Quote of the Week: Never Forget

“Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”

If you have any suggestions for quotes to use, feel free to email me or post a comment!

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Quote of the Week: Self Worth

"When your self-worth goes up, your net worth goes up with it."

If you have any suggestions for quotes, feel free to email me or post a comment!

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The Dating Game

Okay, before I start into this piece, let me be as clear as possible: this is not a man hating piece.  The majority of my close friends are men.  I have known many good men in this life, including the father of my child who is still my best friend.

That said, dating, when being a birthmother, can be terrible.  After having my son, his father and I broke up about a year later.  Not really due to our son and all that happened.  More due to a matter of distance (we live in two cities over a hundred miles apart) and time and being in different places in our lives.  As I said, we are still the best of friends.  And maybe one day we'll be together again.  Just neither of us are certain at this point.

Since then, I have dabbled on a dating site, although my profile is set to "only looking for friends."  That's about as far into the dating realm as I have gone.  And I know it's partly due to fear.  It's hard enough for me to explain to new friends about my son and all the things entailed with him.  Trying to explain this to someone who I might be dating and when in the world to do that in the course of a date or a relationship, ugh, just sets my head spinning.  As I've said before, Ms. Manners did not write a chapter on how to best approach any of this.  But some days I really wish that she had.  I'd have some idea of what to do.  But like most every birthmother I know, I do the only thing I can: whatever makes sense at the time.

In the past month, I have had two birthmother friends have problems with their significant others.  The problems, while unique to us, were easy for my others friends to understand.  One shouldn't have to hide away another part of their life because it makes the significant other feel uncomfortable.  One shouldn't have to explain why they are still in contact with their children.  One should never be put in a position where essentially one must choose between the child they still love and the man they are dating.  And I hope one never has the fact that they are a birthmother thrown out at them in anger by their significant other when in the middle of a fight.  It's unfair and it's uncalled for.  And in the end, it most likely has absolutely nothing to do with what the fight was about in the first place.  It's just taking a part of ourselves and using it as a weapon against us.  This is something I hope no one ever has to experience.  But I know that others have, and will have it happen.  I just hope that if any of this does happen to you in a relationship, you are willing to leave that person.  I know it might break your heart.  But I know it would break more to cut off communication with your child (if there is any) and even worse when who you are is used against you because we cannot change who we are.  We are birthmothers.  And anyone who wants to be in our lives has to accept that fact or, unfortunately, walk away.

In my anger and confusion, I turned to a couple guy friends of mine.  I know that may sound a little odd, but what I really wanted was an outside perspective.  So I talked to them and asked them a couple important questions: Would you date a birthmother?  Would the fact that a woman is a birthmother and still in contact with her child bother you?  Both of them did say that while they would wish that the first time they were a father it would be the first time for their wife as well, sometimes it's simply not possible.  And in this instance, obviously, it wouldn't be possible.  But that would not be something that would bother them and by no means would be a deal breaker when getting into a relationship with someone.  As one of them said, we all come with baggage.  The only thing is whether or not you can deal with the baggage someone comes with.  If you can't, you should move on.  But if you can, then you should stay and see what happens.

All this said, I know it is disappointing when trying to get into a relationship with someone and it turns sour because they cannot accept who we are.  But my guy friends also agreed with me that if you want to be in a relationship with someone, you need to accept everything you are.  Certainly, some things can change.  But this is not one of them.  And any person worth your time, should be able to make peace with everything you are.

There are good guys out there.  I know several of them.  So be brave, keep looking forward, and know that, whoever you are, you are an amazing person.  Don't let the stupid boys get you down.

Remember the Journey

There are some days after placement that you will never feel whole.  However, there are the other days where love and peace surround you.  Those days are very rejuvenating and necessary for the soul to replenish itself.

Remind yourself how blessed you truly are for how far you have come in your life's journey.  Even if you have just five minutes, close your eyes and mentally walk through the steps you slowly took to get you where you are today.

Don't forget to express gratitude for those who supported you and helped you when you couldn't walk one more step.  "Gratitude is the key to abundance."

Relax and enjoy these moments.  Write about them and re-read them when you are having a rough day.

I listen to this song to remind me of my own path.... Reach for the Light by Steve Winwood.

Simply Become Who You Are

In redecorating my daughter's room recently, we came across lots of run-on transfers containing words and phrases. Since she is my child, I wanted to put something on her wall that both inspires and blesses her as she grows and becomes who she is. I've seen Bible verses, sayings, drawings, designs - anything can be put on a wall nowadays. 

But then I saw one that summed up me to myself. Simply become who you are is what I feel like I've been trying to do for several years. Integrating birthmothering, parenting, daughterhood, sisterhood and the zillion other things I am into my one person has challenged and stretched me. Being comfortable in my own skin is the thing that stretches me the most.

I would like to think I have outgrown the days of feeling insecure about my height/weight/shoe size/you name it. I think for the most part I have. The more I get to know myself and what I'm about, the less prone I am to fall into the comparison trap. Simply becoming who I am takes the pressure off of me and focuses it on my creator. He made me for a specific reason. He knows all and sees all and even if my house-on-the-corner-in-suburbia life makes no sense to me at times, God knows exactly what he's doing by having me right where I am.

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Are We Really Mothers?

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I know some birthmoms who struggle with feeling like their right to call themselves “mom” and to act like mothers was signed away when they signed relinquishment documents.  In fact, my best friend feels that way.  She relinquished her son last December to an open adoption, and though she calls herself “momma” to me when we’re talking about her son, she doesn’t feel it in her heart as she expects to feel it.  I think several things have contributed to birthmoms in general having that feeling.

Terminology has had a negative effect on our being able to feel our motherhood.  I know I’ve spoken before about how proper terminology can make a huge difference, but even the usage of good terminology can have pitfalls.  I think the term “birthmom” can actually cause some women to feel that they don’t have the right to simply refer to themselves as a mom.  I don’t have an easy answer for this.  For instance I have no problem calling myself a birthmom, but I also use the terminology interchangeably with “mom” or “other mom” depending on my audience.  I have no problem saying this because I am my daughter’s mother, but society in general expects us to not refer to ourselves as “mom” because we’ve supposedly signed that right away.  The signing of a legal document will never change my biological relationship to my daughter.  I believe a general need to refer to the children we’ve relinquished as “birth son,” “birth daughter,” or “birth child” stems from that same attitude.  Relinquishing our legal rights to parent our children doesn’t make them less our children.  It just means we have no legal right to make the decisions their parents now make for them and about them.

I believe the other reason that my best friend and others who feel as she does feel the way they do happens on a much deeper emotional level.  No matter how positive and at peace we feel about our decision to relinquish, I think there will always be at least a small part of us that reminds us of the fact that we didn’t feel we were “good enough” for whatever reason to parent our child.  Our inner self is saying that if we weren’t “good enough” to parent our child then we’re not “good enough” to call ourselves mothers.  The problem with that feeling is that we are good enough to parent our children.  Every single one of us is good enough to parent our children.  We just decide that we want to give our children more than what we feel we can provide.

So how do we fix our own internal voice?  We have to drown it out with another voice telling us that we are mothers, and that we are good enough to take that term as our own.  That means lots of repetition to ourselves that we’re good enough to deserve that title.  That means we act like proud moms and show pictures of our children off.  If you’re not fortunate enough to have pictures of your child, you can still tell people that you have a child.  If you’ve decided for other reasons to keep the birth and relinquishment of your child a secret, you can still tell yourself that you’re a mom even if you’re not raising any other child.  Even the birthmoms that feel uncomfortable being as public about their adoptions as I am but have access to pictures of their child can say to themselves when they look at those pictures, “That’s my kid,” with pride in their voice.  It’s important to change the voices around us and in our heads that tell us we don’t deserve our motherhood.  There’s a line in the P!nk song, “Less Than Perfect” that says, “Change the voices in your head; make them like you instead.”  That attitude can and should be applied to a situation where a birthmom doesn’t feel like the mother that she is.  The same line in this case could say, “Change the voices in your head; you are a mom.”  Obviously it doesn’t fit well with the music if you’re familiar with the tune of the song, but the attitude needs to be there.

How will you work on changing your voice?

The Silver Lining

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So often lately, I’ve heard the words “Life (or God) hates me.”  Or "I’m a good person and I’ve done the right things.  Why do bad things keep happening to me?”  I’ve said the same things myself, many times.  I’ve had my own share of “downers” in life. 

Being a birthmother could be considered a “downer” too.  Even though I’m firm in my belief that my daughter is in the right place and that I made the right decision for the time, when I have my moments of grief for her out of the blue, I start to question it.  The hurt starts overwhelming me and I feel as if God is sending me down a well instead of setting me in high places like He promised.  Whether you believe in God or not, I believe that each of you, me included, is meant for great things.  I believe that every pain in our lives, every stressor, is just temporary.

When I look back on my life, all the negative things that I’ve either caused or happened to me have turned into good things if I’ve let them.  Sometimes I’ve had to search for the good, the silver lining, so to speak.  Sometimes the good has hit me like a bolt of lightning and made all the negative feelings surrounding the event quickly disappear.  I’m sure we’ve all heard it said that we need to learn from our mistakes.  Even if being a birthmother cannot be considered a mistake (and NO child, planned for or not, is a “mistake”), I know when the grief threatens to overwhelm that we can think we made a mistake.

While the negatives of being a birthmother can feel overwhelming all of the time or even just sometimes, I think it’s important to remember the positives.  Search for a reason or a way to turn the negative around.  Perhaps the feelings of loss surrounding the placing of your child help you remember other losses that you may have buried and you’re able to finally heal from those losses.  Perhaps someone that you meet as a result of being a birthmother that you wouldn’t have met otherwise ends up helping you in a way that you could have never guessed.  Perhaps you’re able to connect with others and your experience as a birthmom changes other people’s lives.  Maybe your experience as a birthmom will inspire you to get involved with the legislature surrounding adoptions in general in some way, and even if your own experience has been less than positive, you’ll be able to prevent the same thing from happening to others.  The possibilities are endless.  Sometimes you just have to look.  In that looking, you may also find, as I have, that you distract yourself from your own pain and you may even heal when you’re not expecting it.

Just remember you’re beautiful.  You’re perfect, just the way you are.  You’re meant for wonderful things.  Believe that for yourself, because no amount of me or anyone else telling you this is going to make it true until you start believing it.

Shame

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This is something that’s been on my mind and heart a lot since the retreat, and after seeing a post written about a similar topic, I decided to blog my thoughts and feelings.

 

I’ve been carrying a lot of shame inside about my decision to be a birthmother.  I didn’t realize how much until I confronted the fact that I might be carrying some at the retreat.  One of the ladies, Heather B., addressed shame during her breakout session on Saturday.  She equated things that we have shame about to stones.  Sure, one thought of something we’re ashamed of may not be a lot.  But each thought can build up and end up being quite a weight to carry around.  If we think we’ve set the shame aside and haven’t really taken care of it, we can trip over it again.  Or we can put it away and then take it out again when we “need” it.

I have had shame about the decision I made.  I feel shame that I didn’t try “harder” to raise my daughter.  I feel shame that I didn’t think longer about how I could make it work and whether I really wanted to parent.  I have questioned during the most difficult times of grieving if I made the right decision or not, and I have felt ashamed at the time of my questioning my decision.  I feel shame and worry that she might grow up not only knowing who she is, but who she came from.  I feel ashamed that I didn’t start the grieving process that we all must go through at one point or another as soon as I felt I should have.  I feel ashamed that because of circumstances beyond my control, her aparents didn’t get to start their bonding process with her until she was almost 2 months old.  There are a myriad of other things I’ve carried shame about, but those are the main ones.  The biggest “stones,” so to speak.

So how do I get rid of those “stones of shame?”  How do I make sure that I’m not only not carrying them around anymore, but that I’m not setting them aside only to pick them back up again at a later date?  I have felt more than once that I “need” to have guilt and/or shame about something, and that I thrive on that negative feeling.  I’ve felt shame about being content.  But I also believe that God doesn’t want me to live with shame and the guilt that comes with it.  Whether you believe in God or not, or even a higher power of some sort, I know that it’s not healthy for anyone to carry around shame and guilt. 

 

We can ask other people for forgiveness.  We can ask God.  But we, me included, also need to forgive ourselves.  That’s where the true healing comes in.  That’s how I will get rid of the stones of shame that I’ve carried around about my daughter’s adoption.

Every day I will make the decision to forgive myself.  It’s not going to be an instant process.  It may be a lifetime one as I deal with watching my daughter grow from afar and not daily and even hourly like I “should be” doing.  But I will remind myself when that shame and guilt starts creeping back in that I’ve forgiven myself for my decision and that constantly dwelling on the shame isn’t going to change the decision or make it any better.

What about you?  What shame about your own adoption situation are you still carrying around, and how are you going to forgive yourself?

Standing Tall

When I was about eight years old I went with my mom to visit my uncle. I loved visiting my uncle. He worked on a railroad and he always had great stories about all of his many adventures. This particular visit to his house he had a video for my mom and I to watch. It was a video of a vacant building being imploded. For whatever reason, he was invited by a friend of his to watch (and record) this spectacle. I was captivated. I sat and watched the camera zoom into the structure. I waited patiently for the crowning moment. I listened intently to the hustle and bustle of the workers as they prepared to detonate the structure. Then just like that, it was done. What was once a tall building was now a pile of dust and rubble.

Looking back I can’t help but wonder why I was so captivated by such an event. Maybe I was just a little kid who wanted to see something blow up, or maybe it’s just human nature to enjoy watching things fall. Either way, I can’t help but wonder. What purpose did that building serve? I was never told what it was actually used for. Even if it was just a warehouse used to store items, surely someone somewhere had fond memories of it. What about the people who built it? How would they feel if they knew I took such pleasure in watching the fruits of their labor crumble to the ground?

As birth parents we face unique challenges that other parents do not. While other parents are watching their children take their first steps, we will watch this moment from a distance and some of us won’t watch at all. We also face spectators who want to see us fall. People who are so put off by the idea of adoption what they write us off as dead beat parents, lazy, or just plain heartless. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not claiming that we’re the only group of people out there who face these spectators. From my experience, however, it certainly seems that these people are allowed to stand a little bit closer to the front lines.

As I move through life as a birth mother, I look for reasons to stand tall every day. One look at the photo of my son that sits on my desk can turn an otherwise crappy day into the day I decide to live life like it’s my last day on earth. The thought that one day my son will possibly be proud of me can give me the burst of energy needed to pull myself through the week, month, or even the year. Most recently, I’ve decided to think of the spectators. That ugly little group of people who stand on the sidelines, waiting for me to fall. I will never let those spectators see me fall.

Besides, whenever a building of some significance is scheduled to be demolished, there is always a whole other group of people fighting to preserve it.

Cheers!

-Lacy

The Importance of Self Esteem

When I was younger, I had major self esteem issues. I would look in the mirror and hate the way I looked. My hair was frizzy, my body was awkward, my eyebrows were bushy, my butt was too big, and my skin was too dark (compared to everyone else in my family). I literally felt like a black sheep. During high school I changed my name to “Myshel” and swore I was someone totally different than whom I was. I had a different boy every week and would drop them before they had an opportunity to drop me. The attention they gave me felt good, at least temporarily.

A couple of months after graduating high school, I met C’s dad. He swept me away. While I should’ve been focusing on college, I focused on him. Before I realized it, I made him my world. Nothing else mattered to me. My family and I would have huge fights because of him. They saw me becoming less and less of the person I was, and more and more like the person he wanted me to be. He mentally and verbally abused me. He controlled me. The 2 ½ years I was with him were some of the weakest points in my life.

When I found out I was pregnant, I cried. I saw my whole life, all my goals, get thrown down the toilet. He was happy and excited to finally be a “family”. Yet, during those 9 months, he cheated on me and abused me, and put me through a living hell. I felt like I deserved everything I was getting and dealt with it. It wasn’t until C was born that I woke up. He physically abused me two more times and threatened to take my son from me, the last time being under the roof of my parent’s home, and that was the final straw. I was done. I couldn’t have this monster in mine or my son’s life. I finally had the courage to break up with him. Unfortunately, by then the damage was done.

The following year after the breakup, I was at an all time low, self esteem wise. I went from guy to guy to guy. I had just turned 21 and was like a walking ad for Girls Gone Wild. My self respect, amongst other things, went out the window. I no longer loved myself. I looked for attention any way I possibly could. It was disgusting. Before I knew it, a year had passed and I was even more unhappy than I was when I left C’s dad. Unfortunately, it only got worse when I found out I was pregnant from a one night stand. I was ashamed of myself.

During the 9 months I was pregnant with Hope, there were times when my self esteem was so low, I prayed to God to not let me wake up in the morning. I hoped to fall down the stairs or get hit by a car. It was the darkest time of my entire life, possibly even more so since my pregnancy was kept a secret. I went through it all alone in fear and shame of what others would think of me. I was so hard on myself that I never got to see the positives of everything my life had brought me.

Where am I going with this?

While watching Teen Mom, I’ve been reminded over and over of the self esteem issues we all face as teenagers, and even as adults. It’s tough for me to see these girls go through the struggles they do. We saw Maci struggle with Ryan and the way he treated her last season. A lot of us have agreed that Farrah was a terrible mom, but now can see where all her issues stem from after the incident with her mom and her conversation with her therapist regarding her relationship with Sophia’s dad. We cringe at the mental and verbal abuse between Amber and Gary. Worst of all, we continuously see the difficulties of Catelynn and Tyler being in a relationship after placing Carly for adoption.

Teen Mom has been difficult for me to watch lately, as seeing the issues evolve between Catelynn and Tyler’s relationship makes me feel really bad for both of them. When Tyler was being a jerk and Catelynn was crying about how much it hurt her, I wanted to reach through the screen and shake her and say “LEAVE HIM”. No one should be made to feel like they’re worthless, especially by someone who says loves them. The attachment and bond between Ty and Catelynn is strong due to the fact that they went through pregnancy and placement and post adoption feelings together. Regardless, though, there is NO REASON she should allow him to talk to her and text her with the things he was telling her. There’s no reason for any of us to allow anyone to bring us down like that. We shouldn’t have to “settle” with anyone who brings us down and doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves.

Just because you love someone doesn't mean you have to be involved with them. Love is not a bandage to cover wounds. –Hugh Elliott


For awhile, I had labeled myself as “damaged goods”. Personally, I felt like I was a mess that no one would want to be with. I had two children by the age of 22. I didn’t have a degree or a house of my own. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I felt like I had no worth. I dated around, but never opened up about my experiences in life with anyone because of the fact that I was embarrassed by the way my life played out. It was hard for me to trust anyone, let alone trust myself that I wouldn’t go back to my old way of thinking or acting. I was more embarrassed of being me.

It has taken me several years to realize what an amazing person I am. I have become able to see all the good things within myself and be proud of who I am and am becoming everyday. My level of personal growth in the past 5 years since Hope was born is amazing. I have transformed from a single mom with broken dreams and a broken heart to a woman who is selfless, strong, determined, confident, intelligent, goal oriented, and compassionate. I’m proud of myself for how far along I have come in my life and how much more growth I have ahead of me. Granted, I have my off days like anyone else, I don’t dwell on them as much as I used to and have opened myself up for new opportunities, including falling in love. But, that’s another story for another day…

What are some of the things you find you are hard on yourself about and wish you could change? What are the positive things you see in yourself? Focusing on those positives will help get through the bad days. If you ever need a boost, and don't know where to start, I highly suggest this site I read about in Glamour magazine. Try it ;)