A Few Things You Should Know

I have a lot of new readers and new blog followers, and although many are familiar with adoption, just as many are new to it. Welcome! Adoption is rad.*

As someone who is well-acquainted with adoption I feel the burden of educating others. I considered doing some sort of FAQ, or a glossary of adoption terms, or something like that. But I feel like I've done it before. Today I want to clear up some misconceptions that I've encountered as I have discussed adoption with people whose first real introduction to adoption was me telling them that I'm a birth mother. The people who need to read this - friends and acquaintances who have said, "You have a blog? I'll have to read it some time" and then never do - probably won't read it, but I want to say it anyway. 

So, let's get right to it.

I'm a birth mother; I placed a child for adoption. There is no need to apologize or feel sad for me. I'm neither sorry nor sad. If you're going to pity me, let it be for the fact that I'm too short to buy groceries without using low shelves as a stepladder, or because I'm pushing thirty and still single, or because  I kind of can't afford to be alive right now. Those are the things that keep me up at night; those are the things I personally feel sad about. But adoption? SO not a sad thing! Adoption is a happy thing. Thinking of Roo makes me happy. So thank you for sympathy; it is appreciated. But it's not needed.

When people see pictures of Roo on my apartment wall or my phone or wherever, they will often say, "Is that your ..." and trail off awkwardly. I get that. What do you call someone's child who isn't their child? I usually just smile and say that yes, that's Roo, and isn't she gorgeous? I've never cared for the term "birth daughter." It's a mouthful. But it also doesn't feel right to just say that she's my daughter, because she's not. She's just my little Roo. Sometimes I will refer to her as "my baby" which feels a bit more comfortable, I think. She used to be my baby and it doesn't matter how old she gets or how tall she grows, I think I'll always think of her as my little Roo.

Roo is not my child. When I placed her I signed papers, and P and M signed papers, that made Roo the official, legal daughter of P and M. She's theirs. I do see Roo fairly regularly, but I don't "get" her for weekends or "have" her for outings. Adoption isn't a joint-custody agreement. I grew and delivered Roo and I love her dearly, but I am not her mama. And I am okay with that! Roo has what I wanted most for her. I don't need to be her mother to be happy. I am happy that she has the mother she does.

Also, I dearly love Roo's mom! I think I would be sad if I didn't get to see her when I see Roo. How weird would it be to just see Roo? I can't imagine saying to M, "Gosh, you're a wonderful mother, thanks for taking care of Roo, but do you mind if I take her to the zoo for a few hours without you? I'd like some alone time with her, without you in the way." Also, this feels like the sort of thing in which Roo ought to have a say, and although she knows I love her, she also knows that M is her mama, and I imagine that if she were at the zoo, Roo would be happiest pointing out the animals she knows to the woman who taught her their names.

That said, yes, I do get to see Roo every few months or so, as occasion warrants. I do not, however, get to see Roo "whenever I want," because that would be ridiculous. I don't think there's anyone on earth I can see whenever I want. Even my mother has limits. I have my own life and schedule, and P and M have theirs, and I certainly don't expect P and M to drop everything so I can see Roo whenever I want. I wouldn't want Roo to have parents who would disregard Roo's routine and that of her siblings just to cater to my whims.

Roo's adoption is open. Openness is a choice that was made. It is not a legal obligation and I wouldn't want it to be. P and M don't owe me anything. It's not about me. I've been told how nice it is that they let me see Roo, and I always think, "Yes, and it was nice of me to give them a baby." Niceness on either side isn't the reason for openness. It's about what's best for the little girl we all love so much. 

Roo knows who I am. She knows that my name is Jill, and that I love her lots and lots, that I always kiss her cheeks about fifty times when I see her, and that she grew in my tummy. She doesn't get confused about who her mother is any more than a child who sees an aunt or grandmother regularly would get confused. Roo knows exactly who her mother is, and she knows who I am, and she knows that M and I are friends, and that we both love her. It's not complicated. People who think that openness confuses a child aren't giving children enough credit.

Yes, placing Roo was hard, and what an odd question that is - was it hard? When people find out my mother was widowed, no one ever asks, was it hard to lose your husband? Placement was so, so hard. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life and I sincerely hope I never have to do anything harder because I don't think I could. But it is also the best, most amazing and wonderful thing that I have ever done. It was worth the hurt.

I have made many mistakes in my life (and I will probably make a lot more) but Roo isn't one of them. Having Roo is the absolute best thing I've ever done. If I could live my life over I think I'd make exactly the same mistakes again, because if even one little thing were different I might not have had Roo, and wouldn't that be awful? I can't imagine my life without her. I can't imagine the world without her.

And yes, I would absolutely, one million percent place her again with P and M. I couldn't have placed her with anyone else. Roo changed my life forever for the better. Adoption allowed me to return the favor.






*I am acutely aware that there is a constellation of very angry people in the world who would vehemently disagree with that statement. If you are among that number, this is not the blog for you; please go away.

The Wrong Question

I have been the worst blogger this year. I remember when I used to have time and energy and ideas for blogging and anymore I'm just tired. I love my job - well, parts of my job - but I am not now nor will I ever be a morning person. Getting up at 6:30 isn't particularly fun in the summer, but it's worse in the winter when it's cold (I hate the cold) and the sun hasn't even bothered to rise yet. I don't think I should have to get up before the sun. It's much bigger and much more important than I am. And then the lazy good-for-nothing sun can't even wait for me to get home from work before disappearing again. The winter feels dark and cold and endless and when people come to the circulation desk and mention that it's warmed up outside, I want to grab them by the shirt collar and beg, "Please, tell me what the sun feels like!"

I am not now nor will I ever be a winter person.

I digress.

If you liked A Series of Unfortunate Events, you will probably like the newest series of books by Lemony Snicket, which is called All the Wrong Questions. I don't always read juvenile fiction, but I've had a short attention span lately and 272 pages sounded just about right. Anyway. I had not planned on mentioning children's books on this blog, but this evening I heard a young woman talk about single parenting and adoption, and I thought, she is asking all the wrong questions.

 Let me begin by saying that I respect the choice so many women make to single parent. It wasn't for me, and it wasn't for Roo, but I can't make that decision or that call for anyone else. I can't advocate adoption in every single situation because I don't think it's for everyone. I don't want to step on the toes of any single mothers. I do want to say that it's not something I'd choose.

I'm going to interrupt myself for a moment to address a comment I got on my last post. I'd reference it more specifically but my computer is being dumb so I'll paraphrase. The commenter, a single mother, urged me not to deny myself the pleasure of motherhood just because I'm single. I totally get where she's coming from, and having parented Roo for the time that I did, I know that being a mom is pretty rad. But I would much rather deny myself motherhood than I would deny any children of mine a father simply because I want to be a mom. You are of course free to disagree with me, but that's a decision I've made and I'm sticking with it.

I had never before met the single mother I heard from today and I don't know if I'll see her again. I respect the decision she made for herself and her baby. I don't know why she made the decision she did and I don't need to. It's none of my business. Someone asked her if she ever thought about adoption, and her answer is where the title of this post comes from.

"I do wonder, what would my life be like if I had placed him? Because [single parenting] is so hard."

Sometimes someone's words sort of float around in my brain for a while before I can formulate a response. This was not one of those times. I knew almost instantly what I wanted to say to her, and I had to bite the insides of my lips to keep my mouth closed. It would have been extremely rude for me to say, "Pardon me, but as far as adoption is concerned, you are asking the wrong question." So I was polite and said nothing.

The right question is, "What would my son's life be like if I had placed him?" And the answer consists of every reason I placed Roo for adoption.

I asked myself the wrong question for my entire pregnancy and the first seven weeks of Roo's life. When I considered my own future, I could never even entertain the idea of adoption. I would be sad and empty and broken. I'd have nothing. It took me a while to scrape up the nerve to ask the right question - what would Roo's life be like? - and when I did I had my answer. 

Adoption is the only truly selfless thing I've done in my life. But it was selfless. I made the choice I did because I knew what adoption would do for Roo, and I loved her too much to keep that future from her.

It hurts my heart a little when I hear women talking about adoption in terms of what it can do for them and how it will affect their lives. I think it gives birth mothers a bad name. We're not all like that. Some women might ask the wrong question and place for the wrong reason (or not place at all, for the wrong reason, and parenthetically I do believe there are plenty of good reasons for not placing). But I know plenty of pretty amazing women who asked the right question and placed for the right reason.

 Adoption isn't for everyone. Single parenting isn't for everyone. But I think that the question, "What will my child's life be like?" is a question for everyone, and it should be asked early and often.

FAQ: Do I Want More Children?

November, if you haven't heard, is National Adoption Month - today, in fact, is National Adoption Day. In previous years I did a LOT of blogging to commemorate. Spoiler alert: that will not be happening this year. I am way too busy (those cat videos on YouTube aren't going to watch themselves). I've also been too busy to answer e-mail and my blog e-mail tends to be crazy anyway; if you've written to me in the past 6 months, don't give up hope, I will catch up eventually. I hope.

But I feel like I should do something for November, because I think adoption is really rad. So I'm going to steal - no, let's say, appropriate an idea from my friend Brittany. She's been answering frequently asked questions on her blog each week and I've decided to do the same. I already have a blog FAQbut it hasn't been updated in ages; I had a lot of anger issues when I wrote it and I think I'd probably explain things better if I were to re-write it and I think that I will eventually, but not right now. Wow, that was a beautiful run-on sentence, wasn't it? I think I might look into National Grammar Month; I need it.

Anyway. I have been asked other questions, by friends and acquaintances and by high school students who have been subjected to my story during their child-development classes. I want to answer some of them here. Today's question is courtesy of a teenager who apparently missed the phrase "I always wanted to be a mother" sprinkled liberally throughout my story.

Q: Do you want more kids some day?

A: Short answer, yes. Slightly longer answer, yes, absolutely, but I'd like to be married first.

I would not be me if I left it at that, would I? I love words too much.

I have always, always wanted to be a mother. I know that in today's modern world women are supposed to be ambitious and have their own careers and lives but I've never been that type-A. I think I'm unambitious out of self-preservation; I tend to take things to extremes and when something is important to me I give it 500%. Ambition would be the death of me. Being a wife and mother has always been enough of a goal in my mind. That's probably not the sort of thing a woman is supposed to confess to but there it is.

My pregnancy was a surprise but not an unwelcome one. It wasn't the way I'd planned on being a mother but I was disinclined to be picky. I wanted a baby and I was having a baby. Maybe it's because I know exactly why I made the decision I did, and because I know so many other birth mothers whose decisions were similarly selfless, but I am always surprised when someone assumes I placed Roo because I didn't want to be a mother. Placement had nothing to do with wanting to be a mother or not wanting to be a mother. It was about what was best for the little girl I love so much. It was a choice I made as a mother.

I very much want kids. I know that single women aren't supposed to say that because we come across as baby-hungry and people get these ideas that I instantly assess every date as a potential father, that I've picked out names for all my children, that I can't hear normal conversation over the sound of my own biological clock ticking. Judge me if you will, but I do want children. I would love to have children, and preferably before my fertility starts to nosedive. But I'm not going to do it by myself. If I don't get married, I'm not going to have more kids. I don't care how well-off I end up, how successful or happy or anything else. I will not be a single mother again. I wanted Roo to have two married parents who love each other. Why would I want anything less for any other children I might have?

There's a selfishness behind this determination as well. Here's another uncomfortable truth: my pregnancy was the absolute bloody loneliest time of my entire life. I don't think I've ever felt so alone and I hope I never do again. I hated going to doctor's appointments because I was frequently the only woman in the waiting room without a husband or boyfriend. I invited H to come with me at first but I stopped after a few months because it was obvious he was never going to. I would surreptitiously assess the relationships of the couples in the waiting room and, without exception, they seemed to love each other. It hurt. I'd stare at my hands and wonder what I had done wrong that the father of my child didn't even like me.

I will not go through that again.

I want children, but I don't -just- want children. I want more for my children than I can give them by myself. Which means that although I would dearly love to be a mother, it's probably not going to happen. I'm okay with that. Because I had Roo, and if she's all I ever get, she's enough.

Birthday Wish

I don't remember the last time I blogged twice in three days, but this is a special occasion. Today is my birthday!

I hate my birthday. Well, no, hate isn't the right word. Mostly because I like cake, but also because I like cake. Dean Koontz said that where there's cake, there's hope, and there's always cake.

But as I may have mentioned last year (I'd give you the link but I don't feel like finding it) I tend to have disappointing birthdays, and sad birthdays, and so I have learned to have absolutely zero expectations. My birthday is just another day. Shorter of breath, one day closer to death, right? As long as I get my cake, I'm okay.

This year, there is only one thing I wanted for my birthday. I wanted if for my last birthday too but I was more patient then. I wasn't sure it would happen this year, even though I wanted it to very badly. It was completely out of my control, and all I could do was pray. Then I heard that it was going to happen ... and then maybe it wasn't, and I got a little angry at God and frustrated with the general unfairness of life. It wasn't something selfish I wanted. It wasn't for me. For the first time since placement, I wanted something for someone else more than I wanted anything for myself. I wasn't asking for a miracle. Well, maybe I was. But only a small miracle.

About a week ago, I had hope again, and I prayed quite desperately for several days, telling God in no uncertain terms what I wanted to happen and for whom. Just this one thing, and I wouldn't even care what happened for at least the rest of the year. I just needed this one little miracle, and I could handle everything else.

Last week, I got my birthday wish. I got my miracle, by which I mean that P and M got theirs. My little Roo is a big sister! I don't even have words for how happy and excited and grateful I am. It doesn't matter to me how my birthday goes anymore. If I start to feel sad, all I have to do is look at the picture I have of Roo holding a chubby-cheeked new baby (with a little help) and the world is an awesome place again.

In Which Jill Talks About Her Feelings

I hate trying to blog when I haven't blogged in a while. I feel the need to explain my absence, to say something profound, to make a Big Statement. I have started and abandoned twenty different posts since the last one, and absolutely nothing I tried to say felt right.

It's not that I'm having these deep emotional thoughts I can't express, though. My life is pretty awesome. But I wonder if that's part of the problem. I've always had more to say when I've been upset. Some of my best writing came from my darkest times. What is up with that? I mean, I know that there are these cliches about tortured artists and tragic clowns and everything, but that's messed up. Maybe some people need trauma to bring out their inner genius, and maybe I once did too, but in the words of Homer Simpson, that ship has sailed. I have been a happy person for quite some time now, and I plan on being a happy person for the rest of my life.

This is the other reason I hate trying to blog when I haven't blogged in a while. I end up mentioning clowns and Homer Simpson and I still haven't said anything of value. I probably won't say anything of value today, either, so brace yourselves. 

Last week I did an outreach presentation at a high school in Ahwatukee. (The location isn't particularly important, but Ahwatukee is a fun name.) It wasn't my first presentation of the school year - that was in September and I don't think I wrote about it because I've been ten kinds of lazy lately - but it was the longest at four classes in a row. There's a danger in doing four classes in a row. I feel like the first class gets the best version of my story. By the last class, I can't remember what I've mentioned already and I am easily distracted and I tend to be underemotional about some things. Blogger has put a squiggly red line under the word "underemotional" but I don't care, I want it to be a word today and I don't feel like hyphenating it.

I noticed something on Thursday, though. I did not cry.

I used to be big on crying when I did presentations. Not for effect (although doesn't that seem like something I'd do?) but because I could not get through my story without turning into what I believe the kids these days would call a hot mess, because placement was so expletive deleted hard, and I missed my baby SO MUCH, and just thinking about it took me back to that dark and lonely time. It helped, if that's the right word, that I was still not a particularly happy person, so it wasn't too hard to pull those feelings up for reference. Now that I am a happy person, it is much harder.

I got a little choked up when I mentioned Roo being born because that was such a defining moment for me - I don't think I have even gotten that far in my excruciatingly long and drawn-out story on this blog - but that was the extent of it. And I felt kind of weird, thinking about it, that I would utter a phrase like "I didn't think I could hurt that much and still be alive" and not even have a fizzy throat. I felt kind of deceitful.

I'm not sure why. I was telling the truth - it was the worst I've hurt in my whole life. But it felt wrong somehow that I could talk about it without being upset. I wonder if that's part of the reason I hung on to my unhappiness for so long. I figured out two years ago that part of why I couldn't let go of the pain was because I felt like I needed it - I needed to hurt to prove to myself that I love Roo and that placement was a hard thing. I wonder if the other part of it is that I needed to hurt because it gave me credibility.

But pain is exhausting. Hurting all the time made it hard to get out of bed in the morning. I had to let it go, and I am so glad I did! Because while being sad may have made me credible as far as the difficulty of placement, it didn't do much for the overall message I wanted to send, which was that adoption is a really awesome thing. I mean, if I sat through a presentation that was supposed to be pro-adoption and the birth mom who spoke was still a wreck, I wouldn't be any more inclined to place a child. I'd feel really sad for the birth mom but I would tell myself that if that's what placement does to a person, I'm staying away from it. That is not the point of me taking a morning off work and telling a hundred high school students embarrassingly personal things about my life.

The point is that I think adoption is pretty rad, and Roo is really ridiculously happy, and so am I, and even though I was a deeply unhappy person for at least a solid year, I'm not that person anymore. I am happy and I have a really awesome life.

I probably could have just said that to the disinterested looking teenagers and cut twenty minutes off my presentation, but I do like to tell a good story. Mostly, I like to tell a long story, which isn't news if you have ever read this blog before. Boy, do I like to tell a long story. I have always admired people who can express themselves succinctly. I think it's a remarkable skill. It's like juggling. I can be amazed at how easy other people make it look, but every time I decide to try it for myself, I end up with a headache.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I think P and M are pretty much the coolest people I know. They are fantastic parents, and they are smart, and patient, and thoughtful, and a lot of other great things. If I ever grow up, I want to be just like them. When I was pregnant and considering adoption, one birth mom suggested looking for a couple that reminded me of myself - "That way it's like another version of you is parenting your baby." I am SO glad I did not take her advice. Roo already has to combat the genes I gave her; I wouldn't want to compound the problem by choosing parents for her with all of my neuroses.

I think I was trying to make a point, and here it is. I am such a wordy person. I can't accept that a picture is worth a thousand words. I will find a picture worth a thousand words, and I will give it a 10,000-word caption. When I edit my writing, I add to it instead of taking away. One of my earliest memories is of being told to shut up. My childhood nickname was Little Miss Chatterbox. I could go on.

One of the things that I love about M is that when she says something, she says exactly what she wants to say, without saying anything else. Where I would be pulling adjectives out of the air, she simply says what she needs to say and stops talking or writing. For instance, M would have finished this blog post about eight paragraphs ago. I still don't know where I'm going with it. I should probably be done for now.

But I will blog again soon, and when I do, I have some exciting news to share.

In Which Jill Writes About What She's Not Going to Write About

I spent quite a lot of time on a post about September 9th, 2009 - the day I placed Roo. It felt like what I ought to write about because today marks three years since then. I've written before about placement itself but I've never written properly about the day before placement. So I started to write, and I cried a fair bit, and even though everything I wrote was true and relevant, it didn't feel right.

I did a presentation the other night with P and M. We spoke to the women and teenage girls in a local LDS congregation. I've done these presentations with Roo's parents twice before and I love it. I love talking about adoption with pretty much anyone, but I think it's more meaningful when my audience gets both sides of Roo's story instead of just mine. When we reached the point in the story where I was supposed to be talking about my feelings during placement and what it was like, I had an odd moment. One part of my brain was bringing up the words I wanted to use to describe placement, but another part of my brain was nonplussed. (I have been trying for ages to properly work that word into a blog post, and there it is.) I thought, am I remembering this right? What did I feel that night?

I found that I sort of couldn't remember. I mean, I've read some of my own blog, so obviously I remember in the sense that the story is acutely familiar and of course I lived it, too. But as I was talking (the part of my brain that makes me talk always works three times faster than the part of my brain that actually considers whether I should be saying what I'm saying) I kept stopping mid-sentence and changing direction and finally I blurted out what is probably the least helpful thing I have ever said when describing placement -

"I don't know. It was just - it was a while ago. I've changed so much since then. It sort of feels like it happened to someone else."

A minute later, when my rational brain had caught up, I silently prayed that no one in the audience took that to mean I'd suffered a dissociative episode. But the thing is, what I said was true. I am quite the opposite of the depressed, juvenile, selfish woman who placed her child for adoption and then sat in her mother's Toyota screaming and crying. While I am immensely proud of the choice I made for Roo, I'm not proud of who I was when I made it. I was a wreck of a woman, and I find it nearly impossible to identify with her, even for the sake of my story.

I tried to slip back inside that skin to talk about how much placement hurt, but it made me feel petulant and selfish and it was uncomfortable. Writing about the day of placement, the last day I was a mother, didn't feel right because it was full of such wistful sadness and I don't like to dwell in those places anymore. One of the rather obvious things I have learned about happiness since I started studying it this year is that if you want to be happy, you shouldn't spend a lot of time thinking about sad things.

So, I'm sorry to say, I don't think any of you will ever be reading the paragraphs I labored over earlier. If Roo wants to read them when she's older she will but I don't want to go there with anyone else.

I was just going to write, like, a paragraph about why I'm not writing about placement day today, and look what happened. Words everywhere like some kind of explosion and I'm not even done yet.

I also thought that I should write something about the day my dad died, because today marks four years, but I spent hours on something that still didn't feel right. I wasn't sure why. I edited the heck out of it and re-wrote it three times and I liked what I wrote but it still didn't feel like what I ought to say today. I think I've figured it out.

When I was a kid I took gymnastics classes in the summer and I learned two important things. The first is that I have no aptitude for gymnastics. The second is that there's a pathetic sort of safety in looking back. If you're doing a handspring or a walkover or a flip, it's easier to go backwards because you can see where you're going. If you go forward, you have what is known as a blind landing - your feet face the direction you're headed before your eyes do. I mastered the back walkover, but the front walkover scared the daylights out of me. I didn't know where my feet were going to land and my fear kept me from putting them in the right place. Every. Single. Time.

But in life, as in gymnastics, if you can only go backward, you're not going to get very far. You have to learn to risk a blind landing every now and then if you want to get anywhere worth going. It's like the end of the last Indiana Jones movie. Remember this scene?

Indy had to save his dad (spoiler alert: he succeeded), and that meant taking a step forward, off a cliff. It would have been easier and safer to turn around at that point, but he didn't. (It would have made for a terrible ending if he had. The elder Henry Jones would have died and Indy would have looked like the worst sort of coward, especially considering everything else he faced in the movie, and the two movies before it.) He had to move forward. He couldn't go back.

Neither can I.

There are things I am going to remember for the rest of my life, and when the mood strikes me I will write about them and I may or may not put them on my blog. But I'm drawing myself a line there. The past is a foreign country. You can visit from time to time, but you can't live there.

More and more I find myself taking leaps of faith. Well, not leaps, exactly (which is lucky, since we've established that acrobatics are not my forte), but steps, let's call them steps, into the unknown. I can't see the path ahead of me but I know that it's there. I know that God is there. And even though it would be easier to look back, I'm going to keep moving forward, blind landings and all. I don't know where this path ends, but I can't wait to get there. It's going to be awesome.