More Religious Adoption Spew

This individual (who is presumptuous enough to call herself the "Third Eve"...heresy, anyone?) stopped by Irish's blog and left a rather idiotic and completely rude comment the other day.

Of course, I had to check out HER blog to see just what place she was coming from, and just as I suspected, it was filled with bible quotes and pretty pictures of angelic children. Ahhhh, even the adoption agencies themselves would be jealous.

I mean, really. Going off on "real" mothers (hmm, inferiority complex much?) and whining about adoptees not, what, seeing the whole picture?

What is there to see?

That we were abandoned, given up to strangers, and that we have a very real, VALID, pain and anger for that?

I suppose she assumes that only "happy" adoptees are "balanced" and that us "angry" types need God, oh pity the poor unbalanced adoptee who is angry and in pain, don't we know that everyone feels pain from time to time? Pfffft.

You know I find it interesting that she starts her post off with

"a real mother will put her child’s life above her own. "

That's something that thousands of n-mothers do every day, giving up their children for adoption, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes they don't have much of a choice at all.

But she said it herself, these are the REAL mothers.

Not the ones who are waiting in the wings to snatch them up, and justify it with "God told me to".

I find it amusing that these people use scripture to try to validate themselves and their love for adoption.

Exodus 22:21-23 (New International Version)
22 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.

Yet thousands of "widows and orphans" are taken advantage of every day, in the name of adoption.

Jeremiah 49:11
Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in me."

Nope, don't see God telling you to snatch up children there.

# Deuteronomy 10:18
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

Hmmm...seems God wants us to HELP these poor unfortunates, not help ourselves TO them, as in this passage:

# Job 24:9
The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

Try to justify it all you want, but adoptin' fer da Lord is nothing but hypocritical.

If you TRULY want to be Christlike, you'd be helping families stay together, not ripping them apart.

But is it safe?

I love amusement parks.

I have since I was a kid. I remember going up to the local one here, it was an annual tradition with the church youth group, and my friend Stacy and I were completely inseparable and we'd hit every roller coaster and loopy ride we could hit in as short as time possible.

Of course we'd have to be really dumb teenagers and talk in this fake Australian accent the whole time, we were pretending to be foreign exchange students, oh we were a hit with the boys (because teenage boys are the most gullible of the species and who could resist two young blondes who were supposedly from Down Under, mate?) lol.

Yeah, those were the days. Free from our parents, running wild through the park, flirting with boys, and winding up sick to our stomachs from so much junk food and thrill rides.

Ahhh, youth. I'm so glad I am all growed up and beyond that.

Did you know that every year, there are hundreds of injuries at amusement parks and traveling fairs? Maybe you know someone, probably you don't, but I'm sure we've all at least heard of them.

The 4 year old kid who died at Disney; the girl who lost her feet on the Zipper.

Did you also know that while traveling fairs and amusement parks have regulated safety regulations, the stationary parks do not? Most don't have any, while some are left to provide their own safety checks. It is kind of scary, when you think about it.

Lately there has been more attention to this, some of the injured people have been bringing this to the public eye and trying to pass stricter safety regulations on these parks and the individual rides. And I would agree that that is a good thing.

Wouldn't you?

I would think that almost all of us would agree that when you go to an amusement park, you expect that the car won't come off the track or your limbs won't be severed. Our safety should be paramount, not an afterthought.

We wouldn't tell these injured people to shut up and just get over it, because they had a "bad experience", would we?

Yet that's what thousands of adoptees are told every single day, when we try to speak up about the pain that adoption has caused us in our lives.

Yet if something was hurting your child, or ANY child, wouldn't you think that people would want to do something about it? Why does society keep burying their collective heads in the sand when it comes to this issue? Is it because, unlike those injured by amusement park rides, our injuries are emotional, and not out there where everyone can see them?

It would stand to reason that if adoption is hurting the adopted, then something is wrong with the system. Something needs to be fixed, we need better safety controls, we need stricter regulation.

But nobody is listening, and the entire adoption amusement park is still operating, unregulated, hurting and injuring adoptee after adoptee as the giant ferris wheel keeps turning and turning, collecting child after child and dropping them off into the hands of waiting adopters.

Is "family building" really more important than the health of the building blocks themselves?

Forgiveness

Jeni brought up a very interesting topic the other day on AFC, and it's had me thinking long and hard about the subject ever since. Its' about forgiveness...and how, and should, we forgive our mothers for the pain they've caused us?

Now Jeni's situation is different from mine. Her mother rejected her in a really, really bad way upon reunion. So in Jeni's case, I'd say she has a really good cause to say, hey Ma, f-you and the horse's ass you rode in on. But at the same time, holding on to that anger is not a fun way to live, and I'm not speaking FOR Jeni here, I'm speaking for myself and any adoptee who has had a hard time letting go of their anger at being relinquished, being rejected a second time, or any variation or combination of events in between.

How do we do it?

How do we forgive someone for doing us SO wrong?

I guess I've always been a forgiving person, so for me, forgiveness came easy. But I see a lot of my online adoptee friends struggle with this issue, and I've really begun to take notice.

It was this statement by Katmandu that really got me thinking:

I don't really know what it is. Sometimes when ppl say to forgive, what they seem to mean is just get over it.

I mean, wow. What exactly IS forgiveness, really? What does it really mean? Is it as she said...to just get over it? Like we as adoptees have heard, over and over, our entire lives?

That gave me reason to pause.

When my mother called me on my birthday, a year into reunion, and told me she didn't have time for me in her life, I was hurt. Hurt, and in time I became angry. I couldn't accept that she would DO that to me. It was a horrible feeling...of having a mother I loved so much and wanted so desparately in my life yet I had no recourse, no possible way to resolve this. She was just gone and it was her choice, I was left to deal with these feelings of love, loss, longing, and unmet needs from my childhood, and it was like someone holding my head under the water and I could not draw breath. That is how it felt for a very, very long time.

How could I forgive her for doing this to me?

And what would that mean for me...would I just get over it? How does someone just get over that? CAN they?

I suppose for me, it was easier. I knew that she also loved me, and that her reasons were emotional ones. For adoptees like Jeni, the reasons are less clear. Her mother hasn't given her any reason to think that there is guilt or love on her end.

So I am struggling with this. What does it really mean to forgive. I think I take it for granted to know "how" to forgive, but what does it really entail? I couldn't begin to tell someone like Jeni how to do it, how to reach a place of forgiveness.

But I know that for me, personally, living with a lot of anger inside is like living with a dangerous toxin in my veins. I can't be myself, at least not a good version of me. I HAVE to forgive in order to protect who I am and those I love around me, or I become a very bad version of Lillie.

If it's not "getting over it", is it acceptance? Acceptance that the person who wronged us will not change, and that we can never do anything to change the situation? Is it saying, "Ok, you did this, and I'm not going to let it affect me anymore"?

But how do you NOT let it affect you when, for Jeni, it affects her SO much?

This is so hard.

Adoption is so hard.

I wish there were easy answers, I wish I could find the answer for her, and for so many adoptees in her situation.

Just how does an adoptee forgive?

She Was Stolen

Can you help this adoptee?

Please, take a few minutes to watch this youtube video, and then the second part which is also included on her site.

If anyone, ANYONE, has any information which might help her figure out who she is or where she came from, PLEASE help her.

I couldn't imagine a more horrible fate for any one of us adoptees than to be literally stolen from your family, your homeland, and given away into adoption with absolutely NO way to find out about your true identity.

If enough people see this, perhaps the right person will be able to help this girl.

Abolish Adoption?

There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding in the midst of the adoption reformers (or, "angry adoptees lol) and the rest of the world, those who love adoption and don’t see anything wrong with it at all look at the reformers and think we’d all like to see it go away completely, be abolished, leave no other alternative for those poor, unwanted, unloved, homeless, orphaned, abused, neglected children.

Obviously, adoption has to be an option; there will always be a need for loving and stable homes. Oh, there are some people who truly do feel that adoption should go away completely, and some days, I tend to sway in that direction, but in reality, I know there is always a need for it. It just needs some tweaking, the furniture needs to be rearranged, the place needs a renovation.

A recent question over on the barf-fest that is Yahoo! Answers really tickled my funny bone (and not in a delightful way) and got me to thinking…if this person thinks that the pro-reform group has it backwards, then, WOW, he/she should take a long, hard look in the gilded mirror. This person states,

“Why do some adoptees want to ban adoption? I mean are they so angry they cannot see that adoption can benefit many? Can they not see outside their own “pain” that not everyone in the adoption industry is evil, not every decision to relinquish was forced? Do they honestly believe the foster care system is preferable? Or are they being influenced by b mothers groups, whose recollections of events may be hazed by regret and guilt?”

I don’t know where to start with this one. I mean, idiots come in all shapes and sizes, and I’d say that judging by this post, this idiot must be quite well rounded.

So I’ll just start at the beginning: Why do some adoptees want to ban adoption? I mean are they so angry they cannot see that adoption can benefit many?

Yes, start with the “angry adoptee” stereotype, always effective. Good show. Clap, clap. And just who is adoption benefiting…lawyers? Adoption agencies? I won’t argue with you there, bud. Yes, I’m sure there are MORE than a few happy adoption workers, whistling all the way to the bank. Oh, and let’s not forget the adopters, yes, it works out well for them too, they get that shiny new baybee, all cute and warm and smelling like oozing green shit.

Can they not see outside their own “pain” that not everyone in the adoption industry is evil, not every decision to relinquish was forced?

No, I can’t see outside my own pain. Neither can my n-mother, but thanks for your caring and compassion, I see that you must be one of those non-evil types, I can feel the love oozing from your pores. I wish you had adopted me, not.

Do they honestly believe the foster care system is preferable?

Preferable to what…having my name changed, my birth certificate altered and the original one sealed and locked away from me? Having my records made unavailable to me? Having my entire genealogy, my medical history, my social background become a huge secret that is ILLEGAL for me to know? Because I guess yeah, I’d rather know than be treated like a criminal for wanting to know.

Do you have to have a piece of paper to PROVE you are a parent, or can you love a child without it?

Or are they being influenced by b mothers groups, whose recollections of events may be hazed by regret and guilt?

This is a funny one. Regret and guilt…GEE DO YA THINK MORON?? Pffffffft.

I don’t need anyone to influence me, btw. I am an adult who is fully capable of forming my own opinions and thoughts, thank you very much. But thanks for treating me like an incapable child, again, you must be one of those non-evil types, I can still feel the love. Mmmmm.

You know, I thought some more about this idiot’s ranting and the same logic could be applied to those silly angry mothers who formed that dumb little thing called MADD.

I mean, why do some angry mothers want to stop everyone from driving home from the bar after a night of drunken debauchery just because one or two of them might have lost one of their kids? Can’t these mothers not see beyond their own pain that not EVERY drunken person who drives home ends up killing somebody? Or are they being influenced by AA members, whose memories are hazed by too many tequila shots and guilt about getting a little too flirty with every man in the bar?

Yeah. Why spoil the fun for all the adopters just because a few adoptees are hurt by being adopted, right?

Because it’s ALLLLL about the children.

Sure.

Would you Spy?

If you could spy on an adoptee, would you?

If it was the child you adopted, or the child you gave up for adoption...would you read their most private thoughts and feelings?

If you stumbled upon their blog, or perhaps a message board where that individual had been posting about adoption issues, feelings surrounding an upcoming reunion, feelings of abandonment or fear of rejection...would you read their words if you figured out that it was YOUR child posting it?

This has happened recently on AFC, and although the posting was placed on an area that is public, I am nonetheless a little pissed about it. That this adoptee's nmother found her postings and read them, then used it as an excuse to back out of a reunion visit, is...well...just pathetic.

Pathetic and really, really maddening.

She was spying, and if what she was reading was not sitting well, she should have said something to her daughter instead of just staying hidden and lurking in the background like some voyeur, then pulling away after all was said and done.

To use an adoptee's words and feelings against her like that is just spiteful, it is mean, it is hurtful.

After all, how is an adoptee supposed to EVER work through these adoption related issues? Where was she to go, if not to the adult adoptees support forum, to speak to other adoptees who understand the adoption and reunion feelings? Obviously her own MOTHER is not being supportive; no, she's too busy playing spy games and acting like a victim herself.

Adoptees as a whole were the ones who had absolutely NO SAY in any of this adoption bullshit. NO SAY in being give away, in who they were sent to live with, in what their lives were to become. We are the ones who are FORCED to live with it, FORCED to swallow the pain and the guilt and the shame of being cast out of our own families and being the band-aid for another, of shouldering that pain at the expense of never "Hurting" our adoptive family, and then holding back and being ever so cautious so we don't hurt or intrude on our original family if we do decide to try to reunite.

FUCK!

We walk on goddamn eggshells EVERYWHERE we go, so we don't hurt ANYONE, and when does ANYONE, EVER, consider OUR goddamn feelings? Huh?? WHEN???

I'll tell you...

NEVER.

And this is a prime example. This adoptee was posting in an adoptee support forum, trying to be mindful of her n-family because she didn't want to bring things up to them and "hurt" anyone, she was just trying to work through her fears and anxieties, and look what happens. She gets spied on by her own mother and she slams the door shut in her face, all because, I don't know, I guess this adoptee was wrong to want to work through her own feelings.

Fuck that.

If you have an adopted person in your life, it's about time you start giving them space to explore their feelings. Don't pry, don't SPY, and for god's sake, don't play the guilting games.

I'm sorry for what happened on AFC...and shame on that sneaky, deceitful n-mother for doing what she did. Shame, shame, shame.

Grow up.

5-Year-Old with Aspergers Voted Out of Class

I'm asking everyone to please take a moment to read this post, even though it is not adoption related, because I feel that a very horrendous deed was carried out against this poor child. And the perpetrator of this cruelty...not other kids, but the CHILD'S OWN TEACHER.

How would you feel if your 5-year-old child was treated in such a way? What would you do...what would you expect the school system to do? I know what I would do, and that teacher would have to have my size 10 steel toed boot surgically removed from her anus...but please, read on:

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/23/st-lucie-teacher-has-class-vote-whether-5-year-old/

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class.

Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger's, a type of high-functioning autism. Alex began the testing process in February for an official diagnosis under the suggestion of Morningside Principal Marsha Cully.

Alex has had disciplinary issues because of his disabilities, Barton said. The school and district has met with Barton and her son to create an individual education plan, she said. His teacher, Wendy Portillo, has attended these meetings, she said.

Barton said after the vote, Alex's teacher asked him how he felt.

"He said, 'I feel sad,'" she said.

Alex left the classroom and spent the rest of the day in the nurse's office, she said.

Barton said when she came to pick up her son at the school on Wednesday, he was leaving the nurse's office.

"He was shaken up," she said. Barton said the nurse told her to talk with the child's teacher, who told her what happened.

Alex hasn't been back to school since then, and Barton said he won't be returning. He starts screaming when she brings him with her to drop off his sibling at school.

Thursday night, his mother heard him saying "I'm not special."

Barton said Alex is reliving the incident.

They said he was "disgusting" and "annoying," Barton said.

"He was incredibly upset," Barton said. "The only friend he has ever made in his life was forced to do this."

The child's mother filed a complaint with the school resource officer, who investigated the matter, said Port St. Lucie spokeswoman Michelle Steele said. But the state attorney's office concluded the matter did not meet the criteria for emotional child abuse, so no criminal charges will be filed, Steele said. Port St. Lucie Police is no longer investigating, but is documenting the complaint, she said.

Steele said the teacher confirmed the incident did occur.

St. Lucie School's spokeswoman Janice Karst said the district is investigating the incident, but could not make any further comment.

Vern Melvin, Department of Children and Families circuit administrator, confirmed the agency is investigating an allegation of abuse at Morningside, but said he could not elaborate.

Ok....just how in the HELL is this NOT abuse?? And why the FUCK is that teacher still teaching, and not fired, banned, never allowed within 500 feet of a child again?

This is horrid. And what's worse, are half of the comments to the article...it seems there are people out there who actually CONDONE this type of behavior. Of adults, of teachers, bullying and making a mockery of a FIVE YEAR OLD BOY with a disability that causes his behavioral problems.

And she KNEW it, yet she went ahead and did this anyway.

If you are as pissed off and livid as I am, please sign this petition below:

http://www.petitiononline.com/autism08/petition.html

You can also contact the St. Lucie school and Board members here:

Morningside Elementary School Principal: Mrs. Marcia Cully cullym@stlucie.k12.fl.us (772) 337-6730St.

Lucie County Schools Superintendent: Michael J. Lannon4204 Okeechobee Road Ft. Pierce 34947-5414 Phone: 772/429-3925 FAX: 772/429-3916 e-mail: lannonm@stlucie.k12.fl.us

St. Lucie County School Board Chair: Carol Hilson 772-519-0397 HilsonC@stlucie.k12.fl.us

Vice Chair:Judith Miller772-528-4545 MillerJ@stlucie.k12.fl.us

Tons of updated info and a great form letter to use http://autisticnation.typepad.com/thinking_in_metaphors/2008/05/wendy-portillos.html

Last but not least letters to little Alex supportalex@treasurecoast.com

Call, fax, write these people and tell them to FIRE that bitch NOW. And send little Alex an encouraging word.

I used to face bullying like that from kids at school, but NEVER, EVER, EVER was it our SHOULD it be instigated by the very TEACHER.

SICK AND DISGUSTING.

Right to Life...But Not to Live?

The argument that many, if not most, adoption supporters will use when stating their case is that every child has a "right to life". This usually follows on the heels of a staunch anti-abortion stance, in which these adoption lovers yammer on about these unborn babies and how they all deserve a chance to live, and adoption is the great win-win solution to ending their lives.

Even anti-abortion legislation gives the right to life of an unborn child, seemingly, greater weight than those rights of the already living...namely the woman carrying this forming being. Some anti-choice mongers would go so far as to even force a woman to carry to term if it means sacrificing her own health and well being, because the developing fetus within her carries MORE of a right to life than she herself, the fully-formed, already breathing, surviving, tax-paying human being.

But this isn't an argument about whether or not abortion should or shouldn't be legal. That's for another day.

No, this is about rights...and where the seem to stop being important.

Because I what I want to know is, where are all these staunch supporters of the rights of these unborn, these fetuses, these children, once the children are brought into the world? What happens to these children's rights once they ARE born and become (ahem) adoptees?

Seems like nobody is taking up the torch for their rights once they pass through the birth canal.

Because the right to LIVE is not nearly as important as the right to LIFE, is it?

Case in point: these people who would force a woman to bring a child into the world and give her baby to strangers are the very SAME people who would fight to PROHIBIT these children, once grown, from obtaining their original birth certificates, from reuniting with their biological families, from reconnecting with their roots.

People like KATHLEEN HOY FOLEY, who wrote this disgusting article for the Daily Record, posing as a "birthmother", (http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080525/OPINION03/805250317/1096/OPINION),

but it's interesting to note that she ALSO has her signature on an Ohio Right to Life advertisement. Seems she is quite the staunch supporter of the Right to Life and, interestingly, quite strongly anti-adoptee. http://www.columbusrighttolife.org/Signature%20Ad%202008/SigAd%20final%201.pdf

So which is it, Kathleen? Are you a New Jersey "birth" mother or an Ohio right-to-lifer? I'd like to know; I'm sure there are many others as well.

And you have your various religious and church groups who also are in the right to life camp, yet oppose the right to open records and, well, the right to LIVE for adoptees. So they support fetuses, but oppose the already born.

Funny.

So I wonder why that is...why on one hand, we have people so strongly pulling for "our" (as in, the "adoptee") right to life, and yet, once we are born and placed in our loving homes, we are no longer supported in our right to LIVE? To live our lives, the way WE see fit, to access OUR histories and records and roots, to be the people WE were born to be?

Can someone answer that for me? Why does the right to life stop as soon as life begins?

A Case for Adoption Reform

See my original post at http://antiadoption.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/a-case-for-adoption-reform/

I wrote this blog piece for Antiadoption, but I wanted to also highlight it here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

I’d like to thank Lori Tay, a somewhat recent commenter to Anti-Adoption, for her very honest and poignant comment. It took a lot of courage and guts for her to be so truthful about how infertile couples TRULY feel about adoption and the little adoptees they may someday choose to bring into their lives, and I think it’s this type of hard-hitting, brutal honesty that we all need to see exactly why adoption isn’t the great thing that it’s hyped up to be.

Thank you, Lori. Honestly.

For those of you who haven’t seen Lori’s comment, here it is, copied for you:

Anti-adoption advocates hate infertile couples in general, seeing us as the problem. What they fail to realize is that many, many infertile couples have NO desire at all to adopt. For us, adoption would only be a VERY LAST RESORT.

That’s right, birthmothers - your child would be a last resort for us, whether you like that or not. Your child is not the great prize you may think he is. What most of us want most is our own biological child!

Thank God for advances in reproductive medicine. IVF success rates are improving all the time. I predict in the future there will be a lot fewer people adopting or fostering children, because they will be able to have their own child.

What Lori said is so deep and profound, it makes one wonder why ANYONE would place an innocent child in the home of an infertile couple. Kind of dispels the myth of the “win-win” situation, doesn’t it?

But what Lori brings up here is a fact that far too many adoptees already know…that we really ARE second best, we ARE the last resort, that our adopters really would have rather had their own. Too many adoptees are growing up in homes where they are not treated well, are not loved, and are, well, to put it frankly, either physically or emotionally abused because their adopters chose the consolation prize…adoption.

Thanks Lori for bringing it to us straight from the infertile horse’s mouth. What so many adoptees have tried to say, and has fallen on deaf ears, might finally be heard from the infertile mouth itself.

DON’T stop telling your truth, please.

How in the world could any adoption agency or social worker in good conscience, ever place a child in the home of someone with this much anger and animosity toward that very child? But it happens, it happens every day, and who pays the price? That innocent baby. That second choice, that last resort, pays the price for not being the biological offspring that their adopters wanted SO badly.

And if we complain, if we want to know OUR biological family, oh boy, do we hear about it. Shut up and be grateful, don’t hurt your adopters, you know the drill. Can’t win either way.

So it’s attitudes like this that lurk just below the surface…hidden, festering, simmering, eating away, but only a few, like Lori, have the guts to be honest about it.

I wish more did.

Maybe then we’d stop ripping families apart just so that someone else could get their consolation prize, and what little consolation it turns out to be.

Canned Whine

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 5/21/08)

Do you ever spend time perusing through the tag surfer (those of you who blog on Wordpress)?

I type in "adoption" and I am most often sickened and disgusted by blog after blog of whiny, complaining posts by PAPs who are yammering on and on about paperwork and and red tape and *gasp* having to wait SO LONG to get that poor kid who they will no doubt drag home, amid a fury of flashing camera lights and strange faces hugging and kissing and strange people talking in a foreign language all the while this poor child is sitting there with this look of abject shock and horror.

It's just GROSS.

Whine, whine, whine. Me, me, me.

I want, I want, I want.

I have to wait sooooooooo lonnnnnnnnng! OMG!!!!

Yeah, you know what? FUCK you. You have to wait 100 days to fulfill your selfish little desire to yank a defenseless kid, a STRANGER'S CHILD, out of her homeland, her culture, her familiar surroundings and force her to assimilate into an entirely new and foreign world just to fulfill your pathetic wants? FUCK. OFF.

I had to wait TWENTY FOUR YEARS to fulfill my very REAL NEED to have my OWN, REAL, BIOLOGICAL MOTHER back into my life. I had to LOSE HER in order to become someone else's dream child. I had to lose not only her, but my father...my grandparents...my FULL brother, my half sister, my aunts, uncles, cousins...I had to LOSE all of it. ALL OF THEM.

Adoption is NOT this beautiful and wonderful thing. Adoption is NOT a dream come true, it is not some magical win-win-win situation where everyone comes away happy.

I LOST. My mother LOST.

In order for any child to become adotped, he or she must first LOSE a FAMILY. That child's parents must LOSE their CHILD. Where is the beauty in that? Where is that wonderful? I do not see it, one bit. And the land of McDonalds and XBox does NOT make up for losing everything, from your blood to the very essence of WHO YOU ARE.

Or these people that send off for their little "referral" and are sent a photograph and claim to be instantly "in love" with that child. In LOVE...with a PHOTOGRAPH. How completely and totally pathetic and demented.

Where else but in adoption do we think it's perfectly normal to "know" we love another human being...just by looking at a PICTURE??? JESUS CHRIST IN A VW HIPPIE VAN. Pass me some of that weed, because whatever you are smoking, it must be some pretty potent stuff to make you stay in that fantasy reality.

Here's a story for you:

I just KNEW when I was 13 that Corey Haim was destined for me, I could tell just by seeing his smiling face in my Teen Beat magazine. I KNEW that God meant for us to be together forever.

I'm still waiting.

ROTFLMAO.

Right.

Adoption is such a fucked-up institution, it makes my head spin.

Mom

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 5/14/08)

I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. Mother's Day has come and gone, and it always leaves me with a mixture of feelings.

May 10, 1997. That was the day my mom died. It was a Friday, 2 days before Mother's Day that year. I remember it well...the cancer had been making quite a steady progress at replacing the skin and tissue of her chest with hard, brown callousy tumor cells. She showed them to me one day, the were growing on the outside too, they were scabby looking. I was spending my nights in the day-bed that we set up in the small living room off the dining room, listening to Nick at Nite play on her television, waiting for the sound of that little bell she would ring if she needed me.

And it rang, too often it rang in those last couple of weeks. The morphine wasn't helping. She didn't know where she was. She wondered if she had died or if she was still alive. All through the night, between episodes of I Love Lucy and the Munsters, the bell would ring, and I would go to her.

And we would hug, and cry, we knew the end was near.

I spent my days doing much the same thing...although I also had my brother to look after, my recently blinded and brain damaged brother, the accident that took his vision and half his brain happened on May 9, 1996, one year before Mom died. Our Dad died in July, about a month after my brother came home, so it was just me, my blind brother, and my dying mother. I was taking care of all of us.

Not the easiest of tasks for a 23 year old, but I was glad to do it. I would do anything for my beautiful mom.

I didn't go to the cemetery after the funeral. I just couldn't do it. Everybody telling me how sorry they are, people I didn't know, didn't remember, or who I knew and had never heard jack shit from my entire life, yeah, they're sorry, well this was the second mom I had lost, and I just couldn't stand another second of it. Not one more second. But it wasn't really me they were sorry for, no, it was my brother. My poor, blind, brain-damaged brother, because everyone knew that HE wasn't adopted, HE was the one who lost his REAL mother, HE lost SO MUCH that day. Even to this day, people ask about poor M...he lost his mom and dad, how is he doing, yet they don't stop to think that I did too. The bastard adopted freak child lost something, too.

Because I did love my a-parents, I love them still. I am sitting here typing this in the very room where my amom drew her last breath. Outside my picture window is where my adad's heart stopped beating on that sunny Thursday in July. This is where I grew up, this is home, this is where my memories lie.

Yet part of me sometimes feels like a big, fat, adoptee traitor. And I know that's silly...but sometimes when I'm out there, fighting the fight, blogging and message-boarding about adoptee rights and about adoption pain, I feel like a traitor in two senses...one, a traitor to my a-parents, and the other, a traitor to the adoptees.

I have learned to separate my loathing for adoption from my love for my adoptive family. I know that it is the separation from my family, and not them, that has caused my pain...and it is my struggles with reunion and my n-mom's issues that cause me pain, not them or anything they ever did.

But on the same note, I feel that I should somehow not love my adoptive family if I am to be any sort of champion for adoptee rights. That having this "good" adoptive family, and these fond memories, somehow makes me traitorous or not worthy to take up the torch for my fellow adoptees. I feel like a poser, like I don't measure up, like I don't belong here.

And I don't know how to tell my n-mom anything about my a-parents without feeling like I am hurting her or making her feel bad in any way...because truth be told, as much as I love my adoptive family, I just would rather have never been adopted. But how could I ever say that without hurting THEM?

This shit is so hard.

So, so incredibly hard. And it makes me feel like an asshole no matter which way I look at it.

Maybe life would be easier if I were back in the fog.

Happy Adoptees

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/12/08)

How many times have you heard it?

"Well, my best friend's cousin's hairdresser is adopted, and she's perfectly happy about it!"

"I have had a great adoption experience...both my brothers were adopted!!"

"I have a couple of dear friends who were adopted, and both of them are so happy and well adjusted!"

They are everywhere, everybody knows at least one. The happy, well-adjusted adoptee. Your best friend, the hairdresser in the salon, the clerk in the grocery store. Always happy, never a complaint, they are the epitomy of well-adjustedness.

Just the other day, someone was telling me that every adoptee she knows (except for one, because he had a "bad experiece" with adoptive parents who lied to him so he doesn't count) is happy, well-adjusted and thankful.

But I wonder...for every person who has a story like this to tell, I have to wonder just whether or not these people have ever actually asked the adopted person how they actually feel. You know, sat down, had a heart-to-heart, gotten into those deep, dark recesses of the adoptee's soul where the adoptee ISN'T afraid of or tired of hearing "Oh but you had such GREAT ADOPTIVE PARENTS" or "BUT YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ABORTED!!" or "HOW COULD YOU HURT YOUR ADOPTIVE PARENTS LIKE THAT???" if they ever dare to speak a hint of their true feelings.

Ever done that? Have you ever even asked the adopted person how they feel?

Have you ever used those lines on them? You know, the be grateful, coulda been aborted, don't upset the AP's? Yeah? Hmpf, then don't expect to think that what you ever hear from the adoptee to be the truth.

I think that every single person that I know would probably tell you that I am happy and thankful to be adopted. Without a doubt in their mind, oh yeah, I'm one of those happy adoptees. I had super-terrific adoptive parents, a great upbringing, everything a kid could want.

But nobody has ever asked for the truth, and even if they did, I have no reason to give it.

Because how can you tell someone who doesn't know or understand, how it feels to know that your own mother gave you away? How can you explain that soul-crushing pain to an "outsider"?

Simple, you can't.

Happy that I was given away, my name was changed, my records sealed, and I am treated like a crime suspect for asking for them? Grateful because I can't even access a copy of my own birth certificate, grateful that I can never know if cancer runs in my family, or who my ancestors were, or where my screwy curly hair comes from or find out why I get debilitating migraines?

No, I am not grateful, nor am I happy.

But, I'll never tell you that. I'll just smile, and nod, and play the game, because that's what you want to hear, that's what makes you feel warm and cozy.

I met my mother, 11 years ago I met her. Is she happy with the "choices" she made? Hmpf, if she HAD a choice, but you know, back in the 70's and the decades prior, women didn't HAVE a CHOICE. Their babies were taken from them, stolen, coerced. Women were lied to, deceived, tricked, even downright bullied and forced into giving their babies away. They didn't have a "choice". My mother didn't have a "choice".

It destroyed her, and her ability to face me after our reunion, 11 years later and she is finally able to let go of the guilt, and we are starting to rebuilt what we started in 1996.

Adoption destroyed me. I do not trust anyone, I think everyone is going to leave me, because if my own mother didn't keep me, then why would anyone else? I do not trust anyone. I do not have friends, because I do not trust people. I am the victim, because I bend over backwards to please everyone, because I fear abandonment. I am a doormat.

But I will never tell you this, because you don't want to hear it, you only want to hear that adoption is great, and wonderful, and rainbows and happiness and win-win-win.

But it is loss.

I lost, my mother lost. And in a way, my adoptive parents lost. Because they didn't get that grateful, as-if born to daughter they were promised; they got a damaged kid with someone else's DNA, a kid who didn't look or act or sound like them, a kid who was exactly the opposite of everything they were, a kid who exasperated them and confused them and annoyed and exhausted them. They didn't understand why I wasn't what they expected. I didn't understand why I couldn't be what they wanted, and I hated myself for it. I loathed myself for it. I decided that's why my mother didn't keep me, because I am defective...I am bad, I am unworthy, I am a big worthless piece of shit. I didn't fit in, anywhere.

I cried myself to sleep so many nights, I couldn't begin to count. I yearned for the mother I never knew. I waited for her on my roof, every car that came down our road, I hoped and prayed it was her, coming to get me. I missed the woman I had never know, I wanted her so badly.

I tried to kill myself multiple times.

But you never would have known it, I hid my pain in humor, I covered my tears with laughter.

I was a "happy" adoptee.

How may happy adoptees do you know?

The Definition of Family?

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/5/08)

I was reading a very nice blog post today by an adoptive father about the definition of family. This gentleman was going on to explain how he had grown up with quite an extensive clan - he had a huge family and so felt he very well understood what a family meant.

Good for him; having grown up in a very small family, I always felt a little wistful about those who had big, close, loving families.

But at the same time, he went on to say that a family isn't only made up of blood. And I can agree with him - to a point.

Because for someone who grew up with a big, huge, loving family of blood relatives, how can he possibly know or understand how it is for the adoptee who has to grow up and not be related to anyone?

I wonder where his little adoptee's family comes in to any of this. Are they a part of his "family"? Does he even consider them, the people who created "his" child, the people who share a very close connection to this little adoptee?

No, family may not be only blood, but blood is definitely a major factor in determining who IS your family.

I grew up without my "family" and I missed them, terribly, every single day of my life. I yearned for them, longed for them, cried for them. Even though I had my adoptive "family", and YES I love my adoptive family, when you don't have people around you who look like you, who act like you, who ARE made up of the same stuff that you are made up of, you just, well - you feel it. It's a feeling deep within your bones that you can never really shake. Even if the family who is raising you is the best, most loving group of people you could ever have the pleasure of loving and living with, sometimes love just isn't enough.

Families are not interchangeable.

I'm sure that this man's little adoptee will grow up in a very loving household, with a huge extended adoptive family to dote on him and care for him. But I hope they realize that that little adoptee has lost something - his original family, the family he was born to, a whole group of people who share his talents, his interests, his eye color and nose and hair and same big toe. Perhaps this little adoptee will miss them too...and if he does, I hope they are sensitive to that.

And, I'm happy that this man grew up with his big, happy, blood-related family.

I just wish that I had had the same opportunity to be raised with mine.

What Adoption has Given Me - And What Adoption has Left Me With

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/5/08)

Adoption has given me a name. It is not really my name, the name I was born with, but it is the name I grew up with and that everyone knows me by and with which I am most accustomed. Adoption has given me a family - a borrowed family, who, for a brief moment in time, were here with me to love and guide me, to raise and teach me, to help turn me into the person I am today. They were not really ever mine; and to prove that point, fate or destiny or whatever forces there are decided to take them from me in one quick motion to drive that point home (see my "hell" category).

Adoption gave me my home. I live here, in this place where I grew up, not where I was born but where I was taken to, this little acreage outside of this little town in this farming region. Adoption gave me the people I know and the experience I had, which include growing up around those who love to garden and teaching me to have that same passion.

Adoption gave me the life I am living. It may not be a better life, it may not be a worse life, it is just a life. A different life. Because I am happy is not because of adoption, it is in spite of it. I do not have my DH and kids because of adoption, because I can't say that I never would have met him had I not been adopted; who knows? Would he have ended up in my city? Would I have moved down here eventually? If we were meant for one another, it would have happened.

But what has adoption left me with? Adoption has left me with pain...lots and lots of pain. It has left me with the knowledge that I will never, ever have the family I was born to be with. It has left me without a name, the name I was born to have, the person I was meant to be. Adoption has left me without my family - the family I was taken from and the family I was taken by, because in true adoptee fashion, everybody abandons me. By death or by adoption, I am alone.

Adoption has left me with an empty heart. A heart that doesn't know how to let people in, because it is too broken and scared of being left once again. Adoption has left me without my mother, or my father, or my siblings or grandparents or aunts and uncles...I have never had anyone around me who looks like me, or acts like me, or shares the same talents and abilities as me. Until I had my children, I've never been related to anyone.

Adoption has left me all alone.

Adoption has left me with a feeling of emptiness - a hollowness within my core that can never, ever be filled, even after reunion. Because nothing can replace the years that were lost, the years spent wondering and searching, longing for a ghost figure, dreaming and hoping, crying and agonizing.
Adoption has left me with scars.

Internal scars, the scars of a child who wondered every day why her mommy didn't love her, what was so bad about her that her own mommy would give her away. A little girl who wondered every day if her own mother loved her. Who does that? Who actually has to guess if their own parents even think about them? I'll tell you - adoptees. Because living with the knowledge that the woman who brought you into this world, the ONE PERSON who should love you unconditionally, would just give you away? It is traumatic beyond belief. No amount of love from somebody else can take that away. Nobody can soothe that hurt, nobody can make that better.

So, adoption has given me everything - everything I have. But it has left me with nothing, because nothing can make up for or replace what it has taken away.

And a Chorus of Angels were Singing

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 4/1/08)

Or some shit like that.

Yay for my wonderful, sweet, adorable friend Heather! Another successful reunion just happened this night, Heather called her mother for the first time, and let's just say her mother was quite thrilled to hear from her baby daughter.

I love these stories.

LOVE THEM.

Two more people, fucked over by the horror show that is adoption, finally can begin to heal and put their shattered lives back together. Too bad for Heather that she has been treated so poorly by the state of New York all these years and this could have happend YEARS earlier. Think of all the wasted years when New York was telling Heather that her birth was "none of her business".

Fuckers.

But, YAY!!!!!!!!!!! Heather and her mom, together again, as they rightfully should be. I think I hear angels singing.

Or maybe my stomach is growling... ;) Ha.

Love ya, H! Congratulations, sweetie! You deserve this SO MUCH!!

Hiding

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 3/31/08)

I've really been out of it lately. Sorry, everyone, I feel kinda like I've been letting you down...my wonderful friends at AFC, my arch enemies at Yahoo Answers, my readers here at my sporadic blog. But, I've been hiding. Avoiding, lying low, staying out of the adoption world as it is. I'm not sure why...maybe things have gotten to be a bit much, maybe I'm just kind of tired of all the drama...maybe, part of me is a lot like my mother in a way.

I've been reflecting a lot on our meeting last week. She emailed me right away the next day to tell me a few things, mostly that she realizes we need to get to know each other and that she wants to talk more about the adoption. My Gran had said something about regretting the mistakes we have made and I think my mother took it as the adoption itself was a mistake...I don't know, but she went on in her email to say that she thought, at the time, that she was doing the best thing. I got that classic line, they gave me away because they loved me so much...yadda yadda.

To be honest, it just pissed me off.

I want to email her back and tell her that yes, it was a mistake, it was the biggest mistake she or any person could ever make, but this is not something I want to say in an email. I think I am finally realizing that I DO harbor some anger for being given away. Fuck, I have been in the fog...who knew! Probably a lot of you, why didn't you bitch-slap me into reality??

I've agonized over her for so long, and now that I finally have her back in my life, I'm not sure what I really want from her. I just feel kind of numb to the whole thing. Isn't that weird? I thought I'd be more emotional than this...but really, I kind of feel like I could take her or leaver her. I've put so many years of yearning and crying for her, that I think I am emotioally spent. And when I finally get my chance to truly lay it on the line, I turn into my classic self...chicken shit, people pleaser, miss nicey-nice-can't-say-anything-mean. Fuck it.

I am such a loser.

I don't even deserve this reunion.

Do I tell her the truth...that I fucking hate adoption and that I have never, ever appreciated being given away? Or do I pacify her and spare her feelings (like usual) and say yeah, I understand, you did what you thought you had to do, bla bla bla? How do you tell someone, you fucked up royally and I paid the ultimate price for your screw up?

I just don't know. I don't think I could ever do that.

Adoption is just screwed up. It's just a fucked up, sick, disgusting institution.

My Dinner with Mom

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 3/28/08)

So, I saw here Wednesday night for the first time in over ten years.

We went out for dinner, along with my Gran, and I spent most of the evening just taking it all in and listening to them talk. They spoke a lot about my father (Gran, as you may or may not know, is his mother) and about his circumstances before he died.

She was not surprised that my one meeting with him went well...of course she knew him in ways that my Gran and aunts did not, but she thought that all of his anger and hesitance in the beginning was more out of fear and nervousness. But it was a sad night to hear about the end of his life, how he had not wanted to be alive any more, and about all the ways he was literally trying to kill himself. Well, he succeeded, he was very sad and depressed, I hope he's in a happier place.

But seeing her again...wow. She hasn't changed much, but seems a lot more grounded than she was in 1996. I can tell she's grown. She is just very sweet and kind. She wants to start a new tradition for us all to take a week or weekend vacation together, up north by one of the lakes, get all the families together. And we are going to see each other again, probably next month. She still has to meet her grandchildren.

I am just kind of numb, really. I've been so cautious with her this time in case she pulls away again...keeping myself from getting too excited or from expecting anything from her. A huge part of me doesn't trust her, that she won't do that to me again, but I am slowly starting to allow myself to believe that she is genuine about our reunion this time. It's hard to feel secure; I am so afraid of being abandoned yet again. Is this just the adoptee in me, or what? I don't know. But, I am cautiously hopeful that this time is the real thing.

But, I saw her again! Yay!!!! I guess that in itself is pretty huge, for both of us. Keep your fingers crossed that this is a sign of things to come!

Fun with Photoshop

So, I've been messing around with Photoshop today, and I'll admit I'm no pro at it, but what a fun way to spend a day off when it's 4 degrees outside (that's Fahrenheit, folks) and I'm feeling a little snarky?

Who better to make fun of than some of our biggest enemies in the fight for adoptee rights, huh?

Mr. Tom Atwood, of the evil organization NCFA, and Ann Cavoukian, the bitch that kept Ontario's adoptee access to their OBC's denied. Fucking twunt.

Ah well, the war isn't over. And I have Photoshop. Let the battles begin.

This is my first attempt, a fine rendering of Tom Atwood, dressed in McDonalds attire and serving up a heap 'o Lies with that McBullshit:



Can we say, McDork? ROTFLMAO Asshole.

Next is one of my favorites, my friend M suggested I add ol' tunaface Ann into the fun, so here is my first work:



Twist a little harder, guys, like you are twisting out the hearts of millions of adoptees! Fuckers.

Next is just a stupid one, but I think it speaks volumes:



Does more need to be said?

And finally, what I think is my favorite, I hope you agree:



Arschloch.

A Message of Hope

(Originally posted on Wordpress on 12/13/07)


In these uncertain times, especially the Holidays...yuck...the Holidays.

It can be hard, especially on us adoptees, whether in reunion or not, this can be an extra triggering time of year. When it should be all about family and love and being together, we are sorely reminded of all that we lost, all that was taken from us, all that we are missing out on, all that we can never get back.

Heck, even if you're not an adoptee (or first parent) and you happen to stumble on this blog, I know the Holidays can be hard for a lot of people, so I just wanted to share this message of Hope to everyone out there.

Because, truly, we now know that salvation does lie at the end of the rainbow.

;)

Dear Mom

(Originally posted on Wordpress on 12/3/07)

You say you feel guilt. You're afraid to let me get to know you. Well I have some feelings too, feelings I have been putting on hold and shoving down deep because I want to try to help you, but you know I just can't do this any more.
I am hurting. I have been hurt my entire life. Do you know how it feels, to have your own mother leave you and walk away? You left me, you gave me away and you left me, not once, but twice, you turned your back on me, your own daughter, you just left me all alone. Adoption is not wonderful. Adoption is not the loving choice. It is the most horrible, painful, lonely experience anyone can ever inflict on a child, separating her from her mother like that, leaving her bewildered and cold, then expecting her to be grateful for it. You know I have missed you every single day of my life. I have thought about you every single day of my life. I have wondered about you, wondered if you think of me, wondered if you care, if you are somewhere out there, if you love me too. I hate this, I hate it, and the worst part of it is, even reunion couldn't bring any healing, I guess adoption just damages all of us too much. Maybe it would have been better if I had never been born.

I didn't ask for this, any of it. I didn't have a choice, as a baby, you, M, everyone else made the decision for me, you chose this life for me, nobody thought that just maybe I didn't want to lose my mother, my family, who I was meant to be. I never would have chosen this, EVER. I don't care if we would have lived in a cardboard box under a bridge, I never wanted this. I lost you, I lost everything, I was a fish out of water my entire life, unable to breathe, a square peg without any hole, filled with the most incredible pain imaginable because my own mother didn't want me, she gave me away to strangers.

To STRANGERS.

And my whole life, even now, my birth has been cloaked in secrecy, it's just one big shameful secret, I am a walking, shameful abomination who's past must be kept a secret, I don't have a right to possess anything that belongs to me concerning the day of my own birth, oh good heavens no. I was special and chosen and a gift yet they need to protect you from me, I might stalk and harrass and murder, I have the potential to cause great harm. I am suspect. The mixed messages in adoption are crazy making, one day we are blessings, the next we are freaks, every day we are sub-human, nobody gives a rat's ass unless there's a buck to be made.

And I STILL choose none of it, except to try to build something with you, but you continue to play this game of hide-and-seek, you just keep leaving me. And it's killing me.

All I ever wanted, even when I was that 4 pound newborn, was you; I just want my MOTHER. I don't care who you are or what you've done, I just need my mother to finally, finally take her baby daughter in her arms and tell her, mommy's going to make everything all right. She's still in here, that 4 pound newborn, she's still inside me, looking for you, wondering where you went, she still needs you so much, she's still waiting for you to come back for her.

Maybe it's too late for you to raise me. Maybe it's too late to change my diapers and fix my boo boo's and to watch me grow up.

But it's not too late for you to love me.

Why is Biology Important?

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 11/21/07)

Biology is not important. Love conquers all.

I've been hearing this so much lately that I just want to run from the room screaming whenever someone utters these tired, overused phrases.

Just why is biology important? Well, perhaps for someone who hasn't had to go without it, that question might seem hard to comprehend. Perhaps to that woman who can so casually dismiss the importance of having that familial connectedness with someone, anyone, whether they be of good or bad quality, this is something of little consequence. But for those of us who have lived our entire lives without it, it can be a big deal.

Adoptees are expected to occupy a specified place. It is a precarious place; we fill the hopes and dreams of our adopters and make their lives complete. We are often that last great hope, or that miracle gift, or that poor unwanted/unfortunate foundling who was saved and taken in by this gracious family. We have an obligation to fill. We are responsible for keeping our aparents' happiness intact, for bringing that joy into their lives, for completing their happy family. We have a big role, huge pressure to perform. We must excel, be the perfect child, get good grades, make our aparents proud. If we don't succeed, of course it is the fault of our DNA, it is bad "blood", biology rearing its ugly head. But if we're good? Oh, blessed be the aparents and their wonderful parenting, they did such a good job taking in this poor little waif and creating such a magnificent work.

Because heaven forbid anything good come from the adoptee herself, or that any "good" DNA exist in her cells.

But it's a funny thing, that biology, because even through all that loving and doting, all that showering with affection and worshipping at the altar of the adoptee, some of us still commit the ultimate sin of The Search.

Horrifying, isn't it?

I know.

So why is it that adoptees perform The Search, anyway? Why is it that Love Isn't Enough? Is it some sort of genetic defect, brought about by our n-mother's probable history of drug and alcohol abuse? Is it our "fantasy" of some mythical, goddess-like woman who will welcome us back home with open arms and make all our hurts go away? Or is it based on something more in reality?

I tend to think it's more reality-based.

Have you ever watched the television show Lost? I love it; I'm a Lost junkie. So for those of you who have seen it, just imagine, if you will, that you were on that Oceanic flight. You are one of the survivors, lost on some unknown island, you have no idea where you are and you have no way to get off that island to get home. Let's pretend a little further that the Others grabbed you, gave you a new name, refused to let you return, made you live with them as one of "their family", wouldn't let you have access to any part of who you used to be (even though they seem to have the capability to know everything about you and your life prior to the crash) (hmm...seems a lot like real life and sealed records!!). You are basically a prisoner, yet they profess to love you.

Oh sure, after some time, you'd probably get used to this, you may even grow to love your new "family", but a part of you would always long to go back home, wouldn't it? I mean, I know this is a stretch of the imagination but just play along with me here. If you were in that situation, where you were stuck with these people and knew you couldn't ever return home, you'd probably grow quite attached and even grow to love them as a family...but you'd never stop loving your "real" family back "home" and you'd never stop longing for them. There would always be a part of you that wanted to go back and see your mother, your father, your uncles or cousins or whoever it is that was back in "civilization" where you came from.

If you can indulge me this, and really try to put yourself in there, then perhaps, just maybe, you can understand the importance of "biology" for an adoptee.

Happy Gotcha Day

(Orginally posted at Wordpress on 10/31/07)

Yep, tomorrow is going to be my 34th Gotcha Day. Thank god my aparents never uttered that disgusting phrase, nor did they even make any sort of reference to the day they brought me home. And I am so glad for that. I'm glad they didn't make a big deal out of everything that I lost.

November 1, 1973, the day I was permanently separated from my mother, my father, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.

The day I went from being who I was born to be, to being who I became by the randomness of adoption.

No wonder I have been avoiding this blog and feeling rather down lately, although it has never seemed to hit me this hard (nor my birthdays, either); but for some reason, this year both of these anniversaries are triggering the HELL out of me. Maybe it's because I finally have a place where people really understand this, where I have finally been able to delve deep within myself and really, truly, be able to be honest. And, the best part is, receiving nothing but support and understanding along the way.

I was digging through some pictures the other day and found one from my Reunion Day. The only picture I have of my mother and me, together. Seeing it brought back a flood of emotions - sadness, anger, longing. Two people who have been forever damaged by this "beautiful thing" called adoption.

(Pic removed...)

*sigh* I wish I still had that hair.

(Notice how we both chose to wear green for our first meeting? Like mother, like daughter, eh?)

I am so angry at all of this. I feel so helpless, wishing I knew how I could get through to her, get her to respond to me. I wish I knew what was really going on inside her head, why she shut down on me, why she continues to evade this.

I long for that which was lost...the closeness with my entire family; those years of togetherness and memories, the things that make a family a family...the closeness that they all share and that I can never, ever be a part of, no matter how much I wish I could be.

After all, we're still pretty much strangers.

I'm glad I have my Gran. I wish I could see my brother more often, and my Aunt B., I wish I could have been a part of my half-sister's life when she was growing up. I wish I had known my cousins, and shared the same familial closeness that they do. I even miss the father who I only met once, but for all his abrasive qualities, we seemed to be a lot alike. I'm glad I met him that one time, at least he was good enough to give me that.

It's something I've never even had in my a-family; us adopted kids, my oldest brother and me, were always looked upon as outsiders.

So much has happened, so much lost, and it feels like nothing is ever gained.

So Happy Gotcha Day to me, but please hold the cake and the noisemakers. For me, this is just no reason whatsoever to celebrate.

Poopy Dots

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 10/22/07)

I don't really know what that post title has to do with this post other than it's one of my 3 yo dd's favorite things to say right now and I think it's funny. We've just returned from a lonnnnnnnnng weekend in northern Minnesota, where it was cold, and it rained, and it rained, and the kids ran the extremes from complete boredom (meaning fighting with each other to pass the time) and extreme silliness. But even with the cold, and the rain, and the rain, northern Minnesota is a sight to behold in October. Around every curve in the road is a lake, surrounded by shades of oranges and yellows and browns, set off by the dazzling whites of the birch trees. Not even the gray skies could take away from the beauty. (Nor could the arguing from the back seat....hmmm...)

I catch myself doing something a lot, and I wonder if it's something that just I do, or if other adoptees do it, or heck, if the general populace does it. But when I'm out and about, I find myself comparing the faces of people I see and searching for facial similarities. I love to see young mothers with their children in tow, I rather enjoy noting how their little ones look like mommy in this way and that way. I think it's because I have been deprived of seeing that similiarity in anyone in my close family my entire life, I don't know; but it's something that I've always found fun and interesting.

But then again, it's also something that especially lately, has been causing a great deal of hurt within me. Especially when I see older mother-daughter pairs...people about my my age with their mothers who are about my mother's age, out having lunch together, or shopping together, or just having some nice, happy, quality time together.

It's really quite triggering for me to see.

The unfairness of it all strikes me hard, like a direct kick to the gut. An entire lifetime have I lost with her. All of it. So that even these simple things...like enjoying a liesurely chocolate milkshake on a Saturday afternoon with my own mother is something I will never, ever get to do.

I will never, ever be able to have a telephone conversation with her...to be able to call her up, tell her about some random event in my day...like dd's new saying, "poopy dots", and we'd have a nice laugh and I'd ask her for her pumpkin bars recipe and she'd remind me about Aunt Carol's birthday next month.

Simple, normal, every-day stuff, the things we all take for granted. All gone. I don't get them. All I have is this computer, and my imagination, and wishing things could be normal, and boring, and I could complain that my mother worries about me too much and treats me like I'm still a little kid.

I only wish, dude, I only WISH.

No, not for this adoptee, not even reunion could bring some semblance of normalcy, adoption did its own little number on my mother, she's about as messed up with all of this as I am.

I forgive her, I understand her to the best of my ability, I am practicing patience. See for all my whining and complaining, believe it or not, I love my mother with every fiber of my being.

If I didn't love her so damn much, then this wouldn't hurt so bad, and I wouldn't get so angry and frustrated.

So ok, I'll lay it out here, I'm just in a vulnerable place tonight, I love my mother and I miss her, the silence she gives me is inexplicably painful, some days I can barely find the strength to get out of bed. I hide it well, don't I?

And if you do find this blog, P, I'm sorry for the "bad" posts, but you know, I've never said these things to you out of fear of hurting you and jeopardizing any shred of hope there may be for us.

Ah fuck, enough of this already.

To MY Mother

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 10/15/07)

I want to scream, I want to swear, I want to tell you off and wear you down and make you feel every bit as horrible as I have been feeling for the last 10 - no, make that 34 years.

I wish I could call or write you up and ask you, just why are you doing this? You have two beautiful grandchildren who have lived their entire lives without a grandmother. You have pissed away an entire decade with your childish game, running and hiding when you should have been acting like the adult you should be. You have spent the last ten years belittling your own daughter's raw and broken emotions simply because you refuse to look past your own situation and see what is looking you right in the face.

I try to get angry, I try to scream into the air at you, to shout into the emptiness, but nothing comes. I can't get there. I can not get to the point where the hurt turns to anger and this betrayal finally takes its toll. I continue to allow you to do this to me, I lay my heart out on your doorstep and you wipe your feet on it with your stony silence.

Am I really that insignificant to you? Is it this easy for you to go on ignoring me for so long?

Maybe I need to accept the fact that some mothers really just do not love their children. Perhaps it's not anger that I need to be searching for, but acceptance. But what do I do with this love that's in my heart? Where does it go? I have no place to put it, if you won't accept it. It just sits there, growing heavy, wearing at my chest like the branches of an apple tree with too many apples. The branch is breaking from all the weight, twisting, splintering, tearing away from the trunk.

I wish I could just hate you and walk away from this. I wish I could forget you and never have to deal with this again. Do you even think of me? God I feel like I did when I was a little kid again, having to wonder who you were and if you thought of me, that feeling SUCKED, yet here I am, I know who you are now and I STILL have to wonder. Does she think of me? Does she care? Do you know how horrible it is to wonder if your own mother even thinks of you?

But I'm an adoptee. So I keep on pleasing, keep on fixing, I can't walk away, I have to stay here and try to fix you, try to be the good little girl and make you happy, always the good girl who will never let anyone down. Happy happy adoptee, the band-aid of humanity. FUCK.

I hate this. I really, really hate this. Look what you did to me, what you are STILL doing to me, why can't you just talk to me? Being the strong one sucks ass, you know? People say, oh you're so strong, like it's all admirable and stuff, but you know what? I HATE it. I just want for once in my life, just ONCE, to be comforted, to be held, to be told that everything is going to be ok.

Killer Cats

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 10/13/07)

My barn cats killed a snake yesterday, they ganged up on it quite ruthlessly, went in for the kill, it was quite a sight. They're all half-grown kittens and I'm sure for them it was 90% fun and 10% learning, as Mama led the killing spree, trying to teach them a valuable life lesson in survival. Of course they were just like, Yay! Attack! Ok when is Lillie coming with the Meow Mix? Oh, hey, a leaf! Let's get it! Okay! Oooh! A bug! Stalk...stalk...ATTACK!!! run run run run....up a tree! WEEEEEE!!!!! Where's the Meow Mix again? Oh yeah...oh wait...I see you...pounce!

Kittens are such fun.

Although I guess they didn't kill the poor snake, it was hanging out by my door this morning, slow and sluggish, but still kickin'.

I feel sorry for that snake, even though I get that shivery-squicky feeling at the sight of them, but at the same time I understood exactly how that snake feels - when all the pro-adoption idiots spout their nonsense every time we try to speak our truth.

I think I am going to try to learn to make homemade french baguettes this weekend. Mmmm. But first, somebody wants ice cream....

Happy Adoptee Wonderland

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 10/8/07)

How many times do we hear it..."Well, my cousin/friend/hairdresser's sister's roommate's aunt is adopted and she's happy..."

It doesn't matter what you are talking about, what point you are trying to get across, or how strongly or politely you are trying to convey it; but somebody always, always, always feels the need to jump in and point out that somebody in their world is a happy adoptee.

Case in point? My new friend Jessie, the Happy Adoptee who has been commenting on my Infertility and Adoption post. (Not you, OSF Jessie, although you are truly an inspiration to me and I love you dearly!) And really, IMO, the self-proclaimed "Happy Adoptees" are the most voluble when they feel the need to proclaim their happy status...shouting it from the rooftops, casting their pity upon us poor, "angry" souls, wishing us peace. As if they are a cut above us pitiful "angrates"(lol).

But really, one has to wonder.

Why, if they are so happy, do they feel the need to keep telling everyone how happy they are? (And, Jessie, if you happen to stop by and read this, I promise this post is not directed AT you, it was just inspired BY you, so please don't take offense or feel that I am picking on you.)

Have you ever noticed that adoptees are the only class of people who go around telling everyone how much they love their parents? I mean, think about it...if you are reading this, and are not an adoptee, would you go out and tell someone in casual conversation, how much you LOOOOVE your parents and are SOOOO grateful to them for raising you? It's just not normal for non-adopted people to go around talking about. Yet adoptees do it all the time; it's a social expectation that we proclaim our gratitude and reinforce it whenever we hear someone else speaking out against adoption.

But I think there's something deeper going on in some of those "happy" adoptees, something lurking beneath that necessity to tell others how happy and content they are. Consider this: normally, people who are happy and content with their lives don't feel the desire to go out of their way to tell everyone how happy and content they are, to the point of having to prove their happiness. But these "happy" adoptees, on the other hand, the ones who go out of their way to tell everyone that they are happy to be adopted, that they have no issues...I have to wonder.

Just who are they trying so hard to convince; me, or themselves?

Oh, I get why some adoptees fight so hard to hang on to happiness. Staying in the fog is much easier than facing the painful truth. Coming out of the fog is hard; it hurts, it takes a LOT of hard work, self-examination, re-evaluation of your entire life, and that is no small undertaking. You begin to question the meaning of your very existence, of the relationships with your loved ones, and try to piece together how your love for them can co-exist with the anger that can manifest toward the industry that did this to you and your family.

No, coming out of the Happy Adoptee Wonderland is not fun at all. And for some adoptees, staying in the fog is not merely an issue of ease of life, it is a matter of survival. I don't know how some of us even survive it. Some don't; I don't know the exact statistics, but I've heard of far too many adoptee suicides than I have cared to, and even to the very obvious end, they have proclaimed their undying love and gratitude to their adopters, while pulling the plug on their painful adopted lives. These were the adoptees whose fog was lifting, but seeing the light was just too much.

And then there are those who really don't realize that there is anything to be unhappy about. I was there once, I admit, I was one of them. I was so far into the fog that I really couldn't find my ass with both hands. But I don't think that's really an excuse for this pathological adopter-worship that is so prevalent in some adoptees. This sense of zealous loyalty to the people who adopted them and abject indifference, and even hatred, of the people who created them...it's mind-boggling.

I wonder, have these adoptees ever considered the reasons why they were relinquished? Or have they swallowed the outdated notion of the disinterested, drug-abusing, prostitute, alcoholic, destitute, dumpster-dumping "birth" mother that society spoon-feeds us? Do they really believe that drivel?

Or is it just another survival mechanism? One has to wonder. Because if real mommy was actually sad to let us go, then why did she do it? Is it easier to believe she is a cold-hearted monster and that our loyalties (and love) must reside with those who did us the ultimate favor by taking us in?

I feel so sad for these "happy" adoptees, I really do.

Loving your parents is one thing; I mean, of course you should love your aparents, if they are good people and weren't abusive or manipulative, that's true of any parent-child relationship. I'd have to wonder about anyone who didn't. When I speak out against adoption, I'm certainly not saying "DOWN WITH APARENTS!!"

But this radical devotion, this loyalty to the extreme? When it comes to the point that you are losing out on WHO YOU ARE and WHO YOU WHERE MEANT TO BE? That is where it is time to stop, and re-evaluate just why you are so determined to prove to the world that you LOVE your adoptive parents and are at war with your bio's. And you know what I'm talking about.

You're losing yourself in the process.

Adoption isn't about creating a support system for your adoptive parents. It isn't about taking a child and turning him or her into a warrior for adoption. And you shouldn't have to feel that you have to defend or praise your adoptive parents every time you draw breath; they are the grown-ups, they shouldn't need your protection.

Adoption should be about nurturing the child, about giving the child a healthy sense of well-being, a sense of self, separate from their parents, whoever is doing the raising. And it should be the parents who protect and nurture the child, not the other way around.

There is just this huge disconnect between the "happy" adoptee's life mission, which is to keep driving home the fact that they love their adoptive parents and that adoption is great and they are so happy they were adopted and that they would have been nothing had their wonderful adopters not taken them in; and what the adoptee really could be, which is an emotionally healthy, self-aware human being, who instead can full focus on his or her own needs without this constant fear and repression because they may "hurt" their aparents.

Happy Adoptee Wonderland. Now open, get your tickets here. Half-price on foggy days.

Infertility and Adoption

(Originally posted at Wordpress on 10/3/07)

So many times, a couple who is faced with infertility comes to the conclusion that when modern technology fails, they will ultimately turn to adoption as a means to bring a baby into their lives.

But as an adoptee, I'd like to as you to indulge me a moment, to listen to a side of the story on why adoption may not always be the next step in the "family building" plan.

In adoption, everything is advertised, televised, played and swayed to the angle of the joy and happiness that it brings the adopting parents. It makes their dreams come true; it fulfills their wishes, it makes their lives complete.

But where in all of this family building and life completing are the adoptees' rights and needs considered? Adoptees are basically treated as objects of desire; as things to be gotten; a means to an end to fulfill a desire.

We are force-fed this notion that we were a gift; that we were "chosen", that we were lucky and loved so much by our natural mothers that she gave us away and that our adoptive parents loved us even more because they chose to take us in. We made their lives so complete and happy and we are just these little gifts from god and on and on and on.

It's a huge pair of shoes to fill, being sent from god himself. Better not screw up.

But let me fill you in on a little secret:

Adoption is not a win-win-win situation. Not in the least.

Adoption is, first and foremost, LOSS.

Loss for the relinquishing mother.

Loss for the infant.

The one who really gains is the adoptive parent, but even so, the child will always have that biological connection to somebody else, will never be fully "theirs".

You wouldn't put a tiger in your garage and call it a dog, would you? Of course not, that would be silly.

So why do people expect to take another person's child and call it "theirs"? It just doesn't work that way; nature cannot be fooled.

And yet we continue on with this "adoption is wonderful" cycle, offering up babies to the adoption altar in the name of curing infertility.

But you know what?

Biology matters, and you know it's true.

Why do infertile couples spend so many years, so much money on fertility treatments? Because the WANT a CHILD of their OWN. Biology MATTERS.

And adopted kids know that, they know they are Plan B, the second choice. You can deny it all you want, but if it weren't the truth, why wasn't adoption the first choice?

And even after all that trying, all that money, all that extreme heartache and pain of not being able to conceive your own biological child, can you not now imagine that same pain and realize that this child you hope to adopt, also feels the same way about wanting to be with his or her natural family?

That the pain you feel in being unable to conceive, is only the tip of the iceberg of the pain a relinquishing mother feels when she hands over the child she brought into the world?

That the pain you feel in being unable to conceive, is only the extreme tip of the iceberg of the pain an newborn infant feels, when he cries for his mommy and SHE NEVER COMES?

Newborn babies are not born into the world, hoping and praying to be given away to some strangers, so that they can make their dreams come true. These little newborns that are growing in your heart, only want their mommy, the one and only person they know, they love, she is their world. This separation in the name of "family building" causes unspeakable trauma to the infant; and the really sad part is, this poor little child does not have the words or the capability to express his sadness.

You might call it colic; when he is really screaming, where is my mommy?

Or, he may seem like an extremely good baby; he has given up, has resolved himself to the sad fact that mommy is never coming back. That's a sad reality, folks, just try to imagine yourself as a tiny baby, not knowing where you are or who you are with, and the one and only person you want - your mother - has vanished.

That's got to be a terrifying feeling indeed.

Adoption. It is not win-win, it is not the natural answer to infertility.

I just hope some of you readers will think about this.

To the Mothers

(Originally posted on Wordpress on 8/15/07)

Why is it so difficult to treat your reunited relinquished children with a little bit of respect? Why are so many of you out there hiding, denying, flat-out ignoring your reunited children?

I don’t get it. I really don’t.

I mean, yeah, maybe in the era of our births it was a big shameful thing to be pregnant and single, and maybe your families and friends and society made you feel horrible, but come on. Grow up. It’s 2007 and things like this just aren’t a big deal anymore.

And I get that maybe relinquishing your baby was hard, heartbreaking, soul-crushing (or, maybe you were fine with it or at least convinced yourself that you are in order to cope) but just stop it for one tiny second and consider the feelings of your child.

YOUR CHILD.

We may be grown-ups now, in our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and beyond, but guess what? We never ASKED for this. We had NO CHOICE whatsoever, not even a scant dream, we were forced into this adoption bullshit and had NO SAY. You think relinquishing your child is painful? Try living your entire life without anyone in your family. Knowing in your heart that you were abandoned. Is that possible? Can you even just once quit focusing on your bullshit and just THINK ABOUT YOUR CHILD?

I’m mad. No, I’m beyond mad. I’m just sick to death of seeing my fellow adoptees being denied, rejected, turned away for a SECOND time just because we want to know you. We are not dangerous, we are not looking to destroy your life, or humiliate you or any of those things.

We all just love you and want to know the woman who is our mother.

What is SO BAD about that? What is SO WRONG with giving your child even an iota of your attention? Your, hmmm, understanding? Even if you don’t understand, could you at least try? Pretend that you do?

We were rejected at birth. That’s the worst kind of punishment one could ever inflict on a person. We grew up feeling rejected, feeling inadequate, in fear of everyone else in our lives rejecting us too. We were forced to grow up in families that lied to us, that made us pretend to be their own “bio” kids, families that never understood our own pain and expected us to be grateful for being turned over to strangers by the one woman who should love us unconditionally.

You mothers had a “before” adoption. You know what life is like without that loss.

Adoptees don’t. We will never, EVER know what it is like to not have this tremendous loss in our lives.

And some of you just keep on compounding that, ignoring your children when they come looking for you, turning them away, denying who you are, keeping them a secret still. You can’t get past your own issues to give one ounce of compassion to that child you gave away.

And I don’t want to hear the “I had no choice” argument. I know that, I understand that, but you know what?

NEITHER DID WE.