Danger -- Construction zone. Enter at your own risk.
Hey did you see I have a link?!! to my firstborn, Joy.
Every little bit of integrating her into my life brings more of me into my picture. I have three children. The youngest was born 14 1/2 years after the first. They are sisters, though they hardly know each other.
My beginnings in motherhood were tragic. A year before I became pregnant with Joy, I miscarried. I didn't even know the word miscarriage before then. The OB/GYN congratulated me on escaping a tragic pregnancy. I grieved my loss, despite being 16 with no idea how I could have prevailed with a baby.
Later, losing my baby to adoption was the greatest pain I've ever known. Abortion wasn't an option for me, even if it had been legal. I've never been anti abortion. I just couldn't imagine it personally at that time. Looking back, it seems like motherhood was aborted.
And then I got married and had two lovely children. Having a "lost" child was my separate reality.
I couldn't speak of it. I couldn't accept it, integrate it into my happy family. It would have been tragic, but acceptable to have lost a child through death. Everyone knows that.
Something connected to all the praise and approval I got for my two lovely children and my happy family shifted the pain of adoption loss i guilt anto guilt and shame. It was too gruesome to explain.
I had two separate motherhoods. One was tragic and aborted. The second was nourishing and growing.
Reunion. For a long time it just meant reunion with my daughter. Getting to know each other. Getting to know myself. Gradually learning to accept, own, claim ourselves as family. Reaching out to other family members, going more public, inch by inch.
I'm beginning to know the richness of reunion inside me, of knowing I have three children. No, it didn't start out that way, inside me. But my two motherhoods are uniting, through Joy's and my reunion. It's becoming one, integrated within me.
Accepting that though I wanted to be her mother, to raise her--I didn't get to; She has other family has been confusing to me too. How, what, where do we fit together? How do we accept our own and each others' disappointment, most especially Joy's loss as an abandoned baby?
Though I loved her every day of her life; physcially I wasn't there. Her life connection into this physical world was lost. She had to make it on her own through the maze of adoptive family rites.
My dream of her happy family didn't make a lovely happy easy life for her.
My aborted motherhood was a tragedy we both had to survive as well.
What this post is really about is that we are surviving it all. We are integrating ourselves in each others lives and expanding and growing independently and together. Bit by bit.
14 comments:
yes yes and good golly more yes. completely understand. well, all except the integration as i am no where near that with my child.
good for you two.
Suz, I expect your reunion will be spectacular as time goes by. Joy and I are still healing our early years of misunderstandings. You are paying the price now because you have the understanding to be patient and considerate and give your daughter the space and gradualness she asks for. SHe is so blessed to have your grace.
I wish adoption didn't make everything so hard.
Thanks Possum, I remember looking at that blog months ago. Now I know why I didn't return. What a mess!!! I do appreciate being referred to the bible though. Thank God I can read it for myself.
I deleted my comment J.
Possum -> standing, waving!!!
Wow J. You have so much insight. I read this just nodding my head saying, Yes, yes, yes.
Reunion is really hard.
It's amazing to stand on the outside, looking in on your reunion.
The pain, the fear, the confusion, the anger - yep it's all there - but there is also this immense hope - you two are working things out.
Thank you (both of you) for allowing us to be witnesses to your journey.I'm sure that you're allowing others to understand their own crazy adoption-effected life......you're certainly helping me to understand mine.
Hey - at the rate I'm going - you're reunion may be the only one I get!!!
Hugs, Poss. xxx
Oh Possum
I hope that as more people talk about it, it will help others be less fearful and more accepting of their lives.
I am sorry yours isn't where you want it to be.
Reunion and integration leads to healing the losses. Could it be called restoration? Restoring the bond that was there or is it better called recreation? Anything with a "re" in front of it seems to imply that it existed and people are trying to get back to it.
Either way, I am very glad you and Joy are well down the path together. Thank you both for sharing the journey.
Thank you for posting and blogging. For us adoptees these insights are key to understanding what you went through. I don't yet have contact with my mother, and I found out I have siblings. I'm hoping one day we will reunite.
Best,
Bijou
Leroy, If it's re anything, I think it's re-cognizing. The bond was always there, but covered over with distortions.
Possum, ((((((hugs))))))
Bethgo, Again insight or just beginning to see reality- recognizin and acknowledging what is? but thanks for the compliment
Bijou, like Joy said, if we keep sharing what this is more people will share with us.
I relate to this so well.
MSP
"What this post is really about is that we are surviving it all. We are integrating ourselves in each others lives and expanding and growing independently and together. Bit by bit."
Yes we are. Each of us in our own ways and at our own speed. Beautiful!
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