A week or so ago when when KatjaMichelle tweeted about her first interaction with her new coworkers, we started talking about ‘coming out’ as a birth parent to people who may or may not be receptive. It’s a struggle many birth parents face when it comes to talking about family and children. How much do you share? How much is to much? How much is to little? Do I include my placed child? If I don’t, am I lying?

In her tweet, KatjaMichelle said shared that she had a child, but that he doesn’t live with her. True enough and certainly, a great way to ‘test the waters’.

Then this morning, I was getting ready to start my first day at my new job when Suz posted a new blog post: Hello Paranoia and Shame.

I could relate to that too. My own job search took a while and I’d like to think it had nothing to do with the fact that I made the decision to place my daughter for adoption.

As a birth mother, I’ve come up against a number of really awful stereotypes – some of the worst actually being perpetuated by people who claim to be educated about adoption and it’s myriad of issues. Naturally I was worried and scared about starting a new job and having to share this big piece of who I am.

I’m sure that came across loud and clear as well,  because I felt like a nervous wreck all friggin day.

I didn’t intend on using my KatjaMichelle’s ‘line’ when I went to lunch with a group of ladies from my new job today – but that’s what I did and now I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Overall, the day was great. I really enjoyed spending time with my new coworkers and getting to know them. I look forward to tomorrow and hopeful, as I start to come out of my shell a little, I’ll open up more about myself.

Now if I can just figure out how to tell my story:

I’m a birth mother. Yes, it was hard. No, I can’t get her back. Yes, she knows who I am. Yeah, it pretty much sucked. It’s ok, you don’t have to be sorry.

Why is it so hard to say that out loud?

Birth parents are all around us…even my adoptive mother is a birth mother. She placed twins 14 years before adopting me.

I want to add – I have absolutely no reason to think that my being a birth mother is ‘unknown’ – several of my new coworkers have been reading my blog for a few weeks now – I just don’t know who all they are

I watched a show a while back about a child who was born with a medical condition (parasitic twin) that required a precision surgical procedure to correct. The child and his family lived in Nepal. They lived in a small one room hut without running water, an indoor bathroom or electricity. They lived miles from civilization and getting to civilization took hours, because they had no transportation and had to walk.

They owned a farm and lived within a means that is typical of other Nepalese families. They were ordinary – with their hammock beds, thatched roofs and tiny shack.

Word of their plight spread and within a few months, Western Dr.’s visited their tiny village and offered help. It was clear that the child needed surgery to survive, so the family opted to accept the help offered and boarded a plane for the first time in their lives for the trip to LA.

Over the course of their stay, the cameras for Discovery Health followed them around and documented their experience.

The baths in the spigot outside the house in LA.

The comments about being homesick.

Missing family, friends, foods, tastes and smells of their homeland.

I remember wondering, before they actually commented about their stay, what they thought of the US. Would the transition back to what they’d come to know as ‘normal’ be hard, after having access to all the things by which we measure success?

Then the mother said something along the lines of: I’m ready to go home. It’s ok here, but it’s not home. I miss the food, my family, my life and my home. She missed her one room, thatched roof home.

The show stuck with me since watching it earlier this year. It stuck with me because it seems, we as Americans seem to measure the ‘fitness’ of a country/community/persons ability to provide for their children by American gluttonous standards.

The ability to afford luxury things like computers, gaming systems and spacious bedrooms with designer furniture has become the stick in which we measure a child’s need to be adopted.

A good example is the child who was airlifted out of Haiti and flown to Miami because of a medical issue after the earthquake. Her parents loved her and wanted her back. What happened was months and months of legal fighting all the while, the arguments were being made about the ‘quality of life’ this child could expect growing up in Haiti. She had a family who loved her and no doubt, her foster family loved her as well – but this child was wanted by her ‘loving family’ back in Haiti and we here in America were busy fighting them based on everything America had that Haiti didn’t.

Obscene.

I read a story about the 12 children from Haiti who were airlifted after the earthquake and sent to Pennsylvania. Already, the politicians are making their elitists statements about life in Haiti and how much better their quality of life will be if they stay here.

Quality of life as measured by who I ask? The mother from Nepal sure didn’t feel like the quality of life we offered here in the US was better than her life back in Nepal.

We sure do think a lot of ourselves – don’t we?

Don’t even get me started on the ‘quality of life’ concerns we American’s have as they relate to tiny children. Apparently, quality of life isn’t an issue for anyone over the age of 18.

This smells a lot like finding children for homes in need…vs. what adoption is really about.

The core concept to “The Secret”, a very popular self-help book, is that you control your own destiny by thinking thoughts that send you down a specific path, like the Law of Attraction. If you think the worst, you draw the worst close to you. If you think good thoughts, you’re surrounded by good things and good things will happen.

I’m not sure how I feel about this – I still haven’t read the book (Sorry, D.H.) and I don’t know if I will (Again, sorry).

What I do know is that the book is wildly popular and accepted by large portions of people who read it. They believe the concept that thinking and being subjected to ideas and thoughts can lead to a defined outcome based on those ideas and thoughts.

It’s no wonder adoption professionals call woman who are considering adoption, “birthmothers”.

You knew this was going to be adoption related, after my rant yesterday, yes?

Birthmother is a word that is exclusive to the adoption community and adoption industry. It is a word that, outside of adoption, doesn’t exist. Often, when I ask someone who missuses the word ‘birthmother’ in reference to pregnant woman considering adoption, the response I get is that it’s what they’ve learned from the professional they’re using.

“This is what our caseworker calls them, so this is what we call them”

“If I called her a mother or expectant mother, people wouldn’t know who I was talking about”

“The entire industry uses ‘birthmother’, I don’t see a problem with it”

I get frustrated, because they’re right and they’re wrong. They’re right in that this is what the industry uses and this is what professionals call woman considering adoption so it has become the accepted label used. But they’re wrong in their willingness to allow it to be accepted. We have the power to institute change, believe it or not.

When potential adoptive parents reach out to professionals, they start hearing the word ‘birthmother’ and they continue to hear it and use it throughout the process.

What would happen if professionals stopped using it? Do they fear it would result in fewer placements? That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? Because if the answer is no, then why won’t they do it? If the answer is yes, then why are they allowed to do it!?

Now, I go back to “The Secret” – what this emphasizes is that the laws of attraction draw from your mindset – if you think you’re successful, then you will be successful. If you think you’re a birthmother…then what?

I’m not saying I totally buy into the concept of The Secret – but I know a great many people do. The idea behind it is compelling,which makes the reason for using the language even more disturbing.

I’ve never been able to get an actual answer from anyone regarding the resistance to change. I’d love to have an open and honest dialogue regarding this important topic. I think it’s such a small change that can easily be adopted by professionals all across the United States and abroad to show their willingness to make adoption about adoption, rather than adopting.

I want this change for the women who will follow me – the ones who will be impacted the most by it.

I didn’t watch the CNN piece on Open Records. I’ve learned not to trust main stream media when it comes to adoption related topics.

From what I understand, it was more of the same…only this time, they actually had the balls to do the show without even trying to include the people who are most impacted by the laws – adopted adults. At least they didn’t hide behind their brainwashed mouthpieces – I suspect they’ve stopped doing that, after having so many of them ‘defect’ to the other side and looking like complete and utter fools.

Better to have their paid mouthpiece do the talking, I guess.

I am totally floored that anyone would do a show about an adopted adults right to have access to their records, but not include an actual adopted adult.

Probably because, like this show, they’re to focused on keeping us ‘children’ who are incapable of making decisions for ourselves.

It’s disgusting and dismissive and frustrating. Would they do a show about pregnancy without including someone who is or has been pregnant?

It’s ridiculous.

Amanda at The Declassified Adoptee does a far better job at expressing how I feel than even I could – and I don’t even know her

Man, for whatever reason, this mornings blog post is super hard to write.

I was going to write about the possibility of resurrecting the old open adoption blog from a few years ago – which I still might do – but then I decided that I didn’t need an entire blog post devoted to deciding whether or not to resurrect an old blog. I think that was a good idea – it came off as needy and redic.

Then I was going to write something about painting my bedroom – but lets face it, the following will serve the purpose:

My Bedroom = Dark as a Cave

The picture on the left is a picture of my bedroom wall. The center is the flooring (cherry hardwood). That translates to a really, really dark room – so yeah, we’re painting it.

It's not as dark as it seems...

The sample color of Secret Passage (which is more gray than what I’m seeing here on my monitors) is really light…we’re doing the trim in Snow Mount…which sounds really dirty.

Anyway, then I was going to write about this stupid bump on the left side of my face that I can see out of my left eye without even trying – but really, who cares?

Finally, I typed up almost a complete blog on Blog Cliques and finding a niche topic that you really want to write about when it dawned on me, I don’t really care about that crap…my life just isn’t that exciting.

So here we are – I blogged about all of them.

I’ll take some before + after shots of the bedroom. I’m super excited.

I’m still not sure about the old blog…if you’ve got an opinion, feel free to comment about it. /Neediness