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Last week Coley posted something that really got my brain ticking. Her post revolved around the fact that either the years after the first post-placement year get easier or, as birth parents, our coping skills get better. To be honest, I was confused at the either-or discussion as my own experience doesn’t flow with that equation at all. In fact, I initially left this comment on Coley’s post:
Actually, my first year was easier than anything I’ve experienced since.
I should clarify that statement to refer to anything that was adoption related, not just general life. Coley, however, seemed somewhat shocked by my answer, stating that the first year was one of the hardest times of her life. While I admit that the first year wasn’t always full of laughter and smiles and often filled with long, dark days (or weeks), I have a very different experience in my own adoption journey.
Yes, it is true. I was sad. I missed my daughter more than I had ever missed anything or anyone in my life. However, I was really blinded by a lot of things. Quite frankly, I refer to my first year after placement as my Birth Mother Bliss stage. To explain, it was a year long trip down “denial” river. If someone asked me how I was doing, I would say that I was just fine. To those closer to me, I might admit to some of the sadness but I would only ever cry with the man that I was to marry. Even as D and I formed our relationship during this year, I wasn’t yet comfortable sharing any sense of actual loss with her at this point.
Truth be told, I’m not one hundred percent sure that I was comfortable sharing that sense of loss with myself. I was still high on the adoption agency’s rhetoric that I was “brave” and “courageous.” I thought that I had done a great thing! I still was blissfully unaware of the potential issues that adoptees could face in light of their adoptions. I hadn’t yet received any unwelcome criticisms as I wasn’t yet speaking out about our adoption and our family (further evidence of my denial). Our adoption was turning out to be fully open and I was thinking, “Oh, this is great! I can see my kid! And it will be good!” Our visits from the first year, until that first birthday party, are filled with good memories. Yes, parting at the end of each one was difficult but they were easy times for me. During our first year of contact, we didn’t have any overt communication problems. It was really smooth-sailing.
And then she turned one. And the first birthday was a very difficult experience, one I didn’t know to expect. I experienced a lot of anger, disappointment and sadness on that day in in the days that followed. Shortly after my wedding, due to health reasons, my Husband and I decided to try to have another child. And boy did that pregnancy and birth rock my world. The vivid memories that would invade my thoughts, without warning, would leave me motionless, physically and emotionally. After our son was born, I had that moment of realization that changed everything: I could have parented the Munchkin. In fact, that third year post-placement is what I would probably refer to as my hardest year. As I watched my son hit those milestones every week and month, milestones I didn’t know to miss when the Munchkin was his age, I was overwhelmed with a sense of loss.
It was at this time that I sought out therapy to deal with things that had been buried down deep during that first year. Prior to that time, I didn’t really know what to do with my anger or how to show it in an appropriate manner. I wasn’t even aware that anger was an appropriate emotion! Until the pregnancy and birth of our son, I thought that I should constantly act and be grateful because I had an “ideal” open adoption. Voicing regret or hurt would be an act of disrespect, wouldn’t it?
As I entered that third year and began to truly process those emotions that had been ignored or repressed, I really struggled with a lot of issues. While dealing with things on my own level, I also had some (minor, fixable) issues with J & D; issues that didn’t happen in that first year that became issues as time passed. Dealing with the changes in our relationship and the changes in how I was viewing adoption and myself gave me a hard time. I felt torn in many directions. I felt my loyalties being stretched thin. I felt guilty for feeling the way that I was feeling, guilty for no longer being happy and content. There were times when I actually told my Husband that I wanted to forget everything I had learned and go back to that blissful ignorant state of denial.
No, adoption has not been easier for me over the years. While I can look back and say the way that I dealt with things in the first year (by burying emotion or living in denial) was not the healthiest way, it was still an easier year than I have had in years since that time. How am I viewing this year in comparison to the tumultuous third year? It’s better in a way but it’s still been fraught with emotional turmoil. I’ve made some mistakes this year, for which I’m still working through the guilt. I’ve continued to learn new things about myself, adotpees and adoption that have left me reeling. I know I’m in a better place than I was at the beginning of that third year, that’s for sure. But it’s still not easy.
And I’m not sure it will ever be “easier.” Perhaps different is all I can hope for because easier doesn’t seem to be what’s coming my way.
That said, other birth mothers have had varying experiences during their adoption journeys. Did they view their experience like me? Or like Coley? Tune in tomorrow.
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For more, read:
1. Parenting After Placement: Milestones and Mothers.
2. The First Birthday Parts One and Two.
3. Let’s Take a Trip Down Visit Memory Lane: The First Visit.
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