Respecting Boundaries

Sometimes I feel like being in a semi-open adoption is just more complicated than it needs to be. Since I moved once my birth son was born, I live halfway across the country from him. The agreement since birth has been that I can send letters and gifts whenever I want and I see pictures of him and keep in touch with his parents. However, they want to wait until he's older to do visits. While I don't really like this arrangement, I appreciate what I do have, I respect it, and would never do anything to cross any boundaries, something that I work very hard at.

But sometimes that gets tricky. In a few weeks, I will be traveling back to where I grew up and to near where my son now lives. I'm so excited to go back and I'm so excited to see my family and eat foods I haven't been able to since I left (I can taste the bagels and the pizza now...), but I also have an overwhelming sense of anxiety about it. What if I get triggered by things I'm not expecting to, or worry the whole time that I'll accidentally run into them? I doubt I will, but still. 

Respecting the boundaries that his parents have set is something that I always take to heart and always something that I try to do. While it is something I want more than absolutely anything in the world, I will not ask to see my birth son while I'm there, and I will do my best to avoid accidentally running into them.

But something that I don't understand is why I can't see his parents? I don't know why the 3 of us can't just catch up and grab lunch together or something. I've brought it up with them before and they told me that they don't know if they'd be comfortable with that. I respected and accepted their decision, but it still hurts. Maybe they thought I was asking to see my birth son, I don't know. It's so important for me to try to still feel connected to them. I hate feeling a sense of disconnect or distance. We'll see what happens, but I won't push and I won't ask again. 

Adoption is something that will never be easy, and it will never be fun. But it is doable, and it is a blessing. This has been a difficult season for me, but I know it will change and I know it will get easier to deal with soon. I'm so grateful for his parents, they are truly great people and I do have so much respect for them. I guess I just wish I didn't miss them all so much.

To Be Brave

This week I finally did something I had been intending on doing since getting home from the hospital after giving birth to my son.

Those who have known me a while and know my adoption story know it all started with one thing: the bravery and honesty of a woman I already held in high esteem.  She was a former boss of mine, and it was just chance that we ran into each other in a parking lot and began talking.  At this point, I looked like I was hiding a beach ball under my t-shirt, and my boss was no fool.  So when she asked me how I was doing I was honest and said,

“Well, obviously, I’m pregnant.  Didn’t intend to get like this, but that’s what happened.  And right now I’m trying to decide whether to keep the kid and raise it or to place it for adoption.  But right now I just have no idea what to do.”

To my surprise she replied, “Well, I don’t wave it around like a flag, but I placed a child for adoption when I was about your age.”

She went on to tell me that she had gone to a home for unwed mothers, as many did in the 60s.  She gave birth, gave up her child, then a year later got married, and had a child of her own.  Her son would later track her down in his adult life and they have a fantastic relationship to this day.  And it may sound weird, but at that moment the first thought that went through my head was, “So, this is actually survivable.”

Don’t ask me why.  I don’t know to this day.  But before that moment, whenever I thought about placing my child for adoption, I just imagined my life stopping there.  I couldn’t fathom living past that day.  I couldn’t fathom what my life would be like without this child I had been carrying.  I wasn’t sure that I even deserved to keep going after doing that.  Obviously, I don’t believe that anymore.  But at the time, all manner of thoughts were going through my head and I wasn’t sure how to sort it all out.

Most of all, I was looking at doing something that none of my friends had ever done.  All of them, if they got unexpectedly pregnant, dealt with it in other ways.  I even know a few of their kids by name.  If any of them ever thought about adoption, none of them ever said it or just never said it to me.  But when my old boss told me that she had done the same thing and had in fact lived on, I was finally able to break the constant loop in my head that had been driving me crazy.  It was only two days later that my boyfriend and I would have the discussion in which we decided placing our son for adoption was the best idea.

As you know, my son just turned 4.  And Wednesday was his first day of school.  Tuesday, I finally sat myself down and wrote the message I had been intending to write for four years.  My old boss and I are friends on Facebook and have been so for a long while now.  But I never did tell her what had happened after seeing her in the parking lot.  Tuesday I finally pulled together all my thoughts and wrote her a message thanking her for sharing her story with me.  I also told her that she was the reason I finally pulled together the bravery and courage to do what needed to be done for my child.  I even sent her a picture of him from his recent birthday party.  Unsurprisingly, she wrote me back a very positive message and was glad that I had told her and had likewise shared my story with her.  She agreed that at times, we each have to do what we think is best.  She also sent me a link to her son’s blog that details his search and finding of not only her, but also his birth father.

For the next half hour, I was glued to the screen, reading this man’s account of his happy life, always knowing that he was adopted and always knowing that if he went looking for his birth family, his adoptive family would be, and was, completely supportive.  Then he found them and reconnected with them.  The happiness and the joy and the connections that connected them without even realizing it were amazing.

The most amazing thing to me was the unshakable bravery I found in his words.  In their story, I just found mountains and mountains of incredible bravery.  They had both been searching and found each other.  Then they finally met each other and got know each other.  There were questions and finally answers for the both of them.  And to this day they keep in touch.

I’m extremely lucky in that my son’s adoptive family is so willing to have me around for parties and visits and going out to dinner.  I’m also extremely lucky that this happened to me in a time when open adoption is an option.  And yet, there is still a distance between my son and I.  That’s really what this made me realize.  While I won’t have nearly as large of a gap to travel to get to know my son and for him to get to know me over the years, I know there are going to be times that will be difficult and awkward.  I know that sooner or later there will be a reckoning for me.  There will be things I will have to explain to my son as he gets older that will be a little bit difficult.  And there will be questions for me that I will have to answer.  And they are answers that he has a right to.  I’m only hoping that I have half the bravery that my boss and her son did when it comes time.

Broken Can Be Beautiful

I read a blog once about a young mother whose newborn had died shortly after birth. She was racked by grief and loss. At some point in her story she felt compelled to shatter a water pitcher that she had and slowly glue it back together. To her, that pitcher is more beautiful now. It will still hold water, but now the light shines through the cracks. That pitcher is a representation of her life and her healing.

You can take something broken and make it beautiful. Adoption is broken. There is coercion. There are unethical lawyers and social workers. There are adoptive families that believe they are entitled to your child. There are birth families that are not supportive. There are even birth parents that are selfish.

My attorney was unethical. My agency was non-existent in all the ways they should not have been. I remember the social worker coming to my house one time before the placement. She asked a few questions and was on her way. After 5 minutes with me she gave the green light on my placing my son. The lawyer, the most dramatic thing she did was insist to me that the post-placement agreement was legally binding. That if it was notarized and we both signed it was now a legal contract. Each page of that agreement is initialed. The document is notarized. It's not legal though. Not even a little.

I met with a dear friend, a lawyer, several times. I was so angry. How could she lie to me like that? Did she not see how important that agreement was to me? That agreement was my sanity. That was how I made it through those first few months. My friend started attacking me with questions. Asking about all these personal things. About my son, finances, my job, my friends, where I lived, my family. He was relentless. Then he asked about the adoptive family. He asked about my choice to place. He asked about my feelings. It was one of the longest evenings of my life. I cried until I could cry no more. Then he asked me one last question. "Do you want Frogger removed from R&P?" I was horrified. Of course I didn't. I just wanted my lawyer to pay for her lies. I wanted my lawyer to burn in hell. It was then that I realized what he had done.

The defense would have torn me apart. I was a grieving mom that changed her mind. Oh no, wait, I wasn't. I was just bitter and angry and out for blood. I didn't pursue going to the bar. My wounds were to too raw and too deep.

This is why I say we, as birth mothers, need to speak out. We need to change the way adoption is handled. If it wasn't so hush-hush then the laws would be known. Open adoption would be the norm. Everyone would know what an ethical, moral, upstanding adoption looked like.

Take something broken and make it more beautiful then it was meant to be. Fix it. Don't trash it. Someone may need it one day.

Initiating Contact

As you may remember, I have a very open adoption with my daughter’s family – minus the visits. Some people get confused when I say that we have an open adoption but do not have face-to-face visits yet. I suppose that if I weren’t so involved in this world now, I, too, would be confused. Before I got pregnant with my daughter, I assumed “open” meant you spend physical time with the family and your child, and “closed” meant that you didn’t. Now, I realize that there are no solid definitions or rules...at least in my case, we are sort of making them as we go.

My daughter’s adoptive parents have an older adoptive child (he is three now), so while they know the ropes a bit more than I do (as far as communication), each situation is different and that does not exclude sibling adoptions. Just because my child and their son’s birthmom have the same adoptive family for their child, that doesn’t mean the relationship is the same. Their son’s birth family is not too involved with him, from what I have been told. It is because of this that A’s mom seems to appreciate our relationship even more and most likely why she always says that A is so lucky to have such a ‘great, loving birthmom.’ (Which, by the way, makes me smile from ear-to-ear when she says it). Not that I want to use someone else’s sad situation to make mine look better, that’s not it at all. My point is simply that each relationship has it’s own dynamic...so while your open adoption may include visits, another person’s may include visits and no personal info (phone numbers or addresses) and anothers may include all of that information and no visits.

In the same light, communication has completely different boundaries in open adoption. Generally, I leave it to her adoptive mom to initiate our conversations, be it by text or by email. There have been a few times where I have requested something out of the ordinary, and I was terrified to ask. I was scared to be rejected, scared that I would come on too strong and not only would she say no, but she would back off in future contact. Each time I have taken the plunge, though, she has never had a problem with it. In fact, when I asked if it would be okay to make a phone call to A on her first birthday, her mom responded by saying it was absolutely fine, and asked if I would rather Skype with them instead. Hmm, let me think about it....YES!! I was over the moon (and still remember every minute of that 50 minute call, believe it or not)! I expected to have a quick video chat for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but it lasted nearly an hour. It was amazing. I don’t mean to get off track, though. These thoughts are all swirling around my head today because I sent an email to her mom last night because it was really bugging me that I didn’t know what her first word was. I knew she was talking, but was never told what her first word was. Curiosity got the best of me, and I emailed her. I am awaiting a response...I hope she doesn’t mind sharing. While it would have been nice if she had volunteered the information, I know her well enough to be fairly certain that now that I have prompted it, she will let me know.

This got me to thinking: birthmoms, do you usually leave the ‘first contact’ up to the adoptive parents? Or do you initiate the conversation just as much as they do, or more? I remember my adoption counselor stressing that I had to write back when they wrote to me, or they would stop writing to me. I always write back, if not the same day, within a couple of days. So why do I feel  intrusive if I send the first email?