Bare with me becasue I think I am still trying to fiqure this out.

After I wrote out last nights post, I was still thinking a bit about it all. Especially that conflicted feeling that I have…the thrill that Max and I do have this connection, yet coupled with the sadness that even for three seconds he felt out of place in his life.

Now I have had internet “discussions” and I say that loosely as they were often a bit more harsh than a discussion, where someone, usually either an adoptive parent or and adoptee, will pretty much chastise a mom for speaking the truth about their feelings. And I have heard it asked and stated as fact: You like it when you hear that you kid was unhappy, you want to hear that they were miserable without you”

To be truthful, its all mixed up.

Relinquishing a child to adoption is dening one’s motherhood. For whatever one’s reasons..whether they are forced into it, or make that “loving choice“, either for survival or becasue we are taught that this is the way, we learn not to think of ourselves as that child’s mother. That we are not what this child needs, that we are not good enough for the job at hand, that we will fail this child and fail ourselves, fail at life becasue we had a baby and became mothers before we are suppose to or in lesser than ideal circumstances.

So adoption gives us that out…not mother.

Birthmothers are Supposed to Forget

Now thats the way it is suppose to work. We are suppose to be able to peel oursleves out of our humanity. Forget we had a child, move on, get over it and be ok. And we know, really, that it just doesn’t work like that.

None of us moms forget. Oh, we might bury it way deep down, we might refuse to hear about it, we might drown our sorrows and pain in an addiction of choice, we might become insane activists, etc. Many differnt people with many differnt coping mechanisms, and years to try on many differnt ways, but I don;t care if you are a real crack whore, or were 13 years old, or a 30 year old single mom who just can’t do it with another child, or if you have the greatest open adoption in the century, or really are living out of a box on ramen noodles, or living in Gautamala, or have to leave you child at the side of the road least your husband lose his job and you all starve in China, or are a prostitute and drunk in Russia…WE DON’T FORGET. We might like to…we might pray to, but really..you cannot.

Origins new Motto is MOTHERHOOD IS FOREVER. I really like that. Its just true.
But in the midst of a crisis pregancy and trying to keep status quo, I really did think that I could pull a fast one on life and shut off my purpose, my true self, deny that I was a mother.

OK, so we go though this whoel thing..trying so hard to NOT be a mother. We don’t think of ourselves as that, we ignore Mother’s Day, we call our child’s adoptive aprents his parents, we use “birth” prefixes, and it becomes a way of life that some of us will never break out of.

What Happens when Our Motherhood Matters

So when I do hear my son say that he is amazed that he fits in..while my heart breaks for him, I am acknowledged somehow.

I am important. I always was important. I meant something to him even if he didn’t know it until now. There was something that I could provide that no one else could, just becasue I am his mother. I had the keys, to his family, to his clan, to other people just like him. In fact, at this point in my life, I choose a town, a community, a family, a world, where we, the odd freakish alternative folks that we are..are very trully comfortable. My little rural city…it rocks here..this place is mecca!

So what was done to me, by me and life and others….the spell is broken. And what I have learned, that mothers are not interchangeable, and children should not be, has really become to ring true. And while I don’t like it..and I really do not. He was suppose to be OK..he did not desreve to have to pay for my mistakes, I see now that he has. My mistale was not BECOMING a mother..no matter what the time, what the circumstances, my mistake was DENYING my motherhood.

So adoption did not save us from my mistakes, it became my mistake.

How Denying Our Motherhood Defines Us

As I was thinking along these lines last night, I thought about my other kids. Some women so totally idenify themselves as mothers . First and foremost, they let their children rule their days. I have never been one of those women. And it occured to me, that my training, my ability to deny my motherself for my first child has carried over. I was taught to turn that illusion on, and never quite turned it off.

In fact I am often uncomfortable with people when they phrase my mothering, when they tell me how gret my kids are, when they seem amazed, and hold me up to some higher degree. Its no big deal, I think. I am just doing what I have to. I have kids. But really, thinking about it…I think I just never fully embrassed my motherhood.

And so now, I find things shifting. Its odd. I have four kids and I am proud of that. I am a mother..first and foremost I am. Thats what I am.

I shall deny it no more.

So if you find me bad for rejoicing in these little things, if you think it odd that I might seem to be lifted up by his missing me..well that’s gonna have to be your own deal. Becasue really, I have done what I was suppose to and it didn’t work out all that great. Even if the middle of this lovely reuinion story and no horrors of abuses for me or him, just a nice typical adoption story…with everyone doing all that they could to make it all perfect..the agency, his parents, my families, him, me…it still does not take away form the fact that I was needed. I was not exchangeable.

And we are seeing that now.