Yelling or Silence?

One of my favorite bloggers that I visit whenever I need a lift, is Crazy Aunt Purl. She’s an amazing writer, who sometimes knits.. As her blog is classified as a knitting blog. Her post are not always happy and upbeat. She’s been through some pretty tough stuff with her faithful blog readers along for the read. But her style and wit in writing will surely bring a smile or a tear to your face each time you give her a visit. She gets pretty deep sometimes too.

As in this post. Where she talks about her neighbor who is, it seems always yelling at the people in her house. Her husband, her kids, sometimes one can not even be sure who this woman is yelling at. But she is yelling and loudly enough to be heard by the neighbors. In the under current of “Aunt Purl’s” post you tell that she has sympathy for this woman. As she knows that there must be something in this woman’s life that is pretty bad to cause her to use yelling as her form of communication.

And I agree. I think most of the time when a person is yelling, the words they are using are not the words that would give knowledge to the “real” problem in their lives.

Ok, yelling isn’t always some sign of a deeper problem. Probably not for the occasional “yeller”

As in, you’ve worked all day. You come home and have to work some more. You are tired and hot and think you feel a cold coming on. Then your child brings in the wet dog, after a half bath, on to your freshly mopped kitchen: And you yell, “Get that wet stinky dog out of here!” What does that mean? Well, it probably means get that dog out of here. 

We are not talking about the occasional yeller here. We are talking about the ones who are full blown, “We’ll she ever stop yelling?” people who go into loud rants on a daily, even hourly basis. I used to be one of these people.

I didn’t like it, I couldn’t control it. Sometimes I didn’t even know it. I would just get so overwhelmed with what ever emotional outburst that I was having at the moment that it would just all come pouring out of me in that loud, insane tone reserved only for the most out of control.

What goes on behind the scenes of a compulsive “yeller”? When the woman yells for thirty minutes at her husband because he didn’t put his socks in the hamper, what is she really thinking? Is she so overwhelmed with her job and the house work and wondering why her husband stopped helping her. Does she feel lonely in her marriage because it seems that her husband is suddenly taking her for granted and not taking time to be with her as he used to do. Is she wondering why it seems that her husband is suddenly so un attracted to her?

Or when a husband is yelling, again, at his wife for buying yet another pair of shoes. Is it that she owns too many shoes or that he doesn’t think she deserves to have some nice things if she wants them? Or is it that he really wants her to be more involved with the family’s household budget, but he doesn’t know how to involve her because his father never involved his mother in such things as money. And he’s really upset that he didn’t have a better role model to teach him how to be a good husband…

Maybe it is nothing that you could possibly think of that is making this person yell so much. As in my case (and so many others I’m sure). I would fly into a rage over the smallest of things and at the drop of a hat, I would be yelling at the top of my voice until my lungs would completely run out of air and my face would be red from the effort. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FORGOT TO BUY SOME COKE FOR ME ON THE WAY HOME FROM WORK?!… YOU KNOW THAT COKE IS THE ONLY THING I HAVE TO DRINK… I ASK FOR ONE THING…. BLA BLA BLA”

Until finally the effort of the yelling over came me and I would slump into the nearest chair panting for air. My head would be spinning. I’d feel dizzy and sick from the lack of oxygen. In this example, if you used simple logic, perhaps you might draw the conclusion that I was hurt because the person I was yelling at was being inattentive of my needs. That I was feeling that I did oh so much for this person but he couldn’t ever seem to do anything for me in return. It seems all very logical to draw this conclusion doesn’t it.

If that’s what you would think would be in the under currents of this tirade, you’d be wrong. Back in those days, “my yelling days” there was only ever one thing in the “under current” during my rants. It didn’t matter if I was yelling about forgotten drinks or the lack of money to pay the bills. The only one thing that was really going on inside me was the loss of my children.

I’m not even sure that I knew that then, but I do know it now. If I was yelling, screaming at the top of my lungs because there was dog hair on the couch, what I really wanted to say was: “THEY TOOK MY KIDS AND I CAN’T GET THEM BACK AND I MISS THEM AND I HURT SO BAD THAT I DON’T THINK I CAN LIVE ANY MORE!” But I couldn’t talk about that so instead I said, “Where’s my coke?!”

Yes, it might be easy to see that someone who yells “all the time” Is really hurting deep inside. But it is not always easy to know what is causing their pain. But at least it is a sign that something is wrong. If only the people around them would know that it is a sign and take action to find out what the true problem is. The other type of person, on the opposite end of the spectrum is another problem indeed. This is the type of person I am now. The person that never yells.

I don’t know when I became this person. I don’t know why the yelling stopped, or how. I just did. I stopped yelling about anything. In fact, I stopped talking. I don’t mean that I never speak. I just mean that I never speak about anything that bothers me to the person that has done the thing that bothers me. How do you know that something is wrong with someone, if that person never complains about anything?

So this is where I am in my self analyzes. I sit here crying alone in the dark because my husband can’t see that I’m in pain… Feeling so alone, that soon it isn’t about being depressed any more, it is about hurt feelings that my husband doesn’t see my pain. My focus shifts from the original cause of my depression to my feelings that I have an insensitive, unfeeling husband who doesn’t care if I am in pain as long as I wash his socks.  When the truth is, how could he even know? (a friend helped me ask this question. {thanks OW}

I’m so busy trying to hide my depression from the outside world, such as the people at work, that I have learned to put on a pretty good face to everyone. Including my husband. And even yet, while writing this, I realize that my husband has noticed…. He just didn’t know what he was seeing and confused my expression with another expression that I have. He calls it my “bed face” (which is how my face looks when I am really tired or sick)

I didn’t think about it then. But now I recall it. I was deep into thinking about how sad I felt. I was feeling so alone and tiny. When I went through the hall toward the bathroom, I met my husband coming to the kitchen. He looked at me, paused, kissed me and said “you have bed face.” I thought how strange that he would think I was going to bed that early. But I didn’t think he can see “it”! And I waved off his comment by saying, no, we haven’t even had dinner. And with that we went back to our respective locations in the house, doing each our own “thing”. Hubby working, and me back to my sadness  in silence.

So while I would not like to go back to those yelling days of yesteryear. I would like to break this habit of silence.

“Silence is Golden” …. Except in silence, we suffer the pain that we do not share…

Can’t afford a child? Consider this!

This was sent to me by a friend. I have to share it! If you find yourself pregnant and don’t think you can afford a child that you know you would love…. Consider this….

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to

18 and came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker

shock! That doesn’t even touch college tuition.

But $160,140 isn’t so bad if you break it down. It translates into:

* $8,896.66 a year,

* $741.38 a month, or

* $171.08 a week.

* That’s a mere $24.24 a day!

* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is don’t have children if

you want to be “rich”. Actually, it is just the opposite. What do you get

for your $160,140?

* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!

* Glimpses of God every day.

* Giggles under the covers every night.

* More love than your heart can hold.

* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.

* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.

* A hand to hold, usually covered with jelly or chocolate.

* A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites

* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how

your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140, you never have to grow up. You get to:

* finger-paint,

* carve pumpkins,

* play hide-and-seek,

* catch lightning bugs, and

* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:

* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,

* watching Saturday morning cartoons,

* going to Disney movies, and

* wishing on stars.

* You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets

and collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in

clay or Mother’s Day, and cards with backward letters for Father’s Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero

just for:

* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,

* taking the training wheels off a bike,

* removing a splinter,

* filling a wading pool,

* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never

wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat to history to witness the:

* first step,

* first word,

* first bra,

* first date, and

* first time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree,

and if you’re lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called

grandchildren and great grandchildren. You get an education in psychology,

nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no

college can match.

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the

power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a

broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them,

without limits, So . . one day they will like you, love without counting the

cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

I “keep on going”

23

So, I’ve been a funk for several days now. Not that this is any big news… I get this way… We all do….But this time I seek to know what has caused this particular “funk”. Sometimes I know, sometimes I don’t. This time, I didn’t… Until I started letting my mind have it’s own way. And I realized it is getting worse, the close it gets to August. My oldest daughter’s birth month. I fear that this year it will be very hard.

I know why. It is because I’ve put all this “adoption/ adoption loss stuff” for most in my mind of late. I may not write in my blog on a regular basis, but I do make it a part of my regular daily schedule to read other first mother’s/ adoptive mother’s and adopted adults blogs. So this year, I spend each day searching these sites, one because many of them I feel a kinship to and I want to see how they are doing and two, I look for insight from their experiences into my own psyche .

 Shaping this daily routine has had it’s benefits to me. I don’t feel so alone any more. I now understand my feelings better, after seeing them through other people’s eyes. But it also leaves me more open to the “triggers” in my life. Such as birth months. For many years, the birth months have been only pain full for a week or so surrounding the actual birthday and of course the worst day being the birthday of each of my children. Oh yes, when it was fresh, in the years of the beginning, it was painful even a month before, when someone would say “oh, wow, it’s almost August… School will be starting soon.” I would cringe and think, I have no children to send to school now… I have a daughter who will be…(what ever age my oldest would be on that year) but I can’t send her or her sister and brother to school any more, ever!

As the years past, however, and as I forced myself to “go on with life” by pushing the pain down, the amount of time before and after each birthday that was hard for me became smaller. Sometimes I would get depressed a week or so before a birthday without even knowing why until the actual birthday and then it was always like slamming my body into a brick wall at car fast speeds, without the car to shield my body of course.

But not this year. This year it feels like it did in the beginning. Or maybe it is like a wound that has formed a thin scab and I’ve ripped the scab off. Causing the wound to once again bleed. (ok, that’s a really disgusting visual but it is what it is.) I think that is how it must be for mother’s who have lost their children to adoption. In the beginning, the grief is just like anyone else that has lost loved ones… But eventually you have to come to terms that the wound your heart has will never truly heal. It may scab over from time to time, making it slightly less painful, like an itch that  you can’t scratch, but then some trigger comes along and rips that scab right off and you have this huge wound in your heart again.

So here I am, with this giant wound in my heart, in my very soul. It is opening up again, getting bigger by the day and I’m wondering how I will manage to “keep on going” this time. And also, I’m wondering, why should I? Why can’t I just lay down and sleep. It seems the only time I feel ok right now is when I am sleeping. Why can’t I just sleep until it goes away?

 Why do I always have to be “the responsible one”? I have to continue to go to work, so we’ll have money to eat with..Even though, I just want to stay home and cry. I have to spend time with my dad, so he won’t feel lonely… Even though I just want to be alone! I have to keep up with the house and the house hold bills, so my husband doesn’t have to worry about that and will be free to do his own job and have his free time to himself… Even though I really could care less if the house falls down or gets taken away…. Why do I keep going? If I stopped doing it all, wouldn’t someone say “oh, I better take care of this.” ? Or at least wouldn’t they start to notice that something was different if I didn’t get out of bed in the morning? Because they sure don’t notice anything now… Not like this.

Of course, I do wear a thin facade to hide my depression. But the key word here is THIN. My disguise is so thin that anyone should be able to see the tears clearly behind it. But they don’t.And when I go home at night and cry into your pillow, no one knows.

 It’s not that there aren’t signs behind that fake smile I put forth to the public. There are many many signs of how sad I am, but no one sees them, why? Because they don’t want to! Because people in general are selfish! They don’t want to know about the pain that other’s close to them are feeling because it might bring them down.

 Or maybe because they won’t know what to say. Maybe they are under the FALSE impression that if they know about someone close to them who is in pain, that they will need to have a way to fix it. And maybe because they can’t fix it, they don’t want to know cause then they themselves would feel inadequate.

Well, sometimes you can’t fix it! Sometimes all you can do is say I wish I could help take your pain. Sometimes all you can do is be there. Why can’t people see this?! Why?! Why can’t at the very least, My husband, say “honey, is anything wrong? Do you need to talk?”

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t see any more than anyone else that sees me on a daily basis. I can’t bring myself to go to him and say “I need to talk” because to many times I’ve done this and he’s always tried to find a “solution” where there is none. I don’t want someone to make me well again… I just want someone to say “I know you are in pain and I care.” But no one does.. So I just, “keep on going” for there is nothing else I can do.

Briefly I considered taking a break from the blogs. But I can’t do that now. It may be a daily reminder of my loss, but it is also a daily reminder that I am not truly alone in the world. These other women, who I feel a deep friendship for, even though there is little communication between myself and them help me daily, when no one else in my life is willing to. So with their support, directly or indirectly, I’ll keep on going.

And so for another year, I write….

A Post dedicated to my Sister… ((((K))))

So my sister’s visit as come and went. Each year, I’m so thankful, that she makes it so. She comes for one week. One, tiny all to fast week. Ahhh, it is such sweet sadness.

Each year, I get so excited at her up coming arrival that for weeks before I am a mess. I worry over everything, wanting everything to be just perfect for her while she is here. Plan so many events for her and I that I know will never take place. I am so delighted to have this stressful time in my life. My emotions are so confusing when it comes to my sister, K, my best friend.

I look to her for advise about life, and yet, I feel so good when I am able to help her with life’s little problems. She is my older sister and I look up to her, and yet I am thrilled to know that she needs me as much as I need her… And when she visits for that one week each year… Boy is that a confusing time. My hustle and bustle to prepare for her visits wear on me body and soul and it feels… Wonderful! Then she arrives.. And it’s like everything is all right. All of life’s problems slip away into dark shadows, not to be recognized for that wonderful week. Life is so perfect for that one week….(I know this may seem daunting to K. Knowing this is what she does.. Wondering how she could live up to such.) But really she doesn’t have to do anything! She is who she is and that is enough. Enough to have all my worries fall away for one sweet week of reprise.

And yet… Each day of her visits are bitter/sweet. As each day I realize that it is one day closer to the end. The week passes in a blink of an eye, and yet… While she is here.. It feels as if she has always been here. Always been apart of my household and that the week has been forever… And then she is gone… So soon.. And it is like I’m missing a part of myself again. This year was hard to comprehend her departure because I had to work. Never again… Next year will be planned much better. I need to be able to see her off. I said good bye to her the night before, when I had to go to bed and the next morning when I left for work but it didn’t seem real.

So much so that when I got home from work and she was not here, I felt surprised and confused. And lonely… Everything that had been put on hold for a week came rushing back the moment I stepped into my K free house. My Life problems, my depression, my emotions that make me hide in the corner, had been there, waiting in the shadows and when I walked into my house… No K there to smile at me and welcome me home.. Out of the shadows all these emotions jumped and stabbed my heart! I actually was knocked back a step by the force of it. My first thought was to run to K… But of course… She’s no longer here… When was it that she wasn’t here before? Was that just a week ago that she wasn’t here? It seemed like she had always been here and now suddenly without warning she was gone… Oh yes, working on the day she leaves is bad bad. I need that tearful goodbye at the airport… I need it to make it real so that when the house is empty of her presence it isn’t such a shock.

And then this morning, in my email is a letter from K. My mornings have been for years started with a letter from K and now here is my morning letter. And suddenly everything is as it should be again. And again, this is so bitter/sweet. As I shall miss not being able to hug her for real for yet another year… I will again have my morning letters and that is so wonderful. How confused am I?

Victim or Survivor….

I have met many wonderful women in my search for peace. Many who you will find links to their blogs on this site; and many more that I have not yet linked to. (Only because I am lazy.)

And my wonderful new group that I share emails with everyday. Such a wonderful group of women who know the pain of loosing their child through adoption. These women choose to share their friendship with others and help others in pain and every day life.

Some of these women still do not know how they have helped me personally by telling their stories. I lurk on their blogs daily. Searching for ones who have updated with anticipation. Reading each word they write over and over again with amazing connection. I know these feelings of which they write. I see their pain, I feel their pain as it is so much like my own. And with each new day, each new blog entry, I find myself feeling… Not alone. I’m not alone any more! And that feels good.

It was with one of these women that I had an email communication with that led me to the path of Victim vs survivor. In hopes of bringing some peace into my life, she suggested that I stop looking at myself as a victim and realize that I am a survivor instead. Her letter was like a giant light bulb in my head. I was looking at myself as a victim. I had so much anger inside me that sometimes it felt as if the anger was all of me. I sometimes feel that if not for the anger and self pity, I would melt away into nothingness. The real question, the one I asked my friend was, how do I stop the anger and self pity from eating me alive? How do I transition from Victim to Survivor.

Her answer? Her answer was amazing to me. More amazing was that I could not see this answer on my own. I guess sometimes you truly can’t see the forest, for the trees.

What she said to me was this:

“For a start you stop giving it a negative label. Have some compassion for yourself; call it grief or loss. Call it psychic disturbance…. If you met another woman who had lost her children and was upset about it, would you tell her not to have her feelings?”

The answer is Of course Not! The pain that I feel, the pain that all my first mother friends feel, we can not turn off! We have to be allowed to feel this pain! We have to acknowledge it and be allowed to know that it is real. We can’t hide it any longer! We’ve hid this pain in the closets of our hearts for too long. Letting it eat away at our Souls, so that no one would see. NO MORE!

Hiding our pain only makes us more the Victim! It only makes the pain keep growing until it will eventually consume us. We have to bring it out of the closet and face it! Acknowledge it as real and learn to reach out to others for help in standing, when standing alone is too hard!

So what is the road to healing for us? My friend answered this question also: She said to being healed,

 “I believe it’s not something that can ever be resolved or healed, there is no true healing and no true closure from this kind of loss. I don’t look for that anymore, I don’t believe it exists and that helps me.”

This statement seems devastating when you look at it alone, but in truth, it can be very freeing. When you spend all your energy trying to stop the pain, when there is no real way of stopping it, you can end up in much more pain. Each day you ask when will I stop hurting so bad! You allow yourself to feel guilty for the pain itself and that heaps itself onto the pain. Each night finds you screaming in silence and darkness. But there is something freeing when you allow yourself to embrace the ache in your heart.

The emptiness is a part of you. You know that it is a part of your heart that makes you who you are now. And soon, even though you still have this aching in your heart, yes your very soul, you allow yourself to live also. By giving yourself permission to cry, you find that you also have room to live. You find ways to live with the loss that does not compromising your heart.

“You learn to share your story with others. Write your story, channel your pain in other activities. Reach out to others who also feel this pain. Ask questions, the seek out the answers! You are a survivor.

Each day when you get out of bed, you are a survivor! Living life, everyday makes you a survivor! Each time you reach out to someone else in pain and embrace them, You are a survivor!”

So for all my dear, dear friends that have experience and are still experience the terrible heart break of loosing your child. To all of you, who wake each morning knowing your child will wake to hug someone else as their parents and not you. I chalenge you today to embrace your loss! Give yourself permission to feel the loss. It is real! Stop hiding in the shadows! Search and seek out others who also know this grief! Share your story and allow other’s to share their story with you! Find ways to chanel your grief in constructive ways. Reach out with helping hand to others in ways that suit your special abitities! It may be crafts, or writing or volenteering to help people who need a helping hand.

This is not some magic cure! There is not a tent revival Minister that can slap you on the forehead, “You’re Healed!” But slowly, over time, when you give yourself permission to survive, you will begin to see that you are a survivor! You always have been!

(And for me, excepting my own challenge, I want you all to know, that I am here for you. Anytime you need someone to listen, just write to me. My heart is open to you. I don’t have answers to many questions, but I do have heart. I can be your friend. I can be here for you to express your grief. When we reach out to each other, we will find that it is also helping ourselves. Sometimes, all we can do is just listen. And that’s ok. Cause sometimes that’s all someone needs is for someone to listen. I am here for that! If you find that you need someone to listen to you, I will be here for you.)

For the love of Terry David

I have been putting this post off. I wasn’t sure why, after all I posted the hardest part. Making my story public about how I lost my girls was a giant step for me. I so feared that other’s wouldn’t understand my story. They just wouldn’t get it. I feared that people would say, “oh, she had to be wrong because CPS doesn’t do stuff like that.” Even after I found others who had similar things happen to them, I was still afraid of being judged wrongly. But I sucked it up and told my story. The whole unvarnished truth that was my horror story.

So why was I hesitant to post the story of my son? I decided that I would have to have the answer to that question before I could actually get past this hesitation. And so that’s what I’ve been doing, analyzing how I felt about telling my son’s story. Finally, it came to me. It was like the end. Just like the when I gave him up for adoption, telling the story for anyone who cares to see, it was like the end.

So knowing what was my cause for hesitation, I was able to work through it. So here is how this feels, writing this is like going back to that time and reliving it again. The last time I ever was a mother. That’s how it always felt. It was the end. Of course, it wasn’t really the end, I lived. (Although, at times I did not know how I lived, but I did.)

And telling this story doesn’t have to be the end here. I still have much to say. I still have much to work out in my life. So today, I will tell the world about Terry David, my baby son.

 Once I contacted the lawyer, from a phone book ad, I went to his office once. I am sure that I did that. It seems more like a dream. A lot of stuff I really don’t remember very clearly and yet other stuff, minor things, I remember perfectly. It is a jumbled up mess in my head.

I know that the lawyer gave me the name and phone no to a Obgyn and I started going to him for my medical needs. The ad in the phone book for the lawyer said the adoptive parents would pay for medical expenses and some living expenses. So I assumed, without asking that I had to go to this Dr and could not choose my own Dr. Although, as far as I remember, I never really had a complaint about the chosen Dr. He doesn’t stand out in my memory much except at the end.

I know that after he examined me he said he thought the due date that my first Dr had given me was close enough to keep. So My due date was valentines day. I thought about that and thought it was cool. I really wanted my baby to be born on Valentine’s Day. He’d be a true love child then. I thought. (Now, I hate valentine’s day. I do my best not to celebrate it. My DH always buys me something for that day, but I never buy him anything and I usually spend a lot of time hiding by myself to cry.)

I never received in living expense moneys. I didn’t ask about it, cause I really felt like if I did receive any money personally, it would be like selling my baby. But this meant I had to work full time for my whole pregnancy.

This was hard, because I was sick the whole time. The “morning” sickness never stopped. Even through my last month, I threw up everyday, sometimes several times a day. I wanted my baby to be healthy, I didn’t want to do anything to hurt him, so I ate what I could and found the only thing I could hold down was raw fruits and veggies. So that’s what I ate during my pregnancy. Nothing cooked, nothing processed, and absolutely no meat. I couldn’t stand it at all. Even the smell of meat cooking was too much. Which was bad since I worked in a restaurant.

I also cried. I cried all the time. I cried myself to sleep at night. If anyone said anything about my pregnancy, I cried. If I saw a mother with her children, I cried. If I saw a little lost dog on the street, I cried. It was the worst time of my life. People I worked with learned to pretend that I wasn’t as big as a house and were very careful what they said to me, or around me. But of course, you know there’s nothing like a pregnant woman to get strangers to ask personal questions of someone they didn’t know. The managers tried their best to assign me to jobs that would keep me from having direct contact with the costumers. (As I look back on that now, I realize that the people I worked with were really good to me. They really tried hard to help me and protect me. I don’t think I saw that then.)

So my due date was Feb. 14. I was scheduled to go in for birth by c-section on Feb. 15. The last time I went for a Dr’s appointment they did test to see if the baby was fully developed and determined that he was and the date of feb. 15th was confirmed.

On feb. 12, I went to work like any other day. I remember my back was bothering me occasionally while I was at work and my legs kept cramping. But I didn’t think much about it. I worked my shift and walked the three blocks from work to home. By the time I reached home, I was in serious pain. And I knew I was in labor. So this is it, I thought. I didn’t want my son to be born after valentine’s day and I guess he didn’t want to wait ether.

So he was born on feb. 12. I called my Dr and told him I was having labor pains. They were still not on a schedule, but since we already knew that the baby was ready and because I was having a c-section, the Dr said to go to the hospital and check in. He was there by the time I got checked in. They took me straight to the delivery room and gave me a spinal thing. (I’m sorry, I’ve tried every possible way I can think of and my spell checker refuses to give me the correct spelling of that word.) Anyway, I wanted to be awake for the birth of my son. It was the first time I was awake for birth.

When he was born, the nurse held him up for just a second for me to see. He wasn’t crying. But I was. Then she whisked him away to clean him and do the test or what ever they do. I started feeling that my lungs were collapsing. My chest hurt so bad that I felt like I was getting no air at all. I heard someone say something about hyperventilating and blood pressure and then someone leaned next to my ear and told me they were going to put something in my i.v. To help calm me. He said I may start to feel sleepy. That was ok, he said. I nodded my head, I thought I was dying. I couldn’t feel any air getting to my lungs. Then I felt a warmth in my arm that spread through my body and I ether went to sleep or passed out. It didn’t feel like falling asleep, it was like, I hear everything and feel all this pain and  think I’m dying and then suddenly I wake up in recovery.

When I woke up enough to sit up and take a drink of water, which was only a couple of hours, I was moved to a private room. But those couple of hours to me felt like an instant. Once I got to my room I told the nurse I wanted to see my son. But she said I needed to be more stable before they brought the baby in. Maybe that was the truth, I don’t know now. All I do know was I felt like I was ok physically and I wanted to see my son. I was aching so bad to hold him.

They didn’t mention bringing him to me until the next day. When the nurse asked me if I would like to see my son now I almost jumped out of bed. Yes! Yes!

But she didn’t come back with him. Instead the lawyer and another woman came in with the papers for me to sign. The lawyer didn’t say anything. This woman that I didn’t know started trying to act like she was my friend or something. She said it would be better for me to get this out of the way before I said good bye to the baby. And some other stuff. If we went over what the papers said, I don’t remember it. If I read any of it, I really don’t remember reading it. I just signed where she told me too. I was bawling like crazy. I could barely see. She reached out and patted my shoulder and I do remember flinching away from her. And then they were gone and there was another woman and the nurse with my son.

The nurse placed my son in my arms. I couldn’t stop crying. I sat up on the side of my bed so I could turn my back on the new woman who did not leave when the nurse left. I, to this day, do not have a clue who that woman was. I was crying so hard by then that my ears were stopped up. So when I turned my back on the woman, she came to that side of the bed and sat down right in front of me and started talking. I couldn’t hear her, I couldn’t say anything. I just hugged my baby to me and cried. I wanted to tell this woman to leave, I wanted to scream it. But I didn’t. I wanted to talk to my son. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him and I didn’t want to do this but I didn’t have a choice. I wanted to tell him that I would always always love him. But I didn’t want anyone else to hear. It was supposed to be a private moment for me and my son, but here was this woman who I didn’t know. I wanted also to tell him the name I chose for him. I didn’t tell anyone for many many years the name I gave to my son. The name he would never use, would never know. Terry David, my son, I still love you just as much as I did that day! The one and only day that I held you in my arms.

After that I was released from the hospital. Only a few hours after I held my son. One day after I had surgery and the Dr that I had went to during all this, wrote on my release papers that I should visit the county hospital on such and such date for a check up as he would not be able to see me again. I guess once they had my baby the adoptive parents felt no need to pay any future medical bills. I didn’t go to county, I didn’t go anywhere to be checked. I figured I couldn’t kill myself, but if I got a bad infection or something and died from it, then I’d be out of this pain.

Shortly after the birth of my son, the DA dropped the charges against my babies father. He never even went to court. Just like they had dropped the charges against me, they said it was due to lack of evidence. Of course there was lack of evidence! The charges against Terry’s father were totally trumped up by Cps to get my daughters away from me!

But as it happens in city jail. It took almost a week for them to release T.H. After the charges were dropped. We knew the day he was going to get out. Before that day came, I called my Dad and begged him to let me move to Tenn and stay with them for a while. I couldn’t stay there any more and I couldn’t be there when T.H. Got out of jail. He had encouraged me to sign the papers giving up my rights to parent my daughters and he was the one who first said I should hire a lawyer to put our baby up for adoption. I couldn’t face him ever again. So I left him and my life long home of Texas before he got out of jail. I moved to Tenn and began my new life. A life in which I wasn’t a mother. A life behind a mask of anger, depression and shame. I became a totally different person. I never again cried in front of anyone. I cried for my children only in the dark, alone.

There is one thing that I’ve only just figured out, which became clear to me once I started writing this blog. That is that during all that time, I have blamed myself first because I didn’t fight for my kids. I knew that I was lied to and not told anything about my rights but I didn’t think any of that mattered in the end because I signed those papers. Now, I know that I was in no emotional position to make any life decisions during any of that time. I was such an emotional wreck that I couldn’t even make simple everyday decisions. I was as close to a total break down as anyone could be without standing naked in the street screaming. I remember one time I was in a store to buy milk and stood in front of the cooler and started crying because there were too many different types of milk and I didn’t know which one to buy. This was the woman who signed the papers that took my precious babies out of my life. Looking back on that time, remembering all of it, it’s like I can see myself, but it’s like not me. It was this woman who was living in my body. She was so lost. It was like being in a totally dark room, with no windows or doors and trying to find your way out. So lost and trapped. How could anyone have looked at that woman and not known how messed up she was? How could anyone have not known that she shouldn’t have been allowed to make any life decisions?

Fish on the beach

I may be less… Around for a short while. My sister is coming soon for a visit. So I have things to do… That being said, I do have a few things I want to… Get off my chest before I go off to my home work.

I have to try to figure out where I am standing. I feel like a fish on the beach. Flipping and Flopping around without any direction.

I did finally sit my husband down and talked to him about what I’ve been doing with all my spare time lately. We talked for the first time in depth about my children. Oh, he did know that I had three children and that I lost them to adoption. But I never opened myself up to him about the details. I never before gave him an opportunity to ask questions. So, finally, he knows it all. Everything. And he still loves me. The sky didn’t fall in on my head. God, Himself, didn’t smite me down for talking out loud about my feelings. My heart didn’t stop beating as I thought it might. It is done. One person down… So many many more to go… Will I talk about this part of me to anyone else in my family? I’m not sure about that.

It’s one of the things that I’m flipping around about. What does my family know about my children? I’m not really sure. What they do know was what ever my step mother had told them years ago at the time it happened. I never told them anything. It is that taboo subject that no one talks about. (this is nothing new.. I know.. It is this way for many many women who are first mothers) But if I’m going to do this.. Search for my now adult, children… Shouldn’t the people in my life know how they came to be someone else’s children? Or should I live on a need to know way of life?

The Search… Ok, there is another flipping, flopping topic for me… And this one is a very hot topic! So I am almost finished reading “The girls who went Away.” Which, while the book is very helpful in helping me be aware that my problems in life are not because I am some weird crazy person, it also has left me very very undecided.

Ann Fessler, in this book said that there are basically two types of people who search for their children. Active and passive. So far, I have become the later. I have registered on several search sites and I check them periodically to see if anyone new… My children… Have registered with any of them. My husband told me that he thought it would be a good thing for me to try to find them….. To become an active searcher… But should I?

I know, from Ann Fessler, that many adoptee’s have the same sense of fear when it comes to searching for their First parents as the first parents do themselves. So what if one or all of my children really want to find me, but they are afraid to look. Maybe they are afraid that I don’t want to be found… What if they don’t know about the registries on the Internet? So I should be more active in my search for them.

However, I also know that there are some adoptees who do not wish to be found… Ok, so it’s a small number of them.. But what if my kids fall in that category? Do I have a right to search for them and enter their lives suddenly without any warning?! Just to satisfy my own need to know? And oh I do need to know! I need to know who they are now. I need to know if they are ok. I need to know if they had a good life. I need to know if they want to know me… And there I go… Isn’t that my own selfish needs rearing it’s ugly little head? What right do I have pushing my self on them now?

They are already adults now. They had their childhood without me there. What did I do to prepare them for this time in their lives? From their point of view, what I did was abandon them.

Yes, Yes, I know all the truths. I know the truth is I was emotionally unequipped to make any kind of life decisions at that time. I know that I was well prepped to be vulnerable to the coarsen, but there is a bottom line that I have to accept. I, and I alone, signed those papers. I truly believe that at that time, I was not mentally capable of making any type of decision but I could have, should have, asked for help. I should have known that I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to face all that alone. I could have asked my parents, or even my sister. Maybe I wasn’t even able to see that I needed help. Maybe I was so messed up, that I didn’t even realize how messed up I was.

But my kids don’t know any of that. All they know is that I signed the papers that severed my rights as their mother. I signed them.

Even my oldest daughter, who was 5 years old at the time I signed those evil papers, what does she know? What does she remember? What was she told? When I reunioned with her when she was a teenager, she didn’t ask me anything about that time. Was that because she was still too young to ask the questions, or was it that she thought she already had the answers?

As far as I know she only expressed desire to find me, because she thought her favorite grandmother, my step mother, was dying. So was I just a vessel to get to see her grand parents? Does she feel that way still? If she does, than I have no right seeking her out and forcing her to stand or flee. Do I?

My favorite quote, that I have used way too much in life:

“My rights end, where someone else’s begins.”

 If I strive to live my life by that philosophy, then where to my rights  to know end? What rights do my kids want? I don’t know where their rights begin, because I don’t know what they really want. And I don’t know how I will ever know without risking trampling on their rights. Flip Flop.