{Originally published on The Belly Project.}
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59 years old, 1 pregnancy (baby given up for adoption 40 years ago)
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{Originally published on Writing My Wrongs}
“Serendipity: to make discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things not in quest of.” – Wikipedia.org
It’s been two days, and I am still shaking. I still cannot catch my breath. I still feel dizzy and disoriented. I feel drained. Depleted of all my energy.
Ever been in a car accident and end up okay, but also end up shaking and traumatized for a few days? I feel like that.
My breathing becomes more rapid and shallow, and my eyes well with tears just recollecting the events that transpired this past Sunday.
Yes. I visited the amazing powerful Claud. Claud and I met at a diner in the same town that my daughter goes to school in. Of course I knew this. Of course I let her know. Since we have not met face-to-face and only correspond via email, I felt it terribly important to let her know this. Why? Well, I was very concerned that if, by any force of any god, we ran into each other she might think I had become some crazy stalker. I am a bit crazy but I am not a stalker.
My daughter made it clear when we first reunited that she did not want to meet YET. I have not pushed. I have developed the relationship slowly, followed her lead and let things flow as they may. That being said, I won’t deny that I am anxious to meet her. Anxious to sit with her and share coffee, talk books, look at her beautiful face, hear the sound of her voice, listen to her laugh. To touch her again. To be back in the same room with a piece of my soul that left me 20 years ago.
I told her of my visit via email. She did not respond. That was okay. I felt I had done my duty of “warning” her.
Saturday morning I happen to check her away message on AIM. It says “parents”. This confuses me. Was she home for the weekend? Was she sick? Did something happen? On a whim, I check her school academic calendar. I learn that the weekend I will be in town is parents weekend. Her aparents will be there the same time I will. We will all be breathing the same air.
I get nervous. I rethink my plans with Claud. I decide against canceling. I realize I am being foolish. I cannot plan my life around where she is at any given time. I cannot avoid that part of the state simply because she is there.
So, I go. I drive 70 miles to visit Claud. As I enter the town we are meeting in, I cross over a street named Michael Avenue (name changed for privacy). I gasp for air. Its like a tidal wave hits me. I shake. For the past year I have been mailing letters and packages to my daughter’s school on Michael Avenue. I felt like crossing that street was like going over a threshold, opening a gate, passing into some sacred space. Her space.
{Originally published on We Make Three}
If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I’ve been married to Michael for nearly 20 years. This man saved me. I’m not kidding. And I will always love him for that.
I was only 20 when we got married. Even at that young age, I realized that I had everything to learn about life. We both understood that starting a family would wait while we developed ourselves, our careers, and focused on our marriage. We had nothing for our start together other than the china and crystal from our wedding registry. Not even a couch. It was a meager beginning, but still a heady time for us. We had nothing but each other and our independence. I love how we started our relationship, and I love that we sacrificed and made our way without any help.
Life happened to us. We bought our home, built our careers, and enjoyed our lives together. We got our dog, a little Yorkie I named Chester, who became the perfect vessel for my maternal outpourings. We talked about kids. A lot. Michael is very practical. Pragmatic. He looks at the facts and makes very accurate assessments. We discussed the commitment, sacrifice, and change in our lifestyle that having a family would require. We were ready.
(click for more)
Originally published on Fuse Moms
The common denominator of first-time pregnant women is not distended
bellies or compromised bladders. It is not the fear of another human
being exiting their body. Instead, they pursue one goal – preparation.
Whether it’s stocking up on diapers or painting a nursery in a soothing
color, these gals feel the need to prepare for their new arrival. For
me, it was childbirth classes…
Round One
We are at the hospital’s four-session course about childbirth. The room is chock full of rotund ladies and their husbands.
The
nurse who is teaching the class has grown children. I’d prefer to talk
to someone who carries recent scars… I mean memories… of the joy of
childbirth. To chafe me even more, she is wearing a waist-cinching
belt. I don’t think anyone in this room can imagine fitting in a belt
again. This woman is cruel. I want to run her over with my car.
(click title for more)
Originally published at Coming 2 Terms by Pamela Jeanne
Sometimes I’m asked why we stopped pursuing infertility treatment. For
those looking for easy answers you won’t find them here. There was no
epiphany, no dramatic denouement. We were not driven there by a
deadline or a master plan or even an entirely drained bank account.
(Even today, resisting the ever-beckoning siren song of the fertility
industry’s latest advancements has not been particularly easy.)
Our
move away from treatment was a long, slow often circuitous process that
sometimes led us back like a junkie in need of a fix to the
reproductive endocrinology clinic for one more attempt. A little voice
in my head kept egging me on (no pun intended): just one more IUI; one
more round of acupuncture; one more laparoscopy; one more blood test to
determine if there’s a new factor we hadn’t considered or addressed –
all the while the doctors scratched their heads with no clear
explanation for our infertility, dampening our hopes further that we’d
ever succeed.
Strung-out and wondering how we would possibly
cope with another failed cycle, I started to allow myself to imagine a
life not driven by 28-day cycles and endless associated vigils. With
the benefit of lots of exhaustive and exhausting conversations,
and after consuming huge amounts of reading material on coping with
infertility, my husband and I finally began to loosen the tight grip we
had on our increasingly fragile dream.
(click title for more)
Originally published on For Me For Once
Jackson will be two soon. Samantha will be five in January. They are
the brightest parts of my life (along with my husband), and I can’t
remember my life without them. But I CAN, and do, remember being
pregnant with both of them. The time that I carried each of them was
sweet, fun, exciting, depressing, painful, overwhelming, scary,
life-changing and meaningful, all at once. Some days I look back on my
pregnancies with each of them and think “Dear God, how did I do that
twice?” and at other moments I wonder why everyone doesn’t have twelve.
For some reason I’m thinking a lot lately about being pregnant, or
rather NOT being pregnant, and how I feel about that, and I’ll tell you
why. (NO, it’s not because I am pregnant, so you can leave that thought
by the side of the road. Seriously. No seriously, knock it off – I am
NOT pregnant again. Fine, whatever. Think what you want.)
Here’s
why. Right now, Jackson is the age that Samantha was when we conceived
him. Just a couple of months before she turned two, we decided it might
be nice to give her a sibling fairly soon. I had always wanted my kids
to be two to three years apart, and I’m not even sure why. Part of me
wanted one child to be at least close to being out of diapers before
the next came along. Part of me wanted one who could at least bring me
a diaper for the other, if not actually change it. For some reason it
all seemed to center around diapers. That’s kind of jacked up, now that
I think about it. Hmm. Surely there must have been other reasons.
Whatever.
Regardless, we wanted them two to three years apart. And by “we” I mean
“me-and-Greg-who-showed-up-when-I-asked-him-to-with-sperm-at-the-ready”.
(click title for more)
Originally published on Anne Nahm
Dear Diary,
I could tell the moment I woke up: Today was going to be a day like
no other. The sun was shining and birds were chirping. I knew because
guess what? My wrapping was open! I don’t think that’s ever happened
before.
(click title for more)
Originally published on Krississippi, the Fifty First State of the Union
Another adoptive parent blogger wrote about her son’s adoption not being ’second best’ compared to having a biological child, and it got me thinking about my son’s adoption.
The fact that my FIRST choice in “how to become a parent” was to adopt (totally bypassing the very idea of doing it the ‘natural’ way) is an abstract concept that is often misunderstood…
… but I don’t feel guilty that my son was adopted.
As far as stereotypes go, I’m probably the MOST hated ‘adopter’ (at least in the anti-adoption world) in that I’m simply seen as ‘baby stealer’ – my child came to me as a first choice and I had no intentions in my lifetime (for as far back as I can remember!) to ever have a biological child.
(click title for more)
Originally posted on: Xbox4NappyRash
Dear Spencer,
I know you are only one among millions down there,
but you’re the one I feel I have a connection with, the one I can talk
to. I see you as a leader among men. Well, semen at least.
We’ve been through a lot together, you, your buddies and me. Remember the first time we met? That was an eye opener, certainly was for my stuffed animals anyway.
Over
the next few years we had lot of good times, we met up with each other
at every opportune moment, and quite a few inopportune ones.
In fact, to date, I can only think of one single occasion where we met that wasn’t entirely pleasurable.
But things are changing…I’m not gonna butter you up, I’m gonna tell it to you straight. You need to get your act together down there and get your crew in order.
(click title for more)
