Blah blah blah

I feel like I’ve been wasting bandwidth lately with my blog. I haven’t had much to say of any use lately. I feel like my brain isn’t working as well as it once did.

I had it in my head that I was going to get back to telling my story – the one I started, about my pregnancy and everything. But I couldn’t remember a few things I wanted to talk about, so I went back to the private blog I kept during my pregnancy. I read through some of what I wrote. It depressed me. I found what I was looking for, though, so I went back to my blog archives, to see where I’d left off. Which proved to be something of a mistake. I read through what I wrote right after placement, and it took me back. It was like being there – or then, rather – all over again. I lost it. I cried.

I couldn’t finish what I started writing. I just couldn’t. Even though what I was writing about had nothing to do with the night I placed.

So I changed my tactic. I felt like I needed to finish up a few things to do with H’s mother. So I started to write about that. The words weren’t coming out like I wanted them to. I wasn’t making sense. And reading back through the harassing e-mail I got, I cried again.

I decided I'd turn my pent-up energy into something positive, and write something for birth moms about how to find the right family, or something for families to help them know what birth moms might look for in a profile. I got writer's block. The words weren't coming out right and I wasn't making sense.

I thought then that maybe I’d just write about how much I missed Roo. But I’ve done so much of that. Sometimes it feels like that’s all I do. I write about how much I miss her, or I whine about how people stink sometimes. I’m getting sick of myself.

What to do? I don’t know anymore. I know I need to finish telling my story, about my pregnancy and how I came to choose adoption. I need to do it for Roo. It’s her story as much as it is mine. But how can I finish when it hurts so much? I’m sick of hurting.

I miss Roo like crazy. There, I said it. I haven't seen her in over a month and I don't know when I'm going to see her again and I hate that. I wish I could just hold her for an hour or two, I think I'd feel better. I've been trying to console myself with pictures and videos, but they're all at least two weeks old. I want to see her now. I want to see how she's changed and grown in two weeks. I want to kiss her soft cheeks and rock her until she falls asleep in my arms.

I miss being her mommy. Crazy as it sounds, I also sort of miss the first couple of weeks right after placement. I was spoiled then - I got pictures and e-mail almost every day. It's harder now, not getting pictures and updates as often. In some of the adoption education stuff I've done I've heard couples or ARs ask about pictures and letters, and how much is too much. I don't know if there could be too much. I don't think there's such a thing as too much.

It's so hard to communicate effectively as a birth mom. There always worries and concerns. You don't want to be pushy or obnoxious intrusive or be seen as a burden, as someone else who needs taking care of. You don't want to be inconsiderate of an adoptive couple by bothering them all the time for pictures or information. Me, for instance, I don't even call P and M, even though I have their number. I always feel like calling would be rude because what if I call at a bad time? I don't want them to feel like they have to talk to me just because I called. I don't know when's a good time or a bad time, especially with 2 small children in the house. So I stick to e-mail.

We need to have a special birth mom group meeting to talk about communication. Adoption forms relationships unlike any others. It's hard to know what's appropriate and what's just obnoxious. I wonder if I err too much on the side of caution. And then I worry that I'm coming off as passive-aggressive by blogging about things instead of talking about them with people. I hope not.

But the fact is that I am probably the least confrontative person on the planet. I shared a dorm with a roommate who didn't ever clean up or bathe or do laundry because I didn't want to hurt her feelings or offend her by saying anything. I worry that because my mouth works faster than my brain, I'm going to say the wrong thing and ruin the few decent relationships I have in my life.

I've been in therapy for four years. You'd think I'd have things figured out better by now. And when I go to see John and he asks how things are going, I can't think of anything to say. When I'm there, I feel pretty good, like things are going well. It's only later that I think of things I need to talk about. I've tried writing things down and taking the list with me to therapy, but I get there and I look at my list and I feel stupid, or that the things I wrote down are stupid, so I don't talk about things. Part of it is that my therapist is a member of a different church, and I worry that if I say the wrong thing, he'll think less of my church or LDSFS or something like that.

I am so glad I get to go to the temple soon. I have so much going on in my head that I feel more and more every day that I really need the peace and comfort that the temple brings. I wish I could go today. Maybe I'd get some answers.