Where's the Love?

A caveat: The following is whiny and juvenile. I wrote it a month ago and I've been sort of sitting on it. I'm in a much better place now than I was a month ago but I feel I made several valid points and I haven't posted in a few days, so I'm going to post this anyway. Feel free to disregard it.

*steps up on soapbox*

I try not to make assumptions. I really try. I like to consider myself a fairly logical person, and I almost always have a reason for what I think about something. I don't rush to judge. I collect evidence and, like Chuck Norris, I wait.

So although this may sound absurd, please keep in mind that I am not just imagining things when I say that I've come to this conclusion: other birth moms hate me.

No, seriously! They do. They absolutely do.

There are exceptions, of course. I know two or three birth moms who seem to think, for one reason or another, that I am a pretty cool person (and I love you ladies dearly). But they are in the overwhelming minority. I estimate that at least 75% of the time, when I encounter other birth moms, I'm met with cool indifference, if not outright disinterest and snobbery.

My local LDSFS office has a birth mom support group, and I've struggled to fit in there from the first meeting I attended. Two or three birth moms dominated every conversation and I struggled to get a word in edgewise. When I did manage to say a few words, one of two things would happen; either I'd get blank stares like I'd been speaking Portuguese, or someone else would immediately cut in to talk about their problems instead.

There was also this tremendous pressure to choose adoption, which I resented. Every week, the other girls wanted to know if I'd chosen a couple yet. And when I'd looked at a few, everyone critiqued my choices. When I decided I might single parent, no one in group had anything to do with me. Contact cut off, and I didn't get any phone calls or e-mail or anything. No one came to see me in the hospital. No one cared.

I started going back to group a few weeks after I placed Roo, and I hoped that since I was a birth mom now, things would be different. S had promised me that things were different. They weren't. Two or three women dominated the conversation, and I disappeared. Rarely was I asked any kind of questions about how I was doing, and no one wanted to hear about anything I'd been up to.

The last few times I went I got some weird vibes from some of the birth moms there. Two of them stopped talking and stared at me when I came in. I think we all know what that means. These women are all Facebook friends of mine, and they are all aware of my blog. No one ever comments on my blog, or my pictures of Roo, or anything I say or do. They all comment on each other's things, but most of them seem to have decided that they hate me and once again, I've been cut off.

I won't lie to you. It hurts. It hurts bad. This is the one place I'm supposed to be able to go and feel like I belong, like people can relate to me, and like I can talk about things. Instead, I haven't gone in a month, and I don't think anyone misses me.

I've reached out to birth moms on-line, too. The thing to do these days as a birth mom is to have a blog, it seems. I've perused their blogs, I've commented on multiple posts, I've even sent supportive e-mail. And I've gotten bupkis in return.

It's not like I'm communicating with them because I want attention or some kind of response or that I think I should be on everyone's blogroll. I didn't have any grand expectations of becoming best friends with any of the birth moms I encountered on-line. But doesn't it sort of seem like common courtesy to say "hi" or "thanks" or something like that?

Sometimes I wonder if I come across as a little too confident or self-aware in my blog. This is going to sound really bratty, but I can't help that I write well! It's not like I sit around trying to find big words to use. I write like I speak. And you know what? I am super insecure. I need a little reassurance sometimes. I need to feel like I belong somewhere, like I have something in common with SOMEONE else on earth besides converting oxygen into carbon dioxide.

I adore all the adoptive moms who have contacted me. I really, really do. They have given me so much comfort and strength, and I don't know what I'd do without all the nice e-mail I get. But it would be nice to get just a little word here and there from some of my fellow birth moms, too. To know that I'm doing something right, that what I've said has some deeper meaning, that it's relatable, that it's ... blah. I don't know. That I am a good person, that I have value. That I'm not just blowing hot air. That I'm worthy of the love and attention they give to each other.

I'll step off my soapbox now. It's lonely up here, and I'm lonely enough as it is.