Just keep cutting out your coupons, lady...

I've been thinking about something that happened while I was in the hospital after Baby Boy was born. It was my second evening in the hospital and I still had 2 days, or so I thought. Turns out, if you have a c-section like I did, you have 4 days from the hour the child was born, no more, no less. I didn't want to leave at 5:21 in the morning because that would have made the goodbye even harder, so I opted to leave late the night before so that I could make the most of my last day with him. Anyway, back to the point of this blog entry. My second evening in the hospital was one that pains me to think back on, though it paled in comparison to the moment I placed my baby in the case worker's arms and left him. I was up and walking around the ward, pushing my baby in his little pram, stretching my legs when the Pediatrician asked me to step into the nursery so she could check baby's vitals (a routine thing) and so I followed her into the nursery. She happens to be the Pediatrician for my sister's children so she knew who I was and I had been open with her about the fact that I was placing my baby boy for adoption. She was talking to me about it in the nursery and telling me about a family member of her's that had previously been in a similar situation to mine and how she respected me for the decision I had ultimately come to. She was very supportive. She also suggested that I contact the hospital social worker to see if I could leave after breakfast on the fourth day so I could have more time with him, I considered this, but before I could respond, the Patient Care Assistant who was sitting at the table CLIPPING COUPONS interrupted and said, "That isn't an option. When it comes to adoptions, regardless of the situation, the baby and mother are seperated after 24 hours." I was horrified and responded, "I think you've been misinformed, because the way it was explained to me, as long as I am here, the baby is here." Her response, "Nope. It is hospital policy that after 24 hours, regardless of the situation, the seperation occurrs." At this point I was openly sobbing.

The Pediatrician quickly ushered me back to my room explaining that she wasn't sure of the policy and that she would contact the hospital social worker to come and see me immediately to discuss my options. The coupon-clipping-reject kept repeating the supposed 24 hour policy like she had uber-authority in the matter, even though I was obviously distraut, the idiot wouldn't back down. Not even 10 minutes later, the Pediatrician was in my room attempting "disaster recovery" on me, probably hoping to avoid a law-suit, though she didn't know that I'm not the type who sues no matter how disgruntled I am, and her presence and attempt at small talk infuriated me even more as I cried harder and harder as I held my baby boy for what I now thought was the last hours I would ever hold him. The social worker came in and I explained what had occurred and she was livid. She apologized to me and explained that I would not be seperated from my baby until I was ready and it was on my terms. She went and spoke to the "authority-on-the-matter-coupon-clipping-reject" in person and firmly let her know that she, in fact, had no authority whatsoever to state the claims she made, even if she had been correct, which she was not. She scheduled a disciplinary hearing for the girl to meet with the Charge Nurse to be reminded of what her role and position at the hospital is and what would happen should she forget. The greatest part, however, is that the social worker is setting up classes at the hospital for any staff that would most likely ever come in contact with a patient that is placing a child for adoption and how to treat them in that case.

It occurred to me, through this experience, how some people view adoption. I think that, for some people, when they here that a girl is going to place her child for adoption, that the seperation occurs with the decision to place. Along with this, for anyone who has never experienced pregnancy, it is hard for them to understand the bonding and connection that occurs during the gestation period between mother and child. You put these two things together and you have one completely ignorant person, like this girl I experienced at the hospital. For her, the connection between me and my child broke once I decided to place him for adoption. To her I was just some girl who found herself inconveniently pregnant and in trouble and was trying to "get rid of my mistake", as other people have worded it to me. To her, I had no emotional connection to this child, I just gave birth to him and was "giving him away". Those words, "giving him away" hurt my heart to say. What she didn't understand, and what a lot of people don't understand, is that not only am I mourning the loss of my child- a decision that I made out of the heartache and sorrow that I couldn't raise him on my own- but I was also mourning the failure of a relationship to a man I had loved and was engaged to. Not only that, but I was, and am, dealing with the anger of how my engagement crumbled because of his addiction to drugs- an addiction he hid from me for a long time. I quit my job and moved away so he couldn't find me because he became dangerous, and people who were even more dangerous than him that he had ticked off, began contacting me and threatening my life over his debt to them. I'm not just a girl who got in trouble with a guy she didn't know the last name of. I'm a girl who was in love and engaged to be married to a man she trusted and felt safe with until she found out the truth about him. And now, not only do I mourn the loss of the hopes and dreams I was expecting to have in my marriage with that man, but worse, I'm trying to wrap my mind around the fact that my baby is no longer mine.

Disconnect between me and my baby boy will never happen, and I don't think people understand that, either. They expect that I should be fine in time, and I will, but the hurt will always be inside, even when I am married and have children with the man I'm the wife of, the hurt will still exist because I'll still be short one beautiful boy, my first born son. That's not to say that I won't find happiness and joy in my future children, I will, but it's all complicated, like the feelings I have now. I'm happy that Baby Boy is safe, I just wish he was safe with me. That will never change. Birth mother's are not women who are trying to get rid of their problem's, that ideology is sickening. Birth mother's deal with a lot more than placing their child for adoption, that's only the tip of the iceberg, and yet it's also the whole iceberg. And that's what this girl didn't understand. To her, I wasn't a mother, I was a girl who had a baby who was trying to get rid of it. I'm a mother. It may be a different kind of mother, but I am a mother. I will always worry about him- that he's happy, safe, secure, well loved, eating enough, sleeping enough, being loved enough, being treated well by other's, whether he's being hugged and kissed and praised every day- I will alway's worry because I'm his other mother.