I completely forgot that I had a blog.
Ever seen the episode of Family Guy in which Peter starts a blog after 9/11 and doesn’t update it for six years or something? Well I guess I am Peter.
Life is different now and life is good, so I can’t complain. I guess I could complain, but no one would listen anyway.
New job, same boyfriend, same house, same family, with some new additions, better relationship with my son. I guess things are good.
So here I am, now let’s see if I can maintain this time.
So, it is 6:35 AM in my part of the world and I just finished putting my dryer back together. Oh yeah, you read that right, I dismantled my dryer.
I bought a house, ok, a mobile home, but it has this 16×16 bedroom addition on it, so I couldn’t pass it up. I am buying it from a guy at work. The price was right or so I thought. A new furnace, pipes, bathroom floor, broken stove, fridge, dryer, washing machine later…. Ok, it wasn’t such a great deal, but I won’t have to pay rent anymore and I will have it paid off in less than two years. All I can say is thank goodness for awesome parents that have helped me out. No neighbors either. I don’t miss apartment living.
So part of my New Year’s plan, I hate resolutions, is to get all of my projects done. The list is HUGE but I can do it. My mom and dad taught me that a woman can do anything and I do. Mom and I remodeled my bedroom last summer. This summer it is the back bedroom. I’m doing the pioneer look back there, fitting right? My bedroom is Victorian and so girlie it is crazy.
Ahhh home improvement and here I thought having a house would be easy.
So the holiday is almost here. I’m at mom and dad’s hanging out and spending time with everyone. I’m excited for Christmas day and my emotions haven’t been nearly what I thought they would.
At the beginning of the month I went through a super angry week. My boyfriend caught the brunt of it, although he deserved what he got too in that deal.
Wow, I was mad at my first mom. I haven’t been mad like that at her for a long time. All of a sudden though I was just MAD that she won’t take the time to get in touch with me. I was mad at my first brother that I don’t even rate a Christmas card even though he was the one that REALLY wanted meet. Now he doesn’t take the time to get ahold of me.
I was mad at my kid’s parents too. I hadn’t heard from them since October and I was going through a why don’t they send pictures like they should phase. I got my first pictures of the year this month plus a card that kiddo signed. I was so proud. Sad that took until December for her to mail something, but such is life.
Now, at least at this moment, I’m over all of it. I’m just going to enjoy the days with my family. We’ve been playing old school Nintendo and Wii and all kinds of good stuff. Oh, and hoping to hear back from kiddo’s mom and dad about a visit. I have ten days off, I hope they can fit me in somewhere.
It isn’t very often that I comment on things in the news. Alot of times stuff gets my blood pressure up and what is the point. This time I feel compelled.
I’m sure that many of you that follow adoption related issues have heard about the little guy from UT who had to be returned to Minnesota this week in a disrupted placement.
Of course this is being bandied about as a completed adoption that has been overturned. It is nothing of the sort. The mother revoked her termination of parental rights immediately after leaving the hospital and the tribe got involved several days later. The family knew what was coming. They had NO legal grounds to keep this child. They didn’t follow the ICWA, or the agency didn’t, whichever, it wasn’t followed. I don’t care if you agree with a law or not, even if you don’t agree, it doesn’t mean you get to break it.
Now of course women that place their children are being maligned as selfish, whoring, drug addicts who don’t care about their kids at all. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, I don’t need to sell myself nor do I use drugs, funny how I like having a legitimate job.
The family should have turned him over immediately when they knew she was going to revoke. Would it have been hard? Yes, my heart does hurt to them, I know what it is like to lose a child. Sometimes though, grace goes a much further way than righteous indignation.
So it’s been awhile since I wrote, with the holidays, I’ll have to post some craft pictures later, but today I want to write about expectant parents in the hospital.
Mostly I’m going to write about a comment on a post “And the Crap Continues” that I wrote awhile back. Thanks for the comment Amaurosis.
It was really important to my son’s birthmom that we be in the hospital when he was born. I wasn’t expecting to have that privilege at all, but I was really grateful for it. So I don’t think that paps shouldn’t be allowed in the hospital, I think that it should be however the emom wants it. After all, it’s HER birth plan and her decision about who she would like there.
That said, I am totally appalled at the what-should-we-allow questions from paps. Disgusting. But it’s not just from the paps — we actually had a nurse chase our son’s bmom down the hall and tell her that she couldn’t go to the nursery because we were there. Which was, of course, ridiculous, given that we were all happy to have time together and with the baby, and also that if anyone was going to be kicked out of the nursery, it should have been us, not her, as she was still his only legal parent at the time.
I completely agree that if an expectant mom wants pre adoptive parents there, that is fine. Sadly though, most women think it is expected of them to allow that. Agencies and attornies push the idea that pre adoptive parents NEED to be involved in everything and that it is their right because they will be the parents someday.
Which is exactly my point, they will be the parents someday. Two or three days out of that child’s life won’t hurt them to miss out on. I know FAR too many women that felt obligated to have pre adoptive parents at the hospital with them. They regret missing out on that time entirely.
As far as hospital staff go, alot of them are pretty clueless. They doctors didn’t want to tell me anything about my son after he had been moved, they believed it would be too hard for me. Nothing is going to make adoption harder than not knowing, besides I was still his mother, his only mother, I hadn’t even chosen an agency until after he was born.
Clueless I tell you, clueless.
I’ve been thinking about something long and hard with the holidays coming. How am I going to handle them this year? Am I going to be a depressed, crying mess because I can’t have everything that I want? No, no I am not. I’m tired of feeling crappy from Thanksgiving to Christmas. My kid and my first family are having fun, so I am going to as well by God.
I know, you’re thinking “But won’t you be sad”? Well there will be twinges here and there but I am going to enjoy my crazy dad and my mom who tries to keep him in line. My brothers and their mouthy girlfriends. They are cool mouthy though, like me. I’m going to enjoy giving my cat her first Christmas present, she is getting a heated bed. Yeah, she’s spoiled. I’m going to have fun doing all of that. Why? Because I want kiddo and my first family to have fun too.
Why shouldn’t everyone in adoption be able to have fun? I’m not saying I won’t have twinges of sadness, because I will, but I refuse to sit around and dwell on what I don’t have. I wouldn’t ever want my son to think I was sad on holidays because of the choice I made. Of course I miss him, but I can’t let that rule my life. Think about my sparkling personality and what my family would miss out on, hehe.
To all of you first parents that feel like you have to be sad at the holidays, I challenge you to something. Don’t be sad, enjoy yourself, trust me, as an adopted person, I want my first family to have a good time. The rest of us should too.
I know most of my ideas, well rants, come from forum posts, so I might as well keep that up right?
What is it with people that are adopting that want a state that has TPR in 48-72 hours? Hurry up already and sign those papers honey, couldn’t you sign them before the baby is born? Really we need to hurry up and be parents and who do you think you are to slow us down?
Maybe as babe is passing through the birth canal would be a better time? That way your mind is clouded with pain and you’ll be sure to sign. Heaven forbid that we should have to wait. This should be an easy decision for you, after we’re more deserving.
You mean you’re on mind altering drugs because of that c section? Oh nevermind, it has been fifteen minutes, you should be ready to sign. Come on now, we have parenting to do, and don’t need YOU of all people holding that up.
Ok, so I know, all of that is loaded with sarcasm, but lets be real. Those 48-72 hours are freaking minimums people, minimums. They aren’t times that TPR’s HAVE to be signed in. Too bad so many agencies make parents, both adoptive and birth, assume that they are, especially birth parents. I’m sorry, but at the time of birth, I really could give a crap less about how potential adoptive parents feel. I’m sure it is stressful to not know, but try making that choice. Try having to redecide if adoption is really the right thing for your child. Sorry, but 48-72 hours, not even close to enough time. Anyone that has recovered from a birth will tell you that. Hormones are crazy, you might still be influenced by medications, and it is just damn stressful. I’m not trying to hurt feelings, but if you haven’t experienced giving birth, you truly have no clue how it is.
This is just more entitlement assumed by some people that adopt. It makes me sick, it truly does, but I’m sure you hadn’t figured that out yet.
So the discussion about giving gifts at a first meeting between potential adoptive parents and expectant parents has come up AGAIN.
So first off of course they are already birthparents in this discussion, but I digress, semantics aside, how the heck is some body wash and lotion going to make me feel better about placing my child for adoption. I mean really, come on now people, a baby is not the equivalent of a bottle of junk from Bath and Body Works. You’d think that people that have experienced IF would realize this, but they don’t seem to, because they are always worried about giving gifts.
For goodness sake, I didn’t want a gift from my son’s adoptive parents then or now. Leave it alone already, giving a gift is about making yourself feel better. Does anyone really think that something as impersonal as a bottle of body wash is going to make someone feel that much better when they are probably experiencing one of the hardest things they will ever go through.
The sentimental gifts don’t bother me as much, like a necklace with a birthstone, or a photo album.
Let’s be real though, a bottle of body wash and some fuzzy slippers, nearly as classy as the cheese basket I got one year.
Sometimes the sense of entitlement that seems to flow from some people is entirely overwhelming to me. In the adoption world I blame agencies for most of this. I truly don’t think that expectant mothers are served by having potential adoptive parents hanging on their every move, going to appointments, being at births.
One of the reasons I don’t is because I so often see discussions about things like, what do we allow the birthmom to do at the hospital. There are two things in that sentence that are GLARING issues to me. The first is that a woman is not a birthmom until after she signs her termination of parental rights papers. Until that point she is a mom. She should really get to enjoy that too. Adoptive parents have the rest of her child’s life to be mom and dad if she places with them. She gets maybe two or three days after baby is born. A drop in the bucket.
The other thing that screams at me is the word ALLOWED. I’m sorry, a woman who is a mom isn’t ALLOWED to do anything. Now I may get slammed for this and told that I am anti adoptive parent (whatever, I’m not) but seriously, at the hospital, if potential adoptive parents are ALLOWED to be there, it is a priveledge. You don’t allow the mom to do a damn thing, you don’t honor her wishes about things like breastfeeding and who bathes babe, and those kinds of things. You honor her wishes by staying away if she doesn’t want you there and not acting like you’re entitled to that baby and that you are already mom and dad.
My hospital experience was horrible, granted. I will forever be hurt that I didn’t touch my son first, that his adoptive mom did. But it is just one more example of why adoptive parents need better education. If a baby is meant to be with them it will happen. Some common sense and sensitivity could go a damn long ways.
So there is a post on a forum that a frequent for adoptive parents where a person states that the first parent forums are anti adoption. This person has stated this numerous times and states that he “can’t stand them”. I read that as them meaning us, because apparently we are Debbie Downers.
There is another person that says that we are anti adoptive parent and that the adoptive parents are too apologetic to us.
Holy Moses, we can’t do anything right it seems. I’ve been told that I am in denial by the anti adoption crowd, that I made an awful choice, it goes on and on. I’m in denial because I love my mom and dad and refer to them as my real parents. They are, I have four very real parents. My mom and dad are two of the most amazing people I know and I love them so much it hurts.
Do I run around singing the praises of adoption on the first parents forums? No, because that would be untrue, and I’m not a liar. I do think that adoption can be a good solution to a difficult situation. Just because I think it is a good solution, though, doesn’t make it the only or the best solution. It is working for me. This open adoption thing isn’t easy, but I love my son and I’ll make it work. He is happy where he is, his mom and dad love him, and seriously that is all I really care about.
That doesn’t mean I won’t tell my truth though. I do rejoice when I find out awesome things like how he spells his name or about his first day of school. I am so proud of him! Sometimes those things are tinged wtih a little sadness for me though because I’m not the one helping him learn, helping him grow, and shaping him into the fabulous man I know he will become.
He is my only biological connection in the world that I truly know. I have always missed that and I will continue to miss that with him.
It isn’t a woman or couple’s job who find themselves in the midst of an unplanned pregnancy to provide a child for a couple that wants one. I sometimes feel that there are people in this world that truly believe that. I made the choice that I did for my son, not so that some couple that I didn’t even know could be happy. That wasn’t my job. Sure that is a bonus for them, but I don’t believe I was required to do that.
I would like to make it very clear that I do not express my grief to my son or his parents. That isn’t theirs to bear, it is mine. That is why I seek out forums and I would imagine others do as well. I think it is sad that people can’t see that there is value in an experience even if it isn’t all happy. My son is where he should be, I made a good choice for him. That doesn’t take away the occasional sadness that I feel. I’m healing, but I’m guessing there will always be a pang here and there. How could there not? I would guess that even people that put on the most happy happy joy joy face to the world about placing their child still feel sad once in awhile.
So cut us some slack. We aren’t bad people because we aren’t always happy. In fact I would say that most of us are trying to heal ourselves and be happy. I’m tired of the judgement rained on us, as first parents, from all directions. I am good, I am strong, I am right, and I won’t put up with people that “can’t stand me”.
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Musings of a Crazed Belle 