Sometimes adoption just confuses me.
Not in the regular old sense like “how does all this corruption continue and why won’t so many people bother to see the so logical truth” or “how exploitive and sleazy will agencies have to get before moms see through their tricks?”, but in the tradition of the Talking Heads: Well how did I get here?
The fact remains that the relinquishment of my son Max at birth continues to be the single most life altering action of my whole life.
The fact remains that adoption continues to affect my life, my child’s life, my other children’s lives, etc to this day. But it’s really, really weird when I have to honestly look at this traumatic and horrible event and acknowledge the actual good that has come out of it. It’s so conflicting!
If it wasn’t for adoption….
- I would not be here, writing, right now. I actually wonder if I would even be writing at all if it was not for adoption. I don’t honestly know. Being part of the online adoption community has honed my ability, whether natural of not and it’s not like I ever knew that had it in me anyway. I write because of adoption. I write to be heard. I have mastered the way to speak clearly in debate and concisely with feeling so the myriad of details are understood. I know there is power in how I can say things and I love the legacy that I can give back. I was never a writer before, but now I am. Yes, maybe I would have found another outlet. Maybe some other cause, Healthcare or Global Warming say, would have brought out a natural activist in me, but maybe not. We’ll just never know.
- I adore so many people who I have met because of adoption. My life is so much richer due to having the honor of knowing so many amazingly strong people who use their gifts, their pain, and their strengths to fight for the common good. From role models to kindred spirits to friends, characters, victims, or foes…I know my live would have never crossed paths with so many, if not all, of you that are part of my daily existence, or even those who are welcomed visitors if not for adoption.
- I have traveled and had some once in a lifetime experiences at adoption related events. Would I have experienced actually lobbing in my states capital if not for adoption? Would I have gone to the KANN conference which was, for me, a Korean cultural eye opener, plus huge fun? Would I have served on the Blogger Panel at the Ethics Conference? Met Darryl McDaniel’s? Been a “expert” guest on a TV talk show? Been Interviewed on NPR? Talked to reporters? No. I can say that probably none of these things would have happened if not for adoption in my life.
- And then there is my job. OMG my experience online for adoption issues, running about forums, blogging, writing and self publishing, getting the truth out there, out anywhere, turned out to be the best on the job training for a job that didn’t even exist yet. Yet now, newly promoted, I am The DIRECTOR of SOCIAL MEDIA at an internet marketing company and I explain to NYC firms and major companies how to do this thing online that is just natural for me and almost, truthfully, old hat. Plus the company I work for is filled with great people and I walk to work every day. Can’t beat that. If it wasn’t for adoption, I would not have this surprising career, a rather impressive looking title, and the happy, job secure, payday.
So it’s hard sometimes. I am at a very good place in my life. I am very happy with what I am doing. I am very happy with being me at this place and this time and yes, I have to say that many of the better experiences were very influenced by the very negative experience of adoption and relinquishment of my son.
Sometimes it almost feels like life is trying to make me feel almost grateful for having this adoption train wreck in my life.
Call me stubborn, but that ain’t gonna happen.
I know we can play about with the whole “meant to be” scenarios like,” I was meant to be this adoption activist, writer, etc and if it wasn’t for the journey.. blah blah” I can’t play that, I just can’t. Coz If I do, then it means that I was supposed to have relinquished Max and supposed to have cried all those tears, and supposed to have had to explain to my kids that even if money s tight this week, no you won’t get a new family, suppose to have had to witness and been a part of all this pain. Really, it would be like saying to a widow who happily remarries 10 years after his wife dies in childbirth that she was meant to die, and the child to be motherless, because now he met this great lady. I bet no matter how much he digs wife #2, he still didn’t want his first wife to die and if he could, he would go back and change it.
Like as much as I have said to myself and others the old platitude, “Everything Happens for a Reason”, it just does not fit here. It just will not. I won’t let it.
Hence, the conflict.
I won’t justify the loss and pain suffered from adoption because I am good now. In fact, I will go so far to say that my true belief in my own abilities, in my true self, allows me to say that I would be good now, in a good place, abet maybe, most certainly, a different place, should I not have relinquished my son at birth, but it would be ok.
And really.. the only thing I would be missing is the constant loss of my son in my life and no one in their right mind would want that back!
Everything else I would not have known about to even know that it was gone. It can’t be gone if it didn’t happen. I mean really, do I miss the life with that man I briefly met on a subway in NY and the kids we would have had if I hadn’t gotten off at 8th street? Obviously not, because that’s just too silly.
But I have always missed my life with my child and I always will.
Because it did happen.
It was real. I did give birth and I became a mother.
And adoption can’t rewrite that.
I guess it’s just my Karmatic bonus that everything else happened. Or maybe it’s a tricky disguised booby prize?
I’m not sure on that one, but while I can acknowledge that yes, adoption brought me to some very good places, bottom line.. it still sucks an I would undo it all if I could. Though if life would like to win me some Lotto winnings in order to try and change my mind, I would be open to that!
You would write anyway, you would have travelled anyway and you would have met other great people.
Nothing that I do that is powerful and interesting is reliant on adoption. Most of the people I have met online because of adoption I do not value as friends.
All my talents and gifts are despite adoption not because of it.
You are a gifted writer you would write about something else really you would.
Dare I say your life would have been better if you hadn’t lost your first born to adoption.
I wonder if you need to make it ok because it’s such a painful thing? I do that by comparing how my nephew turned out to how my daughter turned out. Or I just stay in the now and don’t look back anymore, choose which ever way is easiest.
I was sorry to read your mother’s day writings, I am sorry you were so sad, that’s not nice. You deserve love and happiness.
Paradoxes. I do think there are paradoxes in our lives and those of us who live with them, KNOW this more than those who need the cut-and-dried, “but if it weren’t for this, then this wouldn’t have happened and therefore, aren’t you grateful for . . . ?”
I’ve been asked if I’m now grateful for my cancer since my life is now richer and fuller and I’m closer to God. No, I’m not grateful that I had cancer. I’m grateful for where I am now, but I’m not grateful for what I had to go through. It’s a paradox. It’s not an entirely comfortable one to live with, but live with it, I do. Life is NOT cut-and-dried, and I think adoption is less cut-and-dried than probably anything else in life. Just because your life is good now doesn’t mean you have to say “OH, gosh, I’m so glad I relinquished Max.”
NO. It’s a paradox and some people just will never get it. Complex thinkers will. 🙂
“I bet no matter how much he digs wife #2, he still didn’t want his first wife to die and if he could, he would go back and change it.”
Hm, I think I will partially agree. It is true that he might totally “dig” wife #2 now, and that he is truly convinced that if wife #1 -had- to die from cancer then he appreciates the good times he is able to have with wife #2 now. And I’m certain he wouldn’t have wanted to have wife #1 die anyway.
But I wouldn’t go so far as to say he would definitely go back and undo wife #1’s death. He would still have laughter and tears and good times with wife #2 and those would also be worth something valuable to him.
I often wonder – since my sister is based on my adoption – if I hadn’t been adopted, my sister would not exist. Does that mean my mother would have went back in time so that accident never happened and thusly subsequently give birth to my sister? I don’t know. I like to think she entertained what that possibility might have meant, however absurd it is, because she never got over losing me even though raising Sister gave her lots of happiness as well. So yes and no.
Would she have liked to raise me, yes. Would she have liked to keep me, yes. But the thing is, she was disadvantaged and my sister ended up taking my place and as much as my mother missed me throughout all these years, I do not think she would want to “give up” my sister if she had that opportunity.
Anyone who’s lost a loved one like the hypothetical widower and gets the chance to go back and undo their death (NOT like in “The Monkey’s Paw”) would jump at the chance. To say otherwise is just crazy talk. No one wants their loved ones to die if it doesn’t have to happen.
I would love to have more time with my grandfather, for instance. I didn’t get enough and then suddenly he was gone. I want him back, and healthy and happy. I can’t prove whether there is anything after death but I know for a fact there’s something before it.
I look forward to the day when I do not have to do this fighting for all of us. I look forward to the day when I can take down all of my email groups. I hope it is in my lifetime.
Love you and take care of you.
Amy
Thank you for sharing your story. We are trying to adopt after miscarriages and years of trying, but treading very carefully – it seems like a minefield in the adoption “industry”. Just wondered if you oppose adoption overall?
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