Adoption Thoughts – Page 3 – The World As I See It

Adoption Thoughts: Things People Say

June 20, 2014

This week I am going to write another post in my adoption thoughts series. This post is going to be about my current thoughts on people telling me “I could never do what you did” and “You are so strong”. There are times when hearing these things don’t really bother me and I will just say thank you to them but then there are times like right now when hearing both of these things just get on my nerves.

When people say “I could never do what you did” it usually leaves me just staring at them because how do you really respond to something like that. Up until recently I haven’t really said things back to anyone but now I almost always say “unless you have been in the same situation you don’t know what you would be able to do”. I know people just say this because they don’t think they could do it but I didn’t think I could do it either until I was in the situation. I never thought that placing a baby for adoption was something I could handle but once I was pregnant with her I knew without a doubt that it was something that I had to do. I mean who grows up thinking that they are going to give birth to a child and then place that child for adoption.

Now when people tell me I am so strong this quote always pops into my head:

Being strong is always relative to the person. Like the quote says you won’t know what you can do or how strong you are until you have to face it and deal with whatever is happening to you.

I guess the whole thing for me is that I just did what I had to do in the situation that I found myself in. I know in parts of this post I sound harsh but this is how I feel some days and I don’t want to sugarcoat things or make is seem like these things don’t really bother me. I have spent many years not talking about how things make me feel and I don’t want to do that anymore. For the first time I want to be honest with others and even myself.

If there is anything about adoption that you would like me to talk about please let me know and I will work on it for you.

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.

I Learned

February 27, 2014

This week for the writers workshop I am going to write about 1.) Share something you learned in February. There are quite a few things that I learned during the month of February. The biggest thing I learned during February was that you should never take a day for granted because you never know when it will be your last day.

The company I work for had one of the ladies in our accounting department pass away suddenly and that made me realize that I need to stop taking every day for granted. I have noticed that for the last few years I have just taken for granted that tomorrow is another day but I came to realize this month that I can’t take that for granted anymore.

Another thing I learned this month is how much time sucks. I say that because I always hear that time will heal and let me tell you that time hasn’t really healed anything. I wrote about how I am feeling this month about placing my daughter if you missed that post you can click here to check it out. I had hoped that at almost 9 years later I still wouldn’t be struggling with placing her. I know that I will never forget but I had hoped that it would get easier with time and it hasn’t gotten any better.

Those are a couple of things that I have learned during the month February.

What did you learn during February?

If you would like to join in this week here are the prompts. Also after you write your post make sure you click here and link up your post.

1.) Share something you learned in February.
2.) Top 6 Favorite people to follow on Pinterest.
3.) Update your readers on your 2014 goals. How are things going? Are you staying on track or facing some challenges?
4.) Describe the most vivid dream you can remember.
5.) Your least favorite subject in school.

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.