private blog for him and I to share.  I'm going to create pages for photos and info on family members, a page for medical info, and a page for my thoughts.  I mentioned doing this before, but was really having a hard time coming up with the "right" opening post.  I've finally realized that there are no "right" things to say if they don't include my truths around this.  Dancing around issues and trying to phrase them in a way that's pc is not my style, so what I was writing just felt contrived and fake.

I've finally come up with a letter that I'm happy with.  It speaks to my hopes for him that he's had a great life, but it also addresses my feelings around not having raised him.  I addressed the fact that not having raised him made our lives different than what they would've been.  No way to know now if it was better or worse, just different than they would have been together.  It made me feel good to say that to him.  It's my truth around this.  I've come to accept that I can only control what I do, not how he reacts.  If I have any hope of a relationship with him, acting and speaking in an honest manner has to be where it starts.  It's better for him to understand that about me from the beginning.  Maybe it'll help him be honest with me as well, even if it's what I consider to be "bad news."

Feeling like nothing

I've been absent from blogging for about a month.  Part of it was that I was just really busy with life.  The other part is that I'm just depressed and distressed over the lack of communication from my son.  The complete lack of response from him in more than nine months is leaving me feeling like a big fat nothing.  Non existent in his life, which is the reality he seems to want to stick to.  I've seen pictures of him on the internet.  He looks happy and healthy.  That's what he's supposed to be, right?  I gave up my rights to enjoy that with him, right?  From everyone else's perspective this has all worked out as planned, right?

Thirty two years later and I'm still shedding tears over this.  Is there going to be a time that I will feel like I'm not going to be punished for this decision forever?  Is there going to be a time when my friends and family will truly understand what this feels like?  When my husband doesn't look at me like I'm turning into a scary stalker instead of a mother desperate for information about her son?  Will I ever get to see my two children meet and maybe share a laugh together?

I know in the past I've said we could take it on his terms.  It would be helpful if he would tell me what they are.  As you might be able to tell from this post, I vacillate between being sad and weepy over this and actually becoming quite a bit pissed off about it as well.  This leaving me hanging thing has gotten really old.  If you don't want me around, tell me to fuck off.  Trust me, there are days (many of them lately) that feeling shattered would feel better than feeling this vulnerable.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he's healthy and happy.  I'm just ready to stop feeling so insignificant.  I mean really, I even enclosed a SASE for him to send back the letter if it wasn't him, or if he didn't want contact.  He doesn't even have to walk to the mailbox!  He can hand it to the doorman on his way to work and it'll get mailed.

Some people may think I deserve this because of the decision I made not to raise him.  I don't.  I deserve at least an answer, even if it's "i'm not sure" or "you're the last person I want to know."  Being rejected at this point would be easier.  At least I'd be worthy of something.  At this point, I'm just a big fat nothing, not even worthy of rejection.  Sucks.

Ah, adoption life!

I've been absent from here for a while.  I'll get to that soon.  Just wanted to share an experience that happened last week.

I was standing in my store, my daughter and her best friend had just arrived from school.  An older woman (I'm guessing mid-sixties) came in asking me if I sold postcards.  I have a boutique for women, clothing, accessories and shoes, not a postcard in sight.  We live in a lovely small town outside San Francisco, on the water.  Should be a big tourist town, but it's the best kept secret in the Bay Area.  You would think there would be postcards all over the place, but there aren't.

Sometimes I feel a little like a bartender.  People come in my store and and out of the blue start to tell me details of their lives.  This woman tells me that she was really sick last year and that her brother is waiting in the car for her.  This is significant because it's only the second time she's ever met her brother.  You see, her mother had given her brother up for adoption when he was born.  Really?!  I look at my daughter and just smile.  I tell the woman that I hope she enjoys her visit with her brother and hope that she finds those postcards she's looking for.

When she leaves I look at my daughter and say "I really hope you're not that old when you get to meet your brother."  "Mom, when I'm that old he's going to be like 80."  "Yep", I answer, "and I'm going to be long gone."  Really hope she gets to meet him before I'm 80.

So Confused

Tonight, I read a friend the letter that I sent to my son eight months ago, expecting to get a great response from her regarding how eloquent, mature and controlled I was.  I expected her to praise me for containing my emotions and telling my son that he was loved and that I always wanted what was best for him yada, yada, yada.  Instead, I got a reaction from her that completely threw me for a loop.  I was chastised for being unfeeling and too mature and strong.  She told me that I needed to share my seventeen year old self with my son first, let him share the vulnerability and insecurity that I felt when he was born.  Help him understand the circumstances of why I couldn't keep him, so he could have compassion for me, so he can understand why.  She told me that I needed to share how I really felt as a scared seventeen year old with no job and no support and no options.  UGH!  I'm so confused, I can't even write this freakin' post!

What exactly do you say the first time you reach out to someone whose life you unalterably changed?  Do I slit myself open for him?  It's not something I'm opposed to doing, I've been slit open for years.  I'm just not sure it's the place to start.  What the hell am I supposed to say to him to get him to listen, to catch his attention, to help him hear me?  Which layer do I choose to peel back first?  Do I really say to him, before I've ever met him, that I did everything wrong thinking that I was doing the best for him?  Do I admit to him that I still feel, at the age of almost fifty, that I was too incompetent at the time to raise him?  Do I admit that I devalued my love so much that it made me feel I wasn't worthy of raising him?  Do I really say this...?

Here's what I really want to say.  There hasn't been a day in 32 years that I haven't thought of you.  There hasn't been a moment that I haven't wished I could hug you, touch you, kiss you, mother you.  There have been very few moments that I haven't regretted my decision.  There is nothing I wouldn't do to change this/make this up to you.  Giving you away completely changed my life in a negative way, changed how I felt about myself and the people who I thought loved me, made me feel undeserving of anything good that life had to offer.  I can't change this, I can't fix this, I can't make any of this better.  I love you, that part is simple and true.  

I don't know how to have this conversation.  It seems many of us don't know how to have this conversation.  Can we as first moms and adult adoptees find a way to guide each other down the yellow brick road?  Is there an adoption Oz that can give us a heart to feel love, the courage to express love and a feeling of home with two families?

Help me, I'm so confused.

The Story, part one

I've been waiting and waiting to post my "story".  It terrifies me to make this public.  It's not a pretty picture.  Makes me feel somewhat like a monster.  All I can say, is that I was so, so, scared and so, so, alone and so, so, young.  There was no planning, no processing, all there was was panic.  In order to get past some things, you have to acknowledge them and face the fear.  That's what this is about.

(The timing and some of the details are a little blurry, but the overall experience is in tact.)

Well, deep breath...

I was at the end of my sophomore year in high school when I met D.  He was 4 years older than me, his best friends were dating my best friends, it was kind of a natural hook up.  He really was a lovely young man.  He was smart, funny, hard working, kind, a good guy who hung around with the bad guys.  My parents loved him.  He came from a not overly wonderful home life, was working at a gas station and going to school on his own dime.  I remember there being some talk from my parents about helping him out with school.  We were in love.

The summer after my junior year, I went away to an 8 week long, intensive ballet camp.  We stayed in dorms at the local university, snuck out at night to buy donuts, snuck into a bar or two, got caught and kicked out (almost got kicked out of the program, too!) snuck into weddings for free food and drinks (we were ballerinas, we were starving!).  We danced hard eight hours a day, and played just as hard.  D. drove down to see me for the weekend.  He stayed at the hotel across the street from my dorm.  No, I didn't stay with him that weekend.  Wanted too, but we were too scared.  The first weekend I came home (around the middle of August, 1978) I talked him into having sex for the first time in my bedroom while my parents were out.  Yes, let me just say this now, I was a wild, rebellious child and I wanted it BAD.  We did use protection, but inexperience led to an ineffective result, if you know what I mean.

I don't really recall have any morning sickness, but I must have, because I remember my mother taking me to my pediatrician to find out what was wrong with me.  I remember him asking me something to the effect of "have you been a good girl?" or something passive aggressive like that.  I can't imagine why he didn't have my mom take me straight to the OB/GYN.  It was the first misstep in a long list of missteps which enabled me to keep the secret.

My most visceral memory was the panic I felt when I realized I had missed my period.  Even though I was a dancer and pretty thin, I had never missed one before, so I knew something was up.  I kept this to myself, thinking maybe it was a fluke and lets wait until next month before I let true panic set in.  The next month came and went without my period and panic was at an all time high.  (Insert aforementioned doctors appointment here) My first thought was "I have to get an abortion, my parents cannot find out I'm pregnant."  At the time, there was a big abortion scandal all over the newspapers.  Girls were getting abortions and hemorrhaging to death.  In my screwed up, terrified, sixteen year old brain, I thought, "I can't get an abortion, if I bleed to death my parents will know I was pregnant."  Seriously screwed up logic.  Don't know what I thought would happen nine months later after I did nothing about it.  But that's what I did.  Nothing.  I broke up with D. because I knew he'd want to do the "right" thing and get married, which I knew deep down neither he nor I wanted.  Broke the man's heart to protect him from me and my Italian born father.  Didn't answer his phone calls, wouldn't come to the door when he showed up begging to see me.  Lied and told him I had met someone else.

I may sound calm now, but I was nothing of the sort then.  I was in tears constantly.  Wherever my family was in the house, I was not.  I stayed in my room, or in the attic watching t.v..  I still went to ballet class in the early days, try hiding a pregnancy in a leotard and tights.  To make matters worse, I was taking dance with my friend at a studio downtown as independent study for school.  She must have known, they must have known, again nothing was said.  Eventually, I just quit going.

My parents asked me a couple of times if I was pregnant.  I lied and told them no, I'm just getting fat.  They would fight about it with each other, but they never took me to the doctor again.  How do you spell d-e-n-i-a-l?  In my third trimester, I was cutting school just about every day.  I would ride the el back and forth from school all day long.  Sometimes I would go to school for a half day, I would walk around school with my books and my coat covering my belly, pretending like everything was alright.  It wasn't.  At school, I did have a couple of people ask me if I was pregnant.  One was my music teacher who I wasn't very close to, the others were friends.  I was too afraid to admit it.  There were teachers there that I would've let help me, I just couldn't get the words out of my mouth.  What I needed to hear was, I know you're pregnant, it's going to be okay because I'm going to help you.  I was incapable of asking for help.  Couldn't even say the phrase "I'm pregnant" out loud.  I spent my whole pregnancy alone, afraid and ashamed.

I was at school when my water broke.  Had no idea what was happening.  All I know is I went to the bathroom and an ocean of liquid spilled from my body.  I freaked out.  I took the el home hoping no one was home yet, so I could go hide in my room.  Okay, my head was so far in denial, let's not even go there.  My mom had a dance studio and they were having their recital that night.  She asked me if I was going and I told her I wasn't feeling well.  I remember some sort of a fight between us, I think she was trying to make me go.  Little did she know I was in LABOR.  I pretended to be asleep when they got home, which was seven hours since my water broke.  I waited until they all went to bed and started my night long journey of quietly walking between my bedroom and the bathroom trying desperately to find a place to become comfortable.  Around 6:15-6:30 in the morning 15 hours after my water broke, I woke my parents up and told them I needed to go to the hospital.  I told them  I was either having a miscarriage or a baby.  They of course totally freaked out.  Luckily we lived about 7 blocks from the hospital. I don't even think they had time to exam me.  My son was born at 7:15 a.m. on May 19th.

Thinking of Chicago

I know it's a year away, but I'm excited that the next Adoptee Rights Day demonstration will be in Chicago.  It's my home town, we still have a lot of family and friends there and try to go back at least once a year.  I think that it is fitting for me to "come out" so to speak and support adoptees having access to their OBC's in a town where everything about my pregnancy and my son was so secretive. 

So, barring any unforeseen calamities, count me in for Chicago.  Who knows, maybe there will be a very special someone demonstrating with me?  A girl can hope.