Signing the TPR

When V was a little over a year old, a social worker called me. I don't remember the phone call or the conversation. All I remember was having a meeting with her in an old building used for public services. My step Mom has recently told me that her and my Dad drove me there but I don't remember any of it. I have a vague vision on being in a parking lot with them but I'm not sure if that's where we were.

I had no idea what I was signing was the termination of parental rights. I know it had to do with the adoption but I just didn't realize they were THE papers. I recently had married my husband and I remember going on about it and making a big deal about my name change. The social worker kept having a look of confusion or concern on her face and looking back now I realize she was trying to make me understand what was happening and making sure I knew what I was signing. But I had no clue...until a little while later in a phone conversation with V's adoptive Mom.

A few months later V's adoptive Mom and I were on the phone when I brought up the court date. For some reason I thought I would be there with them and at that time was when I would sign papers, she would become theirs and we would all share tears of happiness. I don't know where I got this idea from so when I asked her about when we were going to court she said they had already gone. I heart dropped. She must have sensed it because I remember her voice going soft and questing me gently about my meeting with the social worker. The rest of the conversation is a blur with the exception of us setting up a visit...it was the first time I had seen her since our parting at the hospital.

Was I just blocking it all out or being naive to what was going on around me? I was still in the mind set that I was beginning my happily ever after life and that things would work out beautifully. I still believed in the things I was told, that by giving her up I would find a respectable man to marry me and life would go on as if the deep pain of my sacrifice was in the past and didn't matter. Boy was I wrong.

Great. Im an angry birth Mom.

This is a little rambling as I am trying to sift through a few things and let them all fall into place...

This past weekend I attended a birth Mom retreat. I was so looking forward to meeting friends I have made over the past year online and maybe learn a new thing or two. What I experienced has shaken up something in me that I didn't realize I've been trying to suppress.

There were three guest speakers, an adoptive mom, birth Mom and an adult adoptee. Each was to share their experience in adoption, which is fine. The adoptive mom went first. I wont get into the details of what she said but I will just say she was using adoption language that was insulting and hurtful while trying to tell her "happy sunshine" story. Not to mention she kept bringing God into it and that can be a huge trigger for me. As she was talking I kept feeling myself begin to seethe with anger..so much that I felt my face heat up. I was texting my husband what was going on and told him I wanted to walk out. All I needed were the two little words from him...he said then do. I felt my eyes fill with tears and I stood up, walked towards the back door and out into the hallway.

As I opened the door I felt a rage fill me. I became so angry at all the people in this world who are like this woman. In the name of God they think they have rights to other peoples children and have no qualms about taking them away from women who would most likely have been awesome Mothers. They praise God for "their" little blessing. It was people like this who made me feel so shameful and told me I wasnt good enough for my own baby...because it was a "sin" to be an unwed Mom.

One of my friends came out to check on me and as we walked towards the parking garage to get some air she began crying. Once outside I just kept railing on about the things the adoptive Mom had said. I was so pissed! When I calmed down a bit my friend was still crying and it was then that it hit me. I am angry. Really really angry. I see my birth Mom friends cry and on one hand wish I could cry like that and have that release and on the other hand it makes me angry that if I let go and let loose I am some how weak and have let people who put me in this situation have power over me again. Like if I let myself cry it would mean I don't have a handle on this thing that has cursed my whole adult life. I'm angry that at this point in my life I am still feeling all these intense feelings. It was people like that adoptive mom who caused this to happen to me...and all in the name of God. I'm pissed that these people are still the cause of so much hurt in my life!

I've realized through one of the sessions that I have put a LOT of weight on the deal making I had been doing with myself over adoption all these years. I have tried to think time and time again if I had ever gone through the part of grieving where you bargain with God and I realized that I had made bargains with myself. My biggest deal I made was that I live my life a certain way and be a perfect Mom to my other two kids, have a certain kind of house, drive a certain kind of car, basically live a fairy tale, well what would look like a fairy tale to outsiders, then her and I would have a wonderful relationship when she was an adult. That she would admire me instead of resent me.

Her side of Mother/child bond was severed the minute I walked away from her at the hospital. The reality is that for most adult adoptees and their first Moms that bond does not repair when they reunite or when the child grows up. There are instances when this isn't true and never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that wouldn't be us. I thought I had some sort of guarantee because it was an open adoption and I tried my best to live up to the deals I made, to be perfect so she would love me and not be angry that I abandoned her.

I feel like I have nailed down a few things I need to work on finally. Thankfully I have a therapy appointment on Wed!