It won’t be complete or necessarily coherent.

First the panel. I was nervous, nobody else seemed nervous although Jenna says she was. (Oh my god, people, I just have to say that her husband is as handsome as his wife is lovely and he looks scarily like their son! Nick is gonna be a heart breaker and one can only imagine that Parker will follow in his footsteps!)

Ok, so Shannon presented a hugely moving paper about the voices of her children’s first mothers, their absence in the discourse and her struggle to figure out how best to serve them. Then I spoke (I took Becca’s advice and told everyone I was nervous so there was a murmuring sound of support right off the bat). Then Susan spoke about her blogging journey and she included a piece of her blog that I’ve loved and I got a little choked up. And then Jenna was sort of a grand finale because she had this forceful, inspiring look at first mother blogging and it was a great way to end the panel, with this triumphant assertive paper about the voices of first moms. Then we put a whole bunch of blogs up on the chalkboard and kicked ourselves for not making a hand-out.

Highlights for me — meeting a woman in person I’ve talked to via email who lives here in town and is a first mom and who I want to hang out with more; meeting Marley Greiner (who also lives here in town) and who is NOT scary like I was afraid she was and is, in fact, totally approachable and nice! Then there was this very cool part where I saw this woman and noticed her tag and thought, “Mia, naw, it’s not that common a name but really!” And I kept noticing it and then in the conference she said, “I have a blog” and I realized! It was Mia’s Saving Grace! I love her blog!! I also got to meet Abebech but only for like an instant.

I took Brett to see Outside Looking In and even though I had to stand outside the auditorium with Madison who was mad spinning girl and unable to sit still because she is, of course, only three, I got to see it, too. Brett cried afterwards because he says that he often feels like the well-meaning but misguided parents in the film and he also still struggles with being witness to the surrender. He said (in part), “Sometimes I don’t know what to do with all of the sadness I feel about it all” and I said (as if I’m Queen of the Answers) that I think you use the sadness to inspire you to do the best you can. There’s no turning back so we’ve got to move forward with as much love and compassion as we have.

My own realizations:
1. I need to plan a trip to see Jessica’s mom again. We need to meet her aunts. I need to talk to Jessica about getting this firmly in place.
2. I need to keep thinking on the presence of possible half-siblings and how to handle that (on Madison’s paternal side) while maintaining the necessary boundaries for the rest of my family (including Jessica).
3. I need to find more compassion for the adoptive parents who frustrate me. I need to react more with kindness and find a place to understand them even when I don’t agree with them.

And you know what? This will probably be one of those things that I forget about in a month but I’d love to do a very mini-conference in Columbus for open adoption folks. I mean really mini. I’m going to be thinking about that and hitting up my new in real life friend Kate (hear that Kate???) to help. And our first scheduled speaker can be JENNA! Because nervous or not, she did a great job and I think she’s due to take over the world as soon as Parker is on solids, no kidding.

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