I make assumptions all the time about how M&P might react to something I say or do, same with M&P’s extended family, my extended family, my friends, my son even (although it tends to be how he might react in 5 or 15 years since he’s still pretty little). There have been times that I’ve been so scared of how they might react that I allowed it to talk me out of doing something I wanted to do or saying something I wanted to say. Other times other people’s opinions of how others might react to my behavior have talked me into or out of something (for example I know M&P were told even though I invited to come visit the hospital that they shouldn’t unless there was a social worker there because it would be too difficult for me), this was especially true in the beginning and especially true in relation to adoption professionals. I will say one of the best things I can say about myself is that the insecurity to believe others over my own instincts didn’t last long, I credit my age and stubborn personality with that. From the get go I was more willing to go with my own feelings on the situation than that of my social worker, sometimes for my benefit and sometimes their way was probably better, but in the end I’m glad I went on my own path.

For me most of the danger has been my own ability to talk myself out of things. I don’t think I’m the only one who is guilty of this. Whether it’s not asking for something I want because I’m afraid of the repercussions, or if it’s not pushing back when I’m uncomfortable with someone else’s actions because I’m afraid of the blowback, time and again I find myself so afraid of what might play out instead of just doing what my gut tells me I want or need to do.

And yet time and again when I’ve stuck my neck out, fearful of what the results would be, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. When I’ve talked openly about being a birth mother (with friends or strangers) I’ve been supported. I consider myself lucky for this as I know not everyone has gotten the best responses, but for me I’ve never gotten a negative or hurtful response really. When I’ve asked for things from M&P, even when they haven’t given me what I wanted the asking opened up communication to talk about it more, which ended up being a really positive thing. Time and again when I have followed my gut instead of talking myself out of something the results have been positive and sometimes surprisingly so.

So why do I still hesitate so much? I guess because of the stakes. With family and friends, I would rather not have their support and have them in the dark about what I’m going through than have them openly insult or condemn me because if their reactions about things regarding my son were hostile or negative I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be willing to sustain a relationship with them. I would rather have them in my life but relegated to only knowing the parts I choose to show them, then knowing everything but no longer being a part of my life. I know to some degree this isn’t sustainable, but I’ve seen issues in my family and friends that have caused irreparable rifts and I could easily see certain reactions happening that would cause damage to our relationship that I would never get over. Right now I can’t take that chance.

With M&P, pushing too hard could fracture our relationship. I want to hope that our relationship isn’t so fragile, that it truly could withstand any disagreement or miscommunication. And I do believe that one day we’ll be in that place, but until I’m more sure of that, the stakes of possibly losing this level of contact with my son is too much and something I’m unwilling to risk. So instead I tend to stay quiet more often than not, to be cautious of how much I push them for more or even just different.

There are some really good examples out there of OA that are thriving, I know it’s possible to be healthy years or even decades from now, I’ve seen it. But I also know of relationships that closed, after a year, or two or five. I am not completely confident in how M&P see me, and although I think they are fine having me in their life because I pose no threat, I don’t know at what point I might start posing a threat and they might be uncomfortable with me. And that’s why I don’t push, because I just don’t feel like I know the boundaries out there.

So instead I just live being afraid of putting something out there that I can’t take back and having it change everything.

Why you ask. It’s not my love of Lincoln or Washington, or even of politics – I sort of hate talking about politics.

The reason is at my job President’s Day is the only bank holiday we get off that is slightly not-standard. We get off for Fourth of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day and all the big holidays, but we don’t get off for any other bank holidays – MLK day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day are all no go. So every Feb. when it feels like forever since the last holiday we had off, I wake up one Friday, go to work, and get reminded I have a three day weekend. Best feeling ever.

You see, I sort of like that unexpected surprise feeling. I really enjoy when something is not only fortuitous for me but also unexpected.

So in that way I really love when I get a random email from M&P. When it comes completely unexpectedly and out of the blue it’s even better. I think it’s so great especially because it’s a testament that maybe I’m a person that does cross their mind on a semi-regular basis, that maybe they do talk to J about me. That’s sort of a nice feeling to have, that I am important to them, and maybe for reasons more than they think they owe me for bringing their family together.

When I have been tempted in the past to talk to them about more scheduled upload of pictures or more standard updates, I have always shied away from it. I think a bit part of that lies in the fact I much prefer a note written just because then expecting a note on a specific day that they feel they must write. (I must add the disclaimer to this that this is me and my feelings alone, and that many birth moms out there probably feel very differently than me.)

So instead I just wait to hear something from someone.

I will say that this week I got two random emails from P. The first was a mass email invite to an event his friend is participating in – basically he forwarded his friend’s invitation to his whole contact list. The second was a connection request to linkedin. Neither were that exciting, and honestly when I got the first one which subject line didn’t explicitly tell me that this was a mass email I did get that excitement and was a tiny bit let down. But still, it’s nice to know I was a presence in his life this week, even if just for a couple seconds to send these two emails and get a verification on linkedin from me.

The other funny thing about that request is that M&P have both connected to me on linkedin, but that is the only social media website we are connected on. So far we have avoided each other on facebook, or anyplace else, and I’m pretty okay with that.

Sometimes you need to find your own path through life, I’ve never been shy of carving out some path that wasn’t quite on the map. I think that I’m pretty lucky that not only am I not afraid of doing this but that M&P have been willing to join me on my path. For that I’m grateful. So maybe our open adoption doesn’t look typical to outsiders, maybe open adoption as a concept isn’t typical for some even. But this one and the way it’s playing out is our own version of good and for that I’m grateful.

What I didn’t expect was to completely start falling apart during the movie.

Let’s look at the circumstances. First, I don’t get emotional in movies, period. I can acknowledge they are sad, but I don’t cry during movies and I don’t get so emotionally invested (even in the saddest of movies) that I end up sad at the end, I just don’t. Second, I had already seen this movie once. Third, there were three different couples surrounding me talking through the entire movie. Fourth, I had to sit in the front row (like the real front, not the front of the stadium section) and everyone’s faces looked really big and kind of funny that way. Fifth and final, even though I’ve been spending half of each month hormonal and emotional since my cycle is all wonky, today I wasn’t. There was no reason at all that I should get overly emotional about this movie on this day with these circumstances.

And with all those no excuses, I still got all basket-casey. Before you worry too much, I still didn’t cry. But I started feeling that pressure by my eyes that makes me feel like I could cry if I tried to. And I definitely got super emotional.

I don’t think I can make sense of it myself. I don’t think it had much to do with the movie, or maybe it did, I guess I can’t be sure. What I do know is that today I just wanted to sit down and talk, spill all my thoughts about this to try to figure out why I was feeling this way. But I feel really alone today. I could try writing it on here, but I honestly don’t want to try to work this out in such a public way. I could write to one of the birth moms out there I have been friends with online or meet up with one in real life, but I fear they won’t be able to help work this all out. They all only know me after I became a birth mom, but I think a lot of what I’m feeling is more about who I am as a birth mom being integrated with who I have always been as a person – in that way it’s like I need someone to talk to who knows me from before all this, who knows all about my life from before and since.

But even before the pregnancy I compartmentalized my life a lot. I kept people out of parts of my life, much of my life. It’s been almost 7 years since I felt like there were people who really knew me, all of me. Most of the times it seems okay having people only see a part of me, but today when I’m trying to fully understand what all is going on in my head, I feel a little alone, like it’s just me on this scary island and I have to fight my way out of it.

And with all of that, I wasn’t even able to get into see The Iron Lady after all.

I’m just not sure, about moving away from everything here, from J. I’m not sure I should even consider it. I know I talk about this often, about my obligation towards staying on this coast, near to J, to continue our relationship. It’s so hard for me to even consider going this route, possibly moving 3000 miles away from my little boy when he’s just starting to recognize me.

I know that not all families who are involved in open adoption see it that way. I get it when birth mother’s say that I should live my own life, do what’s best for me, that we can make a new norm for our open adoption even if I’m across the country. I get that other’s think that since M&P have no obligation to me to stay close by, that they would move if it was in their best interest, that I should do what’s in my best interest even if it’s not in J’s. I understand why others make that choice and for them I think it’s probably the right choice.

But I’m not sure it’s right for me.

I feel too much an obligation to my son to not give our relationship my all. And for me that means staying in NYC, at least for now. I don’t feel like I am able to move away unless I know I can afford to travel back at least once or twice a year, and I know right now that’s not a possibility, especially if I move someplace that’s far from my family and from him (aside from money, I would only have so much vacation time at a new job). I am not saying I don’t deserve happiness in my own way, but I don’t think it would be possible for me to ever have real happiness again if I knew I wasn’t doing everything possible to give my son the best life possible, and I totally believe that being an active part of my child’s life gives him a better chance at the best life possible.

Maybe it’s wrong to think I hold that much importance in his life, but honestly I’d rather be wrong in this way and assume I’m more important than I am, than be wrong in the other way and have my son hoping for more contact than I’m giving him. Maybe it’s skewed priorities, maybe in 20 years I’ll be full of regret for not going for an opportunity for a different life, but honestly if I’m going to have a regret about this open adoption I want it to be that I put it as a high priority and gave up too much to make it a success rather than regretting that I let it become too little a priority and it hurt my son in the long run. And maybe in two or three years M&P will need to move away and I’ll be left in this city wondering why I gave up any opportunities someplace else when they didn’t stay. But I can’t control their actions or them doing what’s best for their family. I can’t dictate their priorities, I can only decide my own and try my hardest to blend their priorities and mine to create the best relationship possible.

For today, I won’t dig out my resume and polish it up to try to get a job in California, today I will instead find new ways to enjoy my life in New York, to find challenges in my job and feel this place is more of home. Maybe it means being more social or trying to find a real place I feel like I fit in here. Maybe it will mean finding a different job that is still in the city or in one of the close by places still on the East coast. I know it means I won’t live closer to family or move back to the Midwest, and I won’t be able to get a completely new start in a fresh place, but it also means I’ll probably be at my son’s second birthday party, and be able to hear him when he’s able to say my name, it means for his third Christmas I’ll be able to give him a present, and that I can still pass by the restaurant on my way home everyday where we had a visit together and think of them.

And for now that seems like the right decision, the best decision possible.

Lately I’ve been worrying about that side of me. The side that can go months without talking to my best friend without really noticing, the side that never sends Christmas cards, the side that just isn’t always a good friend, sister, daughter or cousin. Don’t get me wrong, I am the first person there when something goes wrong, I don’t remember the last vacation that wasn’t visiting friends or family and it almost always happened when someone needed me around. I have never missed a funeral, wedding, and almost never a graduation of a family member and almost all my friends. I am there in crises, I’m there as a shoulder to cry on, to give advice or to just listen. I’m really good at the big sweeping gestures and being around during the times where I know someone needs me. But the day to day, the remembering to call my sister every couple of weeks or write my brother for his birthday, I have never excelled at that. And the truth is no matter how much I try, I’m not sure I ever will.

Open Adoption scares the crap out of me because of that. Can I keep up with it? I know I’ll never be that birth mother that has a card for every holiday, nor will I be good at keeping up with regular emails or phone calls that need to happen on a specific schedule. Right now we’re doing a good job at the open adoption, I really believe that, but nothing is on a schedule, I email as I have time when I think of it, and since they don’t email back immediately I don’t feel as bad if it’s been a couple more weeks. We seem to know we’ll have visits every couple months, and I shoot for that when I’m planning things out, for instance, I’ll probably write them at the end of Feb. to see if they could have a visit in the beginning of March before I start getting really busy again. But what happens when we’re not local because I had to move away, or when J grows up and wants more definite contact on a more set schedule? What happens when they need more from me to make this work and I can’t deliver? What happens when I am not good enough for him again?

Open Adoption scares the crap out of me because although I believe my son is better off with me as part of his life, being in his life gives me infinite opportunities to mess up, to do something wrong, to not be good enough for what he deserves. I hope that doesn’t happen, but my track record in the field of being the best communicator, the one that remembers to call my family on Sunday night just to check in is horrible. I can make myself accountable to do the best job possible in this role of birth mother, I will try with everything I have to make it work, I just hope that’s enough.

So I’m not going to pain you by trying to write when I can’t think of anything to say. So if you don’t hear from me for awhile just realize I’m trying to find my voice again. If you have had something you want to hear me write about or questions you have, feel free to ask, I’m sure that will help inspire a comeback.

Until then, Have a happy Valentine’s Day! And here’s a photo of my last cross-stitch project, I haven’t figured out what to do with it, maybe make it into something (a purse?).

If you couldn’t tell I watched Switched at Birth last night. It’s my guilty pleasure and although I feel like a 14 year old girl admitting it I definitely look forward to watching it every week. I enjoy the representation of the deaf community, the ridiculous teenage love stories that seem forever intertwined, but I especially love the little references about nature vs. nurture, the way they look at someone being birthed by one woman and raised by another, and the awkwardness and frustrations that come out of trying to blend this unconventional family.

But I wasn’t expecting the episode last night (which technically was an episode from earlier this week which I got off hulu) and how much it made me think.

When Bay (born to single Latina living in the rough part of town and raised by rich white couple) overheard her nurturing grandmother’s statements about how her feelings for Bay changed when she found out they weren’t genetically related, how she’s not blood and therefore the grandmother no longer felt the connection they had before, the feelings of rejection she (Bay) felt were palatable. And when her nurturing grandmother started to talk about how Bay wasn’t as good at school because she should have been a Vasquez instead of a Kinnish, how Daphne (the other daughter who was raised by single Latina but born to the rich white couple) who was good in school despite her upbringing, was the “real” Kinnish, you could see that Bay for the first time felt judged for being born to someone not well off, someone of a different race, and suddenly racism and classism affected her.

Later in the episode when Bay’s nurturing Mom talked about how even though her own Mother feels she should be more connected to Daphne that she feels more connected to Bay, that Daphne can feel like a stranger at times. It might seem that as a bmom I would put a lot of stock in biology, in the connection to my son. And I do feel a connection, but to think that connection overrides the connection he is going to feel with his Dads to me doesn’t jive. I think they are two different kinds of connection, and I don’t think it’s fair to compare them. I don’t want my son to put more of an emphasis on a connection with me, I want him to love and be attached to the family that is raising him, that he’s with every day (but no matter what I want I also know my son will feel whatever he feels).

The final moment that really struck me is when Bay went to her Natural Mother to ask about feeling lost when she thought about how she was a different race now. And later Daphne had to deal with realizing she belonged to a different class now. Both girls struggled to contend with the dichotomy of how they felt verse how the rest of the world was starting to perceive them. Who they were hadn’t changed since they found out, it just made more sense. Bay’s artistic flair seemed to make a lot more sense after she met her Mom and Daphne’s competitive nature seemed like a natural part of her when she met her pro-athlete father. But those parts of them were still there no matter still there well before they knew the truth.

Is anyone else out there a part of the 14 year old girl club too? What did you think of this weeks episode? Did it make you think?

But what I can tell you is that it’s about a girl dealing with losing the most important person in her life – her gay best friend dies in the beginning of the play. She first tries to replace this person with a pringles can full of the ashes of some of his burned possessions (a long story) followed with her trying to recreate him with a robot who has taken on his personality (longer story) followed by her trying to hook up with the dead gay friend’s twin brother (that one seems self-explanatory). I realize this all sounds odd, but it’s musical theatre, which made you forget how silly and strange it really is because there’s music involved. During the course of the play she is looking for something to fill the void but the whole while she is losing sight of what she still has.

Whenever I see someone dealing with grief (even fictional characters) I find myself comparing it to myself. To the grief I’ve felt, to what I went through. This case was no different. I saw in her the desperation of just wanting one more day, one more experience, one more chance to say goodbye. I replay those couple of days in the hospital, even the 9 months of pregnancy often, thinking I just wish I could have one more day of that to really appreciate it.

But I also saw how no matter how much she tried to re-create this relationship again, whether it be via robot or twin, it was never the same. For her it was a cheap replacement. In the end she had to find a way to say goodbye instead of trying to hold on so tight.

It made me wonder about letting go in adoption. The truth is it’s a different set of rules when you’re in open adoption. For some they may see OA as a chance to hold on, maybe not to the real relationship, but to some form of it. You can still have a relationship, even if it’s not as a parent, you can still have something and that will help you hold on, right? Well for me, no, not right. That form of OA is like pretending a robot is your dead best friend, that he is still there and you can still have a lot of what you had before, but it’s not the same, and it’s not even a substitute, I just can’t look at it as something to appease my grief.

Then there are some who see OA negatively, as a tether to the grief, you have to deal with it all the time and just keep re-opening old wounds. It’s like the twin brother in the play – he kept saying he didn’t miss his brother, and then when he was confronted with a reminder of his brother he admitted that he did miss him but hated to be reminded of it, he hated feeling the sadness of it and just wanted to move on and try to forget. I know some people turn their back to the openness to just try to return to normal life.

I don’t see OA either of those ways for me. I don’t expect to replace the relationship as a parenting Mother to my son with this relationship as a birth mom and act like it’s almost as good. Because it’s not. It’s just a freaking robot. And I’m not going to bury my head in the sand and not have any relationship to my son because it’s too painful a reminder of what I lost, for me that won’t work either. So instead I’m slogging through it, dealing with what I lost while trying to appreciate what I still have.

It’s with that context that I can say this post has been lingering with me, something I haven’t been able to write properly but can’t let go of. I keep coming back to this idea over the last two or three weeks and that in part has made it difficult for me to write other posts, etc.

So I’m going to face this head-on and try to explain what is going through my head. It all stemmed from this idea of regret and the simple question do I regret placing my son for adoption.

I believe every parent in existence has a line in the sand. This line is something they believe is the point where they can’t give their child enough as a parent and I think when the line is crossed is when people look towards adoption. I think each person’s own experiences and background dictate where that line is drawn. For some parents it might be the ability to keep their child from going hungry. For another it might be that the child grows up with two parents, or maybe not only two parents but they must also be married (this is the simple version, in truth I don’t believe that line is made up of a lot of different parts and pieces to not be crossed). For each there is a point of no return, a line they just can’t cross. I don’t believe that all people have healthy places their own line is drawn, parents who expose their children to drugs and abuse and have their children taken away by the system obviously don’t have an appropriate line of what they can accept, those people have gone way beyond the line I would draw for myself. But I believe all of us have that line. Some of you might argue you would never make the decision to place your child, but the question is given the worst circumstances you can think of, would you still feel that way? What if you couldn’t feed your child, or you were homeless? What if your child was exposed to an abusive person and you couldn’t seem to protect them from that person? I’m not saying you would ever get to that point, maybe if you got close you would be able to change your circumstances so you didn’t ever cross that line, find a program to help you or find a way to escape an abusive person, but that doesn’t mean that line in the sand doesn’t exist. You still wouldn’t allow your child to be raised under certain circumstances.

I think for some women who place, they never get to their own line, but rather they are shown someone else’s line and are convinced that should be their line. I have talked to many women who are like that, women who were convinced by family, their religion, a social worker, or someone else that what they had to offer their child wasn’t enough. I believe many times those women are left in a state of regret or anger. They were the baby scoop era, but they are also women today who are convinced they just aren’t enough. I feel such pain for those women because they deserved to live their life to their own standards.

I think there are other times that parents think where their line is in once place, and once they realize the pain and the negatives that might impact their child, when they realize that they can not assure that the place their child ends up can provide exactly what they weren’t able to they realize their line was actually in a different place. I think those birth families live in regret as well, that if they understood more and were more educated than they may not have placed. I think social workers in options counseling should be dealing with this issue first and foremost. Why did you draw your line there, and if you knew your child’s life may not be what you hoped for (divorce, death, illness happen, even when there are the best of intentions) would your line still be in the same place? Those questions need to be asked so someone doesn’t turn around in regret shortly after placement.

I didn’t fit into either of these categories. I did come up to my own line of what I could accept for my child and I still believe that is a line I cannot cross, and then I crossed it with J. I was on the bad end of not being able to provide what I felt were the basic necessities. In a case like mine, finding support wasn’t about people convincing me that my line was in the wrong place, because for me it was in the right place. I couldn’t protect my child in the way I needed to and I couldn’t just accept that as his reality. I won’t change my mind about that, and although I appreciate people who during my counseling verified my position wouldn’t change, what I really needed is the help to change my circumstances so I wasn’t over that line anymore. I needed help from someone else. Help from someone more able to provide me with it. I wish my family or my son’s birth father could have provided that support, but they couldn’t, given factors beyond my control they couldn’t. I think this is the failure of our society. That we (as in society as a whole) don’t see it as important to provide the support needed for a woman to parent when we can just have someone else parent her child. The truth is if I would have been given the support to get to the other side of that line I would have parented, but I just couldn’t find it. Now I do think there are some parents out there that has a line that won’t move and no amount of support will get them back over to the good side of the line – women who strongly feel their child needs two parents, or women who feel they aren’t cut out for motherhood and their child needs someone who truly wants to be a mother – those are the sorts of lines, if they are truly the line the mother can’t cross, that adoption is a good choice. But for women like me I wish our society valued who we are to our children enough that they would support us in parenting. But instead I hear the stories of women still struggling, pregnant with no job, no insurance, and fear of being able to provide the necessities for their child and no help in sight.

When people ask me if I have regrets about placement, I think back to this metaphor. I don’t regret where my line in the sand was drawn, I believe even all I went through that my line in the sand is still in about the same position, but do I wish that my life was different so I wasn’t over the line? Yes of course. If I could have changed my life or made something outside of myself different, like mandatory maternity leave and health care, or not making too much money by about $1,000 to qualify for food stamps. But honestly you can’t regret a decision other people made. I can’t regret that JD wasn’t the father my son needed, or that public aid was of no help to me. I can’t regret those kinds of things.

But I started to think about how I regularly would get these sorts of headaches. But then I got confused. Were those headaches only during my pregnancy and immediately after I gave birth? Is that when my head hurt so bad? I know it happened then, I know because I ended up getting a post-partum MRI for my head because they were worried I had small clots in my head. But I can’t figure out if I used to have these before the pregnancy.

This happens a lot, I’ve been having a lot of very vivid dreams, hardly sleeping at night, having to get up multiple times either being waken by dreams or something else, and once I’m awake I have to use the bathroom. I struggle to remember if it used to be this way, if I used to be able to sleep through the night without the dreams or the bathroom breaks. I think I used so but I don’t know.

It’s with everything, I know I weigh more than I used to, I have something like 40# of weight that didn’t used to exist, but I can’t remember what that looked like, I basically wear the same size clothes as I used to, were they just a lot looser before, or is my weight falling in areas not affected by my clothes.

Did I used to be better about being social, about seeing friends, was I more active, did I have as much down time as I seem to now? Did I feel the winter blues like I do now? Who was I before?

It’s so hard to remember my life before, not like I have no memories, but like the memories seem so far away. There is just this huge chasm between who I am now and who I was before. I’m a different person.

I realized a long time ago that I was a different person now, but only now am I truly realizing that I’m going to forget what it felt like before, like the memories of friends I no longer see, or my grandparents who have passed away, I am forgetting the details of how it felt to be me before. I don’t know what it means, if I’ll ever feel the same way, look at life the same way, act the same way towards life than I used to. Or if this is just another change in my life that I have to accept.