Birth Dad – Page 2 – The World As I See It

Adoption Thoughts: Healing

June 3, 2014

This post went to a totally different place than I thought it would but I am going to leave it how it is because I think it will help someone out there. It also was a great way to get some feeling out that I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about. I want to THANK YOU for taking the time to read this post & pass it on to someone it may help.

I wrote a post last week about Mother’s Day and I want to do another post in this series. I am thinking to make this a bi-monthly feature on my blog if that is something you think you would be interesting in reading please let me know in the comments below and I will make sure it happens. For this post I am going to talk about how the healing process has gone for me over the years.

When I think of how healing has gone all I can think about it how the first year was so hard. I didn’t know for day to day how I was going to get through. There were times in the first days and weeks after that I had no idea how I was going to make it through the next hour or even the next minute. There were times where I had to just focus on the next breath because of how much it hurt. Everyday it got a little easier or it may just may that I found more ways to keep my mind busy so that I wasn’t constantly thinking about it.

After the first year things got easier in the fact that I didn’t think about it every minute of everyday but it still hurt. I know the hardest part for me was not having anyone to talk to about it. It has always been a closed subject with my grandparents so even today it isn’t something that is talked about and that makes it hard to heal. I know since I have started blogging about it and even telling some other people about it that is doesn’t hurt as much.

Even though it has gotten so much better I still have days where it is really hard to deal with and I have to focus on the next hour or the next minute to get through the day. I definitely have triggers and things that I know will make things hard so I try and avoid them as much as possible. People don’t understand how hard it can be and the triggers so they think I am being rude when I don’t want to be around their newborn babies.

I also have been having a hard time lately helping take care of my brothers son who is 6 months old. There are times when I feeding him or playing with him I wonder what it would have been like to raise my daughter and take care of her. When I voice this to people they think that I regret placing her but I will never regret that because I know it was the right choice. I just start doing the what if’s and that just leads into a vicious cycle for me. I have had to walk away and take a few minutes to myself to stop the cycle that goes on in my head.

Even though it is so hard for me to take care of him some days it has truly been healing for me. I personally don’t want to have children and if I didn’t have my brothers son in my life I know there are somethings that I would never be able to heal so I will always thank god for that little boy.

Now I know everyone’s healing process is different and I also know that everyone deals with things differently. I guess the reason I wanted to write this post is to let people know that it will be okay and it does get better over time. If you made it to the end I say thank you for taking the time to read this post. I will be back tomorrow with another book review that I know you will all love.

Adoption Thoughts: Mother’s Day

May 21, 2014

Mothers Day was a few weeks ago and because it is a hard time for me I couldn’t bring myself to write this post at that time. I still wanted to write this post in hopes that it may help a birth mom out there know that she isn’t alone when it comes to hating Mothers Day. I never have been a huge fan of holidays like Mothers Day before but now I hate Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is hard for me because I am in a weird place in regards to being a mother in the eyes of people in the world. It is hard to know that you are a mother but to basically have everyone ignore the fact that you are. I try and make it a nice day for my Grandma but in the end I always end up just being sad. This is also one of days that I always wonder what it would have been like had I kept her and decided to parent. Now that being said I don’t regret my choices because I know I made the right choice for her but you can’t help but wonder sometimes.

I guess I just wish that people in the world we understand that there are different types of mothers and not every mother looks the same. Just like not all mothers become a mother the same way. It hurts me to see other mothers talk down to birth mom’s because of the choices we made for our children. It is also hard because if you don’t know a person placed their child then you have no idea. It is just a hard place to be and it makes Mother’s Day hard. It is also seemed from time to time on Mother’s Day that some people rub the fact that you placed your child for adoption in your face and think that he desire to be miserable and in pain on Mother’s Day.

Those are just a few thoughts that I have been having this year about Mother’s Day. I also wanted to share this video that I found last week. I knew I wanted to share it with everyone because it spoke to me and it was an amazing idea and it was an amazing video. I hope it also helps people see that there are different kinds of mothers in this world. Watch this video and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Stop Trying To Convince Me

April 15, 2014

I haven’t ever talked about today’s topic because I know there are people who are passionate about this topic and before now I have never been in a place where I would be able to handle any backlash that comes from this post. I finally am in a good spot emotionally that I know I can handle anything that comes from me posting this. Now before I get into the topic of this post I want to let everyone know that I am not writing this to anyone in particular I am just venting.

Anyway lets get on to the topic of this post. I want to write about people in the adoption world who believe that everyone who places their children for adoption was forced and/or coerced. I want to talk about this because I am not the type of person who can be forced to do anything let alone place my daughter for adoption.

Now I know that people were and probably still are forced to place their children for adoption. I also agree with the fact that girls need to know that this can happen but they don’t need to try and convince those of us that placed our children that we were forced to place them. While I agree people need to know I don’t agree with people trying to convince those of us who weren’t forced or tricked into placing our children like they were.

I am just tired of being told how I should feel and what I should believe when it comes to the adoption of my daughter. I knew what I was doing when I made the choice that I did. I wanted to give her everything that I didn’t know if I could ever give her. I wanted her to have a stable environment, two parents in the home, siblings, and things like that. My childhood wasn’t stable up until my grandparents got us full time and I didn’t want her to feel what it feels like to not know what was going to happen from day to day like I did.

I hope that this post made some sort of sense. If you have any thoughts about this please let me know because I am always open to talking about things and hearing other peoples opinions on things but like I said trying to convince me I was forced to placed her isn’t going to get any response from me.

My Open Adoption Thoughts

June 13, 2012

I haven’t written anything about adoption in awhile so today I am going to talk about open adoption and why a totally open adoption isn’t for me. If you don’t already know open adoption is defined:

Open adoption is an adoption in which the biological mother or parents and adoptive family know the identity of each other. In open adoption, the parental rights of biological parents are terminated, as they are in “closed adoptions” and the adoptive parents become the legal parents, yet the parties elect to remain in contact. Open adoption has become the norm in most states in the adoption of newborns.

Source: Wikipedia

At this point I would consider the adoption of my daughter to be semi open or even almost closed. I get a card from them on Christmas and if during the year I want to an update I email them and ask for one and I am 100% okay with that. I know that some people won’t understand why I am okay with so I am going to try and explain it as best as I can.

For the first year I got letters and pictures pretty regularly and to be honest every time I got pictures and a letter it brought back all of the emotions. Once the letters and pictures stopped coming as regularly and now have pretty much stopped I have found been able to heal and stop living in the past.

Now that isn’t saying that I don’t think of her because I think of her every day but I feel that I am not stuck in the past. In order for me to heal and get at the place I where I can now talk about it to anyone with out getting depressed I had to put everything that reminded me of her away. I found that when I had her things out that I was dwelling on the pain and not living my life.

I am so glad that my adoption is how it is because it has allowed me to live my life and heal from the pain. Now there are still times that it is hard for me but those times are few and far between anymore.

Songs Of My Life

May 17, 2012

I haven’t participated in the Writers Workshop for a few weeks but I really liked on of her prompts this week. I am going to write about: 5.) List the songs that tell your life story (so far). I am sure most of you know that I love everything that has to do with music. I am just going to list the songs and if you click on the name it will take you to the music video.

Welcome to My Life-I first heard this song while I was pregnant and it still reminds me of my life. I love everything about this song. I still have days where it is exactly how I feel.
Over You-This song is for someone in my past. I think there is only one person who knows who this song is for. I am not going to get into the story because it isn’t something I can really talk about yet.
In A Hurry-This song is how I am. I am trying to slow down and just enjoy life but that is always easier said than done in today’s society.
I Wonder-This song is how I feel about my birth mom and it says everything I wish I could tell her but I won’t ever say to her.
Best Days of Your Life-This is song is for my husband and it is how I hope he feels.
Everything to Me-This song is written and sung by Mark Schultz. He was adopted and he wrote this about his feeling on adoption. This song is written from the point of view of the child who was placed. There is a song by Cheire Call who has a song that is written from the birth parents view but I couldn’t find a video on it.
Fly Away-I have a post coming up on Monday about this song so please make sure you come back and see why this song applies to me.

These are the first 7 songs that came to mind when I saw this prompt.

Do you like any of them?

What songs tell you life story?

Adoption-Pure Love

April 30, 2012

I am sure that most of you know by now that I place my daughter for adoption when I was 20. She will be 7 in July and it is so hard to believe that it has been 7 years since I have been pregnant. I never thought I was going to make it through the first year let alone 7 years.

I recently found a blog by Tiffany who recently adopted a little girl. As I was reading through the story of her adoption I found a part in her post that put into words things I have wanted to say for 7 years but could never find the words. Here is the quote:

I deeply resent the people who have said, about birth parents, “I can’t imagine ever giving away my child.”

The pain involved in the choice to place (not give away) your child for adoption is one most of us cannot imagine. The reason it is painful is because when we love someone, our instinct is to hold tight and never let go. This instinct isn’t really the love itself but rather our own heart’s selfish desire to protect itself from the pain of loss.

But birth parents understand that truly loving someone can mean letting go. It can mean wanting more for your child than you feel you can give.

It is utter selflessness. It is true courage. It is pure love.

I read this quote to my grandma the other night and it brought tears to her eyes. This says everything that I felt when I placed my daughter but have never found the words to express. There isn’t much I can really say about it because she says everything that is in my heart. I really recommend that you should go and check out her blog and read the whole story of her adopting their newest little girl.

What do you guys think of her quote?