A few Thoughts

I remember the first week of work a coworker asked me if I had any kids, I hesitated at first because I wasn't quite sure what to say. I knew if I told her yes she would ask a ton of questions, so I just said no. After my response I wanted so badly to cry because I had lied. I didn't prepare myself for the questions and my response.
The reason I told her no was because I knew if I said yes, she'd probably ask if I had a daughter or son, how old he or she is and those questions would lead up to me explaining my adoption journey. When people ask me about this adoption journey, why I chose adoption, etc; they usually end with, "I could never do something like that, don't you regret that, and you must have not wanted your child".
The truth is, I have so much love for Emily and if circumstances were different she'd be with me. But I can't think about that because she is where she should be, with her forever family.
People think, just because I placed my daughter for adoption that I don't get to be a part of her life. Even though I'm standing at a distance or on the outside looking in, I'm still THERE. I do wish for up close and personal moments, but I'm thankful for what I get now.
Yes, I do worry about what she'll think of me when she's older, if she'll want me in her life, if she'll accept me and be thankful for the choice I made. I worry about what things will be like in the future, if they'll change for better or if they'll get worse, but I can't let that catch my focus right now because the journey is just beginning.

Ramblings

I wish things could've been different like the way I got pregnant, stability, and being able to parent. We, as birth moms care more about our babies and what's best for them at the time, not what's best for ourselves. Adoption is hard and love together! It's hard to carry a baby around for 9 months, get attached, love that baby, and wish we were in better situations. But we have that selfless love... We have openness in our adoptions, (most of us birth moms). I think jealousy hits when we are able to be apart of our birth children's lives, see them being loved, and want what we let someone else have. I know it's hard because I see how much T loves my birth daughter and how happy she is to be a mother and it makes me jealous for that! I struggle to keep my head above water daily with grieving, Thinking about what ifs, and kinda hating myself because I loved my birth daughter so much that I knew she deserved more and my mind kept telling me that if I were to parent how happy I'd be, when really I'd go stir crazy... Sorry for the ramblings. All this to say, it's hard watching from a distance and not close up as we want.
Its hard to say how I think she (my birth daughter) will feel because I tried to "prepare" myself for what I thought I'd feel but it was all different for me. I had the adoptive mom and a friend in the delivery room with me... I had so many visitors back to back that I wanted to get to meet my birth daughter, but on the way home from the hospital I felt empty all over, not just because I was leaving w/o my sweet baby girl that I'd just given birth to two days ago, but because I didn't get much alone time with her... The only thing that helps me, post placement are the things that belonged to beloved while we were in the hospital and pictures. I kept those things by my pillow because I felt some nearness. I cant say I've given myself time to grieve, because I can't fully accept that this is real and the feelings and emotions are so raw. But what I can accept is that she is so loved and wanted.

Pregnant and Afraid

BelovedsAdoptionStoryBegins

July 17, 2014, the day I found out I was pregnant. PREGNANT?! Yes!
I was sitting in a little room waiting for the doctor to tell me the results and as we were waiting she went on to ask a few questions. She asked, "what if you are pregnant, do you have a plan, is the dad in the picture"? etc. I started to get annoyed with her questions and just silently hoped the test would come back negative, because I wasn't ready for a baby. She just kept rambling about pregnancy and babies. When she noticed I was annoyed with what she had to say, she stopped talking for a bit, then she read the test and said "well, Miss Turner, it looks like you're about 5weeks". 

A sudden flood of thoughts came to my mind, mainly worries... How could this be true? I was going to have a human being growing/developing inside of me, moving around, kicking and in just months entering this here world I live in. I couldn't believe my stomach was going to stretch, but most of all, I couldn't believe another person was coming from me. Later I started thinking to myself, "I can't have this child, not by a man who took advantage of me". I couldn't carry this unwanted child, I didn't want to, because so much hate was in my heart about the man who'd raped and gotten me pregnant. Before leaving the doctor, I had only told two people, my boyfriend at the time who I was in a long distance relationship with and one of my bestfriends. I didn't know what to do, I really thought about getting an abortion, but with what money? I wasn't sure if I would tell anyone else, since abortion had crossed my mind, but I did anyway. After telling almost everybody, I felt a small amount of guilt for wanting to abort this child. I decided to give myself a few days to fully gather my thoughts and think everything through. 

After beating myself up about the things that lead up to me becoming pregnant I felt like I wouldn't figure out what to do. A few days later I just went on Google and typed "pregnant now what". I know that sounds kind of funny for googling but I just wanted to see what else was out there! I saw an agency who a couple from my church had gone through for international adopting, so I browsed the agency's website and ended up pm'ing someone who was able to hear my thoughts. I ended up meeting with a pregnancy counselor a few days later. If I'm being truthful, I wasn't sure if I was going to choose adoption for my little beloved at the time, but I thought hearing about adoption wouldn't hurt. After meeting the pregnancy counselor we decided to meet again the following week. On the way home, something in my heart felt this overwhelming peace, and in that moment I decided to continue meeting with the counselor. 

My eyes were finally opened when I put my daughter first. The thought of Adoption was scarey, carrying my baby girl for 9months, giving birth and later placing her in another family's arms. That had to be the very hard part. To shove my wants and needs to the side and put hers first. I continued the adoption process; not because I didn't want to parent, not because I was raped, not because I didn't love my baby. I chose loving the baby growing inside of me, I enjoyed the movements and kicks. As time went by, as my stomach stretched, gained marks, and as I started falling in love with the life to come I knew I had to be apart of this child's life. While my family and some of my friends didn't agree with adoption, their disagreement brought my wants and needs back; but I had to ignore them. Some would say I didn't care or love my baby if I were planning to "give her away", and that I should've just gone with abortion. Little did they know, I was going to be a part of her life, I had to; she would know me and how much I Love her.

 So as the process went on, I was ready to view family profiles. I was only sure that I wanted an open adoption, other wants in family profiles didn't matter to me at the time. As I started reading through some profiles, I kind of gained thoughts of who I wanted baby girl's forever family to be. I remembered that when I was younger I wanted to adopt my first child, but since that weren't going to happen, I decided I wanted little beloved to be somebody's first, adopted child. After looking through more than 5 profile books I narrowed my search down to 2 families, one who had a son and another who was ready to start a family. I battled not knowing which family to choose, though I said I wanted beloved to be their first, there was just something about the one family I liked. While I read their profiles each day, my heart finally leaned toward helping build a family; & there it was, I had found beloveds forever family. After expressing to my pregnancy counselor I had chosen a profile, I then decided to meet with the couple. I was so nervous and anxious to meet who I hoped would be beloved's parents.

 After meeting, asking questions and learning about one another, my counselor asked what I thought, I wanted to shout with excitement they're the two for her, but instead I calmly told her they were what I was looking for. My heart felt this peace it felt when I knew adoption was right and I knew everything would be fine. Time went by so fast, things were going well and soon I would be giving birth.

As my third trimester began to fly past me, I thought I was preparing my heart for the heartache of my life and I tried to put on a brave face and tell myself I would cry for a few days and it'd all be over, but I was wrong. The day came when I would meet this little girl who would steal our hearts. I was in labor for about 13 hours, B and T had come to the hospital, T stayed in the room with me along with a friend of mine. It was time for little beloved to come and I didn't even want to give birth anymore in great fear of having my heart break when it was time for placement. I went on though and I had my friend, T and the doctors cheering me on as I pushed multiple times ready to hear a crying baby. Then it happened, she was here, T cut the umbilical cord, both her and I were excited. I had tons of visitors come visit the days I spent in hospital. Then The last day came, I had to sign papers, prepare to leave without a baby and become broken hearted. While placing her in the arms of her parents and watching them go was hard, I was happy to feel at peace.

Hiding grief

I feel like I've been doing so well hiding my grief. Its been almost 3 months since Beloved was placed for adoption and I feel like I've been grieving so wrong. When people ask how I'm dealing with things I pretend everything's OK. Truth is, everything isn't OK. I struggle being around babies and parents because it sometimes makes me want what parents have; to be caring, parenting, and being able to provide for their children. I keep wondering why the heck it still hurts. The pain and the feeling numb. It hits out of no where. It makes me feel like I just wanna be in her presence, hold her, talk to her, give her kisses and tell her how much I love her and it hurts that I can't. I never imagined grieving would be so painful and that it would never go away. I know I'll be able to handle it at certain stages. Right now I'm afraid that people would think I'm weak or depressed if they knew how much I grieved. I wish grief was just a one time thing, but it isn't and my heart will always feel that sting of pain. The grief I feel is something I never knew would break me so badly due to missing beloved. I mean I do know that hiding things in the dark will blow up in the light, which is why I don't want to hide, but I don't want to be vulnerable about my true feelings with anyone; not even myself.

Being a Birth Mom and Dealing with Grief

I don't know how to respond to my grief... I don't know how to let the tears out when I feel they need to come. The reason why is because I'm afraid of people telling me how I'm supposed to grieve, feel and what to do. Nobody understands the level of grief I deal with, because the people trying to understand aren't aware of what being a birth mom is like. To have to choose better for someone, putting them above yourself is a love any mom has, but knowing you need to open your heart to something you never would have imagined doing, that's the Selfless LOVE a birth mom has. Before placing my daughter for adoption, I was sure that it would be easy and  that it wouldn't hurt as much as people described. I tried to tell myself, just like others had been telling me, "you are brave, Cannille, you show selfless love and I am proud of you". Truth about this journey and about my grief, no one will understand it because they aren't walking through it. Adoption is a beautiful picture of the gospel and of love!

My grief with adoption is that our adoption is open, and it often comes from jealousy. Though I know I made the better decision with placing my birth daughter for adoption, I struggle everyday knowing she's going to be calling someone else momma. I struggle with what the future holds and not sure how it'll unfold. I get jealous because B and T could offer more to little Beloved than I ever could and it hurts that timing was all wrong and that I could/can only provide LOVE for her and sometimes, that's just not enough. Its been almost 2 months since I placed little Beloved with her forever family and the pain triggers, but ever so often I feel the unbearable pain of feeling like a piece of my heart has been torn out. The pain of loss and grief will never cease in my heart because it took so much Love from me to put Beloved first.

Sometimes I feel damaged... Damaged from the pain of loss, the jealousy I have against T, the thought of what things would look like had I never placed. Thinking about what causes the damage, I wonder too, how things would have been, would I have been a "good" parent, would my love for Beloved look different than now? Its in the most trying times though, that I still have that same peace I had when I knew I had to give this little girl life, when I chose adoption, when I sat and looked through family profiles; only to pick the best parents for Beloved, and even about almost 2 months after placement. I know I made the better decision when I gave a piece of myself to another family, for their happiness's sake. With a broken heart and that same peace that I feel walking this journey, I realized I helped build a family- not just by placing my daughter, but by finding someone to love me  too.