The grief remains

I have been very quiet the last week because I have been struggling so badly.  Tears are my constant companion.

I have so much I want to say and tell (nothing earth shattering, just heart wrenching).

Last night was night number two of talking with BF about why I cry.  I was trying to explain how I cannot just pretend that I believe everything will work out for the very best in our adoption relationship.  I know too much now.

He wants to believe that our daughter will never resent us for choosing to let her be parented by another family, and that her adoptive parents will suddenly one day realize that it is in her best interest for them to have a genuine, interactive relationship with us.  And that her childhood will be so happy that she will never feel like she is the adopted child (vs. her two twin siblings who are only 15 months her junior and biological children of her parents).

I think all of those things presume alot.  I want to believe every single one of them.  I really do.  And I plan to live like that.

I will use positive language.  I will be encouraging to my children when they are discouraged.  I will continue to reach out to Brit's parents with the hope that they will some day reciprocate.  I will do the right things, even when my heart is hurting.  (Which happens to be EVERY SINGE DAY)

But I will always know too much.

He has no understanding of how I can be so deeply wounded and full of grief and think that I can just keep living and say that I can enjoy a full life with the children I do parent today.  I explained to him over and over, that I now have no choice.

Grief is now a part of my inner being.  Loss will never be replaced, even with a relationship with Brit.  I made a decision that I deeply regret.  It has nothing to do with the parents we chose, but with the fact that I made the choice at all.

I know women who are completely satisfied with their role as a birthparent and their belief that they made the right choice for their child.  That very well may be true.  There are some birthparents who did give their child economic advantage, or stability that they would not have been able to provide.  But I am not that person.  I have both.  Brit would have had both.  Plus a relationship with her biological family.

Never once have I wished that my parents would have placed me for adoption because an adoptive family would have given me 'more'.  I had my family of birth.  We lived through tough times.  We were a family.

I was so hung up on the idea that a child HAD to have two married parents to have the best life.  I gave no value to idea that I could do it, and maybe someday she would have two married parents.  I was tired, pregnant and completely overwhelmed.  Not the best time to be making an irrevocable decision.  A decision that I did not know all of the ramifications of.

I could go on about this conversation, and I plan to explore it more one day.  But for right now, I think Laurie stated best in a comment on Susie's blog.   These are the words I couldn't seem to convey to BF last night.

(Laurie is speaking of her son who is now an adult.)


"Over the last two weeks, I have had this thought running through my mind. My adoption experience and his adoption experience are different. Yes, we both suffered a loss, but his life got filled up with time spent growing up, having his heart filled with love, experiencing things for the first time, becoming his own person. 


My adoption experience started when I was almost an adult. It was filled with loss and grief that I fully understood as a person with mature feelings. I had a hole in my soul that no one could fill and I could not let go of. I tried to fill it with the wrong things sometimes, I told him this, too. 

For me, the depth of my pain is directly correlated to the depth of my love for him."