What a Beautiful Journey.......

It's been such a very long time since my last blog. I think I may have forgotten how to do this! LOL
What a wild ride the last few yrs have been. I started looking for my firstdaughter in Feb. of 06 and amazingly found her in April O6, three days before my birthday and a couple of weeks before hers. What a rush of emotions, happy, scared, excited, terrified...relief, the most important of all. That weight of the not knowing for 20 yrs lifted in an instant. She's all grown up, healthy, happy, smart, talented and beautiful..of course :). I sent her the first of three letters, enclosed in a birthday card along with pictures. Waited three months and sent her a second letter, despair kicks in at this point. What is she thinking? Does she hate me, is she still in shock that I found her? Is she as afraid of where this will lead us as I am, now that the first step to reunion has been taken? OK...one more letter, right before Christmas. Still no reply.....I'm crushed.
I am so thankful I found a place where other women share similar stories because I don't think my sanity would have held out without that support system. I was lucky enough to find a group of "sisters" and we created a wonderful bond. We kept each other going...I think....at least that is true for me. They are a wonderful group of women, strong, funny, caring and each amazing in their own way. One can laugh at herself and life, but is fiery and determined and has the amazing gift of being able to accomplish things I wouldn't even tackle! Another is full of wisdom and the awesome strength to juggle both life and family that I would give anything to possess. She can take care of cooking dinner, baseball games and still manage to get her house clean...grrr...LOL. Last but certainly not least is a Rockin Eighties Chick, who remembers way more about the eighties than pretty much anyone else I know! She's funny and sweet and spunky. Anyhow, without them, I could not have retained the little amount of sanity I had to start with.
I managed to wait and wait somewhat patiently, until I couldn't wait anymore. I found her on one of those "myspace" type places and for the longest time I kept checking, because I just knew it was her. Tossing around, do I send her a message, do I sit and wait some more? Finally, a sign! A picture, she posted a picture of herself, my first sight of her all grown up. I was ecstatic, elated and totally freaked out...LOL! OK...now do I send her a message? One of my friends said to "go for it!", so I did!!! And what do ya know...she replied and I finally knew for certain it was her and I just about fell out of my seat. That's where the relationship really started. We sent each other messages for almost two yrs, asking questions, telling little stories about our lives, learning a little every time about each other. We never met, or talked over the phone, but somehow we made a connection and it was strong enough to make her feel more comfortable with me than I realised. Enough so, that she decided to skip talking on the phone and go straight to a face to face. Talk about shocked...I was stunned speechless, because with every message I sent, I was terrified...what is she thinking, did I say something dumb or did I make her mad or upset with something I said? Constantly felt as if I was walking on eggshells. However, she invited me to her shower(baby), yup, gonna be a grandma...I still feel odd saying that. It was an amazing day, I showed up with my second daughter, fifteen minutes early and before everyone LOL. Finally I saw her, not on the computer, not from a picture, but flesh and blood and she was so beautiful. I hugged her, hugged her mom and watched both my first daughter and second daughter hug for the first time. That was the moment that brought tears to my eyes.
The shower was wonderful, we got to talk for a little while, but it was limited due to the occasion. Afterward, they invited us to go to her grandma's and visit. We stayed there for another five hours, ate dinner and talked and talked. I got to meet her brother and hear about when she was little. We talked about the adoption, and we talked about both our families. She showed me her amazing artwork, and her mother told me how she is a beautiful singer as well. It was just an amazingly, beautiful, much more than I ever expected, day.
I want to thank each and every one of my "sisters" for giving me the support I needed to make it this far. And for my family for putting up with my craziness the last couple of yrs. How lucky and blessed I am for having them all.

EEWWWWW!!!!

Ok, let me just give you a brief overview before I tell you the latest in the Saga of Caleb. He is two and a half and every bit of the terrible two's. Out of all three of my kids, I must say he is the one who puts me on the verge of insanity with the things he finds to get into or the crazy things he's done. From putting mascara all over his mouth and inside his mouth, to emptying an entire bottle of Tylenol on the floor in a matter of three minutes mind you!

When he was one, I thought he'd swallowed the tip of his nose sucker. At age 1 and a half he stuck his hand on the burner I'd just turned off and prior to this he'd touched a pan we think and had a blister on the crease of his middle finger the size of a dime. We didn't know he'd burned it until after dinner and we were washing his hands, he didn't cry or make a noise of any sort until then and even at that moment all he did was say "hot". That became his word for all "owies". He then proceeded to stick his hand in the middle of a red ant pile not long after that, and was bitten at least fifteen times and all he did was "uh uh", as he walked up to me with his hand outstretched.

He is the child that when he gets a bug bite, it swells to the size of a golf ball. If we are lucky, he won't scratch it and make a scab, once a scab has formed we have to cover it or he'll continue to pick at it until it leaves a scar. He has several on his legs and one on his hand we thought would never heal. If that all was not bad enough, he's gotten this fascination lately of inserting objects of ALL kinds into his ears, and his nose "ahhhhhh". LOL Today's latest adventure, I must say, is one that would have been really funny I'm sure had it not been for the fact that I thought he might have to go back to the doctor because of it! I was putting him in his seat and noticed an obstruction in his nose, thinking it was a booger I told him to blow. On closer inspection it was green, blue green, I thought paper?? NOPE...GUM!!! LOL

I tried to get it out with a kleenex and my finger, I know...eww gross, but a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do. To no evail, it was just breaking off into little snotty globs of goo. Finally, with the help of a flashlight and some tweezers, Walah!! Wow...sometimes I am truly amazed at the countless things kids do and say, each one has some memorable moment all their own. Mom's know and anyone who's watched kids, you've had a taste of it I'm sure!!!! Gotta Love Em!

Adoption...What You Don't Think of Until It's Too Late

First let me say, WOW it has been awhile! Second, what you are about to read, for those of you who have not given up your rights to parent, but are rather hoping for that mother to do so, I will warn you now, you probably don't want to read further than this sentence. For those of you out there that are "sisters", with stories similar to mine, maybe you will relate, or maybe you are still new to the intricate and heart wrenching world of adoption. What I am going to say is by no means an attempt at changing a future first mothers mind about giving up rights to parent their child...OK, maybe just a little. OH HELL, it's definitely an attempt to keep any unsuspecting Mother to be from living the never ending, nauseating, gut wrenching, hole in your heart forever life of placing their child into someone elses arms forever.

I thought that I had thought about my choice, every facet of it. I thought I was "OK" with my decision to give my child to this man and woman who told me one thing, only to find out twenty years later..it was all lies! My thought process was this, I am 17, I am single, I don't have a job, I haven't finished school, her father is doing things with his parents knowledge that no young person should be doing, and most likely will not finish school(which he didn't). My mom is a single parent, barely taking care of me and my sister, I can't expect her to care for me and my child. What do I have to offer her? I don't want her to miss out on things(material mind you), I can't provide her with the stability of a mother and a father. I'm not capable of providing her the things a family with two parents would be able to. I am doing this out of my love for her. She deserves more than what I have to offer her. What I didn't realise though, that I do now, is that I was doing the only thing I thought I could do. I felt, that once I said it and once I'd picked this couple, I couldn't change my mind. Guilt maybe? I felt like I couldn't change my mind, everyone had done so much, the lawyers, the aparents paid the doctor bills, plus my mom's heart was breaking, how could I keep a baby and make her feel obligated to help me.

See, I thought I'd thought of everything, but I didn't. At seventeen, truly, do we really see the whole picture? My mind didn't have any knowledge of the hole that my heart would be forever an open wound. I didn't realise that my love for my first daughter would see me through. I didn't realise that I COULD take care of her and give her what she needed. Love, a home, food and the basic necessities that she needed to thrive were there for me, I just needed someone to show me the way. If I had known then what I was giving up, I never would have signed those papers, I NEVER would have missed out on all those Firsts. I would have been MOM, Grandma or Nana or Mema, whichever the case might be. See that is what no one ever tells you, you are giving up not just the right to be a parent to your child, but the grandparent to their children too.

What a cruel joke Adoption can be. For those of us not able to experience "open adoption", I suppose it can be worse. Or those of us who have semi, only to have that door shut in your face because of the aparents lack of trust, or just out of sheer meanness maybe(sometimes). That to me is the cruelest of all. Now, in the midst of reunion, I am feeling that knife in my heart just turning and turning with every thought of what I have missed out on these years gone by. Now to my first daughter, who is soon to be a mom, I am no one. I am but the incubator that shielded her and gave her a place to grow and thrive, until her entrance into the world when she was ready, and gave her to another. I grew to love her before I knew she was there, from the first instant I knew she was growing inside my womb, I loved her. Before I felt the first flutters, until the moment I felt her turning somersaults and reeking havoc on my insides, I loved her. She was mine, if only for that brief amount of time, she was mine. They may have had all the "firsts" that came after, but I had her FIRST. I felt her growing, I saw her first, I held her first, I counted her fingers and toes first. I changed her first, I fed her first, I cuddled her first while she slept in my arms and I gave her those first kisses and breathed in every scent of her sweet baby smell FIRST.

I have this, I have those memories, they are mine, forever etched permanently, no one, especially those who lied to me to get what they wanted, will ever take that away. They might be "mom" and "dad", but I am her Mother forever. They are her babies Grandma and Grandpa, but I am the Grandmother.

I will just find some comfort in knowing that a little of who she is and who her children are, is apart of me. For example, two of the names she chose were names that I chosen while carrying her. Ironic really how life comes full circle no matter what we do with it.

Time Stands Still

It has been awhile since my last entry, thought it was time for an update on the news my first daughter shared with me only a few weeks ago. Seeing as she's apparently shared her joyous news with her friends, I am hoping that it is safe for me to share it as well. She is going to be a Mom, and I am thrilled for her, for her Parents...soon to be Grand parents. In as much as I am happy and excited for her, there is unfortunately an underlying feeling of jealousy and sadness for me. That baby that I said good bye to over twenty years ago is going to have a baby of her own. That right of being able to spoil my grand baby isn't going to happen this time. I am NOT "grandma", I am NOTHING to this baby on the way. Wow! I never never thought this far ahead when I signed those papers and kissed my first daughter goodbye. Never in a million years had I dreamed that that decision would leave me saying "goodbye" all over again.

I am linked to her, which makes me linked to her unborn child too doesn't it? To any unborn yet to come??? Some say that when an adopted child becomes a parent, the need to reunite or at least to "find out where they came from" kicks in. How does this work when we are already in the process of a reunion...of sorts, which consists of the occasional message back and forth via a website? She obviously isn't ready or doesn't have any desire to know of my(her) story, why I chose to relinquish. Who her father is, or how we met. She doesn't desire any information up to and including that of her birth. I have not offered, as I was told she would let me know when she was ready. Now I am questioning, how will she feel as her pregnancy progresses and after she has brought her sweet baby home? Will she want or need to know more about her past, her biological family...OR, will her feelings turn to that of anger? Anger at my choice to give up my rights to parent her, because now, she will know the overwhelming love that comes with that first look on your precious child. Maybe she will wonder how on earth I could look at her sweet, beautiful little face and still choose to give my right to parent to another. So many questions, not a single answer.

I suppose I will just keep doing what I'm doing. Try to be as patient, as understanding, as non threatening as possible. Let her continue to take the lead and see where it takes us. Try not to get heart broken at the thought of not being able to see her on the day of her baby shower or to help throw it for her even. I'll make this blanket that I hope she will love and cherish and that my first firstgrandchild will treasure someday. This is the tradition that my mom started for her grand babies and I intend to continue that same tradition, even if I am not or cannot be the grandparent that I long to be. I'll wait patiently, and pray everyday that one day this path that she and I are on takes us one step further and hopefully leads to more than just this cyber relationship that we seem destined to continue for now. I long to hear her voice, I ache to see her in person and give her the biggest hug possible, but I'll wait....as long as it takes, until she's ready.