It’s 7:30am
Dec 15, 2005 The Story of My Life
And I survived the snooze alarm and have been up for an hour.
So has Madison.
Rats.
I’ll write more later. Perhaps this means she’ll take a great nap?
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Tags: Madison
An experiment
Dec 14, 2005 The Story of My Life
I’m going to try getting up before the kids. I know, I know, it’s an ambitious goal but I say you gotta dream big.
I need my alone time — I go crazy without my alone time — so I stay up until midnight then read in bed until my eyes won’t stay open, which has me dragging in the morning. I’m going to try to switch out my awake time and go for waking up earlier and going to bed earlier. It’s crazy but it’s so crazy that it just. might. work.
I’ve been thinking about how I need to do this for awhile now but if I want to have a crack at this proposal, I need to look to the morning hours when my brain actually functions. Past 10pm I’m a shadow of my quick-thinking (relatively speaking) self. Just think — if I get up at 6am-ish I could not only have a cup of coffee before the children get out of bed but I could even shower every single day if I wanted to! And not shower at night only to suffer the ill-effects of sleeping on wet hair (bed head to the nth degree). I could be both showered and caffeinated! I could maybe even (dare I say it?) be dressed before ten in the morning EVERY SINGLE DAY!
I told you, I’m dreaming big. The sky’s the limit! There’s gonna be some changes made!!!
That is if I can resist the snooze alarm. I’ll let you know tomorrow.
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My news, very quickly
Dec 14, 2005 Writing
The opportunity I’m talking about was that a very nice agent approached me after talking to one of my old editors asking if I had any book ideas in the works. I replied with, “Boy do I!” Then we emailed and the one he’s interested in seeing a proposal on isn’t the one I thought it would be and it kinda freaked me out.
Now this is really really great news but it’s close to getting a book like getting approval from an agency who says they will work with you on adoption is close to getting a baby. Actually it’s less close. Because now I have this very nice “in” but I still have to write the proposal and hope he’s still interested in the project. Then if he is, I have to hope he can sell it. Then if he does, I have to hope I can actually write it per the publisher’s request. Then if I do, I have to hope that it sells. All very scary and overwhelming.
This isn’t the first time I’ve caught the interest of an agent, (she types modestly because of what comes next, which will make it clear this is not bragging). Many, many moons ago (when Noah was about three or four) another editor-friend allowed me to use her name to get an “in” with her agent. I sent my proposal and the agent said she was now my agent. Even though she was a hotshot in a New York office with a great track record who got my friend a tidy advance for her first book, she never sent me a contract or communicated with me in any way except email. Being a newbie, I was just so happy to have an agent that I believed her when she’d answer my occasional emails with, “I’m shopping it around!” Now that I know better, I doubt she was doing that at all. She was about to leave her agency and start off on her own and I think she was just holding on to me until she moved on so she could start fresh with her own stable of authors. She sent a mass email when she opened her new offices, I didn’t respond and I never heard from her again.
I’m saying this to say that I am not an agent virgin and so am not hopping up and down as much as I might otherwise. Also, I know that he’s got a list of writers he’s contacting and I know that because he contacted another writer friend a month or so ago.
Still, it’s very very cool. I’d like to work on the proposal and if he passes, I’ll try to sell it elsewhere. I just don’t quite know how I’ll make time to do it. Then again, it’s not like I’ll have to write hard forever; I just have to write hard until the proposal is done. By the time I sell it (if I sell it) and have to write the book, Madison will be older and hopefully easier. (Remember we’re looking with great hope towards three.)
The best lessons in all of this are these:
1. The book he’s interested in is also the type of book I most want to write; the other two ideas I shopped to him were more about sales.
2. If he’s interested, other people will be interested. That means if he passes, I can try again with someone else.
3. Becca knows me pretty damn well. (She coached me, kicked me and basically got me through my up/down excitement.)
I was a little high about all of this today (it was the first email I read this morning and was SO much nicer than the first email I read yesterday) but now I’m tired and feeling more sane. I decided to write about it here because I want to enjoy the glow-y feeling. Nothing may come of it but at least right this minute, it’s making me pretty happy.
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Conversation I had today
Dec 13, 2005 Writing
*knock* *knock*
Me: Yes?
Opportunity: Hi, I’m opportunity and I’m knocking!
Me: Wow! Really! I’ll take it!
Opp: Great! First we’ll just need you to fill out these forms.
Me: What?
Opp: In triplicate, please.
Me: Forms?
Opp: Do you have a blue pen? Our computers only scan blue or black. Black will work.
Me: But I’ll take it. What are the forms for?
Opp: That’s to see whether or not you make the next level. See, I’m only opportunity; I don’t come with any guarantees.
Me: But that’s a lot of work!
Opp: Hey, nobody said that opportunity comes easy.
Me: I don’t know if I can fit you in right now. Could you come back?
Opp: Maybe. Generally I like to make repeat visits if people keep their lights on for me but I can’t make you any guarantees about it. And to be perfectly honest it’s unlikely that I’ll come back in quite this way.
Me: So this could be it?
Opp: Not it exactly but this is one version of it and it may be the best version. There’s really no telling; I’m just opportunity not fulfillment, failure or success, mind you. They’re the hot shots who run this thing.
Me: But that’s not fair! How can I know whether or not to take you up on this? Jeez! Can’t you cut me a break?
Opp: I’m sorry, ma’m. I understand what a challenge this is and you certainly have your hands full what with the little tyke smearing yogurt on her highchair there (she’s pretty cute, by the way) but rules are rules.
Me: Well, can you leave the forms then? I’ll try to sit down with them when I catch my breath later this week.
Opp: Sure thing. Just remember that submission is time sensitive and you do understand, of course, that I’m also banging on some other doors with this particular situation. Good luck and maybe we’ll hook up again somewhere down the road!
So now these metaphorical forms are here and I’ll be staring at them guiltily while I figure out what to do.
Damn opportunity.
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Birth parent boundaries
Dec 12, 2005 Adoption
I wanted to comment on the same entry that Cubbiegirl is talking about over at her blog. Now right upfront, let me say that I’m talking about adoptions in which the child has been voluntarily placed by his/her birth family.
I’m saddened that there is still so much confusion and prejudice about birth parents and adoption. There seems to be this idea that birth moms are by definition inappropriate or without boundaries. But if you look around and talk to birth moms (Read their blogs, please) you’ll see that they’re getting a bad rap.
Contrary to Lifetime movies and popular fiction, women who place their children for adoption are not lunatics who park their children with other people until they have a chance to scoop them back up. Women who make adoption plans are by definition women who are thinking hard about their children. They don’t want their kids lives to be complicated by their presence and if they choose openness, they are likely to be as committed as the adoptive family to maintaining appropriate boundaries because that’s best for the baby. Even most self-described angry birth moms like Kateri have no desire to disrupt their children’s families. Kateri’s complaints, you’ll see if you read, are about the way she was treated by the adoptive parents; her struggle to respect their boundaries while maintaining some level of connection to her birth daughter is impressive and I’d argue way more common than not for birth mothers dealing with regret or anger.
And how to avoid the angry birth mother? Don’t piss her off. Don’t lie to her. Don’t screw her over. Don’t work with unethical adoption “professionals”. Do act honestly. Do refuse to share your profile if you’re not prepared to meet her requests. Do honor her as the woman who gave birth to the child you love.
In other words, random insanity from a birth parent is no more common than random insanity from any other group of people. In fact, I betcha that random insanity is less common among birth mothers because making an adoption plan, signing the papers, and placing a baby is so effortful,
Everyone has a different definition of what “appropriate boundaries” look like and no one — birth parent or adoptive parent — should feel coerced into accepting more or less than what will work for them. However, I think that if more potential adoptive parents understood how open adoption works, they would feel less threatened about welcoming birth families into their children’s lives.
Let me tell you, having J around does NOT make me feel like less of a parent. In fact, having her presence makes me feel MORE like Madison’s mom because I know that I have J’s full blessing.
There’s also this idea that adopted kids will be confused if you use terms like “birth mom” with them. As in, “J is your birth mom; she gave birth to you.” Like Madison will not be able to make sense of this. But my take on it is that you tell them the truth at the get-go and then answer questions as it starts to sink in. Sooner or later Madison will put 2 and 2 together and realize that having J as a birth mom and me as an adoptive mom is more complicated than Noah’s scenario and she’ll have questions. But she’ll be a lot less confused and have far fewer questions if I waited until she was 6 or 7 or 8 or MORE and said, “You know how you thought J was your aunt? Well, she’s really your birth mom.” or “You know how I said you were adopted and didn’t really know about your birth family? Well, I actually have this info about her.” or “You know how you said you always wanted to meet your birth mom? Well, I’ve actively stopped you from having that opportunity.” or worst of all “By the way, you’re adopted.”
Imagine the confusion then! Confusion like, “But why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you trust my love for you? Why weren’t you confident enough to allow me the opportunity to explore my own truth?”
This is not about birth parent rights; this is about our children. Of course birth parents and adoptive parents have the right to create boundaries that will work for them but these boundaries should be in place not because adoptive parents fear the involvement of birth parents who have not done anything to earn that fear other than to be birth parents.
Did you know that fifty percent of all adoptees will search for their birth families (usually their birth mothers) at some time in their lives? (That number may be growing as open adoption becomes more accepted and adoption activists continue to win the fight for open records.) If you are able to have some openness in your domestic, chosen (as opposed to state-initiated) adoption, your child is very fortunate. He or she has the opportunity to start out with more information than was ever available in formal, state-sanctioned adoption in the past. What a gift!
So many adult adoptees don’t search for fear of their adoptive family’s unhappiness. They’re afraid that we might reject them or that our feelings will be hurt. “Aren’t I enough mother to you?” Isn’t that tragic? Personally I couldn’t live with the guilt that my son or daughter would put off searching because of me. I figure that one of the things I can do for Madison is honor her roots and do what I can so she has the opportunity to explore them as she sees fit.
Again, I’m not saying you should enter into a match agreement with a birth parent who is requesting more contact than with which you feel comfortable. If visits seem like too much, so be it. If sharing identifying information seems like too much, say so. But know that the presence of a birth family is unlikely to threaten your status as active parent unless you allow it to.
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Tags: Madison, Noah, open adoption