About Cheerio

My photo
In general I am a cheery and energetic person. But I am enshrouded in a cloak of iron. That cloak is the weight of greiving my son, whom I've lost to adoption.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

At the hospital, Visiting Pistol

When we moved to our new neighborhood in 2006, our neighbor introduced herself.  She made sure we know her nickname is Pistol, because she used to work for security and carried a piece.  Anytime someone new moves into the neighborhood she introduces herself the same way. 







Funny thing is, we all just call her by her first name and she's the only one who mentions the "Pistol" nickname.



Pistol lives across the street from us.  She is an animal nut.  She doesn’t like the circle of life because it means a living creature will die.  She had an arbor put over the many birdfeeders, and added lattice to keep the hawks from dining on the cardinals, mourning doves, or squirrelles.

Pistol has a big heart and is generous.  She looks out for her neighbors and we all look out for her too.  She’s retired and has many physical problems.  Most of the problems stem from the cancer treatments she went through years ago.  I can never keep up with her schedule of when she is going for a PET Scan, Blood work, visiting the cander doctor, the kidney doctor, the lung doctor, or family doctor.  She’s a tough cookie though.

She’s never been married and when I go to visit her, she could talk your ear off.  But she’s funny and interesting and I don’t mind.  She recently had surgery and was in the hospital for over two weeks.  With my work and school schedule I wasn’t able to visit her until this past Thursday.  It was really good to see her!  She looked good and was talkative.  She moved slow, but was getting around. 

Pistol was talking about the little she remembers from being in ICU, she talked about the procedures of the operation, she showed off her new artwork of the 30 staples holding her together.  We joked about the many ways she could keep and reuse the staples as memorbilia.  She could make a necklace, she could have rows of staples lining her earlobes, she could have saples in her nostriles or on her eyebrows – like the young kids piercings these days.

She was talking about a shot they gave her.  Almost mid-sentence she stopped.  “I don’t know if you had to go through any of this kind of stuff when you lost your baby," she said.  She went on by saying, “You don’t have to talk about it if it upsets you.  We didn’t even know you were pregnant.  I guess you didn’t want anyone to know, in case you wouldn’t be able to carry full term.  Was that your first pregnancy? Was it a little girl?   Do you know why you can’t have a baby?”

Wow, needless to say, I wasn’t at all expecting any of that.  I actually DID want to tell her about the pregnancy 2 years ago.  I was trying to take her and one of her other friends out to lunch so I could tell them the good news.  But Pistol was having physical problems at the time, and kept putting off going out for lunch.  Well, then it was too late and the good news turned out to be not so good news anymore..

Nevertheless, here I am visiting my neighbor in the hospital and she brings up one of the most important subjects of my life.  I assured her that I was not bothered at all, and actually was glad for a chance to talk about it. I theorized that I possibly lost her either because of the extreme amount of stress from my job at the time.  I told that I considered it was a little girl. I didn’t remember everything that happened at the hospital.  I know I had to have a RhoGAM shot, I don’t remember if there were other shots or not. 

She was surprised when I said it was not my first pregnancy and asked what happened.  I told her that I carried full term and had a healthy beautiful baby boy.  When he was 3 days old, I left the hospital without him.  I summed it up by telling her that hubby and I weren’t married yet, and I was made to feel that I had to give my baby up for adoption, that if I had kept him it would have ruined his life.

She said, “ That really pisses me off!  Why would people do that?  I know you and your husband, and you both would have been wonderful parents to that child.”

Then a nurse walked in and the conversation changed.

As visiting hours was coming to an end, I brought up the subject of my son again.  I told Betty that he turned 17 last month.  So in a year or so from now, if she sees a tall young blonde fellow at our house, it just might be him.  She smiled at this thought.  I hugged her goodnight and moved her stuffed animals around to keep her company through thenight.

It is crazy that it worked out this way.  I have been trying to figure out a way to tell Pistol about our son, and just didn’t know how to bring it up.  I was afraid that she would have a negative reaction that I sometimes get from older gererations.  Often I’m told that I gave him up and had no right to even call him my son - or that I deserved it – or that he is where he belongs and I should forget about him. 

But the clock is ticking and as his 18th birthday approaches, I am trying to make sure everyone knows about him.  The last thing I would want him to hear someone say to me is “Oh, I didn’t know you have a son.” 

So I am glad Pistol knows now, and I was pleasantly surprised with her supportive reaction.
Here I thought I was visiting the hospital for her, and she’s the one who ended up helping me.


At the Hospital
Visiting
Pistol

Sunday, November 13, 2011

A Mother is a terrible thing to Waste


 That is pretty much all I have to say in response to the month of November being dubbed as adoption month – AKA: Celebration of godless amounts of profit from separating families needlessly.

Every billboard you see, commercial you watch, radio advertisement you hear, or article in your newspaper that has to do with adoption, consider this estimation that about 50,000 non-family adoptions occur each year.  Wow, 50,000 adoptions.  That represents 50,000 human beings sold with a bill of sale (complete with amended birth certificates).   It also results in 50,000 Mothers Wasted – cut off from her child and discarded like scrap pieces of fabric.
 expendable

This post is for you Bethany Christian Services (and all unethical agencies like you).
You pretend to ‘serve’ women and girls in need, but you are really serving yourself and your agendas – gleefully ripping babes from families and wasting mothers in the process.

A certain percent of them may have other children – but she will never be THE MOTHER of THE CHILD you’ve sold under your replacement program.

My slogan for November –
Don't support the Wasting of Mothers, instead help Preserve Original Families!!!

A Mother
is a Terrible Thing
to
waste


picture from

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Come, Sleep With Me

Normally I start getting ready for bed by 10:30.  But not tonight, or many nights of the past weeks either.  It’s another late night of keeping busy before I finally drag myself upstairs.  I am so tired my head hurts.
 

I flick on the light and trudge my way to the bathroom sink.  I avoid looking in the mirror as I open the medicine cabinet for my toothbrush and toothpaste. 


I wash my face and catch a glimpse of my own reflection.   I wonder what my son thinks when he looks in the mirror.  What does he see?  What are his thoughts, feeling, or questions?  Does he ever ponder his brown eyes that are just like mine, or his lips like those of his original father’s?  Do any emotions come to the surface for him, as they do for me? 
 

I close the door behind me as I quietly enter the bedroom.  I slip my feet between the sheets and mountain of blankets and burrow in for another long night. 



 I fall back on the pillow, the blonde tresses land softly around my shoulders.   This is not a picture of peace or serenity as I feel the heavy weight of weariness.


Sleep doesn’t come with the stillness and silence of the night, my heart aches and my thought churn out more questions than I could ever keep up with.  What will it be like to see him face to face?  Will he even like me?  Will I meet up to his expectations?  Will I disappoint him?  Will he allow me to give him a big long hug, or will he rather I not invade his space and keep a distance?  Will we actually get to connect after his 18th birthday, or will it be just more of the silent waiting game?  Will we send e-mail back and forth as we try to get to know one another?  How long will it really be until he is comfortable meeting face to face?  When will he ask the “but why” question?  What will I say?  Will it sound like lame and pathetic excuses to him?  Will I be able to temper my disdain for this unholy institution of adoption?  Will I find a way to deal with all this guilt ahead of time so it doesn’t hinder our relationship?  Is it really guilt? Or is it just a continuous reaching out there for acknowledgement of how painful it has been? 


I am thoroughly exhausted emotionally.  I lie there staring through the darkness at the ceiling; the tears start to well up.  Closing my eyes doesn’t make them go away and the tears start slipping from the corner of my eyes.  I have to turn my head to keep them from rolling into my ears. 


The tears don’t let up, so I roll onto my side facing the doorway.  Curling myself into a ball, I pull the covers up over my head.  It is dark and all I hear is my own breathing and sighs.


It isn’t just the endless questions that keep me awake, it is the pain.  I miss him.  I miss him terribly. 

Yes, I regret my decision.  I regret that we were separated all these years for no good reason.  But it’s about more than just regret.  Since coming out of denial in 2006, I think I’ve come to a place where I am able to acknowledge plainly the different pieces of the adoption.  I know that I made the best decision I could based on the information at that time.  It was never because I didn’t want him.  It was never because I didn’t love him.  I know now that it was faulty information.  It was a very very very  wrong choice  and a very unnecessary decision at that.


However, looking back and acknowledging it all does not change the fact that he is 17 years old and he is a complete stranger to me.  This is my son, and he is a stranger.  This is the pain and the heartache, that time and memories – both his and mine - have slipped through the hourglass of time.  It can never be gotten back; it cannot be relived to knit our lives into repair. 


It hurts.  I have found no words to describe it any differently.  So many nights I cry myself to sleep, holding it all so I don’t wake my husband sleeping beside me.


Does it match your idyllic picture of ‘beautiful’?  as a ‘win-win’?  Where is the love now in this so-called “loving choice”?  It’s dashed to pieces on the jagged realities of grief and tremendous loss, an incredibly senseless loss that is applauded by society and benefits an industry whose thirsty greed cannot be satiated.


Come, sleep with me
so you can see firsthand
the aftermath of adoption