[lenjan]

I have a 16-year-old son whose loser father first offered to pay for an abortion, and then bailed altogether when I said no. I didn't want to be a single mom and raise my boy on welfare, which is the life we were in for, so I placed him for adoption. It, much more so than my childhood abuse, has destroyed my life. The suicidal depression? A lot of the PTSD? All stem from this.

My family wanted nothing to do with it, for years. I was an embarrassment, you know. Independent of her a-hole son, the sperm donor's mom and I have been friends for years. She never wanted anything to do with it, either.

In mid-March, about a month after I got out of a week-long hospital stay (there goes that active suicidal ideation again), my son's adoptive mom tracked me down. We had communicated once or twice a year for the last few years through the adoption agency, but she did some Internet sleuthing and found me on her own, and contacted me without telling the agency she'd done so. I was over the moon, of course.

So, she's sent me lots of pictures, and I sent him a huge box of presents for his birthday in May, etc etc. People are getting better about talking about it with me.

I emailed his adoptive mom today and asked if she would send me a school picture, when she got them. She wrote back, said sure, told me what he's been up to the last couple months, attached a new picture (every time she writes, she sends a picture, I love her for that!). I, being disgustingly proud, immediately forwarded it to everyone I know. :-)

That means I also forwarded it to the a-hole's mom. She wrote to thank me. I said I was just glad she was willing to talk about it now, after not having been interested for so long. She said she was never all that interested in having a grandchild, but is interested in his life and progress now, and hopes I'm "getting over it" now.

Why do people think you can "get over" the soul-crushing pain of not raising your own child? Because I have some limited contact now, a now-former friend told me on Mother's Day, which kicked my butt this year, for some reason, that "there are a lot of people who have reason to grieve on this day, but you aren't one of them." It's people like that witch who convinced me to save it for my birthmoms group. Nobody else understands.

I keep trying to educate them, but you know, my grief is NEVER going away. Ever. I'm thrilled to death that my son is happy and healthy and well adjusted and loved beyond measure, but I really wanted to be a mom, and a lot of people convinced me I'd be a crappy one, and I believed them, and I never got another chance. I'm 40 next year, never married, never had another child, and the grief from THAT is overwhelming, much less that of missing my son.

I adore my therapist because he gets down in there with me and tries with all his might to feel and understand and grasp my pain, but he can't, really, in the end -- he's a man, for one thing. Men can never relate to children in quite the same way, since they don't have them as roommates for 9 months. But I can't find ANYBODY willing to get down in there with me and try, or even just to hold me and let me cry and feel sad. I'm supposed to be "over it." Somebody please tell me how to do that?

candy

Candy - Your post does such an amazing job of expressing your pain. It just aches. I have not experienced this sort of loss, but I know the pain of grief. And I recognize that pain in your post.

No one has a right to diminsh another person's grief. No one. It's yours. You own it completely. You held your son inside you for 9 months, gave birth to him, and then did what you believed was the very best thing a loving mother could do - you gave him to people who could best care for him. You were not able to care for him, so in giving him, despite that pain, you put his life above your own - something only a truly loving mother could do.

You have grieved as if there has been a death. And now suddenly, wow...there seems a glimmer of hope. It must be wonderous, and terrifying. In some way I would imagine it might be easier to keep your eyes shut to him, to block out the pain? Seeing him now, it must stir up a lot of emotions. I hope you keep posting about this. And you know, if your T is a dad, a good dad....he may understand more than you know. My former T is the most amazingly nurturing dad. Some men get it, really then do.

Please keep posting. Emmy

[wisewoman]

I am so in awe of your ability to share this, I am with Emily. And you have a right to grieve., in your own time and manner. You were not designed to "get over it". motherhood is a powerful bond. So he's 16 and happy and has another mom wh's also whacked about him. He has probably had a life with rich experience because he was a chosen child. Chosen to be with his adoptive family who probably had to jump through fire with the adoption process. So in your pain I see a bittersweet beauty and miracle. What a dear woman to give you his life experience.
she sound like a great adoptive mom of a cool kid. I wish you peace with this. You deserve it so much.

[lenjan]

Just in case there are any birthmoms out there reading these -- you never know where we're hiding -- I wanted to post something I wrote for my paper last year (I'm a reporter). And yet people tell me I don't deserve to hurt. I asked if I could do this in response to some dingbat who wrote an opinion piece saying how rosy and wonderful adoption is.

BTW, my T is gay, not married -- so he knows a little about marginalization. I think it's what makes him so compassionate.
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Let me tell you about the other side of adoption.

I am a birthmother. And, as Bob Seger once sang, "wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." Given it to do again, there's no chance I would relinquish my son. I certainly can't in good conscience recommend adoption as an option to other struggling women. And I think this is a side that needs to be heard. I am Catholic, and I am pro-life, just like the anonymous woman who wrote a piece in last week's Catholic Herald. But there have to be better ways.

Mine was a closed adoption. Catholic Charities in Wisconsin won't even do those anymore. But in Texas in 1988, it was the only choice. "Closed" means closed. It means you get bare-bones, non-identifying information. No names. No towns. No meetings with the potential adoptive parents. Nothing that could be used to find your child and build a relationship. For the first six months, the adoptive parents are visited by a social worker and required to provide a picture for the file. The agency I went through forwarded those on to me. It was the last contact I had for 12 years.

In that time, I had to wonder: Was my son happy? Was he healthy? Did he have brothers and sisters? Did he know he was adopted, and if he did, did he hate me for it? That was my biggest fear.

The year my son was 12, I decided to take a chance. I wrote the agency and asked them to ask the adoptive parents for an update. I was provided some pictures, a drawing, an essay, a letter from his mother. In it she said that they had showed my son the letter they had gotten from the agency detailing my request. They asked him how he felt about it. He replied, "I'm glad to know I wasn't just given away and forgotten." I cried for three days.

Because the truth is, you never forget. Isaiah 49 has always ticked me off. Mothers—at least those worthy of the title—can't possibly forget their children. You're roommates for nine months, and then you spend hour upon painful hour trying to help them draw breath in this world. It tends to be a bonding experience.

Yes, I knew I wanted my son to have a stable family, enough money, a good start in life. I knew that I was young and alone. I knew that I was making minimum wage, $3.35 an hour at the time, in a dead-end job and couldn't even support myself, much less a child, except on welfare. I chose adoption because I didn't believe I had any other choice.

Let me tell you what that choice has done to me.

I came home from the hospital after giving birth, literally curled up in a corner of my apartment, and cried for days. When I went back for my 2-week checkup, I had lost 30 pounds. The nurse put me on the scale five times and then weighed herself to be sure the scale wasn't off.

I have suffered from chronic, mostly unremitting major depression for the past 15 years. I'm on three different psych meds, probably for life. I've been in therapy forever, to only limited effect. I have panic attacks. Now and then, during particularly debilitating bouts of the self-hatred and guilt I live with daily, I self-injure. And you thought post-traumatic stress disorder was only for Vietnam veterans.

I belong to a birthmothers' support group. Many of the women in it were only teenagers at the time of their pregnancy, forced into giving up their children by parents more concerned with "shame" and "scandal" than with their daughters. A few had their children taken away by legal authorities. Some have relinquished more than one child. My story isn't very remarkable, and neither is theirs. What's remarkable is that we suffer alone. No one reaches out to us. There aren't any "post-adoption healing ministries." The church doesn't include us in Mother's Day blessings at Mass. Once your signature is on the piece of paper terminating your parental rights, in most people's eyes, you cease to exist.

Well, I exist. I did what I felt would be the best thing for my child, and I've been proven right. He's thriving. I'm gratified. But if anyone had stepped forward and told me what it would be like for the rest of my life, I'd be raising a 15-year-old right now as best I could. Maybe that's selfish of me. All I know is that I didn't bargain for this kind of grief. Most certainly no one warned me about it when I was making the decision.

I realize that the best interests of the child must come first. I was convinced by everyone I encountered during the decision-making process that I would be a horrible mother. I was so well convinced that now, nearer 40 than 20, I'm still childless. I loved my son enough to give him a chance. I just wish mine hadn't been taken away.
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I always wondered if my son's adoptive parents ever thought of me. I guess his mom finding me kind of answered that ;-) -- but I'm one of the extremely lucky ones. Doesn't stop it from hurting, though. -- c.