Father's Day

Father's Day is this Sunday.  While Mother's Day is difficult and a tough day to get through us, for my best friend and the father of my child, Father's Day is just as difficult.  Often we talk about our experience as birthmothers and what that means and does to us.  This one time, I want to talk about my son's birthfather, A.

A and I were dating when I got pregnant.  At first, we were terrified.  We had no idea what we were going to do and neither of us were in a good position to raise a child.  We talked, and we talked, and we said just about everything you should say and shouldn't say in order to do this and stay in a relationship.  But we kept talking.

It all came to a head when we got back to his mother's house after going to my friend's wedding.  He asked me again what we were going to do as he put a hand to my swollen belly.  I finally said to him,

"I'm 75% certain that adoption is the right idea.  It's just..."  The thing about A and I, we can finished each other's sentences.  So he replied,

"It's just the 25% gets loud?"

"It gets so loud," I said tearing up.  This was our decision.  The majority ruled.  Our son was going to be placed for adoption.  Then we thought up a name because we do everything backwards.

I was at the hospital with just my mother the first night.  The next morning A arrived with his mother. He stayed with me through the next two days of labor. He held my hand in the OR when they performed a c-section on me.  Once we both heard J crying, I saw A's eyes tear up and even from behind the mask I knew he was smiling.  I have pictures of him in the hospital holding J.  They are some of the best pictures that I have of him.  He stayed two more days.  And he held my hand as I signed the surrender papers; the same papers he had signed just a few days prior.

A has seen our son two more times: once when J was about three months old and again when J was almost a year old.  He hasn't seen him since then.  J is about to be five.  But I want to make this clear: this isn't due to a lack of care on his part.  More a matter of caring too much.  Seeing J is a torture to him.  Placing our son for adoption was the hardest thing both of us have had to do thus far, and he has dealt with it much more slowly than I have.  He is getting better.  During the last few visits, I've sent pictures to his phone instead of just his email at his request.  Every time he is stunned at how big J is and how great he looks.  One day I hope he can have a visit with our son again.  And J's adoptive parents have been amazingly understanding about this.  I've explained the situation and their words were simply, when he's ready, just let us know and we'll set up a visit.

I know not everyone has this experience.  And I think it's unfortunate that so many men turn away from their children and just don't want to know.  But those men who do acknowledge their children and love them even from afar, suffer as much as we do.  One thing I've had to do again and again since this has happened, is defend A.  I don't like that I have to do it, but I do it because it should be done, because he does deserve to be defended, because he is still my best friend who went with me through hell, and because when all else fails he's the only one in the world who knows what it's like to miss our son, J.

This Sunday, I'll tell him Happy Father's Day, just as he wished me Happy Mother's Day last month.  And I'll thank my lucky stars once again that I have him in my life.

Philemon

I don't talk about God and religion very much because I have a strange relationship with both.  My pastor is, however, happy that there's at least a relationship.  I never have liked taking orders. And I'm not one to judge others for their actions or how they live their lives.  Thus I don't always do well in organized religion.  I do believe.  I just don't always like the people who call themselves believers.  My guess is many of you can understand what I'm saying.  I'm really just saying this at the beginning so you understand where I come from on this.  Sometimes, God can put something in my path that makes me furious.  And other times, He brings me something that helps.

A few years ago, my pastor decided to start up a bible study.  It was a long one.  Took about ten months.  At the very beginning we had to read a couple of short passages.  One was to read the book of Philemon.  If you're wondering what in the world that is, don't worry, so did everyone else.  But it is a book in the New Testament; right between Titus and Hebrews.  In my bible, it's about a page.  In some shorter bibles, it's two pages, either facing each other or front and back.  There's only one chapter and has a total of 25 verses.  That's it.  Takes about five minutes to read.  It's shortness is probably why it is often over-looked.

It's one of the letters that Paul wrote while in prison.  While there he wrote a letter to his friend, Philemon.  It starts out like most letters do, "Hope all is well... Timothy and the others send their love... yadda yadda yadda..."  But then he starts to speak of a man who he is currently travelling with.  The man's name is Onesimus.  Onesimus was a slave owned by Philemon who ran away.  Somewhere along the line, Paul and Onesimus met up and Onesimus became a Christian and began following Paul and helping him.  Paul, in the letter, shows great affection and love for Onesimus, but knows that he needs to return to Philemon and answer for running away.  So Paul is writing a letter to Philemon explaining what had happened and for Philemon to welcome Onesimus back into his home.  The verse that struck me the most in this chapter is the twelfth verse:

"I am sending him -who is my very heart- back to you."

To this day I'm not quite certain how to explain how I feel when I read that verse.  But every time I read it, all I think of is my son.  He is my very heart.  And I had to send him back.  Not to slavery, nor to the family that I took him from; obviously I did neither.  I just had to send him back to the forces that gave him to me in the first place.  And from there it had to be decided to what to do.

Being a birthmother has a lot to do with faith.  Faith that the birth will go well.  Faith that the people we give our children to will take care of them.  Faith that they will keep in touch with us and honor us.  Faith that everyone around us will at least let us do what needs to be done even if they don't agree with it.  And faith that one day our children will understand why we did this.

When I placed my child for adoption, a lot of the future I was taking on faith.  It was scary. Definitely the hardest and most frightening time of my life.  But I knew this was the only thing to do.  There was no other choice.  So far, things have been good.  I hope they stay that way.

I hope all of you are having a good weekend.  I hope you find your peace wherever you may find it.

A Part of the Family

My post today is going to be part story, part thank you note, and part wish for all who place their child for adoption.

When I was invited to my son's 2nd birthday party, I was nervous, as you can imagine.  One of the first people I was introduced to at the party was my son J's grandmother, who for the purposes of this story I will call Mary.  J was her very first grandchild and I could tell by the way she doted on him that she had been looking forward to having a grandchild to spoil for a very long time.  When we were officially introduced, she was very warm and friendly to me and my parents.  We spent a good portion of the party sitting together and chatting.  When a few were surprised by my presence,  she gave what can only be described as a "don't you mess with my family" look.  She folded me in with all the others she held dear because I was the one who gave them J.

I saw Mary again at J's 3rd birthday which was held at her house.  She greeted me with a hug and together we marveled at how much J had grown.  Again, we chatted for a long time.  She asked about my parents and how my ex-boyfriend, J's father, was doing.  Again I felt like I had been folded into a family I had never dreamed I would be so welcome in.  And I highly respected and admired her for that.

Wednesday night, at poetry night, J's adoptive father informed me that Mary had passed away just the day before.  It had been over a year since I had seen her last, but still I remembered the woman's warmth and love towards me.  I wish that I had thanked her for that when I still had the time.  So I'm writing this to thank you, dear Mary, for making me feel like family and accepting me with grace and love and joy.  I hope by sending this out into the universe, it will reach you somehow so that you will know how much I appreciated and respected you.

To those of you considering placing for adoption, or those in the first raw months of it, I hope that you are welcomed and accepted by those you never thought would.  I hope you find love and grace  and respect from those you meet and those who will be a part of your child's life.  And last of all, I hope you all have a wonderful day.

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The Main Thing

If you are anything like me, you are currently experiencing some of your hardest days. Since my husband's accident 2 weeks ago, our lives have been turned upside down. I'm not sure if I'm coming or going or just dreaming (I wish!). I've never been so tired, so discouraged, or felt so out of control for a very long time. For sure, not ever in my adult life.

And yet, life has never been simpler. I remember a long time ago a youth pastor said these words to me: The Main Thing is to keep The Main Thing The Main Thing. Profound, right? As I sit here tonight after spending most of the day in tears, I say yes, that is some profound thinking right there.

I've cancelled my calendar for six months out. I've had to back out of commitments I've made. I have no idea what tomorrow holds.

But I'm at peace. Totally secure in the knowledge that God is on His Throne, that none of this is a surprise to him. I am not alone, not abandoned. He is everything I need. I don't have to do this on my own. And if I look hard, I can see so many blessings coming out of these circumstances. I can see so many prayers being answered in a way only God could pull off.

So I challenge you tonight to look really hard at your life. What are you thankful for? Start telling God. Despite your situation, what blessings are coming your way? Start telling God. Those things are there. I know they are. If I can see blessings in this mess, so can you.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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Thanksgiving (for those who celebrate) is tomorrow! Can you believe how quickly November has flown by? In some ways I'm thankful that it has gone by quickly, and in others, I'm not.

This time of year is always such a double-edged sword. I want the days to pass because the days surrounding my daughter's birthday are tough (her birthday is November 2), but I also want to cherish them because my fondest memories of her are on her actual day of birth and the couple of days following. Those are the days we spent in the hospital together. So while it nearly kills me to think about, I also enjoy the memories.

With Thanksgiving literally right around the corner, I'm getting a bit anxious about what the day will bring. This will be the 3rd Thanksgiving since having  & placing my little girl. The very first Thanksgiving, she was only a couple of weeks old, and I was still in a fog about it all. I was also a two weeks or so away from having gallbladder surgery, so I was wrapped up in that as well, so that one was fairly easy to get through. Truthfully, I don't remember much about Thanksgiving last year, either. I know that on that morning, I woke up to an email with pictures from her birthday party. It was almost as if her mom knew I would need a little extra support during the holidays.

This is a holiday centered around family. I don't have a very big family, so my mom's side comes over, and that includes just my grandmother and uncle. In a way, I am glad, because I don't have to keep up "appearances" for a large group, but in other ways, I wish the day would be a little "busier." I have a lot to be thankful for, but it's easy to lose sight of that when I am sitting there wishing I was washing a two-year-old's face and hands because she got mashed potatoes everywhere, and the reality is that I'm not. Not even close. I'm thankful because I know that tomorrow my daughter will be surrounded by her very large, diverse family and she will have boatloads of cousins to play with. I'm thankful that she will probably be in a gorgeous
Thanksgiving dress and that her mom will have so much fun doing her hair that morning.

I'm trying to keep these thoughts close to my heart as tomorrow approaches. Do I wish I could be thankful for the little girl sitting at the table with my family, her birth family? Yes. But I can't, so instead I'll focus on being thankful that she is here on this earth and loved beyond imagination.