I was contact through the facebook page by a wonderful lady who adopted a child already and they are looking to adopt another child. I asked her if she would write a post about how they felt about their child’s birth mom. Here is what she wrote. You can their website and blog here. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Something has been percolating in me lately, and it has to do with birth mothers.
As an adoptive parent of an amazing six year old daughter through domestic open adoption, I would love to shout from the rooftops that adoption is beautiful. But, that is not the entire story. And I am not talking about adoption scams, failed adoptions, the cost, or any other roller coaster issue that often comes with open adoption.
The adoption of my daughter in 2005 is the MOST wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, and I am forever grateful to her birth mother for choosing us. Maggie is such a blessing in our lives, and I can’t imagine life without her.
I am writing today about how difficult it must be for most birth mothers to place their children for adoption. I know there are probably some that don’t struggle with it at all. But, I imagine that many, many birth mothers have an incredibly hard time placing their child for adoption. Even when every ounce of their being may believe it is the best thing for the child, I can’t help but think how hard it must be to let go of something you love and is biologically a part of you.
My daughter’s birth mother struggles with her adoption decision. At the time of my daughter’s birth, I did not know how much she was struggling because she kept that private until years later when she revealed that she had asked the nursing staff to bring the baby into her room every time we left the hospital. We had always thought the nursing staff was pushing the baby on her because one nurse in particular did not believe in adoption. We were also so overwhelmed with new baby excitement that we might not have noticed the subtle messages she might have been sending. We certainly didn’t pressure her, but I imagine there were many things in life that were pressuring her to place the baby for adoption (her age, lack of income, resources, and life experience to name a few).
Since our adoption, our birth mother has had two other children whom she is parenting with the help of her boyfriend. I can’t help but think that she feels sad that she is not raising the child she placed with us for adoption.
As adoptive parents, we should dance in the streets with excitement when a baby is placed with us. But, we should also be aware that our blessing may mean our birth mother is experiencing incredible heart ache over her decision.
If we do the math, adoptive parent’s blessing = birth mother’s loss.
I am not saying that adoption is bad or anything even remotely close. Even though our adoption in Louisiana failed, it was clear to our birth mother in that situation that she could not take care of the new baby, and she wanted a better life for him. She remained committed to the adoption plan until the end, and though she was committed to this plan, it was still clearly very painful for her. The baby’s birth father stepped in and changed everything, so now she has a baby that she didn’t think she could raise. I pray that somehow they make it.
Birth mothers have given so many of us the greatest blessings in our lives. It is not something that can be re-paid in anyway other than to do our best to raise the baby and to honor any promises made to a birth mother. Recently, I have read many birth mothers and adoptive parents speak about the adoptive parents cutting off contact or not honoring the adoption plan that was made. I imagine there are extreme circumstance where this might be warranted, but in the other 99% of the cases, adoptive parents should honor the adoption plan (maybe this is easy for me to say because we have a great birth mother).
Birth mothers deserve to be treated with respect and for us to honor our promises made to them. Most birth mothers pick us because they believe we are decent people who will do a great job raising their baby. That doesn’t mean we should only act like decent people until we finalize our adoption. Not honoring the adoption plan is not right to do to the birth mother, and it is definitely not the right thing to do to your child.
One day our children will be old enough to really understand the circumstances of their adoptions. Let’s hope we have not behaved badly in a way that our children will rightfully resent or hate us for betraying their birth mother.
I have the utmost respect for birth mothers. I can only imagine the amazing courage it must take to do what you think is best for your baby despite the heart ache you might experience.
Without my daughter’s birth mother, my life would be so empty and incomplete. I am so grateful that she trusted us enough to raise her daughter and to maintain contact with her.
I look forward to the day when another woman will trust us enough to raise her baby, and will know she can trust us to do the right thing in our relationship with her, and her relationship with the child.
But, I don’t ever want to pretend that it is easy for a birth mother. With our joy comes a birth mother’s pain. And that’s an adoption truth.
This week I am going to write about eating healthy. I realize now how important watching what you eat is. Since I have be diagnosed I found out that I shouldn’t eat gluten. I don’t think I have Celiac’s Disease but I know if I eat gluten I am going to get a headache and a few other symptoms. I have noticed since I have cut out most of gluten in my life that the MS isn’t as bad. Now this could be because of the medication I am on but I truly think that by cutting out the gluten my body isn’t as reactive as it was when it always had it in my system.
The MS Society recommends a low fat high fiber diet. They say that you should eat a diet low in saturated fats and use supplements of Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils. I personally can’t start taking any of the fish oils so I used to take Flax pills instead. I also read on another site where it says you should cut out all fried foods and refined sugar. They also say that white meats and fish are the best kinds of meat to eat. I personally am considering going back to being a vegetarian. You need to also cut out any foods that you are allergic too. You should eat lots of vegetables and drink plenty of water.
As I was researching for this post I realized that this “diet” isn’t any different than what every person should be doing regardless if they have MS or not. I am going to try and follow what I have learned but I know it will be super hard for me. I feel like I already cut so much out when I took out gluten and dairy that I am not let with many choices. I know that I have to do this though so I am going to start working on it!
If you have any questions or have a topic that you would like to learn about please leave me a comment and let me know! I am always looking for topics.
Here is Melissa’s post for today. I want to let Melissa know that I am so thankful that she writes for my blog and that I am so glad God put her in my life because she has taught me so much. I look at her like she is a my mom and hope one day her and I can meet in person!
About this time last year, I got really frustrated about never being able to find a purse big enough to carry all the things I have to carry with me – this included my diabetic kit. So I got this wild idea, why not buy a diaper bag? It certainly would be big enough, not to mention it would have plenty of compartments so I could be better organized. I picked out what I thought was great one. It was brown and green, and it did not have any decorations or words on it that indicated it was a diaper bag. I really thought no one would be able to tell that I was carrying a diaper bag instead of a purse. I was proud of my purchase – at first. After I got it home, I started feeling a little bit of regret about buying it. No matter what I initially thought, and no matter what I put in it, the thing still looked like a diaper bag. Not wanting to admit I had made a mistake when I purchased it, I used it. A few short weeks later I replaced the diaper bag with a purse, and quietly stuck the diaper bag someplace where I did not have to see it. I regretted buying it, and I was relieved when I could hide it away.
Whether it stems from something not working out the way we thought it would, or because of our own poor moral choices, regret is something we all have in common. What sets us apart from one another is how we choose to deal with it. Some of us can appropriately manage our regrets, but then there are quite a few of us who make the mistake of wallowing in regret. Getting bogged down by the should’ve’s, would’ve’s, could’ve’s of our past mistakes prevents us from being able to learn from them, and move past them. I know it would be really nice if we could just throw our mistakes away, but we can’t. Our mistakes are part of who we are.
What we can do to prevent us from getting bogged down by feelings of regret is quietly put our mistakes away somewhere, just like I did with that diaper bag. We should not get rid of them, because there may be a time we may need to call on that experience in order to keep us from making the same mistake again. Or to share our own experience with someone else to prevent them from heading down the road we already traveled.
I believe God wants us to live a full and meaningful life – even if you did buy a stupid diaper bag. Put it away.
I have started this new feature because I love music and would like to share it with all of you! This week I am going to post a song by Simple Plan called “Welcome To My Life”. I first heard this song when I was pregnant with my daughter. It says how I felt at that time and how I still feel about my life. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
