So a conversation on one of the forums I post on has taken an interesting turn. It drives me nuts when I comment on the matching process that exists in adoptions today and how I am dissatisfied with it. I always get the “but you chose them”. If I mention that I feel not enough information was provided to me “you could have asked for more.” As if because I chose my son’s parents I am supposed to love them and every single thing about them. Relationships are hard, they aren’t perfect, neither am I, but understanding is key and they seem to lack that sometimes.
There are so many comments on how adoptive parents can just close an adoption based on “best interest of the family.” When a firstmom says, but you also make a commitment to the firstparents that chose you, we so often hear, well, it is so hard to know someone in the beginning, how do we really know? Turn those words back though, and WOW I’m a villain, and I chose those adoptive parents, so shut up and be grateful, don’t I understand anything? Don’t I understand that society makes them feel like “fake” parents? Don’t I understand that it is my job to empower my son’s parents? Don’t I understand that his mom might feel threatened by me? I got to choose them, so now I guess it is my responsibility to fix their issues.
NEWS FLASH: My grief isn’t theirs to deal with and their insecurities aren’t mine to deal with. I’ve spent four years telling my son’s mom how great she is, what a great mom she is, how happy I am that I chose her. Sorry I can’t do that for the rest of my life and be a complete human being on my own.
I’m sure it is hard to hear you can’t have children, wait I know exactly how hard that is, I’m done having babies, I can’t have more. My one child is lost to me, I empathize more than my son’s mom will ever understand. I SO wish that she could have been the one to be pregnant rather me, she really wanted that. Me, not so much, I could have lived my whole life and never had kids and that would have been fine with me. Life isn’t fair, the people that want and are ready for children should be able to have them and those of us that don’t, well, nope, probably not fair that we can get pregnant when others can’t.
I refuse to believe though that just because I chose kiddo’s mom and dad that I have to be OK with how they treat me. I refuse to believe that my pain is invalid because I chose adoption for my child. I refuse to allow myself to be pushed down and beaten up by society for being someone that loved my child enough to make the hardest choice in my whole life. I refuse to allow society to treat me as a drug abuser, promiscuous, and so many other things that it is assumed that I am.
This open adoption thing is hard. My son’s parents love him and are a good mom and dad to him. Does it really matter how they treat me? Well, I suppose not too much, until my son is older. I don’t want them to inadvertently damage their relationship with him because of how they treat me. Regardless of how society sees it, firstparents are usually important to their children.
I’ll continue to forge on and do what I can to preserve myself and my relationship with kiddo. Will it be easy? No, but no one said that life is easy and open adoption, totally not easy. Strength and grace, I believe that I have both and I will continue to be the best firstmom that I can for my son.
