Music Monday: Songbird by Fleetwood Mac

Quote of the Week: Life is Like A Bicycle

"Life is like a bicycle. 

You don't fall off unless you plan to stop peddling." 

- Claude Pepper

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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 Response

Well my response to my aunt's letter is about done. If you missed last week's edition, you can catch up here. I'm still a little surprised how good that grief validation feels after 26 years.

Even though I have been praying about what to say and how to say it, it all looks different on paper, you know? I've written some things that I have been surprised about. I've also left things out that should be in there.

Mostly I just told my aunt how much I love her and have in her both a friend and a confidant. I wish I could be there when she reads my letter so I know my words are interpreted as they are intended. But more than that, I wish I could thank her in person. Look her in the eyse and tell her how much her words mean to me and the healing of my soul. Put my arms around her and squeeze her tight.

I guess her letter had another impact on me that I didn't realize at first. She's aging, as we all are, and she will die some day. It's hard to get older and lose loved ones. It's hard to see the ones who have loved me and supported me in dark times pass away.

I'm thankful for my aunt's letter. I'm glad to know what she has been feeling all these years and have the opportunity to respond to it. I would prefer to know now than after she passes away when it's too late to respond, too late to tell her what she means to me.

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I Wonder What He's Thinking

I always wonder what my birth son is thinking, is he resentful to me for what happened or is he thinking "how could a mom do this"?  I think about this quite often, daily actually.  I look into his eyes and I see question marks.  It has been two years know since our reunion and it just seems that there are still a lot of unanswered questions from myself and from my birth son.  I don't want to burden him with the questions I have or make him feel like I need for him to talk to me about this just so I will feel better.  So I just simply don't ask.

However, today was a good day for me.  I no longer feel that way thanks to his girlfriend.  She brought my grand daughter over to watch while she went to classes and after she came back we had a nice long chat.  So glad that we did, it made me feel so much better about how I have been feeling.  I found out that my birth son wants to ask the questions and know everything he is just to afraid to ask me.  WOW, what a breakthrough!  I will finally be able to talk about stuff with him and not feel like I am intruding in his life.  I mean he has a family and he is happy BUT now I can sit and discuss it with him.

I will see him again Thursday when he comes to pick up the baby after work and we can sit and talk things out.  I really just want to know about his life with his adoptive parents.  I mean things like, what were the holidays like for him and did he get a lot of presents, did he get to go see Santa and the Easter Bunny, and what his life was like.  I know that might sound corny or just weird, but that is what I want to hear.  I want him to tell me all about his life with them.

Just knowing that we are both afraid to ask questions and tell each other stuff is a relief to me.  I just didn't want to give him any reason to look down on me or to feel uneasy or uncomfortable when he is here.  But know I won't feel that way.  He does want to know everything from me (he has already talked to my husband which is his birth dad) but he still wants to talk to me.

I still see things in his eyes, I told his girlfriend that today.  I knew something was going on.  While I just thought he didn't want bothered with any of it and that's why we really don't have a relationship, in reality we are BOTH feeling the same thing.  Yep, today was a good day and I am so thankful I am going to have this opportunity to finally sit and talk with my birth son and let him know just how much I care about him.  I just can't wait until Thursday now.  I wrote in an earlier post that I had an envelope of letters and cards from the past two years and was just afraid to give it to him.  Thought maybe he just wouldn't be interested in it.  Now I can hand them to him and not feel like the outsider.  THANK YOU GOD, I feel like he answered my prayer today.  I think this will be a fresh new start for my birth son and me and will change how we look at each other.

So anyone else feeling like the outsider and had a breakthrough?  Just remember patience is your friend and in time things will come together.

Music Monday; If it wasn't for your Love by Heather Headley

Quote of the Week: Bad Attitude

"A bad attitude is like a flat tire. 

You can't go anywhere until you change it." 

- Unknown

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Spotlight Blogger: Meet Nan

This week's featured blogger is Nan of "Our Best Day So Far."  She is in reunion with the daughter she relinquished.  I love her perspective and her overall positive attitude despite some of the rough things that she's endured.  Let's find out a little more about Nan...


First, please tell us a bit more about yourself (name, age, where you live, what led you to making an adoption plan, and anything else you feel comfortable sharing).

My name is MariAnell Barton; almost everyone who knows me knows me as Nan. It is confusing for some who don't know how to find me in the phonebook, but I have always loved my real name more than the nickname that was given to me as a small child. I am 39 years old; I placed my baby girl for adoption 19 years ago. I live in a middle-of-nowhere small town in Utah and have for most of my life.

What led me to an adoption plan? I found myself unexpectedly pregnant and thought myself completely unprepared to be a parent. When I decided to get a real pregnancy test, I went into a Planned Parenthood. When the worker there came back to me with the results, she asked me what I wanted to do about it. My first thought was adoption. She handed me a paper with the names of several agencies and attorneys that could help me. The one that was run by my church stood out the most to me. I went into the agency telling them of my plans, but they insisted that I spend more time considering all of my options, including getting married or single parenting. After a few months working with them, I felt even more sure of my plan. I participated in a birthmother group there, attended child birth classes, and prayed more in those few months than I ever had in my life. I received a strong confirmation that adoption was the right thing for this baby, especially after I was able to choose her family. Her birth was one of the most spiritual experiences in my life.

I have been grateful to be able to say I never regretted my choice. However, I have been frustrated by some of the mistreatment I have experienced at the hands of an agency I have loved and promoted over the years. This was particularly true this last year, as I sought to re-establish communication with the family with the agency's "help". Still, I do believe my life has been blessed by adoption, and by the opportunities I have pursued to share my experience and to support others who have had similar experiences.

When and why did you begin blogging?

I started my blog in 2008, after some of my family members encouraged me. We found it was a good way to share in each others' lives as some of us live thousands of miles apart. I started blog hopping and one day I ended up following a link to a friend of a friend and I discovered another family who had been touched by adoption. From there, I wandered to The R House blog. I loved reading about how she advocated for adoption, and it made me want to share more about my own experience. I was able to do a couple of guest posts on her blog, and I started writing more on my own blog about my story as a birthmother. Around then I realized that rather than telling people I had been a birthmother (as though it were a past tense thing) I was and always would be a birthmother, and a lifetime would never change that.

Tell us more about the title of your blog. Why did you choose it?

The title of my blog is "Our Best Day So Far."  I like the idea that happiness is a process, not an end goal, and we can always improve, even in small ways. I love the idea that today is even better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better yet. It is not always true, but it is something I strive for, and I believe as we celebrate even the smallest joys, they are easier to find. My adoption journey, particularly over the past year, as I sought for communication and ultimately reunited with my birthdaughter and her family, was definitely a roller coaster ride. There were moments when it was nearly impossible to find any kind of joy, but I am ultimately grateful for the things I have learned and for this renewed friendship.

Has the response to your posts been mostly positive, mostly negative, or a mix of both?

Most of the people who read my blog are friends, so the response has been positive. There are a few posts that caused some offense to my birth daughter's mother, even though most were written before we reunited. I make no apologies for the things I have said on my blog. It was how I felt at the time and I think it is good for people to see the whole story, good and bad.

What post on your blog do you consider a “must read” for people visiting your blog for the first time? Or what post(s) from your blog is (or are) your favorite(s) and why?

I think my post "Life as a Birthmother" written on June 16, 2011 is a good one, because it discusses how while I don't consider myself a tragic figure, I do recognize that being a birthmother is something which has affected and always will affect my life. "Nan, in Real Life" is a post that received a huge response from friends and others (well, huge for my blog). It is pretty long, but several people told me they could relate to the things I was saying. Basically, life sucks sometimes. Sometimes, even when things are mostly good, it is hard to find the joy in our experiences. I was struggling. We all struggle sometimes. A lot of it related to how things had transpired after "The Reunion" and how it wasn't all as perfect as I wanted it to be.

I also recommend reading any of the posts labeled My Adoption Story or Being a Birthmother. Those are the posts that tell more about my personal experiences relating to the adoption. Here is one thing that is interesting about my blog. In November of last year, I decided to post throughout the month about my personal adoption experience, starting with events leading up to the pregnancy, the choice to pursue an adoption plan, and the birth and subsequent placement. That same month, my birth daughter found me on Facebook and she started reading the posts about her birth story. She said she really enjoyed learning more about that part of her life, through my stories. Much of it comes directly from my journal.

Do you have any advice for someone thinking of starting their own blog?

My advice is to be real, but to also remember that the way you feel in one moment may not be how you will feel in another. If you are particularly emotional about something, it might be a good idea to wait to post about it until you are a little more clear-headed. I still believe it is important to be honest, because we need to be true to ourselves in anything we say. Adoption can be a subject that people feel pretty passionately about, whether negatively or positively. It helps to be prepared for the fact that people might misunderstand or disrespect your passion. But, as long as you can own it, even if the only person who seems to benefit from your blog is yourself, then that is worth it.

The Letter

Oh boy have I been avoiding writing this. Ever since I read Monika's post last week on grief validation, I have been reeling. That coupled with a letter I received recently from my aunt and  I have wanted to stay in denial.

Let me say first that my aunt and I have corresponded for years. I always look forward to her letters because they are handwritten and newsy. Like 8 or 10 pages of news and conversation. So getting a letter from my aunt is always welcomed.

But this one seemed to take a turn. Instead of news, I started reading things like "I felt so saddened that I allowed myself to be distanced from you...It never was what was in my heart...I am so sorry...I always had such hopes of being a very special aunt...I so wanted to talk to you about your feelings...I knew how unstable and grieved you must have been for a long, long time...I truly cannot imagine what those months and years were like for you."

After 25 years, I'll admit I was surprised. This is clearly grief validation in its purest form. Unexpected, unedited, unsolicited. I haven't written back yet. I think what's stopping me is that I don't know how to respond. What would you say?

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Forgiving and Letting Go

As I write this week, I wonder if I will ever be able to forgive and let go.  It has been a long 22 years and the pain is as raw as it was the day this happened to me.  I have been reading a lot online and I have many books on adoption, but nothing is working for me.  I cry when I read the stories, some are so horrific and sad that I don't know how they live day to day.  Most of everything I have read says forgiveness is the answer to healing.  But see, forgiving to me is telling the ones that did this thing to me, it's okay and that I am alright with what you did.

I am so not ready to forgive and let go.  Everyday I think of what could of been and how our lives would of been different with our birthson.  All I get from the my family members responsible for this is, "you can have a wonderful relationship with him now and be happy".  That really just makes me mad when they say that to me.  They have no idea what I go through and the worst part, they won't acknowledge it.  I need for them to say they are sorry and acknowledge that pain and loss I have endured and still am going through.  Tell me "I'm sorry I caused you all this pain".

See I am still the outsider in this situation.  I can't just call my birthson and say, "Hey, I miss you and would like to see you and the baby, can you drop by", that will never happen.  We tried that many times.  But when the adoptive parents call him and say "bring the baby down so I can see her", they drop everything and go there.  I know I sound selfish, but that is how I feel.   But I love my birth son so much that I accept what it is and try to be understanding so that he doesn't feel he is hurting anyone's feelings.

It is just so hard to see him go to them (adoptive parents) at the drop of a hat while I have to wait a month sometimes longer to see him.  It is painful and that is why forgiving and letting go is so hard for me.  I get very upset when things like this happen. I immediately start thinking, if my family would not of done this to me, I would not feel this way and my son would be here with us.

Its hard feeling like the outsider, it is always going to be that way I know that.  How do I get past something like this?  How would you get past something like this?  Accepting? forgiving? and how would you do this?

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Music Monday: Secret by Reba McEntire

Quote of the Week: Better

"Let your past make you better,
not bitter." 
- Unknown


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Lean On Me

I’m a part of a local birth mom support group.  Normally our meetings are fairly casual and unstructured, but lately we’ve been working through “The Art of Grief.” It’s a book meant to use in a group setting, but since it’s not geared toward birthmom grief in specific, participants can use it to work on whatever reason they might be feeling grief.  It’s been interesting to me to see what’s been coming up as I’ve been working on the journal assignments and the group structured activities.  This whole experience for me has really cemented the importance of grief validation.

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What does that mean exactly?  It means that it’s important to be around people who understand that even if we as birthmoms look like we’re coping on the outside, and we may well be, we’re also dealing with a grief that never goes away.  If we’re living with a closed adoption then we have additional grief, but even if we have an open adoption, it doesn’t mean the grief isn’t there.

I would venture a guess that for a large majority of the birthmoms that will read this post, you don’t interact regularly with other birthmoms.  You may have friends or casual acquaintances that are birthmoms.  But even if you are fortunate enough to be able to interact with other birthmoms on a semi-regular basis, I would imagine that you’re not surrounded by birthmoms every second of every day.  I’m also certain that just about every one of you has a friend or a significant other that may try to understand but just can’t properly validate the grief we feel because they don’t have the in-person knowledge that we have.  Even though I’m immersed in the online world of adoption and most of my closest friends are in fact birthmoms, I still struggle with my need to have my grief validated.  Because of the positivity with which I view my own adoption situation and because I tend to consistently post comments about my peace with it, I think even my birthmom friends might think occasionally that I don’t have grief.

I’m here to tell you that I do.  Grief is something that we as birthmoms will struggle with every day for the rest of our lives.  Despite the fact that adoption can be a great thing and a good decision, it has negative repercussions for the rest of our lives.  This is why I believe strongly in good education for all moms considering adoption.  They need to know that as wonderful as adoption can be they will still struggle with their grief for the rest of their lives.  This is also why I think it’s so important to reach out to other birthmoms when you struggle.  Even if you don’t think you’re struggling, you might be ignoring it as a coping mechanism.  Then again, you may really be okay at the moment.  But I’m sure we’ve all been in a place where we feel okay or even great, and then grief comes out of nowhere and hits you hard.

So validate each other’s grief.  Find another birthmom to lean on who will just listen with an understanding ear.  It is so important.

Expected Grief

Recently I had the occasion to sit with a pregnant young woman who plans to place her child with an adoptive family when she delivers in 8 weeks. The local pregnancy center thought she might enjoy talking with me and asking me questions about life on the other side of placement.

Now, I've had some of these conversations before and it seems as though they are usually upbeat despite the content. Usually the young woman is telling me all her reasons for choosing adoption and how wonderful the adoptive family is and is going to be.

Not this time. As this young lady, I'll call her Sadie, just cried and cried, I found myself at a loss for how to encourage her. Finally, through my own tear-filled eyes, I said this: "Sweet girl, I'm so sorry. But the truth of the matter is that you will cry about this for the rest of your life."

I wasn't at all trying to be harsh, just real. And pretty soon after that, her crying stopped and we were able to have a conversation about some of her fears and concerns.

I'm not sure what I thought she needed that day, but when she was in front of me it was pretty obvious she needed someone to acknowledge her grief.

Come to think of it, sometimes I still need that or I at least need to recognize that I am grieving. How about you?

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Can Your Pain Help Others?

Remember that woman I told you I ran into at work and had a great conversation with? I hadn't really seen her since, until today. We bumped into each other in the cafeteria (by bumped into each other, I mean I saw her and ran up to say hi. She's become one of my favorite people!) and walked back to our respective office areas together. She asked me how I was doing, and I told her I was doing well. Then she said, "how are you really doing?" which had an underlying tone of "how are you doing when it comes to missing you daughter?". I appreciated her questioning me, because most people accept "fine" as an answer or don't care to dig deeper. Sometimes, I'm fine with that. Sometimes, I don't want to talk about it. Others, I do. When it's coming from a place of real concern and care, I appreciate people asking questions like that.

Anyways, I told her I was doing okay, hadn't gotten any photos of my little girl in a few weeks but overall I am doing well. I asked how her girls were and she lit up while talking about them. I know some people (ignorantly) say 'you can never love a child that you didn't birth yourself as much as you can love one you adopted,' but that, my friends, is very untrue. How anyone could hear the happiness in this woman's voice when she talks about her daughters and make a statement such as that is beyond me.

She asked me to refresh her memory on how far along I was in school. I told her, and she asked me what I was majoring in. Behavioral Science. She asked me if I wanted to work with adoption in any way, shape or form - did I want to be a social worker, a counselor, go into foster care? I told her I'd always thought about being a psychologist or counselor, and only recently thought about working with adoption. It really got me to thinking. I don't think I'd ever work directly under an agency - for many personal reasons. I would, however, love to work with expectant moms who are considering adoption or women and men who have recently placed.


My co-worker told me that sometimes, the best advice-givers are those who have been through it themselves. I must agree with her. At times, I feel having a career centered around adoption might be too emotionally taxing. Even now, I can't read too much about it on the internet; I can't partake in too many discussions without being overwhelmed and just wanting to "shut off." But at the same time, I feel the best person to empathize and understand the struggles that these girls and women (and boys and men) are going though would be someone who has walked in similar shoes.

What do you think? Do you think having a career centered around guiding and understanding others would be too hard on you (if it was a sensitive subject, such as adoption, addiction, abuse, etc) or do you think those who have "been there" are the best helpers, because they truly understand? Do you think it's a good idea to use your past experiences to help others in the future?

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