Brett is going to kill me
Oct 13, 2004 Adoption
Madison and Noah are both fussing so I SWEAR this will be my last entry.
It’s Anna’s turn:
[Your] use of the word ‘deserve’ and also by your desire to perhaps mentor J, or help her financially, or watch the baby while she goes to school. I think I understand this point of view — this is the way that we‚ve felt about close friends of ours who have limited resources and have just had their first child; those same thoughts have crossed our minds. But those very thoughts also created an imbalance in our relationship, in that we were then prospective patrons of sorts, rather than friends or partners. And this idea that we could somehow provide them with a ‘better’ life? In some ways it was really condescending of us.
There is an imbalance in our relationship in that J is the same age as my little sister. I can’t help but feel protective of her. And she can’t help but sometimes try to lean on me.
In the end, it‚s about honoring and believing in _their_ choices and _their_ values as much as our own.
Yes but it took time to understand that J truly did NOT want to parent. And in that time, we worried that we were taking advantage of her.
I know that it‚s hard to compare open and closed adoptions ˆ I understand that they are worlds apart ˆ but some of these issues seem inherent in closed adoption as well (I‚m thinking about ethnic identity here) ˆ how do you think your response might have been the same or different if Madison‚s adoption had been closed?
I think, frankly, that in some ways it would have been easier. At least at the beginning it would have been easier. We love J. And at the beginning, we loved her more than we loved Madison. It took time to fall in love with Madison and that was scary. I don’t think openness slowed down our bonding process but as we learned to love each other, it was difficult not to dwell on J and worry about her. When we left J in the hospital, she was convulsed with tears and that kept coming back to us. We left her crying. We took her baby and left her crying. No amount of intellectualizing the rightness of it could erase how terrible that felt. That part of openness was really hard but again, I don’t regret it. If Madison ever asks if J loved her, I can tell her how much she did and hopefully J herself will be around to tell her how much she still does.
Also, our continuing openness helped me understand that our adoption and J’s decision not to parent were ultimately separate issues. (Although when she signed the papers her social worker told us, “Had you been any other parents, I don’t think she would have placed; this was meant to be your baby.” What we heard was, “You are a roadblock in J’s decision to parent.” It took time to see that this was not true and that what the social worker meant was that our good and open relationship with J gave her the freedom to do what she needed and wanted to do.)
But the biggest thing for us is that during the darkest times, we clung to the moments we had in the hospital with J after she signed the papers. She gave us her blessing then and we needed that. We needed to know that J wanted us to be Madison’s parents because ultimately, it didn’t matter what anyone else said. And while the picture of her sobbing in her friend’s arms as we left holding Madison is seared into my memory, so is the moment before when she gave me that blessing to be Madison’s mommy.
As to Madison’s feelings about her African American heritage, I just don’t know how much J will be able to help us with that. J is really busy with her own life and I hope that she gets to do the things that she wanted to do, that drove her decision to place Madison, even though they’ll likely take her away from us for some time. But at least she’ll be a resource. Also, again, her blessing means a lot. Recently someone took me to task for my transracial adoption (someone long-distance) and I finally said, “Listen, if there’s anyone who has a right to say who should mother Madison, it’s her birth mom. And she chose me. End of discussion.”
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Tags: Brett, Erica, Madison, Noah, transracial
Five! It’s a record!
Oct 13, 2004 Adoption
(Brett is home with the kidlings and I am neglecting work.)
Magicpointeshoe said:
Well, there’s oodles to discuss and debate on this post!
But I’m really not trying to debate. The goal of my blog — besides being a record for me — is to share my feelings in the hopes that other people going through similar things won’t feel alone.
I have to say that reaction of I could never place this child up for adoption is very typical. It goes hand in hand with the sad face that comes after I mention I’m a birthmother.
There is a big difference –to me — in your being a birth parent and in my feelings about my adoption experience. I would never say to a woman who had chosen to place her child, “I could never give up my baby!” Frankly, I haven’t thought it when someone has “come out” to me about their birth mother status because I have no idea what I might have done in similar circumstances. (Plus side of less than stellar fertility: no unplanned pregnancies in my history to force me to confront that kind of decision.)
What I’m trying to explain in my previous posts is that because I wanted to be a parent so badly, it was difficult for me to fully appreciate that a person could feel just as strongly that they weren’t ready to parent. I was using this to illustrate the limits of my understanding in my relationship with J.
In speaking to another woman who is a birth mother, this wouldn’t play out because I wouldn’t stand to benefit from her decision.
This mirroring of emotion and gaining one’s feet after placement is becoming facinating for me.
Me, too, and I’m glad that you’re sharing it with me.
But I want to reiterate that I am speaking about my post-adoption depression — which I can tell you all, is really really really emotionally difficult to share — because I know that other adoptive parents might experience it. In these posts, it is not my intention to do anything more than share the inner-workings of my head at that time and now.
Also, Katie, I do appreciate that birth mothers are as diverse as adoptive mothers and other kinds of mothers. However, historically the adoption industry has been predicated on -isms and I think that those -isms are still part of it. Those of us who plan to adopt need to be vigilant about doing our best not to be part of a coercive relationship. This is why I talk about racism, classism and the rest of it. Ideally, every woman who chooses to place her child would do so with the same confidence and free-will that you and Magicpointeshow have demonstrated. I appreciate your speaking here because your voices are needed. And they are needed in part to show that a non-coercive adoption is possible. That desperate wannabe parents don’t need to resort to shoddy tricks like those in this book. If we trust that the right adoption situation — right for everyone — will come to us, then we don’t need to exploit women who want to parent.
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Really quick (in response to Katie)
Oct 13, 2004 Adoption
Four entries from me in one day! It’s like ye days gone by!
Katie said:
i do certainly agree that racism and classism can play a major role in some women’s decision to persue adoption for their children, but in reading these posts i also feel somewhat insulted because it leaves out a huge number of birthmoms, myself included.
First off, Katie, I apologize for making you feel insulted. I also hope that you don’t think that I’m trying to invalidate your decision — or the decision of any woman — to place your child for adoption.
I do know that it would be unfair of me to water down J’s decision to one completely dependent on issues of race or class; I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to talk about my feelings around adoption and my feelings don’t necessarily reflect the reality of any particular birth mom’s feelings — including J. Does that make sense?
I know that how I perceive things is not how J perceives things because we’ve talked about a lot of it. I can’t help but project the grief that I would feel onto her, you know? So the idea of placing my child — when I so desperately wanted to be a parent again — was inconceivable (no pun intended). That can make it hard for me to understand the relief J feels.
I do know that J did not want to be my friend who parented in similar circumstances — she does not feel ready to be a parent. But knowing that didn’t make it easier for me at the beginning. I kept playing this game with myself: What if we had helped her financially? What if we had offered to mentor her? What if I said I could watch the baby while she went to school? No, none of those things would have been realistic or appropriate; besides, they didn’t address her fundamental wish not to parent. Still I was swimming in guilt. I kept thinking, “Madison is so wonderful. Why do I deserve this and J doesn’t? It’s not fair. I’m a thief.”
And those feelings were part of my belief that the personal is political — that every decision is a reaction to our sociological reality and has far-reaching political ramifictions. But as I said, that’s about me and until J starts her own blog, that’s the only side of this particular story that people can get.
Edited to add: I’m wondering and hope that Katie and Magicpointeshoe can let me know, is it emotionally painful to consider post-adoption blues for an adoptive parent from a birth parent perspective? The truth is, I’ve been afraid to tell J how unhappy I was at the beginning because I wanted her to feel good about Madison’s placement. And then, too, I didn’t think that she needed to know especially if it might cause her grief. But I anticipate it coming up sometime.
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Funny how the world works
Oct 13, 2004 Adoption
Noah had his spanish group at the library today and I was looking for books on abortion — to have at my pro-choice brunch — and on the shelf next to the choice books was this one: The Post-Adoption Blues. I’m only a chapter into it and already I’m nodding my head in agreement.
If you’re planning to adopt, take my advice and pick this book up. This is from page 29:
As a fallible human being and parent, thoughts creep in: Am I the best parent for ths child? Do I have a right to this child? Would this child be better in a black/Asian/minority family? I’ve taken her away from her birth family. Will she hates me when she grows up? …
We feel that we cannot possibly live up to the hype we have been compelled to create, and therefore we are not entitled to this child. For parents who adopt from another country [Dawn here: This applies to me, too; it's what I was talking about below.], the feeling of being a “rich American” compounds the lack of entitlement. … [We think] that we have taken something that isn’t rightfully ours, and we have taken it because our socioeconomic status enabled us to.
When Madison was about four months old, we went out to eat and were seated near a large African American extended family. From their conversation, it sounded like they were all out to eat together after church. Sometime before our meal was served, one woman came over from that table to gush over Madison.
“What a beautiful sister of God!” she exclaimed. “Look at this beautiful child of God! Little sister, what a beautiful baby you are!”
When she went back to her table, I felt like crying. I suddenly felt so sad that Madison wasn’t going to have the opportunity to grow up as a Black child in a Black family. I felt so inadequate.
I realized that it’s one thing to theorize about transracial adoption but now she’s here — this child of my heart. I love her so much and the thought of failing her devastates me. And now I recognize in a much more profound way than I ever could before, that I am going to fail her on that.
When she was even smaller — about two months old — I saw the bio of another couple seeking to adopt through our agency. (It was online and linked to from the “waiting families” page.) A professional African American couple who owned a newspaper catering to the Black community in their city with a beautiful bio daughter. They had more money, they had more education and they were Black. And for a split second I thought, “I should send them Madison; I’m sure J would understand if she could read their bio.”
It was all of this at the beginning that had me thinking I might be going a little crazy. Our guilt over J’s grief. (I’d start shaking when I’d pick up a message from her on voicemail and my head would start pounding — it was so hard to put aside my feelings and call her knowing that I would have to confront her sorrow again.) My feelings of inadequacy. And oh Madison cried so much those first months. My rational self would remember that babies do cry but my emotional self would think, “She’s crying because she misses J and hates that I took her away.”
I’m not trying to scare people away from adoption or from adopting transracially (if I had it to do again, I’d do it the same way) but to say that it’s really all right when it’s not all polkadots and moonbeams after placement.
I have a feeling that I’ll be writing more on this as I get further into the book.
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Tags: Erica, Madison, Noah, our agency, transracial
A good question
Oct 13, 2004 Adoption
Magicpointeshoe asked, regarding my last entry, “Is it sadness or pity?”
I had to think on that.
I think that what I hadn’t recognized and which Magicpointeshoe is helping me to see is that my sad feelings were all about me. Let me try to make sense of this.
When I was pregnant with Noah, one of my best friends was also pregnant. Her situation — at least on paper — looked a lot like J.’s. She was only a few months older, she had some of the same family stuff going on and she also had some of the same circumstantial stuff going on. At one point my friend, whom I will call P., considered abortion. And later she considered adoption.
When my friend visited an agency to talk about this option, she was convinced that she wanted to parent. She felt that her circumstances did not dictate what kind of parent she would be. When people tell me that so and so is too young or immature or unready to parent, I think of my friend who is a wonderful mother but who, in a different era, would not have been allowed to parent her daughter.
See, I have always been on the side — philosophically and practically — of women who want to be parents and who have been told that they can’t be. At shelter, politically, in my personal relationships, I have always supported women who choose to parent despite circumstances that would lead other people to tell them that they couldn’t. I believe in choice.
Now this means that I have always strong supported women in the choice not to parent as well, whether that means the choice to have an abortion or place a baby for adoption.
Ahhh, but there lies the rub.
I have more experience with women who choose to have an abortion. There are only a couple of birth mothers in my life (not including J) but I have a ton of friends/family who have had abortions.
I have always felt a lot of trepidation about the adoption industry. When my friend went to the agency, we joked about all of those white parents waiting to adopt her to-be-brown baby. To me, it seemed so predatory. Here are people of privilege asking for the babies of indigence. How convenient.
At that time, I did plan to adopt but I planned to adopt out of the foster care system. I certainly was never going to be one of those wannabe parents who advertise for a “healthy, white newborn” in the back of newspapers. I read “dear birthmom” letters with distate; they seemed so smarmy.
How I got here, on the other side of the adoption equation is, of course like all adoption issues, complicated. But at the root of it is selfishness: We wanted to parent a baby from the get-go. And I guess I haven’t really made peace with my selfishness.
I have trouble understanding when righteous anger becomes condescension. For example, before Madison came home to us, I told my friend, L, that I was worried that J was not being made aware of all of her options. I called our social worker about it who reassured me what they had done on their end, but I fretted about it. I wondered if I should send her a copy of Hipmama or something. L told me that I was being patronizing. Couldn’t I trust, she asked me, J’s ability to make her own decisions? Hadn’t I said that J was smart and aware? And wasn’t I projecting my own feelings way too much on J?
I was projecting. I’m still projecting. But I also think that if the world was more fair, if there was no racism or classism or sexism, that J might have been able to parent. I still think that in a broad way, in a great big overarching philosophical way, her decision was coerced.
The roots of her decision go way back. I know that there was nothing in a practical way that would have made her change her mind. However, I do believe that our social system made her choice inevitable and that this social system is unjust. I believe that I have benefitted from this injustice. This is the part that causes me angst. This is the part that I’m trying to let go.
See, there are three levels of my adoption experience. There is the everyday practical one where I trust J’s decision and feel entitled to parent Madison based on her birth mother’s decision.
Then there is the spiritual level where I believe that we were all of us — J, too — meant to be a part of each other’s lives. And that Madison chose to be our daughter.
Then there is the political level where I believe that non-kinship adoption is too often predicated on oppression. I believe that my knapsack is full of unearned privilege and that my sense of entitlement is another example of this.
In those first weeks, I was engulfed by my shame. The third level — the political level — trumped the practical and spiritual levels. I felt undeserving. I felt like I had myself inflicted wrong-doing on another person for my own benefit. Brett and I both felt this way. We knew that we were betraying J by giving into these thoughts. We knew that she wanted us to be happy because she told us so. But it was overwhelming, our feelings of guilt.
I still don’t know what to do with these feelings. Our every day life has taken over for the most part but they still come up.
Sometimes people say something like, “Isn’t Madison lucky to have you guys.” We, of course, are lucky to have her but also when people say that, they’re dismissing the things that she has lost. Madison isn’t just losing out on having J as a mother, she’s also losing out on intimate contact with her cultural history. Those are big losses. I cry about those, too.
I can’t go back over this right now because I hear the baby stirring. I hope I said things correctly. I’ll try to get back to any points I’ve made badly later on today or tomorrow.