if it was meant to be, it'll come back to you. (not so much.)
They say "Write it, don't send it" (for obvious reasons) I hope I don't regret posting this, but, true to form, I'm goin' for it ! I wish I had the balls to call Oprah and set the record straight, but I'd probably get sued.
It's this: I am part of a miracle. One I never asked for.
In today's world, so many things have been challenged and changed. Some, for the better. In my case, not so much. The grief my miracle brought is starting to outweigh the joy.
Somebody (not me) should write a book about the heartache of adoption reunions. Ours is eleven years old.
I've seen and read a lot about these reunions because I have an avid interest. I'm a "Birth Mother." God, the stigma that goes with that can be an albatross around my neck. Now, adoption numbers are falling because mothers choose to keep their children, no matter what. A good thing? Sure, in many cases.
In my case almost 42 years ago, it didn't seem like a good option. I was married briefly, to someone I'd known, but lost track of for many years. We had no idea what the hell we were doing. Viet Nam was raging. I was completely without direction, just sort of treading water, living in a Godforsaken little town where I knew no one. He was sure to go to Viet Nam, and probably needed to set down roots to come home to. We were eighteen, fercrissakes !
I was horribly homesick and terribly pregnant. My husband, who is a better friend to me now than he ever was then, could do nothing right, poor kid. I wanted to go home and I wanted to go NOW!. My parents were so confused, they liked this guy so much and could not understand why I wanted to abandon the very plan I'd insisted on carrying out several months earlier.
But you know what? I firmly believe in the "Everything Happens for a Reason" school of thought. Our daughter was meant to be conceived. It was all part of God's plan and it all had to do with DNA. She was meant to be delivered by me and placed in the much-more-capable-hands of her adoptive parents. If things had gone differently, she never would've come to know the wonderful people in her life, and certainly would not have come to know the father of her beautiful children. (Without whom she couldn't enjoy the wonderful life she has now.)
I wouldn't have had my reason for being, either. My twins, who arrived three years after she was born and placed. My husband, her father, would not have known the wife he chose to spend eighteen years with, or served overseas in a noble capacity, the Peace Corp, giving so much more than he got.
It's all good, right?
Not so fast.
When you see the constantly running stories of the tortured souls who spend years looking for each other, you only see the honeymoon phase. You don't get to see that these reunions sometimes wreak havoc in so many lives who didn't deserve it. The 'afterglow' is much more of a furnace. It burns, and in my case, left deeper scars than the original loss.
We reunited after my "birth daughter's" parents were deceased. That was the only way I could've ever agreed to meet. I never wanted to start these wheels turning, lest I hurt the very people to whom I owed so much. Certainly I was curious all those years, thinking of her on her birthdays, Mothers Day, Fathers Day. But thanks to her 'birth father's' diligence, her safety and well being had been established when she was still a toddler.
Now, she's back, she's reunited with her relatives, she's formed strong bonds with some of them and offended many of them, too. Mostly, us. her birth parents.
She can be polite, but distant. She can be fierce, in a covert way. She may share our DNA, but she shares little else. I've met her children, a true gift from God, and I'm satisfied in knowing everything turned out well for her, for all of us. But the emotions she plays with are in danger of triggering some aftershocks, even after these eleven years. Now, there are even bigger issues.
I love this girl, so does her father, we wish her only the best, as we always have. I don't know how to assuage her anger, though, and I thought that once she had kids of her own, she would understand. She says she has no regrets, but I'm saying she has residue. I hope one day she'll really come back to us, but I guess that would be too much of a miracle.
I'm posting this because I'm tired of walking on eggs, I needed to say this, and I'm safe because, she doesn't even know I blog.
DNA: the gift that keeps on giving.
They say "Write it, don't send it" (for obvious reasons) I hope I don't regret posting this, but, true to form, I'm goin' for it ! I wish I had the balls to call Oprah and set the record straight, but I'd probably get sued.
It's this: I am part of a miracle. One I never asked for.
In today's world, so many things have been challenged and changed. Some, for the better. In my case, not so much. The grief my miracle brought is starting to outweigh the joy.
Somebody (not me) should write a book about the heartache of adoption reunions. Ours is eleven years old.
I've seen and read a lot about these reunions because I have an avid interest. I'm a "Birth Mother." God, the stigma that goes with that can be an albatross around my neck. Now, adoption numbers are falling because mothers choose to keep their children, no matter what. A good thing? Sure, in many cases.
In my case almost 42 years ago, it didn't seem like a good option. I was married briefly, to someone I'd known, but lost track of for many years. We had no idea what the hell we were doing. Viet Nam was raging. I was completely without direction, just sort of treading water, living in a Godforsaken little town where I knew no one. He was sure to go to Viet Nam, and probably needed to set down roots to come home to. We were eighteen, fercrissakes !
I was horribly homesick and terribly pregnant. My husband, who is a better friend to me now than he ever was then, could do nothing right, poor kid. I wanted to go home and I wanted to go NOW!. My parents were so confused, they liked this guy so much and could not understand why I wanted to abandon the very plan I'd insisted on carrying out several months earlier.
But you know what? I firmly believe in the "Everything Happens for a Reason" school of thought. Our daughter was meant to be conceived. It was all part of God's plan and it all had to do with DNA. She was meant to be delivered by me and placed in the much-more-capable-hands of her adoptive parents. If things had gone differently, she never would've come to know the wonderful people in her life, and certainly would not have come to know the father of her beautiful children. (Without whom she couldn't enjoy the wonderful life she has now.)
I wouldn't have had my reason for being, either. My twins, who arrived three years after she was born and placed. My husband, her father, would not have known the wife he chose to spend eighteen years with, or served overseas in a noble capacity, the Peace Corp, giving so much more than he got.
It's all good, right?
Not so fast.
When you see the constantly running stories of the tortured souls who spend years looking for each other, you only see the honeymoon phase. You don't get to see that these reunions sometimes wreak havoc in so many lives who didn't deserve it. The 'afterglow' is much more of a furnace. It burns, and in my case, left deeper scars than the original loss.
We reunited after my "birth daughter's" parents were deceased. That was the only way I could've ever agreed to meet. I never wanted to start these wheels turning, lest I hurt the very people to whom I owed so much. Certainly I was curious all those years, thinking of her on her birthdays, Mothers Day, Fathers Day. But thanks to her 'birth father's' diligence, her safety and well being had been established when she was still a toddler.
Now, she's back, she's reunited with her relatives, she's formed strong bonds with some of them and offended many of them, too. Mostly, us. her birth parents.
She can be polite, but distant. She can be fierce, in a covert way. She may share our DNA, but she shares little else. I've met her children, a true gift from God, and I'm satisfied in knowing everything turned out well for her, for all of us. But the emotions she plays with are in danger of triggering some aftershocks, even after these eleven years. Now, there are even bigger issues.
I love this girl, so does her father, we wish her only the best, as we always have. I don't know how to assuage her anger, though, and I thought that once she had kids of her own, she would understand. She says she has no regrets, but I'm saying she has residue. I hope one day she'll really come back to us, but I guess that would be too much of a miracle.
I'm posting this because I'm tired of walking on eggs, I needed to say this, and I'm safe because, she doesn't even know I blog.
DNA: the gift that keeps on giving.
2 comments:
You are so brave. Hugs.
It's a sad but not uncommon story, Molls. I have rarely known one of these reunions to go well in the long run. By the way, you mentioned that marriage that didn't endure a long time. Isn't that only 25% of the story?
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