Originally posted the last post over at my non-adoption blog but figured I’d put it here too since I don’t remember having posted pics of Kidlet. If you’d like the password let me know therapyisexpensive [at] hotmail [dot] com
Good Parents Speak English?
I’m sick and don’t have the energy to comment, except to say WTF.
Roundtable Redo
So I made an attempt to address the first OA Roundtable prompt (an admittedly lame attempt but an attempt all the same). I consider my last attempt lame because I couldn’t come up with an answer. Seven years into OA and I couldn’t answer:
What do you know now that you wish you knew then? Has the reality of open adoption as it’s looked in your life matched your expectations? What one thing about open adoption would you tell your past self, if you could?
I started writing with an idea in mind but by the time I got to the end all I had in me was an, “I don’t know.” Well thanks to last night I now do know. So here I am flouting all the rules (are there rules?)and taking a second shot at this topic.
I have a three year old niece. Yesterday was an auntie/niece day. We built “houses” with duplos, played dress up, blew lots of bubbles, and watched the same dvd 3 times. Not once did I mention my son. Don’t get me wrong, she knows about her cousin. There are pictures at my house, at her house, and at my parent’s house. She knows his name and that he’s her cousin and she knows he doesn’t live with me. Although now that I think about it we’ve never explained WHY he doesn’t live with me she just knows that at aunt Katja’s house there are two cats inside, one cat outside, aunt kat, and two roommates.
So anyway after spending time I went to my parents house and after a few minutes my BabySister, SoliderBoy and Babykins showed up there as well. And they brought with them a story. Apparently on the way to my parents house Babykins has shared with her parents the following story:
“My cousin, Kidlet, and I played over there momma. We rolled down that hill and then we cried because we were stuck.”
After BabySister retold this to us well looked at Babykins and she confirmed it by emphatically insisting she and Kidlet had rolled down the hill.
She also requested a visit with her cousin.
So what does this have to do with the roundtable question? If I could go back in time and tell my 17 year old self anything about Open Adoption I would explain the ramifications not on myself but on those around me. I would remind myself that the child I was carrying was not only my son, he is also my parent’s grandson, my sister’s nephew, my future neices’ cousin, and my future children’s brother.
I would tell myself that these other relationships are important and need to be respected. I would advise myself to request J&M to come to the Northwest prior to my due date to meet my family. I would ask my family to be involved in my communications with them.
As it is the parents only met J&M once each and my sisters never met them. And it was while I was recovering from a not so awesome c-section. They did not make the best impression (IMO I’m not sure what J&M think) as neither knew what to make of the situation or if they could trust J&M to follow through on the openness.
So no, meine Nichte, you can’t go visit Kidlet. At least not at the moment. I’m sorry I didn’t lay the groundwork for this to be possible. Someday I hope you will get your visit with your cousin and maybe you’ll even get to roll down that hill together.
Therapy Fail
The fact that I can’t get through a five minute phone call soliciting therapy is probably a pretty good indicator that I NEED therapy. Of course its just one more barrier to me actually getting therapy. Yay for tears at inopportune moments (heavy sarcasm).
Now time to go to bed and ignore the urge to throw up.
Jumping on the Roundtable Bandwagon
Can you jump on a roundtable and a bandwagon at the same time? Well I just did.
Over at PNR the first of presumably many OA RoundTable Prompts has been posted:
…think back to who you were when open adoption first entered into your life. As with so many things in life, thinking about open adoption without having experienced it and actually living it out are two very different things. What do you know now that you wish you knew then? Has the reality of open adoption as it’s looked in your life matched your expectations? What one thing about open adoption would you tell your past self, if you could?
It doesn’t seem on the surface to be a difficult question. We all look at our pasts and have, “if only I’d known then” moments. In fact recently during my first adoption support group meeting while telling my story it was joked that I should write an adoption book called, “If I knew then…”. Not to mention that about a year ago, as part of a work related therapeutic type group I wrote a letter to my 17 year old self. But maybe there-in lies the problem. I have so many, “if only”s I can’t narrow it down.
Would I tell my 17 year old self to be more involved in the openness earlier on? It sounds like a good idea in hindsight. but would it have been a good thing in practice? I was not in an emotionally healthy place right after relinquishment. Perhaps if I’d been more involved from the beginning everything would have gone well, but perhaps we all needed to ease into our openness. To let it progress naturally. So no, thats not the bit of advice I’d give my then self.
I want to steal some wisdom from The Chronicles and tell my then self to get some counseling. Before, during, and after. However, the lack of success I’m having at getting my 25 year old self to get counseling doesn’t convince me my 17 year old self would be very open to the idea.
So then what would it be? What would be that one piece of advice? I want so badly to tell my 17 year old self to parent, but even typing that sentence triggers so much guilt I deleted it and re-typed it several times before deciding to let it stay. But that isn’t really about my OA because if I gave myself that advice I wouldn’t be in an OA. By the same token I suppose advice to room with my son, nurse, and bathe, and photograph him aren’t exactly OA related either.
So I guess this is the long way of saying, “I don’t know.” Which, in my defense is not how I thought I’d be ending this post just 5 minutes ago.
In The Mean Time…
While I sort through my issues and get to a point where I can publish some of the posts I’ve been writing a recent guest blog submission of mine is up over at Adoption Under One Roof.
Why Can’t I Write?
When I’m struggling I should be able to come here and write, but for some reason it just isn’t happening today. I’ve written two posts in the last 2 hours and both times just as I’m poised to click “publish” I scroll up and “save as draft” instead.
Maybe I’m just not ready to let it go yet. Maybe the pain is well deserved punishment. Maybe….who knows.
In liu of venting and feeling better I guess I’ll just revert to pasting on a fake smile and hoping they buy it, because I have plans in about an hour.
Why Can’t We Grieve?
Started to write this in the comments over at Writing My Wrongs but as I typed I also thought, and it got long. Too long to leave in the comments section.
In life when there is loss their should be grief. Without grieving or mourning something how do people heal? Well in the world of adoption loss you aren’t allowed to grieve. I think societies refusal to validate our grief can be explained in two parts.
First its not acceptable to grieve for such a “win-win” situation.
When I tried to grieve my sadness was dismissed with sentiments like “But isn’t he with a good family?”, “Doesn’t he have a good life”, “You did the right thing.”. In fact even a counselor who claimed to have both grief and loss and adoption experience uttered these words mere moments into our first (and only) session.
Second grief is supposed to be temporary or at least deminish with time. Adoption Grief isn’t like that.
If a widow still grieves with the same intensity years after her husbands passing I think she tends to get similar disapproval from society because she has failed to, “move on” or “get over it” (sound familiar?).
In my opinion adoption grief lasts for longer than that of other losses because we were never allowed to grieve in the first place AND because with each milestone our child reaches without us we experience a new loss.
So even if society accepted our grief they would still expect us to at some point “get over it”. But even if I come to peace with the initial loss of placing I then I have to be able to grieve the loss of not being there for my son’s first smile. His first step. His first word. His first EVERYTHING… These losses can be felt and grieved when they actually occur or when I witness another child meeting these milestones or both.
Grief and loss professionals need to be educated about both the grief associated with this “win-win” situation as well as the recurring nature of this unique grief.
Preliminary Data
I just completed my presentation. In fact I”m still sitting in class right now. Thank you again to those of you who took my survey.
The results weren’t terribly surprising.
Question 1: Did re-opening adoption records cause abortion rates to rise? To answer this question I looked at the abortion rates in states that have re-opened records. I ran a paired samples T-test comparing the rates before re-opening records to the rates after re-opening records. There is no significant difference between abortion rates before re-opening records and those after.
Question 2: Are abortion rates higher in states with Open Adoption Records? To answer this question I compared the open records state’s abortion rates to those who have yet to re-open records. There is no significant difference between the abortion rates in Open Record States and those in sealed record states.
From the data from questions 1 and 2 we can refute the claim that re-opening records will cause abortion rates to soar.
Question 3: Will re-opening records decrease the number of women who relinquish their parental rights? To answer this question I posted a survey and asked first moms (aka natural moms, birth moms, biological moms etc) to help me out by filling it out. 83% of respondants stated that the status of adoption records had NO influence on their decision. 0.00% were heavily or completely influenced by the status of records. Yep thats right absolutely no one who responded was heavily or completely influenced by sealed records. (not shocking but felt the need to reitterate based on how certain people are that opening records would be catastrophic)
70% of respondents were either not informed or only minimally informed about closed record practices. If having closed records is such a selling point why not tell people about them?
I also left space for additional feedback. Not everyone offered it but a fair number did. The feedback gave me insight into questions I SHOULD have asked, or rather seperate research that needs to be done. I obviously couldn’t cover everything. I had a very finite time frame, but oh the research I could do if i had but the time and finances (do I sound like a nerd yet?).
Most of the responses were of the “open records now” variety. Many pointed out that either due to the BSE or Coercion it wasn’t “making an adoption plan” or even their “choice”.
Some took issue with my terminology. I used the term first/birth and I am sorry to have offended anyone however for this research I will continue to use those terms. I will use them together or possibly interchangably. I do this because outside the adoption community the term first mom is not well understood. Whats the point of doing research if those reading it don’t understand it?
Some took issue with my survey. I shouldn’t have asked the abortion questions. I used the rationalization that since those who support closed records lump abortion with adoption I needed to as well. I thought by asking those questions I could prove that there is no link between adoption and abortion. And even though that is what the data shows, how rediculous is it to link two things in order to prove they aren’t linked. The analysis of pre-existing data refuted the abortion claims all on its own. There was no need to ask those questions. I won’t be using that data in my report.
As I said more info will be posted as I write the actual paper. For now I’ll reward myself for finishing my presentation by going home and pouring myself a glass of wine.
You can contact me, KatjaMichelle, at therapyisexpensive@hotmail.com
