WOWZERS! Wednesday #3: Guest Blogger Desha

This is Desha:

She has graciously agreed to be our guest blogger today in order to share a little bit about her perspective on adoption as a birth mother. We are grateful she was willing and appreciate her voice for good! You rock Desha! Her story follows.

I often find myself discussing adoption, especially with others personally involved in adoption. news flash to self- adoption is my life! I couldn't get away from it if I tried. I embrace adoption and all it's many wonders- the good. the bad. and yes even sometimes the very ugly. But even with it's many flaws and imperfections, adoption, for me, is still the shiniest gemstone in the store window.

Adoption has always been a part of my life. I don't think I’d be able to list all the little streams that feed into the river that is my life that were sprung from adoption. This being said, when it came my turn to play a leading role in the adoption world (finding myself unexpectedly pregnant and not really suffering from malaria as originally presumed) I was shocked to find endless websites and blogs and books and resources etc ..... about how AWFUL adoption is.

I was feeling sorry for myself one day while reading ‘what to expect while expecting’ - it's an awful book, even if you are going to parent your child. It was all sorts of husband this and husband that and preparing for this and planning that, it just didn't apply to me and my pregnancy because the entire book assumed I was going to bring my baby home from the hospital with my husband and we would live happily ever after. I just wanted to know what could help me stop being so damn nauseated and stop losing weight and perhaps a tidbit or two about what my lil fetus might be doing/body parts it might be growing right about now. I didn’t need all this other mumbo jumbo so I hit the internet with my google skills. SURELY, I thought, there is a book out there about what to expect while your expecting with an adoption plan.

I was on amazon dot com I believe and had about 100,000 hits for pregnancy and adoption, after scrolling thru about literally 20 pages of books and not finding A SINGLE ONE that had ANYTHING positive to say about ANY aspect of adoption, I stopped looking. Talk about discouraged. With nauseousness. And definitely self pity. No bueno.

desha and "lil pokepoke"

That's when I started googling adoption support/birthmom support in general. Again couldn't find anything remotely positive or encouraging besides birthmombuds dot com. how could there not be anything positive out there? I was aghast at the drastic imbalance. I had friends who placed babies, friends/family who have adopted babies, they all knew people in the adoption world and it branched out from there, so where were all the happy success stories? Why couldn't I find them? I knew from personal experience that they existed, but couldn't understand why when I googled ‘adoption’ it was only negative. I was very surprised at how close-minded our society still was towards adoption - even with Angelina Jolie. I guess I hadn't realized that this topic was still so taboo. What a shame I thought and I immediately 'knew' that I would be forever involved in sharing how amazing adoption has been for me, and for those in my life - and I wasn't even out of my first trimester yet. (feb 2008)

(maybe when I am done with medical school and am also a practicing midwife I will write 'what to expect when you are expecting with an adoption plan'!)

I have since started a birthmom blog for my local pdx birthmoms, I also coauthor on a birthom blog and I started a facebook group page about adoption and have found other places, like adoptionvoices dot com that encourage and celebrate the positive things about adoption. I still think it’s too bad that there is so much more negative out there than the positive. I have been talking about this a lot lately with both fellow birthmoms and adoptive mom friends.

first visit after placement

We are frustrated that every time we try to tell our story, try to share our positive experience, there are several sharks just lurking in the dark waters ready to bite, to try to convince us that we did a horrible thing, that we are in denial, that we are NOT happy and that adoption is evil, they throw studies and statistics and links at us and promise that one day we will see the truth and that they will be waiting, to tell us I told you so, not waiting to help or support us. These sharks are usually birthmoms and/or adoptees who for whatever reason have hurt anger sadness grief loss misery and a host of other emotions that they have not been able to process, accept, and move forward with. It is sad. I feel sad for them that they cannot find happiness in their lives. But I feel that it is their choice to cling onto these negative emotions. It is my choice to feel happy and at peace and get joy from my adoption experience and it is my choice to want to share that with others. But in sharing my positive experience, thoughts and feelings, I don’t try to tell them that they have to be happy and I don’t need to convince them to be happy so I often wonder, what entitles them to attack me and others like me and tell me that I need to be miserable?

second visit

In one of my discussions over this past summer with a birthmom friend, I commented ‘man if I had all the time that they (bitter birthmoms and adoptees) spend being bitter, I would be a happy girl, that’s a lot of time to get a lot of things done and I have a lot of things on my plate!’ As our discussion continued we talked about how they try so hard to instill the negative, how they are so determined to ruin it for the rest of us, that they have to enlighten us about the ‘truthful horrors’ of adoption, how they are so hurt and so angry and so sad, yet they chose to remain this way. We tossed around some ideas as to why, acknowledged the different and very valid circumstances of closed adoptions, and we asked each other some rhetorical questions, we talked about the publicity of the negative and the absence of the positive and then one of us said, pretty sure it was her, yes it was her, ‘we don’t hear from the happy ones because they are busy, living their lives.’

It was like a light bulb- yup, we are busy, living our lives, moving forward, embracing the journey, riding the emotional waves that come with being a birthmom and doing the best we can… but we are living our lives, not drowning in our bitterness and misery. I guess misery loves company, just like the saying says.

A short time later I was chatting with another adoption friend, this time an adoptive mother struggling with birthparent issues and she was feeling down and out about how the ‘bad side’ (my words, and I’m not implying that birthparents are bad or that there are ‘sides’ in adoption) seems to always win, that the negative seems to always drown out the positive, why is this she asked me, and I told her what my birthmom friend had told me, we don’t hear from the happy ones because they are busy, living their lives.

second visit

I have a voice, and I’ve chosen to use it, for good. I want the world to know that I placed my baby for adoption and I am HAPPY about that choice. I can honestly say that I know I always will be. I am moving forward, on a constant journey that is my life with an amazing adventure waiting behind every bend in the river, and even though I’m busy, very busy indeed, I feel I need to stop and share the positive emotions I have experienced and seen countless others experience with adoption, as often as I possibly can.

getting ready for placement

There just aren’t appropriate words to adequately describe (my) adoption. People try, they say things like amazing, awesome, miracle, hope, love, faith, blessing, gift, strength, beautiful … but all these are just words, they can describe anything, adoption is not just anything. I decided a long while ago, after my wonderful and delightfully happy placement, that the words needed to describe what I had just experienced were too beautiful, too sacred to be used here on earth, those words are safe with the angels, and all I was left with were to express my tender experience, were tears.

Many many adoption luvs to all.

desha

My adoption story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IdPtGZ-3oM

Chapter 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKPOlsvusT8

blogging as birthMOM:

http://birthmothers4adoption.blogspot.com/

Desha Wood’s adoption friends and family:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=82019623067

View Full Post...

Hide Full Post...

Because I Loved Him THAT Much

Tamra is one of our favorite people in the world, and I think anyone that knows her would tell you the same thing. She also happens to be a birth mother who placed her son for adoption 13 years ago. She agreed to share her story for our first WOWZERS! (we never cease to be amazed by birth families) Wednesday post.

We first heard Tamra's story in an adoption workshop in Provo, while we were waiting for our first adoption. We felt a connection with her the first time we heard her share her story. We later moved down to Arizona, and a friend was telling us about how great the birth parent panel was at the adoption workshop down here. He said he especially loved one of the birth mothers that shared her story and started describing her personality. "Is her name Tamra?" I asked. He said that actually, it was. I thought, "Wow, they must fly her all over the country because she does such a great job!" It turns out that she had just moved down to Arizona as well.

Since then, she has been a great support to us in our adoption journey. She has volunteered countless hours to promoting adoption wherever she goes. We beamed with pride as she stood to accept the Friends of Adoption Award at the National Families Supporting Adoption conference this year. Megan also did an adoption outreach presentation with her at a local high school. Her amazing and inspirational story follows: (You can also check out her adoption video on You Tube.)

Because I Loved Him THAT Much
People often don't understand my choice. Many respond with pity on their faces as if to say, "You poor thing". I tell them, "Don't feel sorry for me; I'm a lucky girl." This is the happiest story I know.

Some will say, "Well, it's best that you placed your son for adoption, because you needed your education and to finish growing up," or things of that nature. And while it is true that I am blessed to pursue the educational and social prospects of my choosing in a way I would not have been able to with a child, and although I've been endlessly blessed by my choice, none of these facts constitute why I chose.

Of course I enjoy spending my time and money the way I want. Of course I feel blessed to date without the added complication of being a single parent. And of course I love the independent young adult experience and all I gain from it. I can tell you, though, without hesitation, that I would have given it all up to have my Justin's hand in mine. I would have sacrificed all that was mine....but I would not sacrifice what could be his.

There are those who say, "But Tamra, you could have made it work! You were 18, you had money enough, your boyfriend wanted to marry you! You're a good person and you loved your baby so much!"

I confess this was my thinking for the first several months of pregnancy. I was not one of "those girls;" I'd be a good mom.....but not the best. I was enough....he could have more. And I had had the "more:" two parents who'd prepared for me, who chose me, and most importantly, to whom I am sealed in a forever family.

How could I tell my son, "Not for you."? Even with all my bargaining and rationalizing, at the end of the day I could not, even at my best, make up the difference between me and the family he COULD have. No amount of overcompensation would have been sufficient.

Many will just ask, "How? How did you do it?" I still don't know. I didn't. I couldn't have. The choice I made defied my instinct as a woman, as a human being, even as a mammal. To give away a piece of myself, my very heart, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone -- it seemed the very air from my lungs went with him. It was impossible....for me.

And then to survive! But more -- to fare as I never had, with a new peace that felt like breathing true oxygen for the first time! I thought that to make this choice would leave me broken for life; instead, I am mended. None of this was or could have been my doing. That sort of strength comes from a source beyond myself.

As I held my baby, my Justin, in the hospital room, where the veil between here and heaven became so thin, my doctor stood silent in the door for a moment, watching as I sang to my little treasure, as I stared, endeavoring to memorize his face. He saw the love in my eyes and said, "You won't go through with it."

What he and many others don't understand is, it is BECAUSE I loved him that much, that I was able to do this impossible thing. Had I loved him an ounce less, I would never have let go. It was the only way I could break my own heart and let him go home to those who were his -- and I know now that he was theirs before he was mine. THEY shared him with ME. They are an extension of my family in a way I cannot explain. When we met, I recognized them. I can't tell you from when or where; I don't know the conversations we had or the nature of our relationship, but I knew those faces! And immediately in my heart I felt family love for them. Never before or since have I experienced anything to approach it.

There are a thousand reasons why my choice has been right and perfect for all whose lives have been affected, but THE reason is.... I asked: "Father....what do I do?" Before I knew or understood any of the wisdom or logic of it, I knew the Lord's will for my baby and me, and I allowed my own will be swallowed up in it.

"Didn't you want your baby?"

More than I have ever wanted anything. He wasn't mine.
He has been my missionary. I bless his family for being willing to wait while he fulfilled that mission. My heart has been mightily changed.

We were both born that day.

View Full Post...

Hide Full Post...