I mentioned I didn't sleep well during the night. I am awake much earlier than I needed to be for the day's events. The hotel had complimentary breakfast so that is the first thing we did.. the first event didn't start until 830am.. we get down to breakfast about 7:45am.. I made all healthy choices because I was determined to stay on track with healthy eating. We walk over to a table and we start to sit down.. I spot a few of the birthmom's and felt like I should be with them.. So I asked my husband did he mind and he said he didn't.
I don't recall a lot about the conversations but I am pretty sure all the Mom's I was sitting with were in much earlier phases of being a birthmom. They seem more open and comfortable in the skin and the reasons why they choose adoption. I didn't hear a lot of regret. Sure. I heard stories about missing their child but no regrets was showing thru.
We all had the common bond of giving our child to someone else but I different from them in some ways. I didn't choose adoption. I didn't want adoption. One birthmom didn't even want to hold her baby. I wanted to hold my baby and be Mom.. and I did get to be Mom for about 24 hours. That's much too short of a time. Maybe they have a much better chance at having acceptance of themselves and their situation cause they made that decision. I think adoption can be a beautiful thing but it destroys one family to build another and it's not something I can easily forget. I lost a daughter. Izzy's birthfather lost a daughter. Izzy lost her parents. My sons' lost their sister. They will never grow up as really have that common bound with each other. They will never say "it's a Dunkin" thing.
I started this post a couple days ago and I am still struggling for words. It's such an hard experience to document cause words doesn't give it justice.
Saturday was a pretty jammed packed day of events that was going on for us birthmoms. They had assigned seats this time around and it appeared like it was done that way for a reason. All of the women were in reunion or had reunion and the child had pulled away. There were two birthmoms who stories of reunion made my heart happy for them yet sad for me.
One birthmom had such a great relationship that they both would be speaking that day about the adoption and reunion experience.
Another birthmom was floored when she asked me where I was from cause her son lives in the same city. She was caught up in the days of where they sent girls away. So she stayed in a hotel room all by herself and gave birth to her son while living in my home city. She said that she has a really good relationhip with her son.
There were goodie bags and prizes given to everyone but the birthmom that I mentioned above made necklaces for everyone.
It says love (luv) n.v. a passionate feeling of affection for another person. The necklace and the thought of the necklace touched my heart in a very special way. Here this birthmom who is in a very happy reunion spends a quite amount of time making necklaces for a group of women she never met. It was hard for me to allow myself the feelings to re surface from adoption and knowing that I most likely will settle back down into my normal pattern of being quite about all my heart aches..
So I wear the necklace all the time and touch it often. I feel it as a reminder of a room full of strangers coming together to share their experiences of adoption. We cried. We hugged. We laughed. We felt each others pain. We also smile at the good stories of reunion. Smile at the adoptive parents that honor the open adoption agreements.. Cheered for the few states that have made open adoption legally binding. I believe North Carolina is one of them.
Yesterday was birthmothers day and I don't celebrate it. I am not proud of adoption nor do I want to celebrate all the pain that I have experienced.
I posted this message on facebook. I admit I hid it from my daughter. I probably freaked her out from all my sad posts from the retreat weekend.
I know for many of my new friends this weekend is hard. Today is birthmothers day and I choose not to celebrate it. What I did choose is to be good to myself. I picked clothes that is so comfortable and looks good. I choose to walk on the track at the YMCA listening to my music. I braved the cold water pool to get some swimming in. Tomorrow on actual mother's day I am most likely going to go get a pedicure at the salon..so to all of you that get it. My advice is be good to yourself. You are all in my thoughts.
Along with this picture.
Today is Mother's day! I did my pedicure! It was so refreshing. I am not super depressed.. no tears yet.. but not really super happy either.. I did ask my Mom to go out for pizza even though at times I am still very angry with her.
This felt so good!
The finished product.
It's going to take me a couple more posts to get thru sharing.. so check back later.
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