Important Bonds

"We are not together here... to make room for the other presence we both draw back in our minds. I have a prophecy threatening to spill into words. This growing certainty of Over. There once was a time I was sure of the bond, when my hands and my tongue and my thoughts were enough. We are the same but our lives move along, and the third one between replaces what once was love."  -Vienna Teng "Between"

Have you ever heard a song that just so poetically describes the emotions buried so deep within you, but also so close to the surface... but which you can't find words to express? I'm sure you have. We all have those songs that really resonate with us at such a specific time of life that when we hear them years/decades later we are brought right back to the core memory associated with that song. 

I'm a little rusty here, so please be patient with me. 

Some things have surfaced that are really unpleasant. I'm kind of experiencing a refining moment in my life and it's just... those moments are so hard and uncomfortable because either you let it change you and grow for the better, or you shut off with complete understanding that you are not ready to grow in such a way yet. Or you're just f*#king tired of battling. Maybe that language is off-putting, but I honestly cannot even adequately express the emotional exhaustion I feel with certain events that just keep recurring in my life. Events I thought I'd graduated from. So, that's the only word I can think of to describe my level of emotional exhaustion.

Vienna Teng is a complete poet in her lyrics. I love her music. She's always been on a playlist I have that I listen to when things just feel off in my life, but I can't place why I feel the way I feel. 

I recently experienced a really traumatic moment a couple weeks ago that came out of nowhere and it involved 2 people I deeply care about. My relationship with Person A wasn't always the strongest, but in the last 13 or so years I thought our relationship was getting stronger. In fact, it was the best it's ever been. Person B I've always been close to and we historically always looked out for each other. But as we've gotten older I've felt a shift in their perception of me. And with that shift has come this barrier where neither one of us can really breach to get to a real level, so it's... there's this formality that exists now that never did before. This change has been gradual, but I've felt it from them for about 10 years now. 

I know I've hurt these people in the past. I hold myself accountable in a way that is probably not healthy for my mental health. But, I also know that I've hurt these people in the past. And they've hurt me. But, that's not a justification, and shouldn't be for either side.

A situation happened a week ago where I was really ganged up on by these 2 people. It started over a misunderstanding on my part and I acknowledge and apologized for that. But it metastasized in a way that was so unnecessary. And I can honestly say I wasn't the one perpetuating the drama. Cruel things were said to me by Person A after I apologized for my misunderstanding (and if you knew what it was, it was quite minor).  After I apologized to Person A for my misunderstanding, they accepted my apology and then went on to blast me and tell me I'm fake, I'm a joke because I talk about being authentic but I'm a liar so I'll never be authentic. They were screaming this at me. A person I see once a year, and literally never even talk on the phone to because they busy their lives to such a degree to avoid building any real relationship with those they claim to love.

Person B, a person who for the longest time I felt was the only person who saw me told me to stop talking to them, ignored me, and when I tried to talk to them to find resolve completely looked through me like I was dead to them. Like I was a ghost. Invisible. They slammed the door in my face and then went on to tell others a watered-down representation of our private discussion that absolved them from a lot of personal accountability and which painted me as a villain. They then went out of their way to avoid saying goodbye to me. A person I see once a year. 

I've since been blocked on social media by Person B. This is after I laid down a clear boundary that until the 3 of us get help with individual therapy to handle our own life-mess that contributes to the perpetuation of our hurt, that I can't talk to them. NOT that I don't ever want to talk to them again. Just not until we've all received therapy and tools on how to have such crucial conversations. But, this person is presenting their understanding to those they discuss this with that I told them to never talk to me again. It's all in a text message. But, facts don't matter when the mind is clouded by emotion. What I did tell them is that I believe and hope we can sort out this mess in the future, but until we all get help to do so in a safe way, I have to protect myself against the abuse and gaslighting they are inflicting on me. 

I'd like to say, also, that all of this started when I was feeling emotional about a conversation that was going on that I expressed some concern regarding and didn't feel heard. So, in my emotion I misinterpreted something that Person A was saying. I needed a moment and excused myself from the conversation by calmly saying, "I'm sorry. I'm feeling strong emotion and I need to step out for a moment." This is a tool my therapist has told me to practice when I'm feeling big emotions or confusing emotions. It's a perfectly respectful tool that allows you to take care of your basic needs before engaging in something that you aren't understanding due to your emotions getting in the way. I've since learned that at least one of these people were hell-bent determined to present my exit as me yelling and storming out of the room with complete dramatic and frightening flare. So, there were 7 witnesses to my exit (including myself), and not everyone agrees with how my exit is portrayed by this person. But, perception is everything and when your perception is built upon finding evidence of how people transgress against you, then that's all you'll see. But, I digress. With complete disdain and disgust, I digress. Yes, I'm mad. 

I could go into further detail. There's a lot of it. In fact, this is a revised draft because the original mapping out the unfortunate series of events was so long I was embarrassed at how pointless the whole thing was. So, I'm sparing you the ridiculous details. The minutia of what occurred is so embarrassingly lame and underserving of the melodramatic perpetuation of the 2 other parties towards their audience. It was void of any logic whatsoever and done only to appeal to emotions.

So, what is the point of this post? The whole thing sounds so damn petty, and really it is. But, at the core, every person involved in this scenario is feeling like a core issue unique to them was being disregarded. And the irony is that the core issue is the same: being unheard and disregarded at the expense of another's right to emote louder/bigger. 

There was a time in my life when I thought I was crazy. Have you ever been so gaslighted that you start to question your own sanity? I have. And it's the scariest shit I've ever felt, and I've experienced so much darkness and turmoil that that is saying a lot. When your discernment is ignored and questioned and made out by others to be defective simply because they won't own up to their mess... you can't even trust your own mind. And now I'm back at home. Away from these people who made me question my sanity once before and which I forgave them for it. And my mind is plagued with trying to find logic in what happened. I'm looking back on every interaction and assessing it with such a self-critical (akin to self-hate) lens to find where I hurt these people and I don't see it. But, I'm trying to create it because they say it's there, but it's not there. So then I wonder, is there something so defective and broken in me that I am a danger to those I love because I don't see me how they see me?

I have literally had this song by Vienna Teng on repeat for the last week. And it's hard not to reflect on what occurred when listening to this song. It's been the modality that has given me words to talk about this experience. To go beyond the emotions and name what I feel and that is:

-Growing hurts. Acknowledging that we've hurt someone and then navigating to a place of earning that trust back is tormenting to the mind. It's a fragmented feeling. You have to make room for a new understanding. A new way. And either you make room to learn and grow or you you don't and you draw back in your mind, your self, your perception, and you sit comfortably in that existence. You custom-tailor everything you let into your sphere so that you stay protected. This is not judgment. I speak from experience. I used to avoid change. I used to sit in my resistance to change and I would fight tooth-and-nail to stay safe in my ignorance. 

-There is a certain comfort in yielding to ignorance and putting up barriers to keep the threat of change and growth and experience from altering you in the most painful, self-aware way possible. Over is so much kinder in the moment. Over is noncommittal for the time-being. Over is a reprieve from personal responsibility. Over is easy. I never said things were over. I don't believe in over.

-There once was a time I was sure of the bond, when my hands and my tongue and my thoughts were enough. I wonder what that feels like, when your self, your voice, and your mind are enough to those who matter most to you. I've never felt that before my marriage to my husband. To majority of the relationships in my life I've never felt good enough. Pretty enough. Smart enough. Loud enough to actually be heard. Mentally enough. Spiritually/Religiously enough. Capable enough. Trusted enough. Loved enough. Respected enough. I've never felt worthy enough of their love.

-At times, there is an unspoken ill within each of us that replaces what we claim is love. There is an unspoken ill in a person that would lead them to say such cruel things to a person they claim to love. At the end of the day, people can disagree or not see eye-to-eye on a situation all they want, but that doesn't relieve them of the responsibility to be respectful and humane in their interactions with others. And if you do this, it really is wrong. I used to do this. There was a time in my life where I would aim to maim because I wanted others to hurt like I hurt. That was my hidden ill. It's why I can recognize it in others.

Since I've been home and navigating the confusing emotions I have due to this experience, I've been asking my husband if I don't see reality the way he does. I've been asking him if I am abusive to him and cruel in our interactions. I've been asking him if I've ever wronged him so deeply and then made him feel guilty for it. I've been asking him if my mind is broken and I've been begging him to be honest. He has been assuring me in the ways he knows how that I'm not crazy, but the self-doubt keeps seeping in. I wonder if he is just being kind or if he is afraid to be honest because of what my reaction might be. This is the effects of emotional gaslighting. I know this on a logical level, but that is the devastation of gaslighting, you question your perception of reality.  

So, for now I hold on to small facts. To those closest to me in my life, to those who actually know me and don't find petty reasons to blame-shift their issues onto me -- I matter to them. In a meaningful way, I am enough to those who know me. It helps to hold onto this fact. It's so fleeting when staring down the abyss that your mind might be broken because those claiming to know you (but don't actually know you) are so determined to break your spirit to make themselves feel better. But despite it's frailty, it is light in the black abyss of madness and the continual pain perpetuated by others. 

And so when the darkness becomes too thick, I remember and recite to myself that to those who truly know me - my self, my voice, and my mind  are enough. I'm good enough. I'm pretty enough. I'm smart enough. I'm loud enough when it matters most and I'm worthy of being heard. I'm mentally enough. I'm not defined by my spirituality, or lack of religion. I'm capable enough. I'm trustworthy. I'm deserving of love. I'm deserving of respect. I'm worthy of kindness. Those are the bonds that matter. 

Some Exciting Changes

 Hello all. If you guys follow my Twitter account, you've probably noticed some interesting tweets about Twitch. I'm on Twitch now as a way of getting to know the global community and find like-minded people who want a chill online space to decompress and have fun. 

I'm new to the Twitch world, and learned about it through my husband. I've been following along watching some streamers and it's lots of fun, so I decided to jump in to the sea of Twitch to find my inner child and play games again. 

I'd love it if you'd join me. You can find me a chatkitkat and I'm going to post from my Twitter when I'm about to go live and just other fun updates as well. 

Of course, I'll still blog. Blogging has my heart, as do all of you have followed me for so long and been supportive of me as I've grown through difficulties. 

And, for those of you who may be just now finding your way to my blog, whether it be because of adoption-related events or otherwise, please know that you are so welcome here. I may not be posting about adoption stuff all the time, but adoption is still a huge part of my being and this blog is a space to explore the difficult and find the beauty in it. So, I will continue to do that here. 

I'm going to add a Twitter link for those of you who may want to follow me there as well. I think that's mostly going to be Twitch focused. Eventually, the 2 spheres of my blogging life and Twitch life may collide into a beautiful supernova, but for now they are somewhat separate. 

I love community. I love communication. I love chatting about the real stuff of life. And I love learning from you all. Please keep stopping by and if something resonates with you (on Twitter or this blog), please don't hesitate to chime in. This space has always had a focus on collective learning and sharing, and I don't ever want that to change. 

Not Deja Vu, But Just Ugh...

Those of you who have been with me for a while know that I lost 2 kittens over the course of 1 summer to the same illness, feline leukemia. And I swore I would never get another cat because I grow so attached to them, more than dogs. 

And then my psycho ex-roommate (whom I still wish ill-will towards, and have every right to do because of the Hell she put me through) did the only decent thing in the entire 3 years I knew her, and she picked up an abandoned kitten from the streets and brought it home to me. That was a really long sentence. The post-graduate English major in me feels like I should fix it, but alas...

At least the ex-roommate said the kitten was abandoned. But, truthfully, I've often wondered if she just stole it from someone because she was that kind of thieving, pathological lying, ruthless, and scheming type of human. And if that is the case, to whomever loved that kitten, please know that she has been spoiled so much and will continue to be because she deserves nothing less. 

Lots of digression. The point. That little creature I so lovingly call gremlin got sick this week, and it was really scary. It started on Wednesday and by Thursday she was at the vet having a procedure done. It wasn't as serious as it could have gotten, but had my husband and I not caught the signs when we did, it could have advanced and become more serious. The smaller the pet, the faster illness can advance. 

She is now in a cone of shame until next Saturday, like, a week from tomorrow. She is not happy about it, and I'm obsessing over whether or not she's urinated enough during the day, or eliminated waste, or drinking enough and eating enough. Is she depressed or is it the antibiotic doing its work? Like, I literally help her to the litter box because she her spatial awareness is bogus with the cone on. She runs into walls. She peed on the floor thinking she was in the box, but her bummers was hanging over the ledge. So now I position her. Yep. She's having a rough time and I'm obsessing. 

Trauma is weird because it's been 11 years since those 2 little kittens died really tragically and it might as well have been yesterday because the moment my little stinker showed signs that she wasn't well, I became emotionally not well. The smallest trigger can throw us right back to a place we never wanted to be again. And it's like, how do you function? I had to keep working. I had to keep sleeping, but every sound she made at night, I was at her little bed checking on her. 

Here's the thing with pets, and I know not everyone obsesses over their pets like I might. But ever since I was a little girl the 1 absolute truth I knew is that pets are good, there is no bad in them. I've thought a lot about that over the years and I've experienced so many lives in my lifetime, so many heartaches that have taught me strength and love, and so many betrayals that have taught me to share my love and empathy cautiously (which I truly feel is an unfortunate lesson that so many of us have had to learn). 

Animals, by nature, do not perceive good or bad. They understand survival. When they lash out to protect themselves it's not with retributive ill-intent because they are incapable of that ideology. Now, this doesn't mean that they are incapable of feeling emotions because they totally can. But to purposefully harm someone is not something they seek to do. Unlike so many humans. 

So, when she is sick, the world isn't right in my heart. She is the "goodest" thing I've known outside of my family and my husband and a few select friends. 

I honestly don't know where this post is going because it's all jam in my head, but I just spent 5 minutes feeding my cat from a cup because her cone makes it difficult for her to drink/eat from her food bowls. And I would do this the rest of my life because there is no ill in her. But, I can't say that there are certain people I will ever forgive because of my experiences with them. And those same people have claimed they will change, but proved they are incapable of truth and good. And I've cut them from my life because people design their own machinations and carry out deeds for self-serving purposes. Not every human is bad, it's true. But, every human is capable of bad. It's a matter of a single choice. 

Did you know that the action of making a choice is centered in our pre-frontal cortex and hippocampus? The prefrontal cortex is where our self-perception and identity is created. It's major functions include focusing of attention, anticipating events, impulse control, managing our emotional reactions and predicting the consequences of our actions. It's capable of doing this because it's where our memory is stored as well, but memory is tricky because memory is created based on our comprehension of the occurring events at that time. A 5-year old, 15-year old, and 25-year old could share the same experience and remember it drastically differently 10 years after the fact. But, regardless of the purity of the memory, that memory is stored in our pre-frontal cortex and it shapes our self-perception and how we perceive things moving forward and our actions/choices.

What does any of this mean? There's meaning in it all somewhere. It means that a psycho ex-roommate could willingly justify stealing a kitten from someone to give to their roommate (me) as a way to sway things in their (psycho ex-roommate's) favor because they owe that roommate (me) over $10,000. And then months later when that roommate (me) decides to get an officer of the peace to come over so I can feel safe gathering my things to escape a situation that was absolutely horrific to the point that I still haven't fully processed it all, the psycho ex-roommate can claim to deduct $200 from the $10,000+ they owe me. Because -- get this -- it turns out, they adopted the kitten from a shelter, paid the vet checkup bills, and bought the initial bedding, etc. Because they are a pathological liar and they suck as a human. Their collective choices throughout their life resulted in deceit, willful harm and betrayal to others to benefit themselves, illicit and illegal activities to monetarily benefit themselves, and exploitation of those around them in order to maintain power and control. And because they suck so bad as a human, it's easy to cut them from your life and then pray that karma will expose them for who they are and bring social destruction to their life. 

But pets. They don't have any of that cruel capability. So, it's easy to love them unconditionally and it's so sad when they hurt and aren't well because they literally deserve only the best in life. That's why they are so easy to care for and love. 

All I'm trying to say is I hate me ex-roommate and probably always will. And I'm content with that. 

And I absolutely love my cat and will always provide her with the best and the most empathetic love. 

And trauma, once experienced (whether the loss of a pet, an ex-roommate who exploited you in every possible way, or whatever the trauma is), has a really obnoxious way of resurfacing. But, it will also soften with time. I believe this because I know this because I've lived this. Does it make us more discerning and cautious? Yes. Is that an unfortunate price for an important life lesson? Maybe. Still trying to sort that one out. I'd love to know your thoughts on the matter. 

Well, Looky Here

Dear reader: I keep doing this to you. I keep coming back and saying I'm back, disappear for a long time, and then come back and do it again. 

Would you believe me if I said I won't do it again? I hope you'll give me another chance. 

---

I'm a worrier. And for the longest time I thought this blog had to be solely about adoption. That I couldn't post anything else unless it related to adoption. 

The thing with adoption, though, and being a birth-mother is that it's always a part of you. I don't know if I necessarily need to hyper-focus on it, but it does color everything I do in my life.

And there is so much to catch you all up on.

I think we all know that a pandemic is still going on, and monkeypox is now making her debut worldwide because girl can't be overshadowed in the global-pandemic-world of things. All it takes is a brief perusal of the World Health Organizations website to make you realize that coffee never lets you down and the world feels like a massive sh*t-show right now. Inflation (general hand gesture to the left), housing market and rising mortgage rates (general hand gesture to the right). It's stressful and it's frustrating. And the pandemic changed a lot of us. And I think a lot of us are burnt out, but that doesn't mean life takes a break. 

This all sounds horrible depressing. And, it kind of is, but also I think the last few years has shown all of us that we are a hell of a lot stronger than we may have ever given ourselves credit for. And we are still here. I know we've all learned a lot and our perspectives have changed. I know mine has on so many things. 

And, so I'm back. And I hope you'll give me another chance. This blog is going to be about everything relevant to life, and yes, being a birth mother colors a lot of how I interpret and internalize things. And I'll talk about that here. 

I'll also talk about coffee and my favorite protein coffee recipe that I have *mastered.* Truly. I'll even post a video of it because it's beautiful. For real. Have you ever just watched dairy/almond milk/whatever alternative base you use slowly seep into the decadent and luscious richness that is coffee... over ice? It's ridiculously mesmerizing and I'm here for it.

I'm going to also talk about where things are at with my adoption story. Can you believe it's been 13 years this November? I've wrestled a lot with who I am as a birth mom, who I want to be to that little guy I placed for adoption, and if I want to be someone to him at all. And, that's going to be discussed here as well. 

Also, crisis of faith. Because that's a dame that really knows how to interrupt a person's entire concept of self. So, why not give her the state too? It's going to get deep. This is my journal and you have been with me every step of the way, dear reader. There will be breaks from the depth. We'll come up for air from that vast emotional ocean of the soul. But, I hope you'll continue on the journey with me and comment and keep the discussions going with me... maybe over coffee, or a coke, or whatever your caffeine of choice is. 

Kindly, 

Other Mother

Prepare for Liftoff

It's been a long while since I last posted. There isn't a good way to try to explain all that has happened since I last posted in 2015, so for now this is a quick summary of what has changed in my life since then:

-I am married. I married the love of my life in December, 2015.
-I graduated from University with a Bachelors degree in English, Secondary Education
-I taught for 1 year after graduation in the cutest rural town in the middle of Utah and the 8th grade students I taught were the greatest ever. They are graduating this year, which is crazy to think about
-My husband and I moved to California and were jobless for 11 months, which was scary, but we got through it
-We moved from rural California to just outside the capital, Sacramento, and there are a lot of people here who drive all the time and I hate traffic
-We have great jobs here and live in a cute little 1-bedroom apartment. The cost of rent in California is exorbitant enough to gag a maggot and I actively try not to think about how much we pay for rent, but it's our home and we love it
-I worked for an incredibly abusive and inconsiderate jerk in the field of adoption law. I quick after I couldn't take his verbal and emotional abuse anymore and told him on my way out that he was the worst human being I've ever worked for and I hope he treats future employees better. So, that goes to say that I've learned to speak up for myself to employers whom I've always saw in a superior light to myself
-10 days after I unexpectedly quit my job, I landed the greatest job ever in a field I want to be my career (billing towards accounting/bookkeeping)
-3 months after I started working at this incredible job, Covid-19 hit the United States and it's changed everything
-2 months after Covid-19 hit the United States, it was spreading at such an alarming speed that the Governor of California issued a "Shelter-in-Place" order which basically means self-quarantining in the attempt to slow the spread of the virus. It was shortly after this that I was laid-off from my incredible job
-It's been 2 weeks to the day since I've been at home quarantining. The idea is to not go out unless you are doing necessary grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions, or getting out into the sun -- all of which you are to stay 6 feet away from the next person
-For the first time in my life, I've applied for unemployment. Thankfully, it is only temporary, as my employers expect to bring everyone back on when things go back to normal (though no one can say for sure when that will be)
-To keep myself busy, I re-arrange furniture and bake a lot. I'm cleaning all the time and on one hand I love this slower pace of life, but it's scary to be without the income that we need to get by. Millions of people across the globe are in this very same situation


I think that summarizes everything life, in general.


In regards to my adoption story:

-The child of my heart will be 10 years old this year. It is incredible that I'm so far down this journey so far. I remember when it was fresh and I couldn't comprehend getting to this place in time. And, here I am on the other side
-I talk on the phone with this child more frequently, which is lovely
-He wants to see me and my husband, which is beautiful and scary at the same time because what if I'm not what he thinks I am. That, and I know he has so many questions about why he was placed for adoption because he asks about it all the time on the phone. I tell him how much he's loved and how hard the decision was and that I'm going to answer all of his questions when we get together in July (which is the plan, depending on how Covid-19 goes)
-He likes cats and asks about my cat a lot and tells me about how he sticks up for the cats in his neighborhood from other boys who treat them unfairly -He is passionate about what's fair and I can tell he's already figuring out his moral code and he has incredible parents who are helping him and guiding him and that is everything that I wanted for him


Regarding this blog, I really don't know what is going to come from it. I've tried starting other blogs but can never get past the first post. This blog has so much of my history that I can't give up on it, but I've also adapted beyond obsessing about my adoption journey. I don't mean that in a negative way because for a while that was my whole life and I needed to obsess and feel every aspect of it to get to where I am today.

So, this blog is going to be about what goes on in my life, adoption thoughts included. If you feel like following along, that's awesome. If not, that's cool too. So, here we go. Prepare for liftoff.

Going Private

Everyone,

It has been forever since I've posted.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about this blog and what I want to do with it.  I've determined that I want to keep it because it is a huge part of my past and who I've become.  But, I'm also in a place in my life where I want to be more private about what I choose to share online, therefore this blog will be going private.

I truly don't even know how many people this blog reaches, but if you are interested in still following my blog then please let me know in a comment.  My goal is to privatize this in one week, so think about it and let me know by Wednesday, November 18, 2015.

Thank you for your loyalty.  Thank you for your encouragement and support.  I hope this blog has been a place of healing and perspective.  That was my intention from the beginning.  This truly has been a journey, and the journey is getting so much better day-by-day, which is why I'm becoming more protective of what I share.

Sincerely,
Me

Perspective

It's been almost a year since I lasted posted.  Time goes by so fast.  To let you know what I've been doing, I recently graduated from Utah Valley University, as in May 1, 2015.  And I've just accepted an English-teaching position for the 2016-2017 school year as an 8th grade English teacher, and I'm really excited about it.  It's crazy because I've been working so hard to complete my Bachelor's degree that I haven't really done anything else.  I've kept to myself because I've been so absorbed in academic pursuits that everything else just took a backseat.  And also I've spent a lot of time considering what I want this blog to be.

I'm in a very different place in my journey as a birth-mother than I've ever been before.  I've been an activist for adoption awareness in my own way, but I feel like my vision and perspective have shifted.  When I first found out I was pregnant and I took a hard look at my life I realized that I had wasted so much time floundering about and wasting my time on unimportant pursuits.  And as a result there was no way that I could provide for the child I was going to bring into this world.  And that realization came about over the course of my entire pregnancy with Baby Boy.  The day that I finally came to terms with the fact that I would be selfish if I chose to parent him knowing that I had no way to provide for either us was the day that I promised myself that I would create a future so that when I did become pregnant again I could provide for that child.  And that's been my focus.  And through all of that I have a better idea of who I am and I know what I want for my future, and it's happening for me.

This blog has been such a huge emotional outlet for me.  I love the adoption community and I always will because it's within this community that I found my voice.  For the first time in my life I realized that it was okay to say what I want to say and share my experience.  I will always treasure that and all of you who have supported me and been my friend.  And I'm going to continue to share my voice through this blog.

Something has been on my mind the last month, since about mid-April.  It's probably silly but I also can't shake it so I'm going to talk about it here.  It's Birth-mother's Day.  Why do we need a separate day?  Truly, why?  Did you know that the founder of Mother's Day wasn't ever a mother?  It's true.  Her name was Anna Jarvis and she loved her mother so much that she wanted to commemorate that love by inspiring a national holiday to commemorate the love for all mothers, and to ceaselessly show her own devotion to her mother, endlessly.  

Commemorate, that's a good word.  It means to honor, memorialize, and celebrate.  When I think of the word memorialize, I think of paying tribute to someone as a way of honoring them.  I wonder if that's what Anna meant when she inspired this national holiday.  In 1914 Mother's Day became an official holiday.  Anna Jarvis later became disappointed in the commercialization of Mother's Day.  For her, the idea for a day honoring mother's was born out of the recognition that children did not honor their parents, and that all that a woman does goes unnoticed and unrecognized.  Her mother served the family, her husband, and the community with selfless service and was never recognized or appreciated for it.  As a young child Anna swore that one day all women would have the opportunity to be recognized for the selfless acts they do for the benefit of others.

Now I recognize that Birth-mother's Day was born out of a need to create awareness, to educate the broader community, and to honor and remember.  All of that is very important and I acknowledge this.  But I'm concerned that it is beginning to become too commercialized.  Anna's drive to advocate for a day for mother's was born from a prayer her mother gave; a very sacred experience.  My experience to place Baby Boy for adoption was also born from a sacred experience.  It's sacred, in both cases, and many more.  To commercialize on the sacred is wrong.  If it's for awareness sake, then yes that's important.

But more important is that a woman who was never a mother inspired a day for mothers.  And now this day has become a day of stress and self-comparing to other women who seem to do "it" (mothering) better than you/me.  I don't think there needs to be a designation because we are all mothers whether you are an adoptive mother, birth-mother, hopeful mother, whatever.  One woman should not have one way designated for her because of the legal type of mother she is.  We have all sacrificed something great for the well-being of another, and in that light we are all incredible mothers.  To the women out there struggling with infertility, I'm sure mother's day means something very different to you.  And that's my point.  The day shouldn't be something that sets a person apart or that puts them in a different bracket than someone else, and that's exactly what Birth-mother's Day does.  We need to stop comparing.  I am an Other Mother, that doesn't make me less of a mother than a woman who parents her child because I sacrificed and did the best for him that I knew how given my circumstances.  And for women who are waiting on the results of fertility treatments, or for women who are waiting for a placement to finalize, you are also mothers.

I hope my message is coming across clearly.  From the perspective of a feminist, which I consider myself to be, the last thing we need is the compartmentalization of women into categories for the sake of commercialization.  Mother "A" gets the traditional flowers and chocolate because she's a mother-mother, meaning she didn't place for adoption, whereas Mother "B" needs a special trinket from a specialized online store that specializes in gifts for birth-mothers because she's an "Other mother", and for women who aren't mothers, who don't have a child to prove their maternal instinct, well...

Do you get what I'm saying?  Mother's Day shouldn't be about commercialization, and why have 2 types of mother's day for the different types of mothers, when a mother is a mother whether or not she's had a child yet, or adopted a child yet.  Distinctions are made legally, and I can't resolve it within myself that within this adoption community that I love that distinctions are being made among powerful women, important women, life-altering and beautiful women.  This is just my perspective and so I'm not saying it is the only perspective.  But not everyone gets recognized on Birth-mothers Day or Mother's Day because the world fits us in a mold, or they don't know about the Saturday before Mother's Day and it's significance to birth-mothers.  And I've seen birth-mothers feel "less-than" because they aren't acknowledged and that's why we need to be careful.  Our self-worth and importance is not attached to a day that is commercialized.  We are powerful because of the difficult decisions we make.

Adoption Means Family

Something pretty incredible in my extended family happened this recent Independence Day.  It all began 38 years ago when my aunt placed a tiny, brand new baby girl for adoption.  In those days, adoption was something that was not respected.  It was something that was hush-hush and stigmatized.  This baby was delivered and ushered from the room and all my aunt knew was that it was a little girl.  My mother was there for the delivery and six months pregnant with my oldest sister.  Eighteen years later, this girl decided it was time for her to start looking for her birth-mother.  She felt like something was missing and so she began her search to find what she missed.  It was twenty years ago that this girl put her name on a list in hopes that one day her birth-mother would also put her name on the same contact list so that the two could be reunited again.  The fateful day came (a year or two ago, I can't remember specifically) that my aunt began the process to find her birth-daughter.  She had been thinking about it for years but wasn't sure where to start.  Any seeking she had done was in vain as the records were all closed.  My aunt learned within 20 minutes of putting her name on this contact list that her daughter had been looking for her and wanted immediate contact with her.  And so began the journey to this most recent Independence Day when this beautiful woman took an incredibly brave step towards meeting her extended family. 


My mother is the second of 11 children.  I am one of over 50 grandchildren to my grandmother, and there are over 70 great-grandchildren in this one family.  It began as a casual family get-together.  Anyone who could make it was encouraged to come for an afternoon of fun.  And then we all learned directly from my aunt that this beautiful daughter of hers was going to be in town and it grew to be a mini-family reunion where the guest of honor was someone we didn't know was out there but that we jumped at the opportunity to welcome into our love.  I was sitting at a table eating lunch and I looked over to notice a gentleman I hadn't recalled seeing before.  With mentioning how large my extended family is on this one side, I need to say that it is pretty normal for us to not directly recognize someone as new additions through marriage occur often enough that it could be a couple years before we meet the "new" additions.  So, I was thinking to myself Whose been married recently?  Which cousin did he marry?  


And that's when I heard my mother, along with a couple of my aunts scream excitedly and a mad rush was made towards the center of the room and a hugging mosh-pit happened.  That's when I realized that this man was a cousin I hadn't met yet, afterall, and his wife was the cherished cousin that this get-together was honoring and whom was the center of the hugging mosh-pit.  I jumped up and made my way over to this woman.  I introduced myself to her and I told her that I was the niece of her birth-mother and share the name as her birth-mother.  I then told her that I am also a birth-mother and that I was so happy that she was here with her family.  I was tearing up.  I hugged her and she hugged me and we were both emotional and it was beautiful.  I was able to spend some good quality time talking with her and it turns out that she is also a birth-mother.  When it was time to say good bye, I hugged her multiple times and the last time I told her that I may not know her that well but I love her and I'm so happy she is here.  She said something similar and we are now friends on Facebook. 


A couple things.  How awesome is modern technology that you can stay in close touch with the people you care about?  And secondly, how beautiful is adoption?  More specifically, how beautiful is open adoption?  I think it's easy for birth-mothers today who have an open adoption to take for granted how truly blessed we are to be able to maintain contact with the parents of the child we all share in common.  I'm not saying that every birth-mother today has a dream adoption plan, because I know that there are so many adoption couples out there who made countless promises in order to secure the child and then turn their backs on those promises made once the adoption is legally finalized.  You all know my feelings towards those types of parents.  And I know there are people out there who really try their hardest to tarnish the name and intention of open adoption, and it's those people who have not done objective research because if they had they wouldn't be so biased.  And I know there are people who have had traumatizing and hard personal experience with open adoption who choose to defame it by painting all open adoptions in the colors of their own individual experience, and I don't agree with those people, though I truly can understand where they are coming from.


All I want to say though is that in my experience and the vast experiences of countless others whom I associate with who have direct experience with adoption, whether it is open or closed, adoption has been the single-most greatest blessing in their life.  That doesn't mean it was a hard blessing to accomplish, but it was an importantly life-altering and mostly positive experience for them, and they wouldn't change their mind if given the opportunity to go through the experience again.  I'm one of those people.  And on July 4, 2014, I learned something so precious and sacred, that adoption is a means of uniting family.  Whether that family is created through adoption, or is reunited after years of searching, adoption means family.  And family is sacred.  Family is not something so easily defined as the traditional nuclear family we all were taught about while growing up.  Family today is much more extensive and hybrid in nature and it's beautiful.  I am grateful for adoption.  I am grateful to know my cousin.  She is lovely and so much like my aunt in her mannerisms, it's uncanny (in a wonderful way).  She always felt like there were more people out there that she needed to know.  And ultimately, I think that's something we all wish one day for the child we placed for adoption.  Through open adoption, connecting back to the "other" family is much easier.  For closed adoptions, it's much more difficult and can take decades.  But we all have that burning question about who and where we came from.  For adoptees, this question is much less existential.  I couldn't be happier that she found us.  We love her and are so excited to know her.


It's time to paint adoption in an unbiased light.  It's beautiful.  It's fulfilling.  It's tragic.  And difficult.  It's rewarding.  It's honest.  And heartbreaking.  But in the end, if the focus is what is best for the child, it's honorable and nothing to be ashamed of.  For those out there who disagree with me, I would love to engage in an unbiased conversation with you.  The moment it becomes biased is the moment I will disengage.  The fact remains that adoption creates family and family is important and essential to existence.  And no one has the right to say that any family is less important than another simply because of how it was created.  That's all there is to it.  It's time to take a balanced look at what adoption is, and stop focusing on what it isn't.  It's a blessing.

Growth Mindset

It's been almost 6 months since I've written.  And in those 6 months, University has continued to be my main focus in life.  I'm officially in the Education Program this semester and it's been awesome.  I'm taking Educational Psychology, Secondary Curriculum Instruction and Assessment (CIA, tee-hee), American Foundations of Education, Exceptional Students, and Methods II in teaching English.  Yep, it's a heavy workload but it's been manageable.  I've been creating curriculum right and left ll semester and have been analyzing my lesson plans to learn how they've been encouraging cognitive development for the age groups they've been created for.  I've been learning some really amazing things in my Educational Psychology class and some of that stuff I'm going to share on this blog because they are too good not to share.

Carol Dweck is a Psychologist who devised a theory about fixed vs. growth intelligence mindsets.  She wrote a book about it called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.  This entire theory is based on the concept that many students have that intelligence is something you are born with and therefore a person's intelligence is limited.  So, if a student with this mindset struggles with math then they feel defeated because intelligence to them is a biological thing, therefore they will never understand math so why put in any effort?  Carol Dweck says, however, that intelligence is not fixed (biological), but rather it is something that needs to be exercised and strengthened and able to grow.  She did a study with students where she divided them into 2 groups.  Group A was put through an intensive 8 week intervention program to boost their math scores that focused solely on teaching them study skills to help them find success in their math grades.  And along with teaching Group A the study skills, she also taught them that intelligence can be expanded and that it is not fixed (biological).  Group B had the same 8 week intervention program focusing on study skills, but were not taught fixed vs. growth intelligence theory.  At the end of a couple of months, students from Group A (compared against students from Group B) showed improvement in their math grades.  The only difference for these groups was the change in motivation that students experience in Group A because they were taught that their brain had the ability to grow in intelligence.  It's quite fascinating.  You can read more about this study by reading this article: http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-dweck-020707.html

Why am I excited about this?  Because this doesn't just apply to the adolescent mind.  I probably didn't mention that the study Carol Dweck performed was on Jr. High students.  How many times have you been faced with an experience you don't believe you can get through?  I know I've faced so many of those moments that I can't count them.  I want to say that I don't think that Carol Dweck's theory only applies to cognitive intelligence but also emotional intelligence.  You always hear that saying, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle," but what if He does?  I read another blog a while back and I can't for the life of me remember the name of the blog, so just realize that this idea is not original to me.  This woman, in her blog, challenged the notion that we aren't given more in this life than we can handle.  But it wasn't defeatist.  She ended her blog by saying, essentially, that God does give us more than we can handle, but He does so that we will learn to turn to Him and let Him carry the part that we can't.  That's pretty cool.  I want to add to this that I think He does give us more than we can handle, because maybe that's the point of this existence; for us to learn the valuable life lessons that we would otherwise not learn unless faced with despair, trial, hopelessness, loss, anger, and etc.  That sounds depressing and I don't mean for it to.  All I am saying is that just like growth intelligence mindset (cognitively speaking), I also believe that we have a growth emotional-intelligence mindset.

Those of us in the Adoption community have faced hardship, and we continue to face hardships.  You know what I'm talking about.  As birth-mothers and birth-fathers (they matter too), and birth-families (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.), we experience a great loss in the placement of our beloved child to another family; a family that will have complete legal authority for the child.  As parents who are looking to adopt for reasons related to fertility, they've endured loss over and over again in their attempts to grow their family.  I can't speak for adoptive children, because I'm not one, but I can only imagine some of the emotions they would face at different times in their lives, especially people who were placed for adoption during time-periods where adoption was closed and considered taboo.  That kind of loss (for all of us) is deep and difficult to navigate, but we are navigating it and that is powerful.  Don't limit yourself in the amazing things that you can accomplish, but most importantly don't doubt yourself in the emotional depth that you can achieve when you face something that feels too big.  You can get through it.  We all can.

Light

I want to tell you all a story about goodness that exists in this world.  It's a true story and one that is very close to my heart.

It was in May 2013 that I met Marvell Smith.  I had just gotten out of an extremely bad relationship in December 2012 and I was pretty bitter.  Marvell was a wedding photographer and I had become familiar with his work in 2012 when the guy I was dating at the time was talking about marriage.  I was blown away by Marvell's photography.  He captured moments, not images, but heartfelt and emotionally intimate moments.  It was true art and not like any other wedding photographer I had ever seen.  You can see it for yourself at his blog:

http://vellvetimages.com/#/home--utah-wedding-photographer/

I never messaged him about his photography, though.  It wasn't until May 2013 that he and I started talking about getting to know each other.  At this point, I was in a bad place.  He was so nice and engaging and intriguing.  I wanted to know more about him, but more than anything I really wanted to know a man that wouldn't let me down.  Let me clarify that last statement.  My brothers and dad are amazing men and they don't let me down.  The type of relationship I'm talking about is outside of familial relationships.  I don't have that much experience with good men outside of my family.  Marvell surprised me because he was always uplifting.

In June 2013 we decided to go on a date.  We had a really good time.  It was really late, like after 9:00 at night when we had our date.  I was a bundle of nerves.  Borderline basket-case.  When I got out of my car to walk up to Marvell, I didn't know if I could even look him in the eyes because... I was nervous of men.  He smiled so big and his eyes were so kind.  We talked a little bit.  He was a master body language reader.  As a police officer, he made a career on reading peoples' body language.  we ended up talking for a bit longer and then we went and got what we thought would be a quick dinner.  Six hours later we were still talking.  We talked about everything.  I couldn't remember the last time I felt so completely comfortable and safe with a man that wasn't a family member.  He had me laughing to the point of tears.  And his laugh was incredible.

Over the course of the next 3 months, he became a fast friend.  We never did go on another date, but we became amazing friends.  I always looked forward to his updates about weddings he was shooting and if I was ever having a rough day, I knew I could text Marvell and he would say the exact thing I needed to hear.

On September 18, 2013, to the shock and sorrow of all that knew him, Marvell died in a motorcycle accident.  I woke up that morning at 7:40 a.m. thinking to myself, "I need to text Marvell and tell him how much I love him."  I pushed that thought to the side because it was so early and I didn't want to risk waking him up as he always stayed up so late editing photos from his wedding shoots.  And I didn't want to interrupt his morning with his sons if he was awake.  It was a school day.  So, I didn't text him.  I found out at about 10:00 a.m. what had happened to him and... nothing can prepare you for that kind of news.

I've really struggled this week since Marvell passed away.  I didn't know him as well as I would have liked.  My heart is broken for his friends who knew him for years.  My heart is broken for his family and his two boys.  There is nothing easy about an unexpected passing of a loved one.  In some ways I don't feel like I have the right to mourn his passing because I didn't know him as long as others.  But, I know that if Marvell heard me utter that thought that he would laugh at me and tell me I'm an idiot, or something like that.  And I would laugh.  He had this way of bringing things into perspective in such an easy and comical and non-judgmental way.  It was honest.  I loved that about him.

I believe that there are people who come into our lives when we need them the most.  And if we pay close attention, we will learn from their example the things we most desperately want to know about ourselves, our lives, this world, and love.  It was no accident that I met Marvell when I did.  I needed his example the most when I met him.  I only knew him for 4 months, give or take a couple of weeks, and that's all it took for him to change my life and impact me for the better.  I wish will all my heart that I could have known him longer.  But, I know he's not gone, and better yet, I know that I will see him again because of the Atonement.  He taught me about the Atonement.  He taught me so much.  He taught me about God.  He taught me about trust.  He taught me about friendship.  He taught me selflessness.  He taught me love.  He taught me that I am so much stronger than I ever thought.  He saw me in ways that I'm still trying to comprehend, but he helped me see that those ways are there.

I miss him so much.  Words are not enough to express my gratitude in knowing this man.  When we lose someone so important to our lives it's hard not to question why they were taken from this world.  It's hard not to question why someone who was a light in our life, why their light had to be extinguished from our sight.  Especially, when they made the world seem less dark.  What happened to Marvell was an accident.  I believe that accidents happen and they hurt God's heart just as much as our mortal hearts.  And it is in those moments that God has to make something beautiful out of something tragic.  Marvell was a protector and a visionary in this life.  He always chose only to see the good in people.  I know that he is still protecting on the other side.  And that's a comfort to me because we all need protecting angels because there are so many aspects to this world that are dark.

I will never forget Marvell.  He was so talented in so many ways.  And he was an amazing father to his two boys.  He was a brother, the oldest in his family.  And he was a son.  He was a friend.  He was so many wonderful things to so many people.  He will be missed by so many.  And that's a testament to the man that he was.  He was good.  He was honest.  And he was loyal beyond words.  And he's got two boys that need all of our love a support right now.

I rarely do this, I can think of one other time that I did this and that was for a local family trying to raise funds to adopt siblings from Ukraine.  This is important, otherwise I wouldn't mention it on here.  There is a fund that has been set up for Marvell's two incredible sons who entered the 7th and 10th/11th grades this year.  Any donation you can part with will be greatly appreciated.  Marvell was the type of man that helped out everyone.  He was so giving.  He gave so much to the community of Utah.  Even pennies will help.  If you would like to donate to this fund, you can find it at the following link:

http://marvellsmith.org/

Thank you for remembering this man with me.

Birth Mother Baskets: Guest Blogger ~ Kathryn

Birth Mother Baskets: Guest Blogger ~ Kathryn

I have had the honor to be a guest blogger over at Birth Mother Baskets. You can read what I had to say by clicking on the link above.

Thank you Gina and Jenny got the opportunity.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T and Giving Yourself a Break

I've spent a lot of time thinking about Baby Daddy.  It hasn't been pleasant.  It's hard to find the right words.  I've been on this word craze lately where I don't want to use filler words.  I think words are taken for granted on a daily basis.  I think it's easy to talk about someone when you are somewhat emotionally disconnected because then you talk about that person in a very generalized way.  I've thought back a lot on what I've said about Baby Daddy in the past.

I can't be mad at him.  Without him I wouldn't have known my greatest joy.  

It's true.  But, also without him I wouldn't have known my greatest sorrow.  Nothing can truly prepare you for the moment of placement.  Don't get me wrong, it is good to educate yourself on the options and to make a birth plan and to decide beforehand who will be at the hospital while you are there or whether you want that time alone exclusively with the child you bring into this world.  But when it actually comes down to it... there are no words.  And he did that to me.  Baby Daddy did that to me.  Granted, I had a huge part in it because I took the risk on Baby Daddy being a man I desperately wanted to find.  And, the bigger the risk... well, I think you know the rest of that.

I realized I was pregnant immediately.  I know some women say that and it's unbelievable, but I knew.  That last time I had relations with him, I knew that I was taking a huge risk and I did anyways.  I am very body sensitive and the few weeks following I noticed the difference in the way I felt.  I knew I had to take a pregnancy test, but I also knew that I needed to be in denial for a little longer.  Two weeks later, I took multiple pregnancy tests, hoping the first, and second, and third, and fourth were wrong.  Six tests later, they all read the same, positive.  I was 4 weeks pregnant when I found out.  

I will never forget that day, the day I found out I was pregnant.  I was in complete disbelief, even though I was staring at the evidence that proved my disbelief to be invalid.  I think "awe" is the correct word.  That word is grossly misunderstood.  I think people think that it means something tender when in fact the dictionary defines it as "an emotion... combining dread... and wonder that is inspired by... the sacred or sublime," and in it's archaic form, "the power to inspire dread."  Thank you Miriam Webster, I truly would be lost in this world without you and your online dictionary.  So, what does sublime mean?  It means different things, but the sublime that is talked about in the definition is actually The Sublime, which is the same Sublime that Edmund Burke wrote about in his essay entitled, "On The Sublime" (soooo original, Edmund Burke), written at the beginning of the 20th century.  The Sublime is a branch of aesthetic philosophy which defines what the quality of greatness is, or that which terrifies and causes awe to the human soul.  Ultimately, The Sublime is defined as something that is so emotionally big that it can't be comprehended when experienced.  It has everything to do with The Romantic Movement in literature, something I can get real nerdy about very quickly.  I was alone when I found out I was pregnant.  When I was younger, I imagined what it would be like to find out you were pregnant and then tell your husband and the joy that would be felt because you loved each other.  I still hope for that one day.  But, the day I found out I was pregnant was harshly different.  I was alone in my bathroom crying and screaming into a towel so that my roommate wouldn't hear me.  I didn't know what to do.

For the next nine months, I would have you believe that I was the epitome of grace under pressure.  I was calm.  I was serene.  I was patient.  I was scared to let anyone see how ashamed I was.  I noticed the stares in the grocery mart when people would ask me if this was mine and my husband's first and I would tell them I'm not married.  Their eyes would dart to my ring finger and they would get this expression on their faces like they were mortified for me.  Mortified: to subject to severe and vexing embarrassment (Miriam Webster Online Dictionary).  Forget the fact that they should be mortified for assuming that everyone who is pregnant is married.  They were embarrassed for me and they would tell me so and suggest that I wear a fake ring just until I had the baby.  

When I was seven months pregnant, Baby Daddy called me and he wanted to come back to me because he had "no where else to go" and if I didn't let him come back then he would "be on the streets".  He didn't want to come back to me because he loved me and he was sorry he cheated on me.  He didn't want to come back to me because he knew he had done wrong and that he let go of the greatest thing that ever happened to him in his life.  Simply, he had no where else to go.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, I was in pain all day at work.  My boss kept telling me to go to the hospital and I kept telling her that I just pulled a muscle in my back, "no big deal".  She kept telling me I was in labor and I had no color and I needed to go to the hospital.  I told her, "we are short staffed and you need me here today."  She didn't argue and I stayed.  I went home that night and I couldn't get comfortable.  I was scared.  I didn't have anyone to rub my back or watch over me as I slept in case I went into labor.  When the pain became too unbearable, I grabbed my overnight bag and I went down to my car and I drove to the hospital and I was admitted.  They checked everything and I was only in pre-labor.  They offered me a shot of morphine to help numb the pain and I told them I drove myself.  They asked if my husband could come pick me up.  You wouldn't believe how many times I had that conversation when I was pregnant.  I ended up calling my sister and she and her husband came and picked me up.  He drove my car home and I drove with her.  When I came downstairs, a Lamaze class just got out and all these women and their supportive husbands came out of the room just as I got off the elevator to meet my sister.

The next day, Thursday, November 12, 2009, I went to work and then during my lunch went to my baby doctor appointment and he told me I was in labor.  Apparently, the morphine hadn't worn off yet (small favors).  So I drove myself to the hospital and checked myself in.  Sixteen hours later, early in the morning of Friday the 13th of November, the most perfect child I've ever witnessed was born.  I fell in love with him.  On the 16th I placed him in the arms of a social worker and I left the hospital.  

For nearly 4 years I have protected his father.  I haven't said one ill thing about him.  I have protected a man who never protected me and was never there for me when I needed him the most.  And through all of it, I have beaten myself up.  I have taken all the emotional responsibility on my shoulders.  I have put Baby Daddy on this pedestal for giving me the most sacred gift.  And he did.  He gave me the most sacred gift, but he also left me.  

I've blamed myself.  I'm not enough.  Those words have haunted me.  He left because I fought back.  And so I have been docile.  I'm not loveable, his leaving is my fault.  Those last words are the most hurtful.  For nearly 4 years I have harassed myself with cruelty.  At what point do you finally let yourself off the hook and give yourself a break?  At what point do you finally give yourself a break the way you do to others?  I ask you all the same question.  That's what this post is about.  

Accountability.  There is something to learn in everything, even the easy stuff.  I have learned that I am enough.  I have also learned that it isn't enough to simply say those words.  You have to believe it and live it.  And that's hard, but I'm working on it.  If you don't learn from your greatest hurts then they may happen again.  I chose the wrong guy.  I took a huge risk.  I gambled everything I had on him and I lost and it hurt.  However, my douche-radar is working much better now and that's something to applaud.  Be kind to yourself.  Let yourself off the hook when what's snagged you isn't your's to take responsibility for.  Your actions belong to you.  And the actions of other's belong to them.  Give yourself a break.

Adoption.NET

I want to take a minute and let you all in on an amazing website that has so many resources available to everyone in the adoption world.  It is Adoption.NET and on this website you can find answers to different questions posed in the adoption world by adoptees, birth-mothers, and hopeful adoptive parents.  There are also different articles that you can read regarding important topics in adoption as well as discussion on the latest legislative proceedings regarding adoption in different states.  This website... let's just say I really wish there was something like this website when I was going through the whole process.

This is unbelievably exciting because at the click of a mouse you can connect with people going through the same thing you are going through.  Also, there is a section on topics regarding foster care which is a huge component in the world of adoption.

I know some great women (not personally, but through blogging) who have already contributed such tremendous insight as gust bloggers and I will also be contributing my thoughts as a guest blogger, once everything is arranged.  The goal of the creators of this website is to have this website be the largest database of "everything adoption" on the website.  It's really going to empower a lot of people out there and I am so excited to be a part of it.  Check it out.

If you know of anyone who has found themselves in an unplanned pregnancy, guide them to this website.  If you know of a couple who are struggling to grow their family and they are confused as to how to find information out there regarding any decision they feel they are faced with, guide them to this website.  If you know of a person who was adopted and they are at a place in life where they have a ton of questions and they need some answers, guide them to this webpage.  What an exciting time we live in to have so much valuable information readily available!  Check it out, folks, you won't be disappointed.

Most Sincerely,
Other Mother

http://adoption.net

Monogamy and Keriah

This is weird because I have marriage and death on my mind at the same exact time.  And there is some anger in there as well that I have not been expecting.  I've known birth-mothers who have hated and bad-mouthed the birth-fathers of their child and I never understood that.  I haven't really spoken much about Baby Daddy on here, in detail.  And, quite frankly, I don't know if I'm going to.  We'll see.  For a long time I felt pity for Baby Daddy.  And to this day, I don't even know if he is alive.  And I don't know if I even want to know.  So, there you have it. 

Scratch that.  I just spent the last hour-and-half trying to locate him.  The last electronic imprint I can find on him is from 2010.  I also found his mug-shot from 2006, which was 2 years before I met him.  When I knew him, I didn't know he was a criminal.  I didn't know of his criminal background until he cheated on me and left me for another woman whom was already married... and pregnant with his child, it turns out.  As if that isn't enough salt in the wound, it turns out she was 3 weeks further along in her pregnancy than I was when I found out I was pregnant.  She ended up mis-carrying due to her meth use.  I learned all of that from his mother when I was seven months pregnant.  He wanted to come back to me, I told him where to go, and that was the last time I ever heard from him.  I never told him I was pregnant.  That's where I'm at right now, emotionally speaking.  I never expected to feel these feelings of anger towards him.

I am frustrated that I can't find any information about him after 2010, but I'm not frustrated for me, I'm frustrated for "my" little boy.  I hope Baby Boy will never have a desire to look up his dad, but if he does, I'm sad for him that he will most likely be led to a dead-end.  And I'm relieved that he will most likely be led to a dead-end, and sometimes... it's horrible.  Sometimes, I hope that dead-end is that his dad has passed away.  And then I feel pity again for Baby Daddy that if he is gone from this life, that he left it never knowing the beauty and light of "my" son, whom he helped to create.  And then I hate him.  I've never said that on here.  I hate him for his lies.  I hate him for his manipulation.  I hate him that he used me so poorly.  I hate him that he misled me.  And then I realize that not all the hate belongs to him, because at that time in my life, I thought that to love someone was to trust them... and I trusted him way too easily.  So, there you have it.

What do I tell Baby Boy if he ever asks about his dad? 

Then there is my job.  I work in the field of divorce.  I see divorce every day, Monday-Friday, and an occasional weekend when I have to take work home with me.  The type of work I do, I am a microscope to parents who are involved in extremely high-conflict divorce cases and who can't co-parent together and in attempts to emotionally injure the other parent, they use their children as ammunition in their war against each other.  Sometimes I find myself wondering, "What if I had told Baby Daddy?"  And then I go to work, and that question is answered as I navigate and negotiate between warring couples and advocate for their children.  My little boy... it scares me to think what his life could have been like. 

Marriage is a curious thing to me.  I want to be married so badly, it's unreal how deeply I feel this hole inside me that will only ever be filled by companionship of a husband and our beautiful children.  I'm no where near that, and that realization tinges and tingles my eyes with tears of frustration that I push back because I'm afraid to let them loose.  I have this fear that lives in the back of my head that keeps telling me that marriage doesn't last.  And that fear is mostly correct, 50% of marriages don't last.  But, 50% do.  And I want my future marriage to be part of the 50% that lasts.  But, how does that work?  And that's when the fear in the back of my head whispers loudest.  I don't trust men with me and I don't want to. 

What I want is to trust one man with me, just one.  And that man, I know he's out there and I know he is looking for what I have to offer him, and I have a lot to offer him.  But, it's getting harder to find him.  I'm not the only single girl who has noticed this.  My roommate and I talk about it all the time.  I just want something real.  Someone who can be real with me and not leave me questioning his motives and whether I'm "doing" our relationship "right", and whether or not he's going to leave me; that's my biggest fear, is to be left.  Does that make sense?  I don't know what I'm doing.  I know what I'm not going to do anymore, and that's all good to know, but when it comes to dating, I have no clue what I'm doing.

What I do know is that I've got to figure some things out about myself still.  I've come a long way, but I haven't gotten "there" yet, wherever "there" is.  I think "there" is a place where I'm content.  Content in a way that is secure.  It makes me think of Keriah.  I don't know how many of you are familiar with Keriah.  I don't know a whole lot about it, I've just been reading up on in.  From what I understand Keriah is part of Shiva, which is a week long mourning period in the Jewish culture that first-degree relatives (mom, dad, sibling) observe at the death of their loved one.  At the funeral, the mourners rend/tear an article of their clothing and they wear this same garment for the whole of Shiva.  It's believed that the practice of Keriah is rooted in a more ancient tradition of tearing at your hair and clawing at your skin during mourning, which from what I understand is forbidden in Jewish law.  But the idea is the same, it's a visual representation of extreme sorrow, while also allowing a mourner to show their anger and sadness in a physical way.  It's quite beautiful, really.  It seems honest.

I think that I'm going through an emotional rendering right now. 

That's an interesting word, "rendering".  It can mean a translation to something else.  "Translation" is also an interesting word with spiritual connotation, but the basic meaning is a change from something to something else, a transition.  I'm in this emotional bog right now where I am transitioning.  I recognize how far I've come and I'm implementing what I've learned and I'm so grateful for it all, but I also realize that there is further to go.  Baby Daddy... I've never felt anger towards him and I do now, and I think that my anger is more honest than my feelings of Zen towards him were because there was no enlightenment in my lack of anger then.  It was fake.  I didn't know how to feel about him.  I was trying to figure out how I feel about me. 

The fact that I feel the way I feel when I remember him tells me that I've got to tear through and remove the part of me that is still hurt.  I can't carry that kind of baggage into a future with a good man. 

I don't know if I've made all these connections effectively enough.  Keriah is about honesty.  It's about transition too, I believe.  It's facing the fact that you hurt and it's letting the hurt be known and seen and felt, and over the course of Shiva, experienced.  And then the mourning ends and you move forward.  I don't know how much of this anger is straight anger or masked sorrow.  That's the thing about grief is it can take a while to sort out what is what.  It's taken me nearly 4 years to realize that I have all of this inside me and that it is directly connected to Baby Daddy.  It makes sense.  It wasn't just Baby Daddy though.  It was all the guys who came before him, too.  None of them were "keepers".  I was desperate for marriage and an identity because I had no clue who I was.  I know better who I am today.

It's hard not to compare all the men I've dated.  They were all scumbags.  Truthfully, they were emotionally and physically abusive scumbags.  Today, I know a couple of guys who aren't scumbags, they are really great men.  And one of them I really want to see what will happen with because he's great.  I've talked about him recently on here.  I don't know what he thinks of me.  He's hard to read.  And I can't help but recognize that I'm probably really hard for him to read, as well.  Heck, I find myself hard to read and I'm me... so, there you have it. 

This post seems really depressing, or maybe not, I don't know.  I'm emotional right now, so it's hard to gauge how it comes across.  What I do know is that I'm not the woman I used to be and that's good, and it's also sad because I lost a lot of innocence.  But I'm stronger now than I ever was and that's a good thing.  I don't know how I will ever answer the question about Baby Daddy and that's not good enough for Baby Boy because every person, at some point in their life, wants to know where they came from.  I will learn how to answer that question because I know it will be important to Baby Boy and he deserves to know if he ever wants to know.  What I do know is that the confusing emotions I feel right now about Baby Daddy are more honest than I've ever allowed myself to feel since I met him and it's uncomfortable, but change and transition usually are, and so I'm doing it right. 

Pink Vulnerability

I've been on a mission the last little while to understand vulnerability.  It's something I've all felt countless times in my life and that I believe is absolutely necessary in growing lasting relationships.  But, it can also be devastating when shared inappropriately.  So, where is the balance?  And what does this have to do with the Year of Pink?  Hopefully, that will all come across in the post below.  This is a bit of a free-write for me.

Another word I think of synonymous with vulnerability is victimization.  For a long time I couldn't separate these two very different words.  I think that there is a chronic error in society today that confuses what vulnerability is and how it should be expressed.  With social network sites like Facebook, it's easy to have complete transparency to your life, especially with GPS in smartphones, every movement you make can be closely monitored.  And the over-sharing information is shockingly accepted.

I know that in terms of my own life experiences, I have historically opened myself up (making myself vulnerable) to unnecessary hurt because I thought that by trusting [enter multiple names here] without knowing much about them and taking them for face-value, I would get on a "real level" with the other person.    That's a huge oversight.  That's the way I thought relationships were supposed to happen.  I recognize now that I opened myself up without completely understanding of the true intentions of others.  I was really naive.  And it hurt, a lot.  And it's a cycle, folks.  I did this over and over and over again, not fully understanding the hurt that my own actions were causing me.  And because I didn't see my "part" in any of it, I started to believe that maybe it wasn't worth it to trust people, because horrible things kept happening to me.  And for a really long time, I was in this emotional place where I just thought that the problem was everyone else's.  "Why would [enter multiple names here] treat me like that?  I would never treat someone like that.  Why does this keep happening to me?"  I was a victim.  Granted, I'm not taking full responsibility for the hurt I've felt at the hands of others, rather I'm taking owning my responsibility.  I was victimizing myself.  And nothing was changing.

About a month ago (Warning: I am a horrible gauger [is that even a word?] of time) I hung out with this guy.  He's a protector in the world.  He protects people and upholds the law.  I was hanging out with him and when it was time to say goodbye, I got really weird.  Up until it was time to say goodbye, I was absolutely fine.  I think I might have even been funny and engaging.  Then we were walking to our cars and I shut down.  I couldn't even look him in the eyes.  My eyes were watering and I couldn't say a word.  And I started thinking of all the men who had, in the words of Rosemary Clooney, "done me wrong."  He had nothing to do with them.  He's nothing like them.  He's decent and smart, and intuitive, and, overall, a stellar human being.  He noticed my weirdness.  He was trying to keep conversation going and I was uttering one-word responses.  We were at our cars and he told me, "I need you to give me a hug."  And I wanted to give him a hug.  So, I did.  It was a great hug.  I say that because it's on my list of "great hugs", it's one of four other memorable hugs.  I may be a list-addict at heart, I heart list-making.

That hug has stayed with me ever since.  He and I still talk.  I consider him a dear friend.  And I have a huge crush on him, but what's a girl to do in today's skiwampus world of dating?  Until I figure that out, he's a friend.  I got in my car and I drove away and I wanted to cry.  But I didn't know why.  All I knew is that I felt unbelievably vulnerable, only he did nothing to make me feel that way.  So, why was I feeling that way?  I think this is where I hope that all my ideas converge into one really great, "ah-ha" moment for you dear readers, as they have for me.  As usual, it's hard to articulate the "ah-ha".

The way I felt had nothing to do with him.  It had everything to do with the men I've allowed into my life and to whom I willingly opened myself up to being vulnerable to, without knowing their true nature.  That feeling had everything to do with me keeping myself in a place that I no longer wanted to be.  Honestly, it was a new experience for me to hang out with a guy who is decent and kind.  It was such a contrast to what I've known in my dating life up until that moment.  And that moment of, "this is so nice," converged so abruptly with memories of when I wasn't treated well, that it was shocking.  And overwhelming.

So, where is the balance between "vulnerable" and "victim"?  I don't have that answer.  I'm still learning it.  But, what I do know, is that you don't just trust blindly.  Vulnerability is opening yourself up to being emotionally wounded.  It's taking a chance on something, knowing very well how much it could hurt, but also hoping for how much good it could bring to your life.  I guess it's a gamble, but even gambling is all about numbers and odds, so you don't go into it completely blind.  And maybe that's how you gauge your vulnerability, you don't share it until you are absolutely certain that the odds are greater in your favor that the person you want to open yourself up to and get to know won't hurt you.  I just heard a giant and collective, "duh!"  I know, it's such an obvious thing!  Don't follow virtue blindly, check.  But, for some reason, I didn't know I was believing without seeing until very recently.

Vulnerability is Pink.  The more I think about it, the more I realize that just as pink is a mixture of white and red, two very opposing colors, I believe vulnerability is the mixture of knowing when to yield (white) some of your control and put some trust in someone and when to fiercely protect (red) your heart from a person.  This is my year of pink.   

Child of My Heart

Revelation

“In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.” 
― Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart

Time has been on my mind lately.  Not just time, though, but also how things change.  And how in some instance time moves faster than a mountain storm in the spring.  You know, the kind of storm that you are desperate for because it washes away the last of the snow and you know that just behind the storm is the warmth?  I love storms in the spring.  Time moves the fastest when what you are experiencing is the easiest.  And the flip side of that is true, as we’ve all experienced, that time moves the slowest when you are in the most pain.  It’s in the moments of the most growth that a lifetime can be lived, the same moments that are the hardest to bear.  

I've been reminded lately of someone that I used to be.  I acutely remember the first year after Baby Boy was born.  I was a mess and I was afraid to let others see me that way.  I was more concerned about preserving the feelings of others and not scaring them with my feelings than feeling my own feelings.  Everything I felt was so confused that to even let my thoughts wander a brief moment felt like I would be drowned from the inside.  I was afraid of everything.  I didn't trust anyone.  And when I did, I put my trust in the wrong people and only more pain ensued.  It felt like the whole world was a giant injustice and I wanted to fight against all of it and so I let myself be angry.  And the source of all my anger was my fear and my hurt but I didn't want to face it because it hurt too much.  I felt abandoned and like I abandoned my baby.  Try and wrap your mind around that.  I hated myself.  I hated love.  I hated happy families.  I hated God.  I hated religion.  I hated anything that made me feel.  I lost myself in my work for all the wrong reasons.  I didn't want to be left alone.  I couldn't stand to be alone with myself because it was when I was alone that I had to be in my own company and I didn't know what to do with myself.  I smiled at the world for their benefit because I didn't want pity and so it was easier to pretend only pretending made me angrier.  I felt desperate in everything I tried to do.  I put so much pressure on myself and if I fell short of the ridiculous expectations I set for myself then I hated myself even more.  I was mean to myself.  And I believed that all that I felt (all that I've explained here) was my punishment for the rest of my life for my indiscretions against God.  And so, I resolved to just survive.  Basically, I set myself up to fail.

It’s been nearly 4 years since “my” little boy was born.  It’s been nearly 3 years since after that first year away from him.  It feels like a lifetime.  And I’m not the same person that I was during that first year.  This post is for the new birth-mothers out there and anyone else who feels like they've lost themselves.  To the birth-mothers particularly, I remember what it feels like to hear the cry of your child in the middle of the night, only to wake up and find that your child isn't there.  I remember what it feels like to feel like you are losing yourself in a grief you don’t even know how to begin to understand.  And I can tell you, that you will find yourself.  One way or another, you will find yourself. 

I think I've found myself, most of me anyways.  It’s been a long time coming.  I don’t necessarily know how it happened either because it hasn't been a smooth process.  What I do know is that trying to find myself has been a constantly active choice.  I've slipped up more than once (there was actually 2.5 years of constantly slipping).  It’s been frustrating and has felt hopeless at times.  And then something shifted and all of a sudden “it” was obvious, but still without a road map.  You just “know”.  You catch yourself in your patterns of negativity and you realize that there is a different way to do things and so you start there.  I think that one thing that people forget about the grief cycle is that it is very much a cycle and there is a rhythm to it.  And each rhythm for each person is as unique as our fingerprints.  I finally figured out my rhythm.  Once you figure out your rhythm, the next step is to actively decide whether or not you are going to let the negative part of the cycle consume you, or if you are going to consider and recognize how much softer the blow “this” time around feels.  And it does get softer.  I promise it gets softer.

I am stubborn and my stubbornness, for a long time, was something that I used against myself.  Now, I use it to help myself.  I’m compassionate.  This is something I've always been and I allowed it to be used against me (not actively allowed it, but naively and truly not knowing any better).  Finally one day I decided that I would protect and advocate for myself like I protect and advocate for others.  What does this mean?  It means that I can still be compassionate towards others but not at the expense of myself.  Another thing I've learned is to accept what “part” of a mess is mine and not the whole mess.  I still get in sticky situations with people, only now I don’t apologize for their part of it, only my own.  I think it’s easy to use our bad experiences as crutches to life.  It’s easy to tell ourselves that we can’t do something and believe it because believing in our weaknesses is always an easier alternative to fighting for the sacred “something” we find every excuse not to go for.  After placement of Baby Boy, I found every excuse not to do things.  And now, I’m trying to find the reasons why I should do things.  It’s such a simple thing to say, and a lot of you out there are probably thinking, “duh.”  But, for me this was a huge understanding.

There is no recipe for finding yourself.  I truly wish there was because I think there would be a lot less hurt in the world.  Who do you want to be?  The only difference between that person and who you think you are now, is yourself.  As much as I wanted to believe for a time that the “thing” holding me back was the choices of those who used me or hurt me, what I finally realized is that it wasn't them.  Granted, they weren't helping me, but I was allowing “them” to use me.  I now realize that I command the caliber of people I allow in my life.  Old habits die hard, but there is a reason why habits die off. 

We've all been given one lifetime to live, but in the course of our one lifetime we adapt to time and circumstance too many times to count.  And the choices we make in the most desperate of times are the ones that shape our future.  And in that way, our one lifetime can become several.  And that’s a beautiful thing if you think about it.  Our circumstances, our sorrows, our angers, our hurts, our destruction's, our negative beliefs, none of those have to be the life we choose for ourselves.  And it’s in this way that within our one lifetime we can live as many lifetimes as we choose.  The choice is yours.  You have control of it.  You command your life.  If something isn't working for you, you have the power to change it.  No one says you have to live the life you've been given by circumstance or bad choices.  You can make your life what you want it to be.  If you told me this four years ago, I wouldn't have believed you.  Four years ago, I would have told you all the reasons why that truth (making my life what I want it to be) didn't apply to me.  But, four years later, out of my greatest paradox (my greatest sorrow and achievement) I can tell those of you who are struggling with serious hurt and sorrow, that this truth- making your life what you want it to be- most definitely applies to you.  All it requires is for you to believe in yourself the way you believe in others.  That’s where it starts.  That, an patience.