Due

I've had a lot of feelings lately and I'm going to address most of them in my next post, but today I want to talk about one set of feelings in particular.

I haven't been happy for a while now. It began with what my father used to describe as "general malaise." Then my discontent started creeping into other areas of my life, slowly and a little at a time, the way that hot cheese will escape the end of a Hot Pocket when you cook it too long. 

I was talking to a friend about feeling unhappy and she asked what changes would need to happen in my life for me to feel happy instead. I thought that a good start in answering was to list the things that I felt were contributing to my unhappiness, and I had an epiphany of sorts about the way that I've been seeing myself. In order to get you there, let's go back a few years.

Five years ago, June 30th was a Tuesday.

I wish I could say that I know this because I have the savant-like ability to name the day of the week that any given date fell on, like the girl with autism in that one Baby-Sitter's Club book that handled the issue of autism badly, even for a children's book from the 80s.

Alas, that is not the case. And parenthetically, precious few of the books I loved as a child have held up well over time from a literary standpoint.

I remember that June 30th, 2009 was a Tuesday, because it was my due date. Roo's due date. I knew that she wouldn't be born on her due date, because pretty much no one delivers on their due date. But the date still felt significant, because it was the date I'd had in my mind for nine months, and reaching it felt like a great accomplishment. So even though I knew she wouldn't be born that day, I felt like something should happen to mark the occasion of my due date.

Nothing did. It was a perfectly average Tuesday in every way, except for the fact that I was really super-duper pregnant and Roo kept kicking me in the kidneys (they must be pleasantly squishy or something, because she always kicked them). She stayed snug and warm in my belly for another week, and absolutely nothing happened on my due date. Despite my expectations, my hopes, and my timeline, all I got was a backache.

To quote my friend Rob, isn't that just like life?

I got to thinking about that the other day - about expectations and plans and mental due dates. How many times in my life have various due dates come and gone with nothing to show for them? Dozens, at least, if not a hundred or more. But despite a dearth of any savant-like skill with dates, I do tend to remember them, and more often than not I use them as a way of measuring my progress, or more specifically my lack thereof.

Three years ago I realized that it had been a decade since my high school graduation (May 24, 2001) and I quite naturally took inventory of my life in that space of time. It was an eventful decade, but I still felt like a failure, because I was single and fat and working part-time for $8 an hour. I always thought I'd have a college degree and a husband and children and a Volkswagen by the time my ten-year reunion rolled around. I had nothing to show for the decade that had elapsed since high school. It's been thirteen years now and I've still got nothing to show.

Even the revised life plans that I made when I placed Roo didn't come to fruition. I knew where I wanted to be when Roo was 1 year old, and 2 years old and so forth, and I am not in any of those places or stages of life. But, I told myself, that's okay. I just need to adjust my timeline. Change my when-Roo-is-four goals to my when-Roo-is-eight-or-nine goals.

I'd been feeling better about things last August, but then I took an online survey. I don't typically do that but at that time every single Target receipt I got had an invitation on it, and I needed to kill time while my cupcakes were in the oven. Nothing cuts to the heart of your insecurities quite like answering demographic questions. I already knew all of these things about myself, but it wasn't until Target asked me on one page that I thought, I am in my late twenties, I am single, I have never been married, I have no children, and I make less than $30,000 a year. That cheered me right up, let me tell you. I was glad to have cupcakes to look forward to; I needed them.

And then last fall I hit another due date, another deadline I set for myself. I turned 30. It wasn't as scary as I thought it might be. I actually had several days of birthday, culminating in a party where my fantastic friends surprised me with this cake:

(How you doin', Tom Selleck?)

I should mention that the very first thing I did in my thirties was put my contact lenses in, and then put my glasses back on. Isn't memory loss supposed to start in your forties? Anyway. After my week of birthday, I thought, well, shoot. I'm 30 now, and all I have to show for it is half of Tom Selleck's torso.*

All of those demographics that Target reminded me of (and more) kept coming to my mind. No husband - not even a boyfriend (not since the Bush administration, how's that for a frame of reference?), not much income, no children, thighs like a t-rex. It's a depressing way to look at your life, and the other day, when I thought about changing things, I wondered - at what point do I stop defining myself by the things that I lack?

Because that's what I've been doing since my birthday and probably my entire adult life. When I look at these due dates, at these deadlines, I feel that I've fallen short because of what I don't have. (And before you suggest counting my blessings, know that I actually have a list of my blessings. I am a compulsive list-maker; if you ever want to know what my faults are I have a Google doc I can show you.) I didn't used to do that. When did I start? When did I stop seeing myself as a whole person with innate value and start seeing myself as a collection of empty spaces?

My only consolation, if you can call it that, is that I know I'm not alone in this. I think it's a societal disease, this idea that who we are is what we're missing. I know plenty of other women who are put into boxes marked Single and Childless. How messed up is that? I've written before about how labeling birth mothers dehumanizes them. It's true for everyone, and especially when that label implies that they've come up short, that something is missing.

I want to get married. I want to be a mother. But I want to be happy even if neither of those things ever happens for me. I want to feel whole just the way that I am now. I want to see myself as the sum of what I do have, good and bad, and not as a list of unfulfilled dreams. I want to be enough. I want the woman that I am right now, right this second, to be enough for me to be happy.

When I was a child I was focused on what I could do, what I did well, and what I wanted to do. I didn't ever feel like I wasn't enough as I was. What changed in the past twenty years? I mean, obviously plenty of things have changed, but who I am fundamentally, as a human being, as a child of God - what's really changed? Nothing has changed. If I was enough then, I'm enough now.

I don't mean to imply that there's no room for improvement. I want to end each day as a better person than I was when I began it (how's that for an unattainable goal?). But I'm tired of feeling inadequate because of the things I don't have. Here's the thing - I'm never going to run out of due dates. I'm never going to stop having occasion to mark my progress and reevaluate my life. I don't have a lot of control over that. What I do have control over is how I let these due dates affect me.

Roo will be five in a little over a week. Another milestone - another deadline. I am light-years away from where I wanted to be when she turns five. I may never get to where I wanted to be at this point in my life. That doesn't have to matter. I can still be happy with where I am.

I know I'm not going to get there right away. It takes time to change the habit of being dissatisfied. But I want to start now. I want to learn to be happy with myself and my life, no matter what. It's time. I'm due.

*The left half. Well, my left, his right.

(Good?) Advice

I've mentioned before that, for one reason or other, people in the adoption community will occasionally come to me for advice. Bad idea, people. I once advised a co-worker to take naps under her desk. I am full to bursting with bad ideas that amuse me. Which isn't to say that I intentionally give bad advice; rather that I seem to be incapable of giving good advice because it simply isn't in me. I, too, take naps under my desk.

I digress. People will ask me for advice and sometimes I will offer it. Today I am offering advice to a group who have not asked for it, because someone has suggested that I am uniquely qualified to do so. I was asked by someone who works with birth mothers to advise women who have recently placed children for adoption. I asked what "recently" meant and was given a nebulous response that I promptly threw out. For our purposes today I want to go beyond the weeks and months immediately following placement, because I've beaten the dead horse that is post-placement grief for these many years and I'd like to find another carcass to swat at. I want to talk to women who are out of the fog that settles when relinquishment papers are signed, but who have not yet hit the one-year mark. If you fit into this category, what follows is for you. (If you don't, all I can tell you is that life is full of disappointment.)

So, you've placed a child for adoption recently but you have reached the point where you are awake and dressed more days than not and you're no longer crying yourself to sleep. Good job! I knew you could do it. I wish I could tell you that it's a calm ocean and clear skies from this point forward but it's not. For the rest of your life, you're going to have little moments where it hits you that you once placed a baby for adoption and how could you possibly have done that? Who does that?

You did. You did, and it was awesome, and you're awesome. So what if a tiny lost sock at the grocery store makes you teary-eyed. You made a family. You win. And, hey, free tiny sock.

Anyway. I want to tell you some things today that no one told me when I was where you are. I don't know if they qualify as "Things I Wish I'd Known" but they are things to know, in any case, and maybe you'll find them helpful.

So. (A needle pulling thread ...)

You're probably at the point where people no longer have to drag you bodily to social functions. You find yourself wanting to go out and see people, even if you are slightly terrified that adoption or your baby will become a topic of conversation. Be careful where you go and with whom. I said in a previous post that your surprise pregnancy was a symptom of a greater issue. I believe that. I wasn't living a happy, wonderful life when I got knocked up. There were so, so many other things going on.

I'd bet a tenner that it's the same case with you. Hence my caveat. If you go back to the same friends and situations you were in before, I hope you've got the birth control thing figured out because if you don't you're likely to end up pregnant again. I know (and dearly love) a number of repeat offenders. I'm not saying it's easy to change your life or lifestyle. I'm just saying, be careful. Placement can be a fantastic re-set button. Whatever agency or organization you placed through should offer post-placement counseling (if they don't, they should). Use it. Become a better person. Therapy is a beautiful thing. Figure out why you ended up  where you did, and resolve to stay away from there from now on.

Here's a fun fact for you: for the rest of your life, people are going to misunderstand you and your story and adoption. It hurts right now when it happens. It bothers you a lot. It feels personal and offensive and is the catalyst for many a crying fit. You will hate everyone.

Here's another fun fact: it will bother you so much less as time passes. As you become more and more comfortable talking about adoption, correcting or dismissing people will take zero emotional toll on you. You will be much less defensive. You're still going to blurt out "placed" when someone says "gave up" but you won't tear up if they insist that their terminology is right or ask why you didn't want your baby. (I tell them it's because she threw up on my sofa. Bad joke. Sorry.)

You will also, in perpetuity, encounter people who think you made the wrong choice or that adoption damages children. Right now it hurts like hell when you hear this. It makes you angry and defensive and frustrated and you will rant. Oh, how you'll rant! But you will come to understand that it doesn't matter if everyone you meet for the rest of your life thinks you did a bad thing. You know you made the right choice, and your placed child is happy, and no one else's opinion matters or ever will.

Friends and family will ask about your placed child less and less. It will seem like you're the only one who cares or even remembers. This will bother you. Eventually this too will pass. I let it go with some people, and I brought it up with others. It turns out that many relatives weren't sure what I felt comfortable discussing. They weren't sure if mentioning Roo would be painful for me. The more I told happy stories about her and open adoption, the more questions they were comfortable asking. I still have relatives who pretend she doesn't exist. That's on them. I still love them and enjoy making them uncomfortable by showing pictures of Roo being her adorable self.

The media is never going to get adoption right. You'll be happier if you avoid movies and TV shows with adoption-related plots. I stopped watching the show "Glee" when a pregnant Quinn was counseled to give her baby to "Someone who really wants it." I knew when I heard that line that adoption wasn't going to be handled in a sensitive or accurate manner. I don't miss it.

I know some birth moms who go out of their way to watch movies and shows with adoption in them so that they know what bad ideas they're going to encounter and have to correct when they talk to people. If you want to do that, more power to you, but I hope you like the phrase "gave up" because you're going to be hearing it a lot. Also, let's compare our lists of things that "Juno" got so, so wrong. Mine is 15 items long.

Here's something I do wish I had known four years ago when I was approaching Roo's first birthday. It won't always be like this. The pain or the relationship or the need for visits and contact. It will all change, and it will be a good thing. My relationship with P and M is a continuously evolving thing. Because we are all adults and are willing to communicate openly and honestly, it gets better and better. I don't see Roo nearly as often as I used to. I don't need to. It's not that I wouldn't be happy to see her more often. It's more a matter of weeks and even months will pass and someone will ask when I last saw Roo and I'll think, wait, when did I see her last? The need to reassure myself that she's happy and healthy and loved is gone. The desire to see her and her family because I love them pops up every couple of months.

At some point you will realize that although your love for your placed child hasn't changed or dimmed a tiny bit, it fits into your heart differently. You feel that love for a person who is 100% someone else's child, someone you don't know as well as they do. You will realize it, and it will be beautiful.Your love won't feel like a beautiful burden. It will feel like a bird in flight.

I spent several years overwhelmed by the love that I have for Roo. There was so much of it and I didn't know what to do with it. I had a mother's love in my heart but I wasn't a mother. Then I saw this post on Humans of New York. A woman's dying husband told her to take the love she had for him and spread it around. I decided to do that with my love for Roo. It has made all the difference in the world.

There will come a time when having placed a child for adoption will cease to be most important thing about you. Your birth child will cease to be your whole world. It is scary and you might think it's never going to happen with you, because you love your child too much. But here's the truth: I love my Roo with every bit of my heart, and I will often pass several days without giving her more than a moment of thought.

It has to be this way. It's better for both of you. Your placed child deserves a birth mama who has used her experience as a stepstool rather than a crutch. Neither of you benefits if you spend the rest of your life obsessing and ruminating and crying. Even someone who loves and lives and breathes music has to turn it down sometimes and enjoy the silence. It's the silences that make music beautiful.

It's the time that I don't spend with Roo that makes our visits so precious to me. It's the weeks or months that pass without hearing her little voice that make every word she says my favorite word ever spoken. If I thought about her every second of every day, I wouldn't appreciate what a wonderful little person she is to think about.

When I was where you are now, I felt fractured without Roo. She was my whole heart and my whole life. She is neither of those things anymore. She is still infinitely dear to me and I think I'll always love her the best and the most. But I had to step back. You will too. Roo is P and M's daughter. For real. I had to let her be completely theirs to love her completely. I placed her on September 9th but I didn't let her go until nearly 2 years later. I didn't start to heal until then. I wasn't sure I would. I was afraid to step back and figure out who I was without her. I thought it would break me.

In letting her go, I became whole again.

You're going to get there, too. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait for you to see.

Remembering

You know what I love? Going on vacation. I should do it more often. Two weeks ago I took a trip to San Diego, which was lovely and amazing and fantastic and wonderful and lots of other words that I tend to apply to both important life experiences and particularly good pizza (but I repeat myself). 

I went with my friend Emily and she unwisely allowed me to plan our itinerary. I tried to warn her that I have military fangirl tendencies* but she wouldn't listen. I think she regretted this when we ended up on the Russian submarine that is part of the Maritime Museum. Also later on when my camera and I wanted to spend 4 hours on an aircraft carrier. I probably should have joined the Navy in my younger years. I may have missed my calling in life.

Fortunately for Emily I only planned for one day of "Oh my gosh, look at that navy shipyard!" We spent the next day in Balboa Park, and we both touched dinosaur poo.

(Yes, I got sunburned. Laugh. Laugh at my pain.)

Anyway. Day three of our trip included a visit to Sea World. I've been to Sea World before, but it was a while ago. And by "a while ago" I mean "in 1987." A few things have changed at Sea World in the past 26 years, but it still felt vaguely familiar to me because I remember being there when I was little. I didn't think I would remember, because I had a traumatic encounter with a puffer fish and I thought I probably repressed most of that particular vacation. But I got back to the penguin exhibit, and I saw this:

and I remembered. (Unfortunately, I also remembered the puffer fish.)

Roo is the same age now that I was then. Roo is at an age where she will remember things. I suspect that, because she is so clever, she will probably have memories of being younger than she is now. I have memories of being about 18 months old. (I know that Science would probably call shenanigans on that, but I know what I remember.) But my clearer memories start at about three-and-a-half, Roo's age.

Which brings me to my point (hey, I've got one this time!). I've been more aware during the last couple of visits that Roo is forming memories of me. It's made me more than usually grateful for the progress I've made and for the person I've become. I'm far from perfect - every day I seem to discover some new flaw or weakness** - but I am so much better than I used to be, and I think I'm starting to be the kind of person Roo can be proud of.

I certainly wasn't there a few years ago. I forget that at times. Fortunately(?) I got a reminder the other day. I decided to start using Twitter again last week because I don't want to miss my chance to be personally victimized by Amanda Bynes. While I was trying to decide what to say to my two followers, I felt this compulsion to read through old tweets, and it was educational. I used to be a hot mess, you guys. If you don't believe me, feel free to browse the blog archive. Scary stuff.

But I think my wrong turn down memory lane was useful. Sometimes I need a reminder of how far I've come. Four years ago I was unemployed and poor and alone and eight months pregnant. Just look at me now - still poor and alone, but now I've touched dinosaur poo!

Seriously, though. I used to have more issues than Newsweek, and I am so, so grateful that at that time Roo was too small to get a sense of my personality. I'd hate for her to remember me the way I was when she was a baby. I hate to remember me the way I was when she was a baby.

I have decided, however, that every now and then I need to remember. Especially lately. I've been frustrated with where I am in life (single, poor, have touched dinosaur poo). I thought that my vacation would be a break from feeling like the last single woman on earth, but it wasn't. I felt like I was surrounded by couples in love - is it normal to see so many kissing people in public? - and the fact that Emily spent a lot of time text messaging her boyfriend didn't help. (I still love you, Emily.)

But there are worse things in the world than being single, and I've been through those things. More importantly, I've made it through them, stronger, happier, and better. And that's something worth remembering.





*Raise your hand if some of your happiest childhood memories are of watching "Wings of the Luftwaffe" on television with your father.

.
.
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Just me? Okay.


**A comprehensive list of my faults and weaknesses is available upon request.

In Which Jill Writes About What She's Not Going to Write About

I spent quite a lot of time on a post about September 9th, 2009 - the day I placed Roo. It felt like what I ought to write about because today marks three years since then. I've written before about placement itself but I've never written properly about the day before placement. So I started to write, and I cried a fair bit, and even though everything I wrote was true and relevant, it didn't feel right.

I did a presentation the other night with P and M. We spoke to the women and teenage girls in a local LDS congregation. I've done these presentations with Roo's parents twice before and I love it. I love talking about adoption with pretty much anyone, but I think it's more meaningful when my audience gets both sides of Roo's story instead of just mine. When we reached the point in the story where I was supposed to be talking about my feelings during placement and what it was like, I had an odd moment. One part of my brain was bringing up the words I wanted to use to describe placement, but another part of my brain was nonplussed. (I have been trying for ages to properly work that word into a blog post, and there it is.) I thought, am I remembering this right? What did I feel that night?

I found that I sort of couldn't remember. I mean, I've read some of my own blog, so obviously I remember in the sense that the story is acutely familiar and of course I lived it, too. But as I was talking (the part of my brain that makes me talk always works three times faster than the part of my brain that actually considers whether I should be saying what I'm saying) I kept stopping mid-sentence and changing direction and finally I blurted out what is probably the least helpful thing I have ever said when describing placement -

"I don't know. It was just - it was a while ago. I've changed so much since then. It sort of feels like it happened to someone else."

A minute later, when my rational brain had caught up, I silently prayed that no one in the audience took that to mean I'd suffered a dissociative episode. But the thing is, what I said was true. I am quite the opposite of the depressed, juvenile, selfish woman who placed her child for adoption and then sat in her mother's Toyota screaming and crying. While I am immensely proud of the choice I made for Roo, I'm not proud of who I was when I made it. I was a wreck of a woman, and I find it nearly impossible to identify with her, even for the sake of my story.

I tried to slip back inside that skin to talk about how much placement hurt, but it made me feel petulant and selfish and it was uncomfortable. Writing about the day of placement, the last day I was a mother, didn't feel right because it was full of such wistful sadness and I don't like to dwell in those places anymore. One of the rather obvious things I have learned about happiness since I started studying it this year is that if you want to be happy, you shouldn't spend a lot of time thinking about sad things.

So, I'm sorry to say, I don't think any of you will ever be reading the paragraphs I labored over earlier. If Roo wants to read them when she's older she will but I don't want to go there with anyone else.

I was just going to write, like, a paragraph about why I'm not writing about placement day today, and look what happened. Words everywhere like some kind of explosion and I'm not even done yet.

I also thought that I should write something about the day my dad died, because today marks four years, but I spent hours on something that still didn't feel right. I wasn't sure why. I edited the heck out of it and re-wrote it three times and I liked what I wrote but it still didn't feel like what I ought to say today. I think I've figured it out.

When I was a kid I took gymnastics classes in the summer and I learned two important things. The first is that I have no aptitude for gymnastics. The second is that there's a pathetic sort of safety in looking back. If you're doing a handspring or a walkover or a flip, it's easier to go backwards because you can see where you're going. If you go forward, you have what is known as a blind landing - your feet face the direction you're headed before your eyes do. I mastered the back walkover, but the front walkover scared the daylights out of me. I didn't know where my feet were going to land and my fear kept me from putting them in the right place. Every. Single. Time.

But in life, as in gymnastics, if you can only go backward, you're not going to get very far. You have to learn to risk a blind landing every now and then if you want to get anywhere worth going. It's like the end of the last Indiana Jones movie. Remember this scene?

Indy had to save his dad (spoiler alert: he succeeded), and that meant taking a step forward, off a cliff. It would have been easier and safer to turn around at that point, but he didn't. (It would have made for a terrible ending if he had. The elder Henry Jones would have died and Indy would have looked like the worst sort of coward, especially considering everything else he faced in the movie, and the two movies before it.) He had to move forward. He couldn't go back.

Neither can I.

There are things I am going to remember for the rest of my life, and when the mood strikes me I will write about them and I may or may not put them on my blog. But I'm drawing myself a line there. The past is a foreign country. You can visit from time to time, but you can't live there.

More and more I find myself taking leaps of faith. Well, not leaps, exactly (which is lucky, since we've established that acrobatics are not my forte), but steps, let's call them steps, into the unknown. I can't see the path ahead of me but I know that it's there. I know that God is there. And even though it would be easier to look back, I'm going to keep moving forward, blind landings and all. I don't know where this path ends, but I can't wait to get there. It's going to be awesome.

Always

A few days ago, I missed Roo.

This is nothing new. I miss her quite a bit, not in a sad way, just in the sense that I love and adore her and I don't see her every single day. I don't need to see her every single day, mind you, and I certainly wouldn't expect to. But when you love someone, and you're not around them, you miss them. It's not a sad or angst-filled thing. It's just ... a thing. I miss her, and I smile at the thought of her because I love her so much and she is so precious and amazing.

Anyway. I happened to mention this - that I missed Roo - to a friend, and she said, "It's always going to hurt, isn't it?"

I think I responded in the affirmative, because it seemed like the thing to do. But I've been thinking about her question since then, and the more I think about it, the more I think that I gave the wrong answer. It's not always going to hurt, and I know this because it doesn't hurt.

I should say, it doesn't hurt in the ways that my friend and that others probably expect. But even then, I don't think that hurt will always be there.

I've been trying to figure out how to explain this for a few days, because I feel compelled to talk to my friend and tell her that she was wrong about hurting. This is how I've worked it out in my head.

I still cry when I tell Roo's and my adoption story. Not a lot, and maybe not every single time, but I do cry. Usually the tears start when I talk about the day I met P and M, when Roo's daddy held her for the first time. These are happy tears. I have tried several times to blog about that day and that moment in particular but I stop each time because it was such a sacred moment and I don't want to cheapen it by reducing it to mere words on a blog.

When I tell that part of the story, I cry. And because I've got some kind of short in my brain, once I start crying, I find it very difficult to stop. So when I talk about placement, the tears are already there. I'm sure those who listen think I'm crying because placement hurt and I'm still upset. Placement did hurt, but it doesn't hurt anymore. Even remembering it doesn't hurt so much. It feels like something that someone else lived through, I think because I have changed so much since that day. I know rationally that it hurt, but whether it's mental health or a defense mechanism, I have a hard time feeling sad when I look back on that day.

It doesn't hurt. The part of my brain that remembers almost can't believe that, because I hurt so deeply and for so long. But that pain is gone.  Roo is a happy thought. I can't think of her and feel sad. Those two ideas - Roo and sadness - cannot coexist in my mind. It's like they each require the complete attention of some cortex or other, and as soon as Roo comes to mind, sadness is forced out. There's never any pain.

Not when it comes to the real Roo, anyway. I've mentioned before that there are different Roos. There's Roo, who will be three - three! - this summer, and who is clever (genius, really) and sweet and busy and whose lion impression sounds more a like a dinosaur (but it is still the cutest roar I have ever heard). This Roo is my happy thought, my little friend, and my favorite person in the world.

The other Roo, the phantom Roo, is the Roo who was my newborn baby. This Roo ceased to exist when I signed placement papers. She's the one I grieved, and quite often when I mention "my baby" this is the Roo I'm talking about. I do miss the real Roo, but sometimes my arms just ache to hold newborn Roo again and be her mommy - to be a mommy, period.

This is where any pain factors in. It's not that I'm not Roo's mother, because she certainly doesn't feel like mine and I wouldn't change that. It's that I'm not anyone's mother, and I'm not getting any younger or any closer to motherhood. I like to think I've gotten through my grief but the fact is that while the heavy adoption grief is gone, I'm still grieving the life I thought I was going to live and the woman I thought I was going to be.

It's getting better. I am finally starting to be okay with who I am and where I am and the life I'm building on my own. But the one thing I am completely okay with - better than okay with, in fact - is the choice I made to place Roo with her parents. It's the best thing I have ever done. It always will be.

Here's the Thing

Time was, I'd look at women who were several years post-placement and wonder about them. They seemed detached from adoption, and it scared me. I couldn't fathom that I would ever not feel exactly the way I did then – intensely focused on adoption and especially on Roo.

I knew that I used to be a fairly normal person (don't laugh) before I got pregnant, but it was hard to remember. My brain was a computer, the c-section was a software upgrade, and my new default setting was Roo. All Roo, all the time. I thought about her nearly constantly. In the weeks after placement I would look at the clock and try to guess what she might be doing. I wanted to know absolutely everything, and the fact that I didn't was a source of some irritation. It didn't hurt, but it itched a bit, and I had to remind myself not to scratch it because if I did it would hurt and it would bleed.

Some time in the past year – the past six months, more precisely – it stopped itching. My software updated while I was idling, in sleep mode, one fix at a time; and before I was completely aware of it, version 2.0 was gone, the bugs of version 2.5 were gone, and I was running on 3.0.

I still think about Roo, of course, but it's in smaller doses these days instead of incessant background noise in my head. I think of her here and there, or when there are reminders or I look at pictures, or when someone compliments me on my necklace. It feels a bit odd when I consider it. I used to have her on my mind constantly, like a radio that was always on, and I had to make an effort to think of anything else. When did that change? What happened to the radio? I'm trying to remember when I flip-flopped, when Roo ceased to be my be-all-end-all, the center of my world.

I feel disloyal writing those words – that she's no longer the direct center of my world. Part of me feels that I'm betraying my love for her if I don't think about her enough, or expend enough mental energy trying to remember the exact color of her eyes. Part of me feels that I have to prove my love with rumination, with what-ifs, with wondering. But that's not reality.

Reality is that I am not her mother; I am her birth mother. Reality is that as much as I love her, there has to be more to me and to my life than birth motherhood. Reality is that if I spend every waking hour thinking about Roo, I'll be good for nothing. Reality is that I was somebody before I had Roo and placed her, and that I'm still somebody after it. Reality is that my software is going to keep updating and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

I do love her. My goodness, I love her! But I had to turn the radio down. Sometimes I turn the volume back up a bit – when I'm looking at pictures, or reminiscing. Most of the time I keep it down. I have to. What good would it do Roo for me to spend the rest of my life fixated on her? Furthermore, what good would it do me?

I'm allowed to be selfish like that on occasion. I put Roo first 2 ½ years ago; I made sure she was taken care of. Now I have to do the same for myself. I am just starting to figure out who I am and where adoption fits in my life. At the risk of sounding trite, I have only scratched the surface of who and what I want to be. I'll never get any deeper if all of my focus is on being a cheerleader for adoption.

Adoption is still an integral part of who I am. I don't think I'll ever not want to do outreach or blog or share my story. But I don't want to arrange my life around adoption. The reverse holds more appeal and feels like a better balance.

I am certainly not closing my adoption, and I don't think that will ever appeal to me. Openness makes me way too happy for that. But I've spent the past month or so kind of removed from the adoption thing beyond my contact with P and M, and it's been a nice break. It's been good to re-evaluate the role I want adoption to play in my life – or rather, the size of the role I want adoption to play in my life. It will always be a part of me because of the depth of my love for Roo. But I want to be something more than her birthmother, than a birthmother. I'm comfortable with that role, but I want there to be more to me than just that, if that makes sense.

This means I'm probably not going to get back to blogging twice a week again. I'm going to try for once a week, because I do still have so much more to say, and as I recall I haven't gotten past the delivery room in Roo's story, still haven't gotten to the why of things as much as I meant to. And that's important. Roo is important! This blog is for her. I want her to be able to read it when she's older, to understand how much I love her and how she's changed me for the better. She won't see that unless I do change.

I have changed. Now it's time to do something with it.

Two Years

Today is the second anniversary of the hardest day of my life. Two years ago, I signed a piece of paper (in triplicate) that said I was no longer a mother. I signed the paper, and I handed my baby girl over to her new parents, and I went home with empty arms.

Sometimes I can't believe I'm still here, because just the memory of the pain of placement is overwhelming. Nothing in my life has ever been as excruciating as placing my baby for adoption. I couldn't have even begun to imagine feeling that kind of pain until I felt it. Once I felt it, I couldn't imagine that I could hurt so bad and still be alive.

And yet ... there's none of that kind of pain today. Today isn't a sad day for me. It's a happy day - not even a happy-sad, just a happy-happy. Roo has been in her family for two years, and I think that's a great thing. I am happy for her. I want to celebrate! I hope it's a similarly happy day for her and her family. I hope they're celebrating.

Two years ago, P and M each wrote me a letter, and they gave the letters to me at placement. When I'd stopped crying long enough to read them later that night (or the next day, I don't remember which), I started crying again, because each letter was just so perfect. P and M both managed to say exactly what I needed to read. I took great comfort in their words. I read those letters at least once a day for a week. Then I read them once a week.

Once a week faded into once a month, maybe, and eventually the letters stayed put in my nightstand drawer. I knew they were there if I needed to read them, but I didn't need to anymore.

Last night, I was having a really hard time with things. I felt stuck, like nothing in my life is ever going to change no matter what I do, and I missed Roo. Not two-year-old Roo, but my newborn baby, the one who was mine. I decided I needed to re-read my patriarchal blessing (click the words if you don't know what they mean). I dug through the mess of papers in my nightstand drawer. I found a copy of my blessing, and two envelopes with my name on them - my letters.

I read my letters from P and M again, and I cried again. It has been two years since they were written, and I'm in a completely different place now, but both letters still said exactly what I needed to read. I am so grateful for them! I was grateful for them two years ago, and I'm just as grateful for them now.

More than that, I am grateful for the people who wrote them. I couldn't have placed Roo with anyone else. I am so glad that she gets to be their daughter!

I got to see Roo last week. I don't think I wrote about it, but I saw her and her mommy. It was wonderful. The best part of our visit was towards the end. Roo had been answering every question with "no."

I'd ask, "Roo, do you like chocolate cake?" or "Is pink your favorite color?" and she'd give her little mischievous smile and say no. So I expected a no when I asked her another question.

I asked, "Roo, do you know that I love you?"

No small smile this time, but a bright one, and she said, "Yeah."

And then she went right back to answering no to every other question, because she is two. I wanted to make sure, so I asked her again if she knew that I loved her. I got another "Yeah." My heart melted.

Two years ago, when she was tiny, I placed her for adoption. Today, she knows that I love her.

I am so blessed.

Footprints in the Sand

Note: I've been hanging on to this post, unsure whether I ought to hit "publish" or not. Part of me feels like maybe it's a little bit too self-congratulatory or smug. I didn't write it with that angle in mind, but I'm a worrier, and I worried that it came off that way. I let my mother read it, which may or may not have been a mistake, as I doubt very much she would notice if I was being self-congratulatory. She's my mother and would probably see that sort of thing as a sign of self-esteem.

Suffice it to say that this wasn't written with smugness in mind. I don't think I'm, like, Captain Awesome or anything. But I am better than I used to be, and I wanted to write about why. So here goes.

There's this poem you've probably read before about God and footprints in the sand. I'm not going to re-post it because I'm too lazy to Google it and I think it's probably got a copyright, not that that ever stops anyone.

I will summarize, however. The gist of it is that in our darkest times, God picks us up and carries us through the pain. As a child, I thought, Isn't that nice? But the older I got, and the more pain I experienced, the less nice I found it. I mean, it's a lovely sentiment, it really is. And it's true that God doesn't ever abandon us, especially in times of pain and sorrow. But what I object to is this idea that He carries us, lifting us up. I've not once found that to be true.

Maybe it's true for you; I can't speak for anyone but myself. If it is true for you, well, you probably don't need to read the rest of this. In fact, you probably shouldn't, because I may unintentionally offend you (sorry). But if it's not true, if you've also wanted to cry foul when someone quoted the Footprints poem to you, read on.

I've been thinking a lot lately about pain. I have fibromyalgia, which is a chronic pain condition, so I'm no stranger to hurting. Every day when I wake up, something hurts. Add to that my father's death and Roo's placement and I think I'm something of an expert in what it is to hurt. Through my life, whenever I've hurt - physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally - I've turned to my Father in Heaven in prayer. More than once I've asked Him to lift me up, to carry me through, to take the pain away. That particular prayer has never once been answered as I've asked. Prayer didn't make placement easier by one iota. My Heavenly Father has never once picked me up. But, if we're sticking with the poem here, there has never once been only one set of footprints. God has never seen fit to lessen my pain. But He has been with me through every step of it. He has never left me to suffer alone, not once. His answers to my prayers are often along the lines of my mother's response when I'm hurting: "I know. I know it hurts. I'm sorry."

I don't think I'm introducing a new concept when I say that pain brings strength. Think of your muscles. When you work out - lifting weights, for example - the exertion damages your muscles with thousands of tiny rips and tears. They hurt, don't they? But the body is an extraordinary machine; it heals itself. As the body repairs the muscle, it builds under the tears, making a bigger, stronger, better muscle than before. Or in other words, pain is gain.

When I was still only a few months along in my pregnancy, I heard one birth mom's account of her placement experience. I want to relay this carefully, because I have so much respect for this woman and her story and I know that what happened worked for her. Let me simply say that she concluded her story by saying that placement only hurt a little bit for a very short time, because God picked her up and carried her through - He took the pain all away. I'm quite sure I internalized that, because the pain of placing Roo was very different, and I felt misled and lied to.

I envied this other birth mom for her pain-free placement. In my darker moments, I hated her and her whole happy story. But in the time since then, I've come to pity her a little, as I pity anyone who blithely says that they prayed and God simply took their pain away. I think, if she didn't hurt, how did she grow? Because I have grown immensely from and through my pain. It has shaped me into a bigger, stronger, better woman than before. I'm not advocating intentionally causing pain as means of personal growth, but when it happens, go with it.

I think it's a mistake to assume that if God loves you He'll carry you through your pain. The God I worship loves me enough to let me hurt when I need to hurt so that I can grow into the woman He wants me to be. He doesn't leave me to suffer alone and He never will. He doesn't carry me, but He puts His arms around me. He says, "I know it hurts. I'm sorry." His footprints are right there in the sand next to mine. He walks with me through my pain, and I am a better woman for it.

I am thankful to my Father in Heaven for answering my prayers in His way, for letting me learn and grow through my pain.

(Birth) Mother's Day

Warning: I'm happy. If you're not happy, this will probably make you throw up a little. Everyone is entitled to their unhappiness. Very often it's justified. I'm not going to judge. But I am happy, and I would hate to be responsible for someone being sick. So, read on with caution.

I had most of a post written up yesterday about Birth Mother's Day. I didn't like most of it. It felt like a repeat of what I wrote last year. I think Birth Mother's Day is a lovely idea, but I don't really need it. I'm comfortable sitting through the odes to motherhood recited at church with a secret smile. I don't particularly celebrate Mother's Day, though, either. Not for myself. I try to do something nice for my own mother, to let her know how amazingly blessed I am to be her daughter.

Y'all, my mom is awesome. Even if you discount the fact that I was her fourth child in six years, and made her violently ill during pregnancy, and weighed much closer to nine pounds at birth than I'm sure she was really comfortable with, she's still an amazing woman. I think that even years from now, if I have several children of my own, it won't feel right to celebrate Mother's Day for myself. It's her holiday, not mine. Only if I were to be as awesome as she is could I feel comfortable calling the day my own. And I've got a long way to go to be as awesome as my mom.

She gave me flowers today - daisies, my favorite. Red gerbera daisies, specifically, which are my favorite favorite (and she always remembers that), and after our family dinner tonight, after hours of talking and laughing and enjoying one another's company, when I gave her a big hug and wished her a happy Mother's Day, she whispered "You, too," because she gets it. My mom gets it.

She was there for those weeks when I was a mother, and I think she cherishes them nearly as much as I do. I believe this about her: No matter how many other children I end up having, when she wishes me a happy Mother's Day, she'll remember Roo. I don't know if that's true of anyone else, but it's true of her.

I love you, Mom.

***

Even though I don't make a big deal of Birth Mother's Day, yesterday P and M sent me five - FIVE! - videos of Roo being darling - singing and talking to her mama and generally being fantastically cute. How awesome is that? P and M are so thoughtful. Five videos is an embarrassment of riches. I am a spoiled girl. So, even though I had to work, and our computers were down and patrons were a little crabby about it, and I had a headache, I ended up having a very happy Birth Mother's Day after all.

And I had a happy Mother's Day as well. Maybe it's because I've found my happy place with adoption, but it was absolutely painless. Whereas last year I think I mostly thought of Mother's Day in terms of my lack (or my lack from the year before when I was pregnant), this year I thought of my own mother, and then I thought of Roo. I'm not her mommy, but I did grow her a body and find her family, and that counts enough for me. I've felt a mother's love. For the first time, today, while I was in church, listening to a talk about motherhood and charity and love, I realized that I will find a way to be happy if I never have more children. Because I had Roo, and I love her, and if it needs to be, it can be enough.

That sounds a bit maudlin. I don't mean for it to. Yesterday and today were both happy, hopeful days. I've been quite ridiculously happy all week, actually. New Roo videos made me even happier. I am so well-adjusted, it's disgusting. I have unofficially graduated from therapy. John has marked me as "as needed" in my file. We've run out of things to discuss. It feels amazing. Most of my session with him the other day consisted of eating Red Vines and talking about how amazing I am (and I am not even kidding). Although considering I still paid for the hour, John probably has the last laugh there.

Being happy makes for a boring blog, doesn't it? I've meant to post again all week but I couldn't think of much to say besides "I'm happy, life's good," and that makes for a short post. I am working on finishing up Roo's story. I have probably forty-something unfinished posts on a variety of other topics. I'll get to them eventually. I do have some sort-of exciting news to share in a few days (I'm excited about it, anyway). I am far from done blogging about adoption. I think, even if I do get to the point where I don't have anything left to say but how happy I am, I'll keep posting just that a few times a month, because I think people need to read it.

In short: I totally double-dipped on the mothering holidays, I'll probably be blogging forever, and I am happy. Very happy. The end :)

Unrealistic Expectations

Someone e-mailed me a question a few weeks ago and I've been sort of sitting on it since then, unsure of exactly how to answer it because I'm unsure of exactly what the point of the question was.

But I've been thinking about it, and I've got an idea or two about what I want to say, and so here it is.

The question (I've paraphrased):
Do you ever think that your blog might give birthmothers an unrealistic idea about openness and their relationship with their baby's adoptive parents? Or that potential adoptive parents might get wrong ideas about their birth mom's maturity and the relationship they might have?

My knee-jerk response is to be a bit defensive - understandably, in my opinion. My story and the people in it are all precious to me, and I turn into an angry mama bear if I feel like my adoption story is being criticized at all. Take exception to me and my personality and attitude if you want, but you'd just better leave P and M out of it.

But as I've thought about it, I think I can sort of see where this question is going. Mine is a happy adoption story. Maybe it seems too good to be true to people who have had unhappy adoption experiences. Of course, I think y'all know how I feel about people who let their bad experiences ruin things for the rest of us. But I thought, maybe the question-asker is in the pre-placement phase of adoption and isn't sure what to expect. I like that point of view better, and that's the one I will respectfully address here.

As I said, Roo's adoption story is a happy one. It started off as a happy sad, and now it's mostly a happy happy. This is my blog, and I tell the adoption story I know best. I've tried to emphasize that my story is just that: mine. I don't pretend to speak for anyone else, or set myself up as an example of how everyone's adoption should be. I'm not saying, this is how your adoption should be, or how it could be. I'm saying, this is how mine is - it's imperfect, but it works.

I'm acutely aware that my situation is what many would consider a best-case scenario. I know that a lot of people aren't as lucky as I am in that regard. But you know what? There are a lot of negative, angry adoption stories clogging the internet, and I feel like my happy story helps to balance them out.

Every adoption is different, because every person is different and they're going to relate to other people differently. My story - Roo's story - is the way it is because of who I am, and who P and M are. The only adoption in the world that is going to be like Roo's is ... well, Roo's. I do think that maybe my story is an example of the potential that there is in an open adoption and of the kind of growth and healing that openness can foster. If all the parties involved are mature and willing to communicate with each other and be honest, open adoption can be an amazing, wonderful thing.

But it depends on who you are, and where you are in life, and if you're willing to work for it. You get out of a relationship just what you put into it. I'm not going to say that my relationship with Roo's parents is perfect - far from it, with my lousy people skills! - but I do feel like it gets better as time passes. It is continually evolving, and I do feel like we're in a place where if anything needed to change or needed to be said, it could probably be changed or said. I think that's the important thing - not that we're at some level of openness that others perceive to be ideal, but that what we've got works for us, and that we're comfortable discussing things when we need to.

I'll say it again - my relationship with P and M is far from perfect. But no relationship is perfect! Not a single one. People are imperfect. I am an abysmal communicator, and I made mistakes early on in our relationship that I'd take back if I could. But we love each other. They are Roo's parents, and I love them. No matter what happens, I know that P and M love me, too, and most important, they love Roo. I'm not going to say that love conquers all, but it helps.

So, I guess the short answer (I'm no good at those) is that, no, I don't think it does. I'm going to credit my blog readers with being smart enough to know I'm just one person writing about one experience.

Up the Hill

I was asked some time ago about grief after placement. More specifically, I was asked what changed for me. What is it that helped me get past the worst of the pain, helped me to turn around, to feel happy again. I've been thinking about it for a while. I wasn't sure I wanted to answer, because it is a story that is meaningful to me personally but that might sound kind of ridiculous when written out. But I thought I'd give it a try anyway, in the hope that maybe someone will read it who is hurting, and I can help them hurt a little less.

The days right after placement were absolute hell for me. To say that I was unhappy would be an understatement of epic proportions. After a week or so, and after the first visit, things got a little easier, but I certainly wouldn't say life got a lot easier after that. It didn't. It sucked less. As time passed, pain started to seep away little by little like a slow leak.

And then, a few months after placement, I hit a standstill. I wasn't as depressed as I'd been immediately post-placement, but I didn't seem to be getting any happier, either. My hike back up the hill of mental health hit a roadblock. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to get more than halfway up said metaphorical hill.

It was frustrating, and with that frustration came a number of other little things that acted as a mini landslide, which succeeded in knocking me back down the hill a few feet. I managed to climb back up to the peak I'd reached previously, but nothing in heaven or earth worked to get me to the top of that darned hill. I was ready to give up and pitch a tent.

I grew more and more frustrated and when the opportunity arose to do a school outreach presentation I nearly didn't take it. How, I thought, was I supposed to tell class after class of teenagers that adoption had made me happy when I didn't feel happy at all? I was beginning to think I was never going to be really happy ever again.

But something inside of me wouldn't let me say no, and so off I went, with a caseworker or two and a birth mom who had placed nearly 8 years ago. The birth mom, N, was someone whose story I'd heard before on more than one occasion and I liked and respected her. Since placement, N had married and had three children, and her story gave me hope for my own future. In my crabbiness, I think I'd have snapped at any other birth mom I might have presented with but for some reason I didn't mind N.

I told my story first, and if I was slightly less enthusiastic than normal no one noticed or at the very least no one said anything. After I finished, I gave a small smile and took my seat as N told her story.

It was the same story I'd heard her tell many times before, and I found myself drifting a bit. Then she got to the end. She told the kids that she had worried that the pain of placement would ruin her forever, that it would break her, and she would be forever broken.

Then N said three words I'm sure I must have heard before: "I'm not broken."

Such small words, but she said them with such force, such conviction that I felt them in my soul. I knew N wasn't just repeating a phrase she'd heart before. She was stating the absolute, irrefutable truth. She was NOT broken.

I can't explain it, but those three words changed something in me that day. They grew both roots in my heart and wings to carry them to my mind. They echoed in my head for hours. "I'm not broken."

Was I broken? I didn't want to be. I desperately didn't want to be. It felt wrong to me that I should go through so much pain and heartache and not come through it a stronger, better person. Being broken seemed wrong.

I decided something important that day. I decided that no matter how long it took me to climb that dratted hill, I would climb it. I would not give up, because I was not broken either.

The day N said those words - "I'm not broken" - was a turning point in my grief. I don't think it was until she said them that I realized I wasn't broken, either. I could be, if I so chose, but I didn't have to be broken, not for a second, if I didn't want it. I decided I didn't want it.

That's not to say that my pain is all gone or that there are no hard days and no tears. Certainly there are hard days! Certainly I cry! I still grieve a little. I think I'm entitled to; after all, my heart was broken. My heart was broken. But I was not.

My Father in Heaven asked me to exercise more faith than I thought I possessed and place my precious daughter with two people I had never met. He gave me the strength to do it. He saw me through the hard times afterward. I am not broken. He fixed me. I am whole.

In Which I Answer a Question No One Asked

I'm a little late in the day to post, but today is still November 1st, and this still counts as a post for today. I think it's a good one to kick off National Adoption Month as well.

I was asked not long ago to explain what open adoption means to me.

I'm sure that the person who asked was hoping for a definition of sorts - what do I consider to be an open adoption? How would I classify their idea of it? What are the requirements that I personally have for an adoption to qualify as open?

Well, too bad, question asker, because this is my blog, and I am obstinate. When I read the question, although I was certain of the context, I couldn't answer it that way. When I read the question, answers came to my mind. They're probably not the answers that you (whoever you are) were looking for, but they're what I've got. I've got answers to the question that no one has asked but that needs to be asked.

What does open adoption mean to me?

Open adoption means that any time I want to, I can turn on my computer, open the right file and watch Roo take a few shaky steps, or watch her dance with her sister, wiggling her hips and squealing with glee.

Open adoption means if I want to know how she's doing, all I have to do is ask.

Open adoption means I know the baby I placed, the person I love most in the world, is a happy, healthy, clever, sweet, gorgeous toddler.

Open adoption means Roo will never wonder who her birth mother is, what I look like, what sort of person I am, and why I placed her. She will know.

Open adoption means I will never wonder who my baby is, what she looks like, and whether she has a good life. I will know.

Open adoption means I know, every single day, that I made the right choice for Roo, because open adoption brings peace and reassurance.

Open adoption means that when I grieve, I grieve for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. I grieve out of love, not regret, out of sadness for myself, not for my baby.

Open adoption means that Roo is happy, and it means that Roo's mommy and daddy are happy, and it means that Roo's birth mom is happy. It's win-win-win. We all get to be happy. We all get to have peace and joy.

Open adoption means that if something needs to be said, it's said, and we make adjustments, and we're happy again, even happier than before.

Open adoption means that Roo is loved by more people than she will ever know. It means she gets to meet some of the ones who love her who are not her forever family, and that the rest of them that don't get to meet her still know who she is and that she is happy. Open adoption means an abundance of love for Roo and for all of her families.

Open adoption means that even though my heart broke, it's healed stronger than it was before. It means that I am a better, stronger person, for Roo and for her parents. It means I try every day to be someone they can be proud of.

Open adoption means I never have to wonder and I never have to worry. Open adoption is the happiest sad, and the happiest happy.

Open adoption means that placement wasn't goodbye; it was hello.

(And if you keep having the tagline "Love means never having to say your sorry" stuck in your head after reading this list, don't worry, I do too. And it's crap, because love means saying you're sorry whether you really are or not.)

11 Months

My little Roo is 11 months old today. I can hardly believe it.

Her parents sent me a video today, which was an awesome surprise. They're very thoughtful that way, which I so love and appreciate.

It's sort of strange to get a video when I'm so far away. I feel like I'm far away in time and not just distance. It seems like years ago that Roo was born. It seems strange that I was ever pregnant, that I ever had a baby and placed her for adoption.

Last night I had a dream that somehow I ended up pregnant again, and I was devastated because I knew I couldn't parent that baby, either, and I wasn't sure I had the strength to place another baby. In my dream the baby's father was some random guy I met on my trip, and it was horrible (in my dream) to realize too late that I'd done such a stupid thing again, that I'd tossed aside my newfound morals. It was a relief to wake up and know I still had my self-respect, and that I won't have to go through everything again.

I've never been the sort of person to think that dreams have any kind of super-deep meaning but I do think our brains use dreams as sort of an information dump. What I got out of my dream was this: I've come a long way. The distance I have from the events of two years ago has given me a greater perspective, and this was my brain's way of saying, we know better now. We are better than that, and we are stronger.

Distance helps - time distance, that is. I got so sick of other birth moms telling me that time would make things easier. "How MUCH time?" I always thought. And I won't claim to completely be there yet. But the more time passes, the easier it gets, even if just a little bit.

I think, has it really only been 11 months? It feels like forever ago. Because I've come so far! I'm not the woman I was 11 months ago - and I'm glad of it.

And I'm thankful for Roo. She saved me. I'm glad I could return the favor. She is 11 months old today. The world has been a happier place for 11 months. A Roo-ful world is a happier world, I think. I know I'm happier. I know she's happy, too. I can't ask for anything more.

Happy Tears

Something pretty awesome happened a few days ago, and I thought I'd share. I slept poorly last night, so I apologize if this is a bit too stream-of-consciousness to make sense of. And I apologize for ending the preceding sentence with a preposition :o)

I was writing up a short (ha-ha!) version of my story for this guest blog I did. I don't know if it's super-cheesy or not, but I sometimes get all teary when I write and/or read my own story. Or tell my own story. Anyway. I had a box of Kleenex nearby as I typed, just in case. And I needed it. But not for the reason I expected.

When I got to writing the part where Roo met her parents for the first time, I started to cry - not for myself or any of the emotion I'd felt at the tie. I cried because I realized in that moment how amazing it must have been for P and M to meet their baby girl. I cried for what they must have felt, for the thoughts they must have had. I cried happy tears because that was probably one of the most amazing and happy moments of their lives, and in reliving that moment I was so super happy for them all over again!

That was huge for me. I used to cry for me, for what choosing adoption meant to me. I used to cry because I knew when I met P and M that I wasn't Roo's mommy anymore. The thought of that feeling, that quiet peace tinged with sadness, used to be what made me tear up.

Something has changed in me. I don't know when or how or why, but all I know is that for the first time when going over that part of Roo's and my story, I didn't think of myself for a second. And it is the most wonderful, freeing thing! I really am so truly happy for P and M. I am happy that they're Roo's parents. I'm happy that they got a baby last year - their baby.

I love them so much. I am more thankful for them than words can express. I'm thankful that, though Roo's story began with me, it will end with them. I wouldn't change a thing.

Adoption Academy and a Bit of Rambling

Yesterday I got to speak at another adoption academy. The birth mom panel wasn't until 12:45, but I went much earlier because my mom was on the adult adoptee panel and I wanted to support her. She did such an amazing job. I'm so proud! My mother never talked about being adopted until 6 months ago at the last adoption academy. I think it's been good for her to do them.

One thing she always emphasizes is that adoption was an enormous blessing for her. Her parents were supposed to be her parents. She grew up with the family she was meant to have. Being adopted never made her feel any less; I can vouch for that. I always got the impression that my mom was her parents' favorite, as a matter of fact. My grandma always told my mom that she was a joy. How blessed is my mom to have such a great family? I don't doubt she was meant to be theirs. My grandma knew it, too. Her family must have thought she was crazy, adopting a baby when she was seven months pregnant. I'm so glad she did!

My mom had to leave after her part because she had a flight to catch - she's in Canada for about a week visiting my brother and his wife and their sweet little kids. I stayed. For my part, of course, but for the rest of it, too. I LOVE adoption academies. There is such an amazing spirit there and I always come away feeling like the luckiest person in the world to be a part of them, and a part of adoption in general. There's just something very special about the people there - those who can bear witness that God puts people in the families they're meant for in a very real way. I don't think I've heard an adoption story yet at an academy that didn't give me chills.

I was on the birth mother panel with Tamra, who placed more than 12 years ago and who is one of my favorite people, ever; and Krista, who placed about 6 years ago. It was a little intimidating for me to be the one with the most recent placement, and the most open. But it was good for me, too. One thing I tire of is having my placement compared to others that might be more open, and having people think that there's something wrong with me or with my couple that we're not as super open as some others are. I think the birth mother panel helps people to see that just because each level of openness is different, doesn't mean they're any less than or not as good as another level of openness.

The level of openness I have with P an M works incredibly well for us. It's what we're all comfortable with, and I know that we're mature enough and communicate well enough that if something needed to change, it would. But it's great the way it is now. I get very regular pictures and video and updates, and visits when I need them, and we're all happy.

I don't feel like Roo's mommy. I tried to emphasize that on the panel. A lot of these couples who are certifying for the first time are very anti-open adoption, because it scares them and intimidates them. They just don't understand it. There are no boundaries blurred. Roo knows exactly who her parents are. I feel more like her aunt, and she's my favorite niece. I love her more deeply than I can say, but I'm not her mama, and I haven't tried to be. That's not my job. I didn't place her for adoption only to try to be her mom.

I so love to see opinions and thoughts change. I love to see couples understand how amazing openness can be (if that's what works for them). Obviously, Tamra doesn't have an open adoption. I admire her strength and courage. I don't think I could have done it without the promise of openness. She did. She's a hero of mine.

I probably sound like a gushing moron, but I just LOVE adoption academies! They're emotionally exhausting but oh so worth it. The Spirit is so strong there.

I think it's funny how my little flying leap off the straight and narrow has helped me feel God's love for me so much more acutely. My testimony is so much stronger now that it's ever been before. Adoption is an integral part of God's plan for his children. I am so blessed to be a part of it!

Roo's daddy gave me a CD full of pictures from the past few months of Roo, many of them including Roo's sister. The two of them are the cutest things ever. They love each other so much. I hope that they'll always be good friends. I like to picture them in a few years walking hand in hand to primary on Sunday.

And for the first time in maybe forever, I can picture my own children doing the same. I don't know when I'll marry and be a mother, but I know it will happen. God's time, not mine. Can I be super cheesy and end with a testimony? I am so blessed to have played a part in creating an eternal family. I will be forever grateful to have been chosen to bring Roo into the world; to have been trusted by my Father in Heaven to carry and deliver one of His precious children and then to find her family.

Adoption is the most amazing miracle. I am more thankful than I can ever say that it is a part of my life.

I'm Awesome!

So.

I have, on more than one occasion, noticed a number of blog awards floating around. I won't mention any awards or blogs by name, since I read about 100 blogs on a regular basis (I need to get out of the house more). But there are "Kreativ" blogger awards, and "Beautiful Blogger" awards and awards with flowers on them, and teacups, and kittens, and mermaids and quilts and all manner of cutesy little things.

I once envied them - the recipients of those blog awards. I had it in my head that a blog award was validation; it said that the awardee (is that a word?) was delightful and lovely and that people liked them. I aspired to earn a blog award. I wanted validation. I wanted people to like me - and I wanted PROOF that people liked me. I wanted a blog award.

I wondered for a time if there was a website where people submitted their blogs for award consideration, like the movie folks do with the Academy Awards. I poked around, and as it turns out ... I couldn't actually figure out how on earth these awards were getting around, or how they started. And, eventually, I gave up.

But then a few days ago I started thinking again. I was doing a bit of reading and pondering on the topic of self-esteem and happiness, and I thought about how I like myself so much more now than I ever have before. I used to joke about it, but more and more I'm starting to think that I'm actually pretty awesome! (Don't laugh.)

And so I decided that if no one else was going to give me a blog award, I'd give one to myself - not just give it to myself, but make it myself. And it wouldn't just be any old teacup or patchwork award. I wanted something different and fun and quirky like me. Well, nothing says "quirky" like a chicken! I went through some of my winter zoo pictures and found a likely candidate, and opened it in Paint.NET. And so here it is, peeps: the Awesome Blog Award, featuring Captain Cluck.



I'm pretty awesome, and I have an awesome blog, and now I have a blog award to prove it! I bet that a lot of you (if not all of you) are pretty awesome, too. Wouldn't you like an awesome blog award, too? Sure you would. So Captain Cluck is here for the taking (although he probably needs re-sizing, something I'm too lazy for). Right-click, save, and knock yourself out.

You don't have to list any little-known secrets about yourself, and you don't have to nominate anyone. I'd get a kick out of it if you linked Captain Cluck back to my little blog, but I'll leave that to your discretion. You could also e-mail me with your blog URL so I'll know you're awesome, but that, too, is up to you. Self-confidence shouldn't come with strings attached! Captain Cluck thinks you're awesome. Don't you think you're awesome, too?

Little Wonders

I'm not sure what possessed me in January, but when I was signing up for an ASU Institute class, I went with "Building an Eternal Marriage."

Part of it, I think, is it fit in with my schedule. And I've already taken Book of Mormon and a couple of other classes that were offered on Wednesday night. So I went with BEM.

The class consists of me, two or three other singles, and about 12 couples, both engaged and already married. I should have expected that, I suppose. But do the couples have to be so physically demonstrative? I get sick of the constant nuzzling and intertwined limbs. One girl spent about twenty minutes running her fingers through her fiancé's Grizzly Adams beard. It reminded me of the way apes will groom each other. It was nauseating on many, many levels.

I don't sit behind them anymore.

Anyway. The last time I went to birth mom group (2 months ago, give or take), I left early for Institute. L, a dear friend of mine, said she wanted to go to Institute with me. Well, I thought, that'll at least be another for the Bitter Singles side in my class. And L is awesome. So we went.

I wish I'd checked the schedule first. Class that night was on intimacy and fidelity in marriage. Not, strictly speaking, about the law of chastity, but it sort of turned into that. It was awkward. Sort of. L seemed distinctly miserable, and I can't say I blame her. I thought I'd be miserable and uncomfortable, too.

But, wonder of wonders, I wasn't. Not once. For the first time since I took a flying leap off the straight and narrow 2 years ago, talk of chastity and marital intimacy did not make me feel like trash. It was amazing! I was able to listen to the material and read the student manual and take things in the context of my future relationship with my husband. I didn't sit there and feel like I blew it, like I was chewed gum, to borrow an analogy, from an irritating object lesson of my youth.

I wished L could have had the same experience. As we were leaving class, she mentioned how awkward the lesson had been for her. How it made her feel like crap. She asked if I'd felt the same.

"Well, sort of," I lied, feeling that tact and sensitivity were more important than honesty. And I wondered why it was that our shared experience had produced such different results. I thought about it for a few hours and I think I know what it was.

I used to feel like L did. I used to hide at the very mention of chastity. I used to feel like there was a scarlet letter on my chest (an "s" for skank). Like I was a horrible person who had done horrible things (my words and feelings here, not L's). I felt acutely that I had let down my Father in Heaven. That my Savior had had to suffer a little more because of my stupidity.

But I spent the better part of a year repenting, and being obedient, and in February I went to the temple and received my endowment. What a blessing it has been, and how grateful I am for my Savior! I know more deeply than ever who I am, and why I am here, and what I can make of my life. I know - I KNOW - that I have been forgiven for what I've done. God doesn't just forgive us, either. The scriptures say that He will "remember them no more." How awesome is that?

And I find that, the more time passes, the less I remember them as well. Maybe that's part of why my Institute lesson didn't bother me. The sins that I committed belong to a person I'm not anymore. Why should talk of intimacy bother me? I will have it someday with my husband. I am worthy of an eternal companion. I don't always believe it, but it's true just the same.

Tonight, in my other Institute class, my teacher ended with his testimony of the Atonement. "Our Savior loves us," Brother N. said. "He is glad He could suffer for us. He would do it again." I thought that was profound. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that Jesus died for us because He had to, because we are all rotten people who mess things up, and that maybe He isn't too happy about it. But He is! He wanted to. He did it for us because he loves us. I think it's wonderful.

The Invisible Woman

[I don't usually do double posts, but I put this one on the Mesa Birth Mom Support Group page, too, because I think every woman should see it.]

I don't know how long this one has been floating around the internet, but I just came across it today. I needed it today. It's told from more of a mom perspective, but I think it applies just as well to birth moms. Pregnancy and birth and placement are just the foundations of the amazing people our children will become. We may never see the finished work, never know what heights are reached. But we are not invisible. God sees. God knows.

I've been feeling invisible lately - not to P and M, of course. They continue to be amazing. But with everyone else - especially some of the people on whom I should be able to rely more than any others. I hate feeling invisible. This is a good reminder that I am not invisible to the One who matters most.

Time

I love Wolfram Alpha. You can type in the most random things and get information - anything from a math problem to the meaning of life (42, of course!).

One of the things you can do is type in a date, and it will tell you all sorts of interesting things about it - famous birthdays, the phase of the moon, what day and week of the year it was.

I typed in Roo's birthday. 7 months, 10 days ago. 32 weeks 1 day. 225 days, 161 of which were weekdays. The moon was full.

Just for the heck of it, I typed in September 9, 2009 - placement day. So I know that it has been 5 months and 8 days. 23 weeks. 161 days, 115 of which were weekdays.

Sort of bittersweet for me. I wanted something happier. So I entered December 12, 2009. Roo has been part of an eternal family for 2 months and 5 days. 9 weeks and 4 days. 67 days, 48 of which were weekdays. What a wonderful thing!

Since I received my temple endowment: 12 days. 1 week, 5 days. 8 weekdays, waning gibbous moon.

Wouldn't it be nice if Wolfram could count forward, too? Tell me how many days, weeks, months until the blessings will come. If I could only type in "marry eternal companion" and have it down - waxing crescent moon, 7 months 4 days, 31 weeks, 5206 hours.

But then, I think sometimes it's best not to know. Things happen when they happen - on God's time, not ours. Sometimes the best you can do is roll with it, and have faith that good things are coming, and that they'll come when they come.

Seven Months Old

My little Roo is seven months old today! I love her so much. I miss her.

I'm probably not going to have a visit for a while. I've decided I'm okay with that. My mother is fond of reminding me that that which does not kill me, makes me stronger. I've always liked to correct her, citing ample evidence from my life to prove that that which does not kill me, makes me wish it had. (I've also coined the phrase, "This, too, shall pass, like a kidney stone.) But I've found that there's no point in worrying about things that are beyond my control. Not to say that I don't still worry about them, but I try not to, because nothing ever comes of it but more worry.

Roo has the very best parents, she really does. I know that everything they do for her they do because it's in her best interest. I guess what I've grown to hate is that, since Roo was born, the things that are in her best interest and the things that are in my b est interest seem mutually exclusive. It seems grossly unjust, and there are days where every breath I draw is a battle to reconcile myself to that perpetual, seemingly permanent injustice. It stings.

Although I can easily recognize the hand of God in my precious baby's life, it seems particularly cruel that I - the one who grew her and carried her and gave her life and cared for her as I've never cared for anyone before - will play no part in her upbringing, something that defies biology and instinct and every atom of every cell in my body. Though I will be a part of her life, however small, she will never in a million years appreciate how deeply I love her. It is the worst sort of unrequited love.

I'm getting maudlin and broody. I don't mean to sound so despairing or melancholy. My feelings of sadness today were brief and passing. I have felt joy and peace more deeply since going to the temple than I ever have before in my entire life. I don't think I've been unhappy for more than about fifteen minutes total since I left the temple. I know that temple attendance does not make life perfect or without trial. But it helps, and it has made such a difference for me!

I am eternally grateful to my Father in Heaven for entrusting His precious daughter to me - for trusting me to take care of her developing physical body and to find the family He meant her for. I am thankful for those nine weeks I had to be her mommy. In placing her, I was able to give her an eternal family. As a birth mom, one of the hardest things to come to terms with is that the only way you can give your child what you want for them is to give them to someone else. Although I like to think that I gave them to her, and not the other way around. I couldn't give her what I wanted most for her by being her mommy. I think I'm finally okay with that. Roo is where she was meant to be. There isn't a doubt in my mind that P and M are supposed to be her parents. And I'm okay with that, too. I'm happy about it. And so is Roo.