Question frm a birth mom to an adopted mom..?

HappyMomAnna

...I am the adoptive mother of 2 siblings from foster care...

and this is what I think:
___________

Dear A,
I will never forget that day at the DHS office when I watched you kiss her goodbye. I saw how much you loved her--and I see your love in her. I saw you swipe the tear from her eye as you held her just one more time. I saw you look into her eyes and tell her that you will never forget her...that you wanted her to remember Your eyes that she should never forget the eyes are a window and you hoped one day you would both see each other again.

I saw you touch the cheek of your baby boy. The little boy you hardly had a chance to know. The baby they took from you before he was able to know you.

I was scared. It was NOT supposed to happen that YOU and I would meet. I was told I would not even see you that day and you wouldn't see me. I was frozen -- YOU were REAL and I was worried you would hit me in the eye, that you would see me as stealing your babies...that you would HATE me for not helping enough to make it possible for you to keep them.

...I wanted to run. I wanted to flea from you and drive away as fast as I could--with your children safe in my car. I saw a woman and a mother that day who loved her children the best she knew how. I knew What Had Happened to YOU in your life... How you didn't have half a chance. How you ran away from the foster home when you were only 14 and no one went looking. I knew you didn't have a chance in Hell of doing much better then what I saw.

I didn't want to face you. I didn't want to see the woman who didn't have a chance. I felt like I was hurting you more that day in the parking lot at the DHS office. When you were done with the last goodbye my knees shook as you came to me--holding our daughter. I was ready to duck, grab and run as the caseworkers stood ready to jump in.

When you handed me your daughter, our hands touched. I was scared to look at your face--but, was brave and I expected you to say awful things. I was stunned however, because as we touched that day and I took your five year old daughter into my arms. You touched my cheek and said only one thing... I will never forget because when you said it my heart stopped, you threw me for a loop because rather then something awful, you actually said, "Thank You."

I left--and the children fell asleep in the car-I cried the whole three hour drive home...Your words to me pressed on my heart. HOW COULD YOU THANK ME? I thought.

It's been 6 years now. I want you to know that your words made it possible for me to do the best I know how for YOUR babies. Your words made it possible for me to not feel like a thief but to feel obligated to make sure your thanks was not in vain.

I think of you often. I think of you when I look into HER eyes. I think of you when I watch the children grow. I should be so angry that I can't think anything Nice at all! HOW the HECK could you be so foolish as to hurt them with drinking and drugs...Where were you when some man in your life hurt your Daughter! I should feel nothing but mad at you for what your Choices caused in their lives....but, for some reason I can't feel that way very long.

I remember your story and I am pissed that No One did this For YOU! I can't believe that any child is not loved enough to be cherished. I can't believe No One cared enough to go look for you and drag your sassy butt home--ground you half to death and make sure you knew you had value to bother to punish for running away! I am so angry that you were in the system and no one bothered to care.

I pray for you every night. I pray that YOU can change your life that you can find value in yourself and that one day when I see you again I can Thank you for letting me do my best when you couldn't. I pray that between all of us we can change the future and that Our Grandchildren will never know what it means to be a Foster Child. That it will just be a story told by the elders who together managed to survive and give M&M a chance you never had.

Thank you for the opportunity to love them and care for them with the blessing you gave me that day, Thank You for understanding I did not take them away--I only gave them a chance to grow up loved with a family who would never let what happened to you--happen to them.

Until everyone sees each other again--
A

rachael

i know im overstepping my boundaries-i am not a birth or adoptive mom. but i do know what my amom felt about my bmom. exactly what the agency wanted her to....disgust.

my parents were told that my bmom was a 12 year old drug addict. she was a run away and in a nutshell was an awful person.
when i found my bmom and told my family they did not respond well at first. they thought that since i was older and the 'hard years' were over, she was coming to be 'mom' to me.

none of that was true. my bmom had a very very good reason to relinquish me. and it had nothing to do with drugs or any other self inflicted issue. and she was not a runaway. she lived in the same house before i was born and after. and she was not 12. she was young...but not 12.
it took them years to realize i was not replacing them with her, but that she was an addition to my life. i had enough love and respect to go around.
they even met last month...it was fantastic. the worries and any belief in those lies is not gone forever.

like i said though....it took YEARS

Sofiakat

I adopted a sibling group from foster care.
I think about my kids' mom all the time. Her picture is on our fridge.
My heart breaks for her. She was so young, so misled, so troubled. She had no family herself, as she grew up in foster care and was never adopted.
Everyday, I hope and pray that she is okay, that she is getting her life together, and that she will be prepared for when my kids find her. And they will.
She comes up in conversation in the very least once a day with my son. He is six now and was adopted at the age of three. We make her christmas decorations every year so that we can honour her on our tree.
I think about her when I see my daughter do something exceptionally cute. Although I only met her twice, I can totally see her reflection in both the kids. Sometimes, on special occassions, such as a school concert, I think of her, and what she is missing out on.
I think of her when my son regresses into old behaviours, grieving for her. I think of her and realize that he cannot heal completely until he is with her again.
I think of her when I see joy in my son's eyes because sometimes it is like looking into her eyes minus the pain I saw their that day during their final visit.
I think of her whenever I have the camera in my hands. Half of the pics I take, I make sure no one else but the kids are in the pics so that I can send them to CAS and hope she will pick them up.
I thought of her the first time each of my kids brought home art work from school. After I had it up on the wall for a while I put it away to mail off to CAS for her to have.
Ya, I think of her.

Lue

We actually speak monthley. She is a large part of our life. We do Family things together. So i think of her often.;)

kidmindi

I'm an adoptive mom.

My daughter's mom and I talk all the time. Just yesterday she called to tell me she was expecting again. She is my friend on myspace, so she can get all the pix I post of our daughter.

I feel that she was young and made some mistakes in her life, but she had never had much parenting herself and when her time came to be a mother, she was alone and unprepared. She trusted me enough to let me adpopt her daughter which had to be very hard.

I think she is a brave young woman for many reason, and I am hoping that htis time, she is able to parent her child.

wholelottacats

I think about my son's mother all the time - every day, several times a day. All kinds of situations make me think of her: when someone tells me how beautiful our son is, how cute the cleft is in his chin. When he does something new, when there is some new milestone - I usually try to remember everything so that I can tell her about it. We don't speak, by her choice, but I send letters and pictures. I usually will start the letter as soon as I finish the last one, and keep adding to it, so I'm always thinking about the next thing to tell her. I think about her when I put him to bed and whisper "I love you, and Daddy loves you and {her name} loves you."

What do I think about her? I think she's an incredibly smart and talented young woman. She is raising her daughter on her own, going to school and working full time. She's creative and artistic. I don't know the reasons she chose adoption, those details belong to her.

For me - and I don't know if other first mothers find this insulting or not - but for me, I will always be tied to her, she will always be a part of me - because we both love our son. She won't ever be far from my heart - because I feel like I'm taking care of our son, for both of us. I want her in his life, and hope that one day she will change her mind, and allow contact - but I let her make those decisions.

Nurse Autumn Intactivist NFP

Best Answer: Happy Mom

Roberta P

I think of my daughters bio moms multiple times a week. Usually when I am looking into their beautiful faces and reflecting on how lucky I am that they are my daughters.

I have the utmost respect for her for leaving her daughter where she could be found and not left to die alone. I always thank her for this act of love. I feel the sadness that I know she must feel daily knowing that her little girl is not with her. I feel upset with her that her society doesn't value all children, especially girls with deformities. I am sad that I can never show her how much her daughter is loved and has blossomed into a perfect little angel. I have faith that somehow she knows that her little girl is happy and loved. I hear stories that some bio families keep tabs on the children that they give to the orphanages and I like to believe that my duaghters' mothers did this and know they were adopted.

BLW_KAM

I think about her every day. I wonder why I haven't heard from her for a while. I wonder if she's happy. I wonder if the new man in her life is treating her well. I wonder if she's thinking about J (her daughter). I wonder when she's going to write back. I wonder when we're going to see her again.

We have an open adoption with a very shy woman who goes into silent mode every so often. When she does it's usually because something isn't going right in her life. I pray she finds the peace and love she deserves.

Freckle Face

I am an adoptive mother.

Yes, I think of our children's First Mother's.

One child's mother is deceased but i do still think of her often.

The other child's mother, I think of almost daily. I think of how much she is missing out on. I think of what a great kid she has. I have always hoped for them to have a relationship. I still hope some day she will come around and get to know her daughter. She is so much a part of her daughter and she is just as important to her daughter as i am. As always i wish her happiness and love.

The two children we are raising are extraordinary children. I imagine their mothers were/are nothing short of incredible women. So much of who our children are, is thanks to them. They deserve to know that and they deserve to experience the joy of knowing their children too.

Lastly, the situations in which i think of their mothers.....

When the children smile, strike a cute pose, blow a huge double bubble, report cards, shoot a basket, finally zipper that coat, learn to skip, make the advanced math class, any accomplishment the children go through really i think of their mothers.......

littleJaina

I am not an adopted mother, but the older sister of two (now adult) adopted brothers. I think about their biological mother nearly ever time I see them.

Unlike many of the "warm fuzzy" feelings here, that is not what I think at all. I may not hate her with the same venom I felt when I was younger, but I still think of her with a bitter scorn in my heart. I think of how absolutely cruel she was to do what she did to those boys (they were both born with FAS) and to the five other children she bore who were adopted out to families other than mine. I think of her as the epitome of so much is wrong with our society.

While occasionally I can find pity in my heart for her, there is never warmth and certainly never LOVE. Oh, sure, she gave me my brothers - but she didn't give them the lives they SHOULD have had. She bore children that were mutilated from birth - damaged so that their lives would always ALWAYS be mere shadows of what they should have been, with more pain and frustration than anyone should have to endure. What, exactly, am I supposed to love about that?

On the other hand, I do know that not all "birth mothers" are like her. I know other families that have amiable and even friendly relationships with the biological parents of their children. Others, who have less open relationships, still have a sense of gratitude towards the barer of their beautiful children. That is right, in cases where the mother did all she could to protect the child and simply could not raise him/her.

Enter Your Message or Comment

User Name:
User Email:
Post a comment: