Diving Back In

I've gotten away from my adoption related reading lately.  I ordered a bunch of books, got them, and then my reunion came crashing to a halt back in December.  I put the books away in the back of my closet, and put them out of my mind.  Lately I've found some spare time and things are going a lot better.  I think I'm ready to try another book.  I loved Lost and Found by Betty J. Lifton, so I decided to give Journey of an Adopted Self a shot.  So far I'm loving it!

I think that reading books about adoption while in the right frame of mind is a great exercise.  For me, reading Lost and Found was like a light bulb going off.  All of these complex things that I felt were right there in black and white text published in a book!  I saw my history written for me in a way that I could understand and now verbalize.  And there were things in that book that I didn't identify with either.  No two adoptees are the same though so that made a lot of sense to me too.

Reading that book helped me so much.  It was the right time for me to read it though.  I was going through my reunion and saw how things could end badly after my first mother pulled back.  The fantasy was gone and I was ready to accept the truth, rather than this idea I had built in my head about what adoption is.  I was ready to hear some of the cons.  I'd been working towards that for a while and this book was the final push to make my views more realistic.

When my reunion with my first father was going well, I read those books because it was important for me to understand what was happening in my life.  I'd read that it was nearly impossible to find a good councilor versed in adoption issues.  So it was a way to see from an outside some of the things that were going on in my head.  It helped me so much and it's hard to put into words what it felt like to realize that I was normal.  Well, normal for an adoptee ;-)

Once things fell apart, I couldn't deal with the adoption stuff anymore.  I was still posting here, but it was really hard.  I really struggled back in December.  I was depressed, started battling an eating disorder, and really struggled with the point of it all.  It was a dark time for me.  I had to put everything aside and try to move on with my life.  It wasn't easy.  In January, I made a vow to myself to get better and I started working hard at it.  I stood up for myself with my first father and decided that I was going to take control of my own life.

I made some key decisions and slowly started to pull myself out of the ditch I had found myself in.  It was one of the hardest things I've done in a while, but I got through it.  I finally feel like the bulk of that drama is behind me and I'm ready to move forward.  I'm so much happier these days and I love feeling this way.  I've gained nearly five pounds, which is huge for me.  Things aren't perfect, but they never will be.

Perhaps before I was a bit too obsessive over all this stuff.  Now, I'm at a place where my adoption stuff fits into my life as it should.  It's a major part of my life.  There's no getting away from that.  Just like being a woman is a huge part of my life, or being an engineer.  Adoption will always be a part of who I am.  I can't change that.  But I can embrace it.  That being said, I don't want it to be my whole life.  I think I'm starting to find a good balance for everything.  So I'm going to read this book and see what happens.  I'm liking it so far and I hope to have a review up soon.

Reevaluating My Goals

I was proud of this picture lol

I have a thing about goals.  I feel they need to be reevaluated every once and a while to keep them relevant.  And to hold myself accountable...  I have a problem with that.  Lately I've been noticing that I have a problem with finishing things.  I don't know if this has been going on for a while and I never noticed it, or if it's a new thing.  But as a way to keep myself on track, I'm going to do my best to reevaluate my goals at the start of each month and possibly change them if they need tweeking.  Again, I'm a work in progress.

1. Read at least one book a month - Read several in January
2. Take my cousins to the movies just because
3. Do yoga Exercise at least three times a week - Tweeking this one, adding in running to my exercise routine
4. Comment on each blog that I follow at least once a month - May have missed a few but I stepped up my commenting
5. Meet my first mother
6. Clean out my closet, including the back shelves
7. Go on an amazing vacation - Booked and half planned
8. Learn to cook three dinner dishes really well - Chicken Parm
9. Learn two new skills
10. Post several book reviews on the blog - Found was posted this month
11. Relax more
12. Be more creative with my photography - I'm getting there
13. Visit a new place I've never been to
14. Meet new people and make new friends
15. Go out on the town one night I feel like staying in
16. Volunteer at a soup kitchen
17. Pay off at least half of my loans - Getting there
18. Get an apartment - Looking into condos
19. Learn the names of the people who sit around me at work
20. Live life to the fullest

I have twenty goals and I've managed to make progress on nine of them.  I'd say that that's a pretty successful month!  This next month I'm focusing on getting back into shape.  I've started running (barely) but at least I have a schedule.  My exercise goal is to be in 5K running shape by May.  If I can do that, I'll count running as a skill.  We'll see how that one goes.

My book this month is going to be an adoption related book.  I want to post a review about it and update the resource page.  I have a bunch of books that I ordered and got, but I got sucked into the drama of my non-reunion so I put them away for now.  I think it's time to break them back out and hit the pavement again.  I don't want to take a break from this stuff because it's helping.  And it's a long term thing that I need to work on.  I have to put the work in now with this adoption crap so I'll do better tomorrow.  That's what I tell myself anyway.

Seeing as it's February (and the second anniversary of sending that first letter to my first mother), I'm going to be writing my first mother an email asking her to consider meeting me.  I've never actually asked her to meet me, so I'm going to put it out there.  I have a feeling she'll say no.  And then I'm going to have to ask again, only a bit more forcefully.  But I think it's time that I put it out there to her.  So I'm going to start working on it.  It's been two years.  It's time for us to meet.

So I'm making progress.  I still have a long way to go.  Maybe this month I'll actually get something crossed off my list.  Wish me luck!

Response to Comments From Found

Last Sunday I posted about Found by Jennifer Lauck.  Amazing book!  Recommend it to everyone!  I really enjoyed the book tour (my first one) and I learned a lot reading all the posts and comments.  I've been avoiding a lot of adoption stuff this week but I'm starting to feel better about things after getting my email so I'm trying to go back through all the blogs on the tour (there were thirty) and comments (I missed a bunch the first time around).

It took me three browsers (thanks Mozilla for finally working!) before I could respond to each comment (thanks Blogger for making that change) but there were a few comments that I thought deserved their own blog post.

For starters, Melynda from Letters to Ms Feverfew (awesome first mom!) sent this over:

"Just making the rounds to all of the participants in the book tour so please forgive the copy and paste job. :)
As I have read every single book tour participant's blog posts (haven't commented on all of them, but I have read them all!), I have been longing for a way that we could standardize our impressions, etc. Would you be willing to rate this book on a scale from one to five, one being the lowest and five being the highest. Also, would you recommend this book to others? Who? Can you sum up your feelings about the book in two or three sentences?
I can't help myself...I'm a mixed methods researchers and love to have numbers to go along with people's experiences!
Thanks so much for humoring me on this one.

Melynda"

 You're always forgiven Melynda!  If I had to rate this book, I'd give it a five.  My reasoning is this: it's not supposed to make you feel comfortable with adoption.  It's supposed to challenge the idea that adoption is always a wonderful thing.  It's the story of Jennifer's life.  You can't rewrite history.  It happened.  This book is Jennifer's truth.  So even though it might make some feel uncomfortable or make them question their views, it's Jennifer's truth and thus should be read as such.  How can you not read a book about someone's truth?  Highest recommendation from me to everyone (as I mentioned in my post).

Finally, I got this comment from Esperanza, and I really wanted to give it a good answer because it's such a good comment.

"Dear Jenn,
Thank you so much for your thoughts and experiences on this. I found them incredibly insightful and well spoken. It is so important for everyone who is touched by adoption (which is everyone really, as we all know someone who has been adopted) to hear the words of adult (and child) adoptees. Thank you for your brave words.
I must admit, I found this section to be very thought provoking and I've been thinking about it a lot since I read it:
'My mother could have kept me. It would have been hard. It would have been challenging. But she could have made it work. She chose not to. It was about her. Just like my adoptive parents adopted me for them. It wasn’t about giving a baby a home; it was about finding a baby for their home. My adoption wasn’t about me. It was about everyone else.'
Ever since I read this part my head has been full of questions: Are there any situations in which an adoption is about the adoptee or is it inherently about all the other people involved? How is having a biological child about the child and not about having a child for a couple's home? Can a birth mother really never give up her child as an act of love or is it always selfish? I'm not trying to challenge your feelings on this I'm just curious what someone who has personal experience with the situation thinks about all of this. I have so many questions.
Thank you again for your brave words. They have touched me in ways I can't articulate."

OK, so lots to think about here, and I'm going to do my best to answer thoughtfully.  I do think that there are situations where adoption can be about the adoptee.  It happens.  I think it happens a lot in family adoptions.  Say I have kids.  And then the father and I tragically die.  And my sister adopts my kids so that they can stay in our family and not go to the foster system.  That's one example of when adoption is about the kids.  Unless my sister is the one who killed me so that she could adopt them.  I don't think she'd do that... Hehe!  Lots of examples here, but that's just one of them.  I just think that the majority of adoptions today are not about the adoptee.

Fantastic point about having a biological child!  You're 100% right that having a biological child isn't about the child, it's about the parents wanting a child, which is very similar to adoptive parents wanting a child and adopting for them rather than the child.  Great question to think about.  I offer this though... Have you ever heard a parent raising their biological child state that they had the child for that child's benefit?  I haven't.  It sounds very odd to me and ridiculous.  I have however heard adoptive parents say that they adopted to "save" the adoptee and that they sacrificed a lot for the adoptee.  I've also heard adoptive parents raise themselves up akin to sainthood for adopting.  Not all adoptive parents are like this (THANK GOODNESS!) and I have to say that I've met some amazing adoptive parents who aren't like this and I love them so much for it.  But there's a special bunch out there (who I highly doubt are reading this).  So I think that's the major difference to me.  As an adoptee, I'm supposed to be grateful for things that other people aren't.  I'm supposed to be grateful for having good parents.  I've never heard that statement made to someone who wasn't adopted.

I do think there are first mothers out there who give up their child and it comes from a loving place.  Or that at least they think it's coming from a loving place at the time.  I've heard stories of mothers who had health reasons and felt they couldn't give their child a mother for a long time.  It happens.  That's just one example.  I do however think that a lot of mothers assume that their children are better off without them.  I think this is a bad assumption.  And on the other hand, there are plenty of mother's out there who are selfish.

My mother didn't give me away as an act of love.  She didn't want to parent me.  She never seriously considered parenting me.  I don't assume this.  She told me.  I have proof (just not going to post her words here because I don't want to invade her privacy).  She told me that she didn't want to hold me even though the nurses encouraged her to.  She told me that she never saw me because she didn't want to.  She told me that she wasn't my mother.  She gave birth to me, yes, but no, she wasn't my "mother".  In the two years I've "known" her, she has never once said that she loves me.  The closest she ever got was telling me that she hopes all my dreams come true.  And that she prays for me.  She refused to talk to me on the phone.  She won't meet me.  Having me was the biggest mistake of her life, and giving me away was the best thing she could have done for both her and me.  Yes, she said all of this more than once.  Yes, my first father confirmed later that that's how she really feels, she wasn't just saying those things.  We don't want to think about "those" mothers, but they are out there.  Mine's one of them.  Does that make her a bad person?  Not at all.  In fact, I think she's a fantastic person when it comes to anything other than me.  Add me to the mix, and she turns into someone else.  C'est la vie.

So those are my thoughts in an extremely long blog post.  But I felt like an amazing comment deserved at least a full answer because those questions really got me thinking and I wanted to respond.  Thank you for your thoughts and for asking questions!  I appreciate it so much that you took the time to ask.  Not everyone would have.

Goals For 2012

Happy New Year Everyone!

In honor of the New Year, I'm going to post some goals for 2012.  I never seem to do well with resolutions, so instead I'm going to post goals for the year and see how many of them I can make come true!  I know it's going to be a great year.  For starters, my favorite number is 12, so bring it on 20-12!  So here are my goals in no particular order.

1. Read at least one book a month
2. Take my cousins to the movies just because
3. Do yoga at least three times a week
4. Comment on each blog that I follow at least once a month
5. Meet my first mother
6. Clean out my closet, including the back shelves
7. Go on an amazing vacation
8. Learn to cook three dinner dishes really well
9. Learn two new skills
10. Post several book reviews on the blog
11. Relax more
12. Be more creative with my photography
13. Visit a new place I've never been to
14. Meet new people and make new friends
15. Go out on the town one night I feel like staying in
16. Volunteer at a soup kitchen
17. Pay off at least half of my loans
18. Get an apartment
19. Learn the names of the people who sit around me at work
20. Live life to the fullest

I'm going to do my hardest to work at all of these goals.  Some are a lot easier than others!  I've read four books this month, so I'm not worried about that goal.  Other things I can easily get done once and cross them off the list.  Other things are going to take some persistence (like commenting on blogs and doing yoga).  Others are more of a mindset, like learning to relax and living life to the fullest.  However, I believe in myself so I'm going to give it my all!

So here's to 2012!  May you best the best year ever!

Found: First Thoughts

I recently finished reading Jennifer Lauck's Found for the book tour.  I'm going to save a lot about this for the book tour post, which will be coming in January.  But there are a few things that I wanted to say first.

For starters, I couldn't make it through the first chapter without crying.  Yes, I went there.  I had to put the book down and I'll admit to not picking it up again for several weeks.  It was amazing to read, but so hard to get through because I haven't met my first mother and understood exactly what Ms. Lauck was talking about in terms of a lack of connection.

Then all the drama happened with my first father.  And as far as I was concerned, my reunion was over.  I was devastated.  I considered dropping out of the book tour.  It was too hard.  It was too much.  But something made me stop from sending that email and waiting a few days.  I had training at work the next week and due to the location of the training, I was on my own for lunch.  So I threw Found in my bag and figured if I had time, I'd do some reading and give it a try.  If it didn't work out, it didn't work out.

I spent the next few days with my nose buried in those pages during my lunch breaks and after work.  I read the book in three days in my spare time.  I had to put it down a few times and walk away, but I couldn't stay away.  There were several parts where I swear it was like Ms. Lauck was in my head and had read my innermost thoughts.  I understood so much of this book because I felt some of those same emotions.

I had it easy compared to Ms. Lauck, but the basic feelings of abandonment, the need to know the past, and the feeling of constantly searching for something more are things that I fight with everyday.  I belong to a forum of mostly adult adoptees (though we do have several other members of the so called triad on there, as well as a few others).  I love that forum for the same reason that I loved this book.  The act of hearing other stories and thoughts of others who are adopted makes me feel less alone.  We're all in this together in a way.  We support each other, get each other through.  By reading books like Found and others, we realize that we aren't alone.  We aren't fighting this battle alone.  There are others fighting it with us.

No two adoptees feel the same way about adoption.  And we all have different stories.  We have different experiences.  But sometimes, we find someone who we can relate to.  I can't wait for January now!