Confessions From an Adoptive Mother

It's been a long time since we've heard from C's birthmom, almost 4 months to be exact.  When we were first matched we were told that M just wanted a semi-open adoption, with letters and pictures coming to her via the agency with no personal information exchanged.  We were perfectly okay with an open adoption, even preferring it, but we totally respected her wishes.  After meeting us for the first time, about 5 weeks before C was born, she told her social worker that she liked us so much that she felt comfortable swapping email addresses in order to keep in touch.  We emailed a lot in the beginning but eventually the contact declined to about once a month and now our emails from her are few and far between.

Some people might see this as a good thing, as M slowly transitions out of our lives and gives us the space to parent C.  Not me.  It makes me incredibly sad.  I want our birthmom to be a part of C's growing up, to witness (even if it's just through pictures) how awesome a kid she made.  I want her and her extended family to feel comfortable sending birthday cards or Christmas presents to C, things that we can keep for her to cherish.

But like infertility, adoption isn't all rainbow dust and unicorn farts.

Some birthparents them don't tell their extended family they're choosing adoption or that they're even pregnant at all.  Some find it too painful to keep in touch with the adoptive parents.  Still others make choices during their pregnancy that you yourself would have never made.  Some of them want more contact after the birth than you feel comfortable with.  Only in a few rare cases does an adoption end up being the perfect dream that one expected and hoped it would be.  The rest of us are re-taught a very valuable lesson that life does not always turn out the way we planned.  I say re-taught because many of us were already taught that lesson during struggles with infertility. 

I think that for the past year I've had a somewhat rosy perception of adoption, thinking that I could have it all.  I had hoped that after meeting M we would be able to keep in touch and even have a close relationship with her and her family, almost like gaining a new set of in-laws.  I dreamed about seeing them during the holidays and attending C's birthday parties.  But that's not the case and the past few weeks I've had a hard time letting go of that dream.  I don't know why M has chosen to distance herself, or if she's even doing it on purpose.  She might just be busy with things and forgets to write, or perhaps she doesn't use the email address that we have for her anymore.  Whatever her reason is, I have to respect that.  I will continue to send emails, birthday cards and Christmas presents until her email address comes back undeliverable or our packages come back with no forwarding address.

But one thing that I will never question is how much M loves C.  I knew that when I found out how much thought she put into her adoption plan and how well she took care of C when she was still growing in her belly.  So every night as I'm rocking C to sleep I whisper in her ear "Mommy loves you."  And one day C will understand that I don't just say it for me.

I say it for M too.