Our Life In The Desert » Adoption

Moving along, slowly

Brandy — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:51:47 +0000

So I thought I’d do a quick run down of what’s going on, since I can’t seem to form the coherent thoughts required to make sense of any one interesting topic. Not that I ever really make sense of any topic I write about — don’t get me wrong

John’s time away

John comes home next week. I am so excited! We were talking a few days ago about how hard this has been and we both decided that the hardest part (that was 110% avoidable, sadly) was the fact that three different people told us that there would be at least one opportunity for John to come home and visit and that simply just wasn’t the case. At all. I think, if we’d both gone into this knowing that it would really be more than 60 days until we got to see each other again, then we’d have started off with a different mentality. Instead, we were of the thought process that we’d be able to break up the separation into two parts, with a visit in the middle. Thankfully, for us, John had my laptop and we were able to web cam every day, just to stay in touch and be involved in each others lives. I’m not sure what other people did and I honestly wonder how many folks there had an expectation of going for a visit and ended up having real problems because it couldn’t happen.

Random adoption related nugget

I haven’t been sleeping well at all. This week has been no different. Yesterday, I laid down to take my morning nap and my phone rang. The caller ID said, “Unknown” and normally, when it says that, it’s my Dr., so I picked it up. Surprisingly, it was S, my daughters mother. She was calling because they had M at the Dr. for her annual physical and they wanted more information about my diagnosis so the Dr. would know what to look for and what to screen for so that she would have the benefit of early detection.

If anyone is keeping score — this is what open adoption is about. Right there. Medical information, freely exchanged, for the benefit of everyone involve — and while it’s true, I also had an open adoption — this particular aspect of open adoption seems to have escaped the minds of those involved. Had I had the benefit of full medical disclosure in my open adoption, I too could have been screened and reaped the benefits of early detection.

Instead, I’ll just die young. I sure hope the comfort of the adults around me was worth my life

The. Big. Move.

Tada! In two weeks, we’ll be all unloaded in our tiny little two bedroom apartment in Bakersfield. I’m both excited and scared. The new job will keep John away from home for two weeks at a time. I’ve been comfortable with that here, in my cozy and safe little corner of the world — but Bakersfield is just…new? Unknown? I don’t know. I’ve been feeding a lot of their news and naturally I’m trying to make concessions for the fact that certain types of stories sell — but it seems like there is a whole lot of crime and murder there. Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. I hope I’m wrong.

Then, well — we’ll be living close to family. People keep telling me that this is a good thing — I keep trying to believe them. I guess only time will tell. Right now, this is a a pretty big source of anxiety for me. We’ve already had at least one ‘minor issue’ come up and I’m sure there will be more — I guess I just need to give it time and see what happens.

What I really need to do is worry about it a little less.

Going back to work

I’ve been struggling with this. It’s hard for me not to contribute and at the same time it’s hard to imagine making a commitment to any job that would require me to work 8-5, Mon-Fri. So, I’ll be looking for freelance opportunities and hoping the right one falls into my lap. I’ve got a couple irons in the fire right now — so hopefully something will pan out.

Right now — my full time job is packing the house, doing the work that needs to be done and making sure everything is good to go on the other end.

We’re in pretty good shape. I’m pretty happy with how things are coming together.

Validation of feelings towards adoption loss

Brandy — Thu, 12 May 2011 11:50:54 +0000

Since returning to blogging a few months ago, I’ve been trying to write, without reservation, about topics that are important to me. I’ve tried, and I think I’ve been fairly successful, at sharing my personal struggles with adoption and doing so in a way that doesn’t hurt or offend the only people I really care about hurting or offending — my daughter, her parents and my family.

I’ve been pretty open and honest with myself and the result of that openness and honesty has been some fairly emotional stuff.

I can only imagine that some of it would be really hard for S, my daughter’s mother, to read.

We’ve been involved in this open adoption for 15 years now and the reality is there are some things that have gone unsaid – maybe for self preservation or maybe out of blind kindness, I don’t know – but through the years, I’ve kept a lot of emotion buried deep inside.

Then I made this promise to myself in February. I promised that if I started blogging again, I would do it with 100% openness and honesty and I would be true to myself and by extension, I would be true to you as well.

I did this, knowing full well that S would read here and that it was possible that whatever had become of our relationship would totally dissolve into nothing. I will say now, with all honesty, I didn’t feel like I had a lot to lose – most all of my information was coming via Facebook status updates directly from M – and that has become increasingly harder for me to deal with.

I sometimes have to block her.

That’s hard for me to type.

But anyway – the whole point of my post is to talk about what has happened as a result of my postings on the blog.

You may have seen my Tweet last night about the validating email I got from M’s mom.

I had been talking to John and I saw the email notification pop up, so I read. Then I started crying. Then I read it again. Then I tweeted.

She’d read my blog posts from Mother’s Day, which linked to post I made last year about Mother’s Day, which linked to all sorts of adoption related stuff.

I’m only just now reading some of your long ago blog entries.
There is so much I want to say to you…
so much I don’t know how to…

She went on to talk about how my pain was valid and my thoughts posts were eloquent and she said the following when I emailed her back, asking for permission to share some of her thoughts and my reaction:

In fact, that was one of the things I wanted to affirm my permission to do when I finally read this entry of yours in reference to need for self-censoring based upon key facebook friends – such as the adoptive mother of one of your beautiful creations.

She referenced the post I’d made in February last year, where Jenna had asked, “How much is to much to tell?”

So, while I’ll continue to respectfully decline to publicly share their names on my blog – I feel validated in sharing more about our struggles, our experiences and our open adoption. And, if at some time in the future, S or even M wishes to out themselves as the other sides of this open adoption triad – I will be excited and welcome them with open arms.

But for now – knowing that what I’ve shared so far is valid and real means more to me than I can even vocalize… and that is what I sort of said to S in a short and underwhelming response to the email that she sent me that sort of, kind of, changed everything for me.

Lame, some?

It certainly helps me feel validated in sharing my thoughts and feelings — regardless of what others might think of them or what kind of light they might shine on the industry.

Mother’s Day reflections

Brandy — Tue, 10 May 2011 11:05:33 +0000

I’m having a hard time finding the words — I’ve been having trouble sleeping and I’ve been dealing with a lot of emotion — but basically, it boils down to this:

Mother’s Day Weekend was hard for me this year — I suspect it mostly had to do with being apart from John — but it also had to do with the fact that so many milestones are being reached. I’m being reminded (every time I open Facebook, ugh — don’t get me started) that I’m missing so many of the things I wish I didn’t have to miss.

She’s driving. Cheering. Riding. She’s living her life and she’s doing it without me and it breaks my heart that it’s this way.

But what can you do?

I emailed my birth mother and told her Happy Mother’s Day. She replied — our relationship is so damn weird.

I wonder if Kiddo will eventually feel that way about me?

I wonder if one day, she’ll email me and I’ll respond and she’ll say, “Our relationship is so damn weird!”

I hope so. An email would be delightful.

Unplanned pregnancy and researching your options

Brandy — Fri, 06 May 2011 12:25:37 +0000

As a first mother, I am often asked what my ‘one piece of advice’ would be to a woman who is researching her options regarding her unplanned pregnancy. Usually, unless I am feeling especially emotional and I want to share some of my personal emotional story, my advice is the same:

It is unwise to make a decision that will have an impact on the rest of your life based solely on the advice of someone who is financially or emotionally invested in the outcome of that decision.

This is hard advice to follow when it comes to unplanned pregnancy. Harder than one might think. When it comes to finding unbiased and uninterested parties to talk to regarding your pregnancy options, you’d think the resources would be endless. But the sad fact is, many adoption agencies position themselves as ‘unplanned pregnancy support’ to the world at large, but then offer nothing more than financially motivated adoption-focused counseling to the women who walk through their doors.

Pick up a phone book or type a search into Google and you’ll find that the worst offenders are positioned right in the forefront of your results.

It doesn’t just stop at advertising — adoption professionals routinely discourage expectant mothers from seeking advice and support from women who have lived with placement and realized the emotional implications that the decision has made on their lives. Instead, professionals will hand-select a hand full of women who haven’t fully realized the implications of their decisions to ‘shine light’ on their experience and the joys that go along with calling your self a ‘birth mother’. Adoption professionals and those who profit off of their hefty advertising budgets put forth a tremendous amount of effort to paint women who vocalize the pain and loss they feel as a result of adoption as ‘bitter’ or ‘angry’.

The pain is real, it is profound and if you find that one day you’d like to talk about that pain — you too will know the joys of having your emotions discounted by being labeled as ‘bitter’ or ‘angry’.

What a professional says about the women who are struggling to shed light on the unfairness in the industry will say a lot about the professional you are talking to.

The industry is broken — the most ethical adoption practitioners operate behind the scenes with very little advertising budget and no six-figure salaries. They’re non-profits that offer information, resources and options to women who face an unplanned pregnancy rather than business entities who operate to make a profit off your decision to place or parent.

My advice, this day before ‘birth mothers day’ – if you’re facing an unplanned pregnancy and you’re not sure what your options are — look in your phone book and find a counselor who deals with family issues and talk to them. Can you really afford to listen to someone who is only motivated by a single possible outcome? That isn’t counseling — at best, that’s coaching and at worst, it’s coercion.

But be careful — inasmuch as I’ve berated the bad habits of adoption professionals and those who work with them — coercion and coaching can come from the other side, too. It is equally damaging to push someone into making the decision to parent — so above else, take the information and resources provided to you and try to make a decision that YOU can live with for the rest of your life — because at the end of the day, once the decision is made, you will be the one doing just that and chances are, you’ll be doing it alone.

Resources to help you:

Backline – Talk to someone about pregnancy, parenting, abortion or adoption
Planned Parenthood – Get information on reproductive health, pregnancy and staying healthy

Mother’s Day has room for all mothers

Brandy — Tue, 03 May 2011 12:27:13 +0000

If Mother’s Day is good enough for Step Mothers, Grand Mothers and Foster Mothers – it’s good enough for First Mothers too.

I reject your label and your special holiday.

I am a mother. It is that simple. If you have a problem with that, you should deal with that yourself and stop trying to change my view of who I am and the role I play in this world.

It is not me with the problem, you see, it is you. You don’t get to define me. You don’t get to shape who I am.

You should really talk to someone about your insecurities in sharing the label of mother with the woman who made you one.

I really went back and forth on writing a post for Mother’s Day, but after after talking with @Firemom last night on IM, I decided I really needed to say what I was feeling – even if I couldn’t turn it into some lengthy prose about my emotions and how I feel. I really needed to get it out there and own it.

I feel pretty good about it.

I’m a first mother. I’m not less of a mother. I’m not bitter or angry, I’m just vocal.

Can adopted adults pass muster with the birthers?

Brandy — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:09:17 +0000

I realize I’m behind the curve ball here on this breaking news – I’ve actually been processing it and trying to decide exactly how I feel about reading that, this morning, President Obama released a copy of his long-form birth certificate.

We all have a long-form birth certificate on file with the Registrar in the state capital where we were born and the information on our long-form is roughly the same as you see on the Presidents. It’s got vitals, Dr. information and information about our parentage.

Where an adoptees long-form differs is that on our long-form, it lists our adoptive parents as the parents who, based on the information provided, gave birth to us.

This, is a lie.

What might also be different, for some adoptees, is the place of birth and location of birth. It wasn’t uncommon for adoptive parents, and their legal representatives, to request that the location of birth be changed to some other location, to ‘protect’ children. It might actually surprise you that this practice still takes place today – although its far less common than it used to be.

So, another potential lie.

In Texas, it was routine to redact certain information from an adopted persons birth certificate, to make it more difficult to ‘search’. Post 9/11, it also made it impossible to obtain a Passport and if you’re one of the lucky few, trying to obtain one was a fight you’d have to wage for years.Thankfully, this only impacted a small number of adopted persons born during the end of 1973.

The information that was omitted has now been reintroduced and below is a slightly altered copy of MY long-form birth certificate. I’ve altered the ID number and the maiden last name for my adoptive mother – for obvious reasons. I’ve also taken the address of my adoptive parents off of the form, as my mother still lives there and I’d like to protect her privacy, as much as possible.

The “Irving Community Hospital” (which now operates under a new name) was the redacted information – they’ve ‘added’ it back in – you’d never notice at all, would you? To go one step further, the purpose of the redaction (privacy) seems a little silly when you consider I was born in a city with one hospital, which wasn’t all that uncommon back in the 1970′s.

Now, I’ll do you the favor of showing you some of the comments I found while looking through news stories:

If you look at my certificate – the document was filed on 11-Dec-1973, a full 13 days (almost two weeks!) after my (alleged) birth and just 15 days shy of the legal requirement to establish citizenship in the US (A birth certificate on file with your registrar within 30 days of birth).

So, to be quite frank – after reading the stories today and reviewing my own long-form birth certificate – I wonder if my birth certificate would pass muster with the birthers?

The birthers are the same right-wingers who fund Focus on The Family and the National Council for Adoption – the lobbying groups who work tirelessly to keep access restricted under lock and key for adults who were adopted.

You can’t point out everything that is wrong with President Obama’s birth certificate then turn around and tell me that all the same things are perfectly OK on my own. You can’t, It’s bullshit and bullshit stinks.

Maybe I’ll write more on the topic, as I stew over the injustice of this ridiculous double standard.

A collection of random thoughts

Brandy — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:44:34 +0000

I was going to try to write about something deep this morning. I actually got a really great start on three awesome blog topics, but I couldn’t flesh any of them out and they all kind of seemed bleh as they were. So in lieu of giving you some really awesome adoption-focused ramblings to read this morning, I give you: The List Post

Mother’s Day is a little over a week away. I don’t celebrate. This year will be no different.
I woke up this morning, did some basic addition and subtraction and the end result was that I got a whole day as a reward. That’s right, a whole day. When I last did the math, I somehow came up with the wrong total number of days gone. This time, I came up with one day less and that means, rather than having to wait all the way till tomorrow to be ‘half way’ – I get to be half way today! How awesome is that!?
In my attempts to come up with something worthwhile this morning – I wrote about what I felt like as an adopted person growing up in a family that was very different from me. It was kind of sad to realize that so much of my potential was snuffed out before it even had a chance to blossom because of personality/nature differences.
I am a firm, firm believer in both nature and nurture and I don’t think it’s an ‘adoptee only’ issue. I have a lot of personal experiences with the concept, having grown up with my parents biological child in the home.
I sometimes struggle with the fact that I’m not sure I’d want to ‘do over’ the period in my life that lead to me making the decision to place Kiddo for adoption. I keep coming back to the “hind-sight” argument and the fact that I’d likely have a very different life than the one I have now. (Keep in mind, I’m talking only about my own experiences, not yours.)
I plan on writing about my varied reproductive experiences for Mother’s Day. Since I’ve decided to be open and honest, you should know that I’ve been through almost everything that a woman can go through – including an abortion.
I am prepared for the ‘well you killed one baby and gave one away – now God is punishing you’ comments that will, undoubtedly, flood the comment queue.
I wonder how many people automatically hate me now, simply because I disclosed that information without any back story.
This morning, I woke up sleeping across my bed and that made for a very discombobulated morning.
My list of stuff to get done is shrinking. So is the number of days left in this fun and exciting experience.
So, we’re coming to the end of National Donate Life Month – I suppose all of the ‘pro-life’ folks have registered to be organ/tissue donors so they can do their part in saving a life, right?

Well, I have a few things to get done today – so I need to shake a leg. Thanks for letting me get all of *that* off my chest – ugh. Maybe now I can actually *write* something!

Thanks for talking me down =)

Brandy — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:09:41 +0000

I realize I sort of wigged out back there on Friday. Things have been super stressful and I just haven’t been dealing very well. I want to take a minute to thank those of you who commented via the comments, via Twitter, via Facebook and also via email. So many of you shared your personal struggles, your insight and your advice and it means so much to me that you’d reach out and try to help me when I’m at my lowest.

Thankfully, Wednesday marks the official mid-point of John being away and I am hoping that once we’re on the other side of this separation, things will start to look differently.

I think that part of the frustration, at least for me, is John’s inability to connect emotionally in our relationship. Sure, he loves me and all that – but most of our relationship centers around being within physical proximity – so when you take away that dynamic of me being able to read his ‘emotions’, so to speak, from his physical interactions with me…it just makes things all stupid and frustrating.

It’s like trying to decode the emotion of someone who is monotone. It’s easier to do with them right in front of you…not so easy over the phone.

It’s just kind of thrown a kink into things…and we’re trying to figure out the best way to deal with my overwhelming need to have an emotional connection and his inability to show emotion verbally.

Sounds fun, right?

Oh – and then there’s Mothers Day.

I’m kind of kicking around a post on the topic. As an adopted adult who grew up in an open adoption in the 70′s and 80′s and who went on to become both a mother and a first mother in the 90′s – I have a lot of varying and strong feelings about the topic.

I also have other dynamics that make this year especially complicated.

I doubt, after dredging up all of that, I’ll even have the opportunity to touch on my feelings surrounding our infertility.

But I’m working on it and I appreciate all of the wonderful comments from my Twitter friends who continually stand behind me and encourage me be who I am, rather than who others want me to be.

*That’s a hand written thank you note, from me to all of you – sadly, I’m to exhausted to find good light…

Real realization

Brandy — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 12:59:23 +0000

I’ve been working on finding my voice over the last few months. It’s hard when you talk/react through a certain filter. It keeps you from being your true self. It hampers your ability to open up and speak from your heart, rather than speaking through a carefully crafted filter that keeps you from being fired from your job or talked about behind your back at work.

Not that the filter ever really worked. The talking still happened. It still happens.

I care a little less about it now, though.

I look at the move we’re making as an opportunity to put more distance between me and the filter. I look at it as a chance to do the good I’ve always wanted to do – but never quite felt like I could, because of my work or my professional connections.

I’m looking forward to exploring ways I can give back to the community that has had so much taken from them. I look forward to writing more and being a resource to those in need.

I’m going to be doing a lot of coming out of my shell over the next months – some of you will learn stuff about me that you never knew…others will finally see me open up about private parts of my life that I’ve shared with you.

I’m feeling more at peace with who I am becoming and it feels really damn good.

Open Adoption Roundtable #25: Has open adoption ever felt like to much?

Brandy — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 23:00:27 +0000

The Open Adoption Roundtable Discussion this month is “Has open adoption ever felt like too much? Have you ever wanted to walk away?”

I’m still having some serious issues with finding my voice when it comes to adoption blogging. I’ve kept things bottled up and hidden for so long, that I find I write in the same manner I used to, even though I no longer feel I need to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself.

Even without all the complexities related to my personal reasons for censoring, this is a hard topic to write about. One of the main reasons it’s hard for me is because I’m not a big fan of admitting my failures. Open adoption is a mutual agreement between everyone to ‘stick with it’ even when it gets hard – but what they don’t tell you, after feeding you sunshine and rainbows, is that as hard as it is right that minute, while your signing those papers – it gets harder.

So, has open adoption ever felt like to much?

Yes, it has.

Have you ever wanted to walk away?

Yes, I have. I’ve wanted to several times. I’ve purposefully ignored emails and phone calls when it became to much – opting to open up communication again when I could deal with it.

As a birth mother in open adoption, I have a hard time with the lack of information I get…I feel discounted and disrespected in the relationship as a result. I don’t like hearing about things via Facebook – but I also feel like I don’t have much of a choice – as it seems to be the only ongoing and reliable source of information about her life that I have.

I worry about how the decision I made 15 years ago will be projected back on me when she reflects back on her childhood, upbringing and our mostly-dysfunctional open adoption relationship.

It’s hard to admit my failures, of course – but my knee jerk reaction to most things that are hard is to run. Run away and hide. So walking away – of course I’ve thought about it and wanted to do it – adoption is hard.

Would I do it?

Never. Not unless she asked me to – I’d respect her wishes if she wanted to cut ties, as hard as that is to even put in writing.

As for my role as an adoptee raised in what is considered an open adoption – I have walked away. I’ve come back and walked away again. I’ve shouldered a lot of blame for the ‘wrongs’ that lead to my birth – I was a damn fetus – grow the hell up.