A path to recovery.

I've been reading Joe's book - Adoption Healing ... a path to recovery for mothers who lost children to adoption
I need to get this out somewhere, these thoughts on my mind.

A lot of what Joe mentions in his book is exactly how I feel but part of me feels that I shouldn't feel the same way, that I shouldn't feel how the women of the past who have suffered adoption feel. Why? Because I wasn't exiled. I wasn't told I wasn't a mother. I wasn't abandoned by my parents - I chose to leave them. I wasn't told that being pregnant was a sin and that I was evil. I wasn't forced out to live somewhere that treated me poorly. Then why do I still feel these things? Why does how they all felt still fit in with how I feel as well? Because we all lost our child to what is called adoption. It makes me sad that the book is written about the past of adoption and not just adoption as a whole. I am wishing there was a book like that because even as I read this book and I understand how they all feel - I feel alone.

"Unresolvable grief, or disenfranchised grief, is grief that is not acknowledged by society as real. Mothers who were discarded by adoption were not considered normal mourners, legitimately sad mothers who suffered immeasurable, grievous loss. They are invisible. Normal grief is recognized, accepted and validated. Theirs is not."

"The mothers were not permitted to speak of their experience,much less the loss of their children - children who are not dead - children we were, and still are, very real. They did not lose them to death. They lose them to adoption, a man-made institution, not through natural causes. Because these mothers were not allowed to experience their children as their own, their children soon became illusory, ghost-like figures."

"How could they mourn their babies when they weren't even allowed to be real to them? But they were real. Their mothers labored to give them life, some held them, some fed them. Many were told to physically hand their baby over to social workers or to the "more worthy" people -- the married couples who stood ready to adopt."

"After all, social workers and society believed that mothers who "gave up" babies did not have feelings like normal mothers."

"For the mother of loss, anger and grief didn't decrease over time; those feelings actually increased. The grief they experience is completely unique. Their grief was not socially acceptable, recognized or supported. They were not allowed to express their feelings, and they felt alienated from everyone as they understood that their feelings made others uncomfortable. They had no solid footing in their own families or in society. There was nowhere to focus their pain, rage, loss, and sadness. As a result, they turned those feelings in on themselves. They didn't fit anywhere. They weren't as good as other people, other women, other mothers. In fact, society approved and supported the silence mothers were forced to honor. Their grief became chronic as they endured more and more difficulty in their lives."

I am feeling sad because I don't have the emotional support that I would like to have.

I feel like I have nobody to talk to anymore, nobody to work these things out with that are in my mind. I feel alone. Why? I do have friends and I have friends who are also natural mothers. Because I feel that I make friends uncomfortable - and I more than likely do, I can read it all over them, I can practically feel it seeping out of their pores. And with other natural mothers I can feel  the pain I force them to relive and I can feel how uncomfortable that makes them as well. The people who can understand me the best don't want to because that would mean having to face the pain themselves as well. So here I am, feeling alone on this journey of attempting to heal.

I posted this quote from Joe's book on my facebook -
"In her heart and mind her baby had died. But she could find no resolution or closure, because her baby was still out there - somewhere. There was no consolation as there would have been for a legitimate, "deserving" mother who lost a baby to death..... Her loss, her great sadness and pain, was invalid to everyone else. Essentially her baby was dead by adoption."

A cousin of mine posted this in response:
"Just a question.... If it was the persons decision to put the baby up for adoption how is it they lost the child? It was their choice no? Not passing judgement just dont get it"

I answered in return:
"Many mothers don't make the "choice". A choice is when you have options - and with each option you feel safe in that option. With pregnancy there is parenting, abortion, and adoption. Those are the foreseen "choices". Most women obviously will choose to parent - no other choice enters their mind because being with their child is what is the most safe of all - it's maternal instinct. When an expectant mother is raped or loses family support, a job, the babys father, her home - etc.... she often gets looked down upon, people talk about her, they pity the child she is carrying - she hears their whispers and she sees the looks. She feels as if she is unworthy to parent, what kind of mother could she be? Adoption is then mentioned as a "perfect solution" to this issue that the expectant mother is now dealing with - instead of support. She is already low and disregards herself as capable because if everyone else is thinking it - how could it not be true? She may take the step to call an agency (as one may say that is her choice - but she is petrified), the agency worker tells her they can help her, that she's strong and brave and that there is a couple who needs her, that if she were to place her baby that she would be putting the babys interests above her own that she would LOVE her baby more. That she would be the 'perfect mother' to chose adoption because she's putting the childs needs above the love she holds for her own child. She is made to feel like adoption is her only choice, the best choice for her child. The entire rest of her pregnancy the agency quickly introduces a family who may call or visit often - telling the expectant mother how grateful they are - and the prospective adoptive family and the agency tell the expectant mother that she can not let them down. She becomes trapped in this "choice" and she is made to feel as if she can not back down and parent her child at all at this point. She may even be threatened with legal force or physical force by either the prospective couple or the agency. Feeling like you NEED or HAVE to do something is NOT a choice. A choice is something you make when you're comfortable with it. I may choose to eat poptarts or popcorn - I feel comfortable with either. You may choose to wear shorts or wear a skirt and feel comfortable with either. No, expectant mothers may not have a gun to their head - but they have hormones swarming around and people in their heads (you may say - well, that woman allowed them to get there), but did she really? She needed support and guidance - not to feel forced to give her child to strangers because they have more wealth than her. - Also many adopted children grow up with severe problems - many are diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder, they feel empty and void, they feel they don't belong, suicide rates are higher than children/people who have not been adopted, etc. Which proves adoption is not what is in the best interest of the child.