reflections

As the two year anniversary of my reunion rapidly approaches, I have done a lot of reflecting on the before and after .
although I am not completely happy with the changes reunion has made in my life and in my personality. One truth has been emerging, I have choices..
I can choose how I continue to let this impact my daily life, The effects of losing my children has always been a part of me although it was well hidden under layers of protection, tucked safely behind a wall of mistrust and denial, it is now my choice how and when I allow it to surface. I am the master of my own destiny. I am no longer the scared young girl with no options or resources, I now have a voice in how I allow others to treat me and to walk away from those who disrespect me as a mother and as a person.
I recently read another mothers blog regarding what type of adoptee we may find or as in my case who find us,, but what people either fail to see or don't want to admit is that very often we are reunited with children that were abused, neglected, or unable to be the bandaid child that helped some infertile couple complete their lives, very often our children suffer much worse than they would have had they been allowed to stay in their natural families.This truth was not something I had prepared myself for, It continues to be a daily struggle to not own responsibility for the actions of those who inflicted such atrocities on my children. I can express rage and sadness, I can be compassionate and patient during the times when my children need space to breathe and step back, but for me to inflict self blame could very well have deadly results. My only wish would be to one day be able to voice my anger at those who fought so hard to steal my children and then have the nerve to not treat them with unconditional love, My only satisfaction is knowing that Karma is a bitch..
So what do I see in the year to come ? I would like to see a return to the old pre-reunion me but with the satisfaction of knowing where my children are, whats going on in their lives, and finding how and where I fit in their lives.There will be times I'm sure that the sadness of our loss will surface, birthdays, holidays, etc.but I can no longer allow my loss to define my life, its is part of the bigger picture of me, the now complete me. Continued counseling and finally being able to clearly see what a major loss adoption has caused in my life and theirs will finally bring peace to the pieces.

shutting off the mommy button

time to start over again. haven't really had anything worthy of discussion until last night..

The typical scenario regarding any conversation with my 30 year old reunited son usually goes something like this.. let me preface this with he doesn't like talking on the phone so all communication is via text message or aim. which is I guess his way of controlling how often we speak. we have met in person twice in 2 yrs. both week long visits which were emotionally stressful but it was wonderful getting to know my son again.

ca-ching (his aim sound) this sets off my mommy radar. should I or shouldn't I ? thus ensues the inner battle of how long since we last spoke ? will I get a response ? OK be prepared send a short message. usually something like.. hey there hows it going ? then I wait...and wait..and wait..jump over to facebook to see if he is on. yup..wait some more... after about an hour I accept that this will be another unanswered communication. this plays out  for weeks at a time up to months, then eventually i get a reply, I spoke with him last night and this is how the mommy button gets activated...

I always think I am prepared for anything when it comes to communicating with my son . he can be very upbeat and positive one day, and in the depths of despair the next. on his good days the conversation flows easily. we chat about my family and his. how hes adjusting to being back in close proximity to his adoptive parents. ( they are not in contact and haven't been for years. very bad history that i will not go into but understandable if you read any of my other blogs) work, school , basic "normal" conversation if you leave out the Afam.

Then there are the conversation like last night..he was very depressed, his girl friend left him, he's hungry, broke and on the verge of being homeless.everything was negative, as the mom of 2 teens I have been psychologically fitted with a mommy will fix it button. after all isn't that what moms are suppose to do ? when our children are in pain we do everything possible to help them out . Here in lies the rub. I did not raise this now adult person, I had no input into his ability to function as an independent adult. his "parents" are the cause of his rage, they are the dysfunctional adult role models that didn't do a very good job (to put it mildly)
teaching him self worth and determination. So why do I feel that its my job to fix it ? My heart breaks for him, the mommy in me wants to jump on a plane and help my child through the fire. I have to turn off the mommy button, As much as my heart breaks and my soul screams I  can not be mommy and I cant fix him. I have for the most part stopped blaming myself for the damage caused by our separation and that of the evil not fit to be called human (no anger here) ,"parents" I have to flip the switch from mommy to friend, I can be supportive, offer advise, and point out the positive but I can not be mommy and fix it...

One of the most difficult aspects of reunion is coming face to face with what we missed out on in our child's life. finding where we fit in their lives and knowing when to turn off the mommy button.

lies they told me

I have been considering how to use my blog as a means to define the truth about adoption through a first moms point of view. So in response to adoption awareness month I will use my truth to dispel the lies I was told by those whose only objective was to shatter my self esteem and steal my children to build a family for a more deserving couple. My hope is that one mother considering adoption will stumble upon my words and seek out other moms of adoption loss before giving in to the propaganda and loyalty force fed to vulnerable confused young women.

LIE NUMBER ONE..

You will move on with your life and eventually forget.

This is the most damaging lie told to me in order to take my children. I spent my late teens to 20's wondering what I was doing wrong. because I never forgot. I abused drugs, alcohol, and even had several suicide attempts all in the pursuit of banishing the thoughts of my children from my mind. but every birthday, holiday, and milestone your child reaches from Halloween to starting school awakens a sadness  deep in your soul . but you cant talk about it because youre not suppose to remember and neither will your family and friends. so you will suffer alone in silence praying for peace that will never come. Welcome to the world of PTSD..

which leads me to lie number 2

You will eventually have more children

Yes you may have another child somewhere down the road. that is if your'e lucky enough not to suffer from secondary infertility as  many mothers who surrender do. trauma from previous pregnancies and births might potentially cause secondary infertility. this is medical fact not an opinion.

In my world things were totally opposite. When I finally did have another child 10 years later (beautiful twins boy/girl) my loss returned in waves of guilt, grief and fear.

By this time my surrendered children were 10 and 11 years old. I felt like I was being disloyal to them for having more children. I was overwelmingly sad knowing that somewhere out there these beautiful babies had siblings that they would never know. and the constant fear that something would happen to cause me to lose these babies too. I quickly became an overly protective, compulsively attentive mother. every cry whimper, diaper rash and minor illness that all babies experience sent me into a panic. I was so engulfed by the negatives that I spent very little time apreciating the joy of being a mom. It took me a couple of years to finally relax enough to realize that these children were really mine. and that no harm would come to them . these beautiful babies are now going on 20 years old and I can see the lasting imprints of my loss in them. they are my "over" children. over protected, over indulged . I love them with all my heart and they got the best possable mom they could have. but looking back I can clearly see that everything I did for them and with them was a way of showing everyone around me who had refused to help me keep my children that I was a perfect mom.

My message to any woman concidering adoption..

know that it WILL affect your entire life.

you will not forget..

consider ALL of your options. if you are not presented with the option and help available to raise your child , you havent been given true options.

search out moms who had their children taken through adoption years ago . not the rainbow farting I made the right choice ones pushed on you by the agencies.

know the truth...

Women who surrendered children to adoption most often have great difficulties in getting on with their lives and endure a vast array of psychological problems stemming from the separation such as: relationship difficulties, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Secondary Infertility.

The most sacred event in the world (birth) and the most sacred relationship in the world (mother and child) is totally disrespected. And then everyone is told that everything is okay and the losses are treated as non-existent.

my house of mirrors

adoption loss and reunion have caused a major fracture of my inner personality. I thing I choose to live in this house of mirrors in order to cope with daily life, keeping pain and sadness  packed away in neat little boxes until it is appropriate to open them and tend to who ever is looking back in the reflections of my past present and future. The mirror can be a friend or an enemy but they are reflections of me. all different yet all the same.They all contain a glimmer of hope and a desire to someday meld together into one complete person. until that time I will tend to them with the care and compassion that they never had. Slowly and gently leading them through the house of mirrors that is my mind.                                                                                                                                                                         These are the people I see as I walk through the maze of reflections looking back at me.

Mae- she is the strong silent girl. Mae is Portuguese for mom. She knows her role in her family is that of nurturer. Cheerleader, confidant, nurse, mother and wife. although not always happy with the wife role she accepts that after 22 years not much is going to change. so she makes the best of it. she is not happy but she is content. Her deepest desire is to find a place to fit in to the lives of her stolen children

Diablo Mal- (angry devil) She is the young girl that lost her children to the adoption machine. She has sudden burst of anger. is very hard to contain. speaks her mind often to a fault.She lacks self control. is extremely impulsive.her rage fuels her desire to fight for the underdog every chance she gets.She wants so badly to confront those who took her children and to make them pay for the damage they inflicted on them.

Gemini- Gem is the intellectual side . Shes smart. sees the world in black and white. thinks with her head not her heart. never lets emotions control common sense. She keeps the others in line with facts.

and finally there is Destiny. She holds all of the sadness, despair guilt and emptiness of the others. She lives in a world of grey skys and helplessness. carries the weight of the world on her shoulders and is the most common reflection in the mirror. she fights daily just to maintain . She just wants to know why.

so how has adoption affected my life? it has shattered my heart and soul . taught me to build walls of mistrust,  doubt and self hatred that very few can break through. and in the years to come the pieces of me may be repaired. but the scars of my shattered reflections will always be there looking back at me.



just the facts mam..sons vs daughters

I want to preface this entry by saying that I have always loved and missed both of my twins equally. but this entry is about the loss and reunion of my daughter.

On a daily basis I am reminded how we have to treasure every minute of togetherness we have with our reunited children. I never took being with her or my grandchildren for granted. I was thrilled to be an over night grandma. for the first time i was whole. none of the pieces were missing any more. after all isn't that the way the media represents reunion ? we all live happily ever after right ? oh how wrong I was. I had begun my self work. I was coming to terms with my new self and my loss that had never been grieved. I wouldn't say I was happy. but i was approaching contentment.then out of nowhere I was hit by something that I never saw coming. SILENCE.. it was as if she had disappeared. no warning, no slow backing off, just gone as quickly as she appeared. All communication stopped. And instantly I blamed myself. What had I done this time? I replayed every mental tape stored in my mind. looked at all the pictures we had taken. and could find nothing .then I got angry. right or wrong I was full of rage. How dare she do this to me. After all she is the one who started all of this. was it her way of getting even with me ? you left me now I get to leave you . That anger still surfaces occasionally. but it is now directed towards adoption in general and not at her . But I think I am seeing a clear view of how things are different for sons and daughters.

from the very beginning they differed on how and what to tell me. My son sat down and wrote me a 5 page letter regarding his entire life..the good and the bad. and trust me it was bad. stories of neglect, substance abuse by a-rents, homelessness. no detail was omitted. He thought I would want to know. ( i did but chapters would have been better than the entire story at once) i was not ready for the truth.my daughter on the other hand was furious when she found out that i knew everything that had happened to them. she wanted to protect my feelings.

at our first face to face meeting. my son pulled out a note book and wanted an instant family tree, with names ages, medical info. He wanted facts not feelings. My daughter on the other hand wanted pictures. who did she look like. where did we live. what led up to our loss. She was searching for emotional data. The following day my son left for Alaska. He had more questions but would email me later. just the facts mam. my daughter and i spent the next 3 days visiting for hours at a time. we spent time at the beach with my new grand babies. talked about how much we were alike. we were or so I thought connecting on an emotional level. After a sad good bye I returned to my home 1300 miles away feeling all was good in my soul. Looking back I think that maybe my next step began the downfall of our relationship. Feeling that I wanted more and thinking that they did too I made a decision to relocate back to my home town to give us some time to get to know each other. If i could change anything this would be it.

my son was happy to have me close by but moved very slow. he made it very clear that although he was happy that I was there , this was not going to interfere with his day to day life. My daughter was totally different, She wanted the mom she never had. The kind that loved unconditionally, didn't judge, and would be supportive and listen. all the things amom wasn't. and that's exactly what she got. I gave her a clear view of what she should have had, what she missed out on. Looking back I'm sure this made her feel anger and resentment towards me. after all she had raised her two children alone with no support from anyone. why couldn't you ? And i beat myself up with the same question.

I guess the moral to this fractured fairy tale is that in my case my son looks at things on a more intellectual level. he analyzes facts. I'm sure he feels something its just buried under the layers of "its not that big a deal" where as my daughter sees and feels the loss more on a surface level.

At present my son and I communicate on a limited basis via email and social websites. I choose not to involve him in what ever it is that has put a wedge between my daughter and I. though he wasn't even aware there was a problem until she refused to see me during a recent visit. As for my daughter and I, the silence on her part continues. I pray every day that , that will soon change.  I keep sending notes of encouragement and will continue to do so unless she tells me to stop.

reunion killed me...

                                                   today was "one of those days" you know them. the days you want to run away or you pray its all a nightmare and any minute I'm going to wake up and it was all just a dream. Its days like this that i flip through my play list and try to find a song that can adjust my attitude. some days its Ozzy, and other days its Tim Mcgraw. all depends on the mood.Ive given up trying to figure out what type of music describes me. because like me it just doesn't make sense.

this is the song that inspired me today. and before you think i have totally lost it. No it isn't a song about suicide. its about killing the old me and reinventing the new and improved me.

the reason I say reunion killed "me" is because basically it did. 18 months ago if I was asked to describe myself I would have said..wife..mother of 2..community activist. high school sports booster mom. girls soccer coach. The picture of a perfect mom. It all looked good on paper. besides nobody knew what was hiding in the shadows. That is until that day when i got the call that killed me.

I was no longer who I appeared to be. the simplest of questions now caused my head to spin. simple things like how many children do you have ?  now had to have well thought out answers.  my life rapidly went from very relaxed and simple to emotional and complex. The old me was dead and the new me had emerged. a bit beaten and battered but hopefully fixable.

whats hiding behind the rage ?

I often find myself wondering why I feel so guilty about the conditions that my lost children had to endure growing up, after all none of this is my fault right ? I didn't choose the people who adopted my children. I didn't neglect my children, I was not the substance abusers. they were. my only part in all of this was being a vulnerable young mom with no support and no options.  So why am i so consumed with rage and guilt ?

The moment I heard the truth about my children's adoption experience my maternal instincts kicked into over drive. I think every mom possesses the need to protect their young. We fight for what is ours, and at that moment that's exactly what i wanted to do. I remember plotting and planning what i would do to make sure they felt my rage and fury. How dare they steal my babies and treat them this way. they will pay for what they did.

So what stopped me from acting on this rage ? why didn't I fight for them ? I am thinking it is because the rage is what keeps me going. I owe it to them to be angry . that holding the rage shows that I love them. what mother could not be angry over this. and if the rage goes away all that remains is the sadness and loss. I had  been denied to feel sad because I was not allowed to grieve. after I lost my children it was as if they never existed, they were never spoken of again . I survived my own private hell for 28 yrs. I built a protective wall around my heart in order to not feel that kind of pain ever again and I fear that if I take down the layer of rage, the walls will come tumbling down leaving my shattered heart in ruins.