Secret Daughter.. a must read

The book that caught my attention is called Secret daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

It's an adoption book which is typical of quite a few books that I seek out to read but I didn't seek this out. I just found it at church on the book exchange table.

What is ironic about this book and it's something that you don't see often is that it's showing life after adoption from three different angles.

The birthparents.. mostly the birthmother who lives in India.

The adoptee who was born in India but left at an orphange by her birthparent. This move literly saved her life. There is no if ands or butts. This child would have died..

The adoptive parents.. the father happened to be born in India and came to America to go to school and fell in love with an American girl and they decided to live their life in the States.

I won't give anymore details of this book so if anyone should want to read it the story isn't ruined.

It is a fiction story but it was an awesome book.

Great book

I came across an adoption related book without looking for it. Truth is that I haven't searched out a lot of adoption related topics lately. I am not sure if that's cause I am working hard at fitness and recently got a pet aquatic turtle and been loving it.

I will try to blog about the book tomorrow. Finally I have an topic to go on. So we shall see if I can get my thoughts down and give the book justice it's due.

Still alive....

I am still alive! I just haven't been in the mood to write. Maybe it's cause I don't have a lot to say these days. Reunion wise I think things are as good ad they are going to get from with the miles between Izzy and myself.

My husband went from working from home (babysitting our granddaughter), taking care of my son and our house. He now has to part time jobs that add up to over 40 hours on a normal week and always seems to work the extra hours when he is home. We have come to a new agreement with our fiances and the last major issue in our life has been resolved.

I am still working on weight loss. I hope to be finished with it one day. It's been a long road to get where I am at. It's not been super easy or super hard. It does get old. The weight loss comments from others comes in waves. I will hear nothing about it for a few weeks and then they start again.. Right now they seem to be starting again.. even was told to quit losing weight today.

Hopefully, I will get back into blogging soon. I do miss it. Maybe.. i need some topic suggestions or questions.. so feel free to leave me a comment.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Izzy Grandfather on her Mother's side as died. So as a reseult she is flying into town. He was 77 years old. She said he was a heavy smoker and this is the same with my father.. so with any luck mine will live to be nearly 80 years of age.

I have no idea if I should even try to see Izzy while she is here visiting. I think at this point I might just let her ask to see me if that's what she wants. It's not that I don't want to see her I know this visit might be a little different than most.

I am debating on sending a card or flowers to Izzy and or her family.. We shall see what I decide in the next day or so. I feel like Izzy's Mom is becoming a little more used to me exsisting in Izzy's life. I only say that cause she "likes" some of my comments.. so that's all I have to go by.

Sorry.. I haven't been blogging.. I just havent been in the mood. I been still working on counting calories and working out.

I have entered a weight loss competition so we will see how that ends in six weeks. I don't expect to win but it is motivating me to keep working out thru this horrible winter. I will post pictures soon.

Only one person wants to exchange Christmas cards?? Where is the Christmas spirit? Well, anyways, I am going to try to get a good picture of us really soon for our picture for our Christmas cards. I am starting to decorate a little even though we don't have much in the line of directions and suck at this whole holiday thing. We don't really have a lot of family traditions anymore.

One tradition is breakfast with Santa. I think we went once or twice. I forgot. I am calling it one. We go for that this coming up weekend. Something new I am going to start is a Christmas eve box with new pj's, a Christmas movie and a snack.

So anyone else want to exchange cards??

Christmas

I would like to steal an idea about an Christmas card exchange that I have participated in with the last two years. You can read about it here.

I would like to do the same. I don't get many Christmas cards and thought it would be fun to have some to display. I would like to limit this to the first 20 people who are interested. Leave me a comment if your interested with your address and an way so I can get you my address. I will put my comment moderation back on so no ones address will be seen.

Reunion and weight loss part two

My relationship with Izzy has impacted my weight loss in many ways and overall has changed my outlook on life.

I used to have really bad self esteem. It wasn't just weight related. I thought I was very ugly. I really didn't like anything about myself.
When I spotted pictures of my daughter and later met her it became hard to really think of myself as ugly since we looked so much alike.


I espeially hated getting my picture taken with my hair up cause I had an ugly face. I still rather have my hair down but now I can see my nice features and not think ill of myself. I always thought I had a horrible smile. Sometimes, I still do think that my smile sucks when posing for pictures.

I think Izzy sometimes has that same weird expression on her face and I love it.

My self worth as a person and Mother has improved quite a bit. I had taken the rejection of my letters and contact of Izzy's parents and had become to believe that I was worthless. I never believed I didn't deserve to know my daughter but it was all about me. What she could give me and not what I could give her cause I had nothing to offer since I was worthless.

Being in a relationship with Izzy at times was hard. I wanted EVERYTHING now!! I had to learn to accept what she had to offer on her timing. I threw myself into volunteering for MELD and the nusery and also Zumba.



The picture above was my first zumbathon. I was pretty new to zumba and also overcame a huge hurdle by going to the zumbathon at the school that I was attending when I was in labor and went thru the remaining of the year denying my daughter. It was the beginning of the secret and shame. Going back was huge to me and was in some ways.. saying I came out alive. The memories are there but don't haunt me anymore.

I think the biggest area of impact having Izzy in my life was getting off the day to day emotional roller coaster of not knowing about my daughter, being sad cause I don't know, being pissed cause I don't know and being angry cause no one seems to care or understand.

I slowly started being able to share my reunion story with friends and some family and didn't feel the need to eat to sooth my aching heart. I am not perfect. I still like the taste of cookies and candy too much. I still feel the urge to eat sometimes when stressed. So I still need to remember to behave myself.

I think the most important part of my weight loss has been getting a better handle on my emotional health and I started living again.



Above is a picture of me with my two sons on my birthday. I seen Izzy that day too. It was a nice birthday.



Above is a picture of my and my sons showing I still eat ice cream!! Yum!!



Above is my most recent picture of me at 80lbs down. I believe at the moment I am just aiming for ten more pounds off. If I can make it then I will have gone from 272 lbs to about 180lbs! I went from a size 20 and as of right now some 8's fit me. I would like to get most 8's to fit me so I can wear the clothes that I bought blindly cause they were on sale.

I admit that if I don't lose the next ten lbs I will probably still be happy. I have come a long way and I can't forget that. The important thing is to not go backwards and put the weight back on.

I honestly don't know if I could have just picked this lifestyle up before reunion. I used food for comfort and used lots of it.