Adoption Story – Page 2 – The World As I See It

Who Knew. . .

February 19, 2014

In a post that I wrote a few weeks ago I talked about how my brother now has a baby who is going to be three months old next week. Up until my brother had this baby I haven’t really been around babies since I placed my daughter for adoption almost 9 years ago.

I now realize how much I truly missed of her growing up. I knew logically what I missed but since I hadn’t ever really taken care of a baby I didn’t get to see first hand what I missed with her. Having my brothers son around has made me realize what I have missed and make me miss her. That being said I don’t regret my choice because I know without a doubt that she is where she needs to be it has made me miss the milestones I never got to see.

It is crazy how 9 years later I am finally realizing everything that I missed out on. I am sure most people figure it out sooner than I have but everything happens in gods time and I don’t know how I would have dealt with it if it happened any sooner than now. Since I have always had to deal with everything having to do with the adoption alone I am glad that I didn’t have to see what I was missing sooner because I couldn’t have dealt with it any sooner than now.

I truly believe god knew that I couldn’t have dealt with it any sooner than now so he made sure I didn’t have to deal with it. There are times when I take care of my brothers son that I have to give him to my grandma and walk away because it hurts. There are many nights that I find myself crying again because seeing how much I missed out on is hard for me. I just wish it still wasn’t hard dealing with everything because I know it was the right choice for her and for me.

My First Pregnancy

October 29, 2013

This is another prompt for one of the writers workshop and I wanted to write about it because my first pregnancy was with my daughter who I placed for adoption when I was 20. I wanted to write this more for me than anyone else and maybe one day my daughter will read this and she will have some idea of what it was like for me being pregnant with her.

When I found out I was pregnant I was about 6 weeks pregnant and so sick. I had morning sickness so bad that I had to take an anti nausea pill almost every for most of the pregnancy. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones where the morning sickness goes away after the first trimester.

My pregnancy was also harder I believe because I knew through the whole thing what the end was going to be. I never thought I could keep her so I always knew that I would end up leaving the hospital empty handed. I tried my best not to bond with her but anyone who has been pregnant before knows that you bond with your child because you are with them 24/7 for nine months.

Towards the end of my pregnancy my back was out and I just miserable. I did end up going to the chiropractor because I wasn’t able to sit down or stand up without pain. It took a few times but he did make my back better and I saw him through the end of my pregnancy and in fact I still see him from time to time.

My pregnancy wasn’t the best out there but it was terrible either. One of the best things about the whole experience is the fact the my Multiple Sclerosis went into remission while I was pregnant so I didn’t have to worry about anything crazy going on with that but it got bad after I delivered and the hormones all dropped off. I have been thinking about being a surrogate because I truly didn’t mind being pregnant and I would love to help people have their families. I do know that I don’t think I will have anymore of my own children but like I said I would love to help out other people.

How was your first pregnancy?

If you want to be apart of the writers workshop you can click here and find out all about it!

8 Years Ago Today. . .

July 9, 2013

As I have sat here the past few weeks leading up to this week I decided instead of writing a letter to my daughter or just another post on how I am feeling about everything since it has been 8 years. This year I am going to write about the day I signed the papers and left the hospital. I haven’t written this post yet because out of the whole experience this was and still is the hardest part of the situation.

I find this day as the hardest because it was the day that I had to admit that I couldn’t do it and that she was going to better with the family I chose for her than she would be with me. I am pretty sure that unless you know who I am personally you don’t know that I hate to admit that I can’t do something. So for me the hardest part was signing the papers and handing her off to her family.

While I was pregnant I didn’t think I wanted to even see her and I thought there was no way that I could do what they call a “direct placement”. All that means is that I hand her off her to her family and then I leave instead of what some people do where they just leave the baby in the bassinet and walk away.

I am not going to go into much detail about the days that let up to the 9th but I am sure in time I will talk about those as well. I remember like it was yesterday my social working coming into my hospital room on the 9th bright and early and asking me if I was ready to sign the papers. I told her yes and she went out and grabbed two nurses because there had to be two witnesses and I started signing the papers. I remember getting to the final papers where I relinquish my rights and thinking to hurry and sign it because if I didn’t I didn’t know if I would be able to.

After I signed the paper the brought in my daughter and I held her for about an hour before the family came into my room to see her and talk to us. I remember we were all talking and then the mood changed for me. I am not sure why it changed but I realized that my time was coming to an end and I just started crying. My worker then knew it was time for the placement to happen so I handed her off her adoptive dad and just cried. At that point my social worker had them leave the room and I left the hospital about 30 mins or so later.

Even as I type this I am tearing up because my heart is still broken and I know there is no way to fix it. That being said I don’t regret the choices I made because I know without a doubt that she was meant to be in their family and not meant for me. The emotions are still raw when it comes to placement day and it is something I never want to go through again. That is all there is to this post because this post was more for me than anyone else.

Day 8- A Moment You Felt Most Satisfied In Your Life #30DayChallenge

February 5, 2013

Today’s topic is a moment that I felt most satisfied in my life. As I thought about this topic for the past few days I really can’t think of anything that truly fits. The one thing that kept coming in my mind was when I placed my daughter for adoption. Now this was the hardest thing I have ever done but it was satisfying in the sense that I know I did the right thing for her. It is hard for me to say that because it was by far the hardest thing I have ever done. That day will forever be the worst day of my life but it also proved that I can do anything that I put my mind too.

I also think that part of the reason that comes to mind is because it has been almost 9 years now and I in a totally different place when it comes to how I look at the adoption and the place I am at with all of it. That is really the only thing I can think of. Let me know if you have any questions!

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.

Connor & Cooper

January 22, 2012

I started reading “All Are Precious In His Sight” in April of 2010 while the little girl named Chrisse that they adopted from Serbia was in the hospital after having heart surgery. She passed away after fighting for 31 days. Chrisse was an amazing little girl and she taught me so much. I never met her but knowing her story she showed me that there are so many children out there that need homes. It breaks my heart to know that children that have disablities in other countries and just left in orphanages and eventually get transfered to adult institutions where they spend all of there time in cribs being basically ignored.

Right now they are in Ukraine adopting these two precious boys who have down syndrome.

They are going to name them Cooper & Conner. Let me tell you a little bit about these two boys. You look at them and think that they are 3 maybe 4 but no these two boys are 6 years old. They are in cribs all the time and Conner has bed sores on his back. They are posting every day on there blog about visiting with the boys twice a day and also they upload videos to their YouTube channel of the boys and them interacting with them. I bought a bright pink hoodie from a fundrasier they were doing trying to raise money to get and get two different boys but that adoption ended up not working out. I have been reading their updates everyday and watching the videos. My grandma also asks me each day what went on today with them. I want to ask everyone to pray for them so that they can get these two boys home soon!

I felt the need to write about this because there are so many kids out there who need families. As everyone knows I am a birth mom so I know all about domestic adoptions but I knew nothing about international adoptions. They found Chrisse and both of these boys through Reece’s Rainbow. Reece’s Rainbow lists all the kids they know about that have some sort of disablities it is also a place for people who want to help but don’t feel the calling to adopt. They let people donate money to any of the kids so that when their families find them there is some money already to help out with the costs. I was not asked to write this but I want to let people know that if you want to help out orphans you should donate money to these kids and help them find their forever homes. I am going to pick a child or two and try and raise money for that child so that they can find a family. I ask that if you have a few extra dollars please consider donating to this site and help out these precious children.