About Cheerio

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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.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

bi-lingual and the language of pain


Last January I started back to school.  Cheerio the student
  I always loved school and it was thrilling to be back in the classroom.  It was also the start of a whole new chapter in my life and I determined from the very beginning that I would not hide in shame about my adoption situation.

  In Speech, I sat near a window and shared a table with Doug.  He was a very friendly, pleasant, talkative kind of guy, and he was a good listener!  Ok, that turned out to be sort of bad, because the Professor had to look our way and shush us every now and then.  We got along well and did great on our projects.

  At one point early in the semester we happened upon the topic of cultures that are bi-lingual and the Spanish language.  I learned just a few months earlier that my son takes Spanish in high school, so the mysterious Mother’s pride was kicking in.  I pulled his picture out of my book bag and put it on the table to show Doug.  “He takes Spanish,” I said. 

  One of the voices in my head nagged loudly about that being lame and ridiculous.  “Lots of kids take Spanish, what’s the point of even mentioning it?  Are you going to tell Doug who ‘he’ really is? Or is it going to be another secret?”  After a slight pause I leaned over to tell Doug his name and continued, “He is my son, but he is adopted and I haven’t seen him since he was three days old.”  The Professor looked over at us to hush as she continued her instructions to the class. 

  After a period of time he leans over and quietly said, “That must have been a very hard choice to have to make.”  Apparently Doug kept thinking about it even though we stopped talking.  This really surprised me because so often there is an awkward silence when I do tell people about my son.  It was a double surprise because he acknowledged the struggle, rather than the typical squeals of “Oh! That is wonderful!” This is something I often hear.

  When we had a break (and were allowed to talk) Doug shared his personal story with me.  When his son was about 3 years old, he and his wife separated.  For a month he could not see his son. 


  Doug expressed how that month was just a horrible experience not being with his son and the overwhelming fear of wondering when he would see him again.  He was expressing sympathy for me as he simply said, “I cannot imagine how much harder it has been for you to go all these years not being able to see your son.”


Later that night I told my hubby about the conversation with Doug.  It was my hubby that pointed out how and why Doug’s personal story is so profound.
Doug’s son is now a young man in his twenties and a father with young children of his own.  Here it is more than twenty years later and Doug vividly remembers the crushing blow of being separated from his son – for only one month.  He was devastated.

Wow. 

The correlation
-to the adoption community
-to adoptive parents
-to potential adoptive parents
-to who are funding the unethical actions of the adoption industry;

...the separation is devastating.  

For Doug, that one month of separation had a lifelong and profound impact on him.

If you are adopting a fresh from the womb infant, then you
- yes you
 – you are party to devastating that family. 

  As a mother of such loss, I (and many others) can attest to the devastating pain that increases over time. 
  Although they are unable to form words to verbalize it at the time, the sons and daughters are also greatly affected.  In their own unspoken ways they are devastated too, not just as infants, but it affects them the rest of their life.

Adoption
Devastates
Families

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Who sufferes more? BirthMom from closed adoption? Birth Mom in open adoption? or the Adoptee?


What is the point of these questions?
 
Really.
 
Pain is Pain, and it hurts.
 
Period.
 
Really.
 
But
 
the difficulty of their situation
does NOT erase
nor does it even EASE
the pain I deal with personally.
 

So, why, just why do we do this?

Why do we feel the need to have a screaming match of
“MY PAIN HURTS MORE THAN YOURS!”?


Don’t we see what that does?

Having those screaming matches,
boils down to talking over someone else.
It is drowning them out so their voice cannot be heard.
It is standing on the person we’ve just trampled.


Why? Really – why do we feel this is okay?

Why do we feel the need to push others away and
create fictitious distinctions of
‘more pain’?

What do you want?
Are you looking for pity?

Or does it just make you feel better about yourself
because you can put others down?

I personally think it is ridiculous,
What I think we all want
– and what we all deserve
is simple.

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T.


I don’t have to experience exactly the same situation
as another person
to acknowledge that they hurt.

However,
In order for that acknowledgement to be sincere,
I CANNOT
minimize,
marginalize,
or dismiss it
by
comparing it
to anyone else’s hurt
-–not even my own.

A mother who was tied down and/or drugged
so her baby could be taken and adopted out, that hurt her.
Can’t we simply acknowledge that it happened to her
(and many others)
WITHOUT dismissing it with the ending words of,
“BUT…. most mothers do have a choice.”

Why judge and compare them?
It does no good.

Mothers with a closed adoption hurt,
just like mothers with open adoption hurt.
Whether the adoption was
closed, or open,
the adoptee hurts too.

If you want your experience to be acknowledged,
then seriously consider
Are you acknowledging the experience of others
without judgment?

Judging who has more pain is
merely skewering others in the back,
and walking callously away.

That’s what the adoption agencies and adoption professionals do.


Suffers
More
?
Who

Friday, March 2, 2012

a different person?



There are two kinds of Chiropractors.


There are the traditional ones -as I call them, the “snap, crackle, and pop” kind - that just snap bones back into place. Even as a kid I’ve always had headaches and migraines, and would occasionally visit a chiropractor. This was the kind of chiropractor I went to when I was pregnant 18 years ago. I thought that snap crackle pop, was the only kind there was.


But now I go to a chiropractor who focuses on working on the muscles, and he never forces an adjustment. Apparently I am a challenge in that area, because I am just “too flexible” and he can’t get the vertebrate to slide back into place so easily. The electric stimulus was weird at first, but I usually fall asleep while the machine does its work after an adjustment. And my neck, I can freely move and turn my head without stiffness or pain!


I love Dr Eddy. I’ve been one of his patients for years. He is a good chiropractor and a great person. He’s always been interested in what was going on in my life – and even remembers it if I don’t see him for months! One of the biggest benefits I’ve had as his patient was finally discovering a major trigger for the migraines. At the suggestion of a nut allergy (food kind, not the co-worker kind) I discovered I indeed am allergic to peanuts. Wow! The migraine attacks have decreased greatly since I’ve cut out peanuts and all peanut products.


But this post is not about peanuts, or methods of chiropractic care. It is about a prevalent stereotype.


You see, back in 1994 when I was pregnant I think the chiropractor helped. I think all the stretches he suggested also helped. It was eighteen years ago, but I still remember in the ‘birthing’ classes that they talked about false labor, and said we’d know it was real labor when it included incredible back pain.


I never had back pain, none. I was ten days over my due date, and when labor pains started, I dismissed it because there was no back pain. It really freaked my Mom out when I finally woke her up and told her that I had been timing the pain for over an hour and I seemed to be having contractions about 5 minutes apart. Not a stitch of back pain through the whole ordeal.


So, when I found out in 2009 that I was pregnant again, I figured I’d make regular chiropractor visits, because the back pain – just doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, especially if it can be avoided. I visited Dr Eddy, and when it came time for the electric stimulus, I declined. I just didn’t feel comfortable with an electric current and any risk to the baby.


Being pregnant brought up a subject with him that we had not discussed before. It was 2009, and I was just beginning to come out of the closet about having given up a baby for adoption. In fact this discussion with Dr Eddy was less than two months after my first ever Adoptee Rights Demonstration, which truly was like being catapulted out of the closet of hiding and secrecy. I told Dr Eddy about my son, about the pain of living without him, about all the years of shame, about the unethical tactics of coercion used by the adoption professionals.


I just wasn’t prepared for his response as he calmly said, “Well, you are a different person now than you were then.”


Seriously? ! ? !


Dr Eddy, what about me has changed? Sure, I am not as impatient as I was in 1994, but that comes with maturity – which happens to most people. I’ve never slept around. I’ve never touched drugs. I’ve occasionally gotten tipsy but don’t drink a lot or often. I’ve never smoked (or chewed). I’ve been working since I was a teenager and am a good reliable employee. I am a law abiding and productive citizen (with a slightly lead foot).


Other than maturity, please describe what about me has changed? At the core, I am the exact same person I was in 1994.


And now that you’ve known me, Dr Eddy, for over 10 years – What about me is so -Awful Wrong that my son should have be severed from his family and sold off to strangers?


Nothing, Dr Eddy, nothing at all is wrong with me – not with who I am now, nor was there anything defective with me then either.


The problem, my friend, was not with me. The problem was and is with adoption and myriad of people in society, just like you who believe the lies and have the attitude that pregnant women should not care for their own babies. Making women feel like they are defective so their babies can be sold for a profit. That, Dr Eddy, is the problem.


No, I am not really a different person. I was mutilated for no good reason, unless, of course, greed is a “good reason” in your opinion.


NOT
A
Different
Person