Let me start this post by saying that adoption is a wonderful and beautiful thing. But there is also another side to adoption. A side that not many people, myself included, like to think about. That is the sad, scared, worried, insecure side. In all reality I think it takes a great deal of time on both sides, birth mother/adoptive parents, to get to the happy, wonderful, beautiful side of adoption.
The family who adopted my baby girl was/is a fantastic family. The mother is the best I could have hoped for for my baby hand down. But the day I gave my baby to her was not any more an easy day for her than it was for me. She was terrified. She didn't want me to be sad and she especially didn't want to take my baby from me. On that day tears of both joy and sadness were shed. To think that people who adopt children take those babies home and don't give a second thought to the people who brought that child into the world is to be gravely mistaken. As much as they love that baby they're hearts ache for the women who made it possible for them to have that baby. And as much as a birth mother's heart aches to hold that baby they couldn't be happier knowing that that baby is safe and loved and being given all the things that they knew they could not give that baby. There are two sides to every coin and in the case of adoption I think they are probably the most extreme in both directions of joy and sadness.
I knew placing my baby for adoption would not be an easy thing but I had no clue how long it would take me to recover from it. I had arranged with my work to have two weeks after the birth of my baby off. After a week I was going crazy sitting in my room doing nothing but thinking about that baby and crying. So I went back to work. I think for me staying busy during the months that followed the adoption was critical. After two weeks back at work I took a second job at a billing center working nights. I think some people around me were nervous that I was burying my emotions and not working through them. But let me tell you right now those kinds of emotions are not easily dismissed or buried. I had to work through them or I probably would have taken my own life. I saw my counselor like I was suppose to and worked through a lot of it with him. But I think my saving grace was finding a friend who could just listen and be there for me. This friend came in the form of a man who is now my husband and the father of our three kids.
Just as I thought I was starting to feel better and move on that's when I got the first update with pictures. As I read the letter and looked at the pictures my whole being was flooded with every emotion I felt the day I placed my baby in her mother's arms. I laid on the floor of my bedroom and just cried. If you ever think you've run out of tears I can assure you you're will find more. A lot more! I don't know how long I laid there but it was a while. I was scheduled to work that night but I called in sick.
Again adoption has two faces and while I read that letter and was completely over joyed that my baby was well and happy and loved my heart was broken into a bazillion pieces knowing I couldn't be the one to give her those things she needed most.
Time can heal all most any heart ache but the mind will never forget.
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