Reunion Thoughts. The Post in which I lose all my Friends

Your blog has calmed some of my secret fears - that K will resent me
for taking him away from his birth family at some point. I have
clarity in that I will be able to tell him that he was going to be adopted, most
likely by a white person or persons, and that I was lucky enough to be matched
with him. I'm adopted, for Christ's sake, and I know that a child can be
completely attached to a non-birth family - even though I didn't achieve this
with my adoptive family but that was their failing not the adoptive relationship
at work. But there's a fear in me that one day K will reject me and
identify more with what he missed then what he has. I will have no problem
honouring and supporting his grief around that separation; it is more his
rejection that I fear. I don't think I had allowed myself to voice this fear until reading about Greg's clear attachment to you (you are his mom, you and Shelby and the other kids ARE his family) stilled it somewhat.

A (adoptee/amom)- email

This is a post that's very difficult to write. A post in which I am choosing total honesty, from my perspective, while at the same time realizing that my words may hurt people I love and respect. There are so many in this adoption world I know and have learned from. So many voices that have taught me much. First parents, adopted adults, other adoptive parents who are my friends. So as I lay it bare today, please know that I am choosing this to put a voice to the secret and inner fears of many adoptive parents, but am not trying to attack anyone who thinks or feels differently. And to those who may think or feel that my secret thoughts are wrong or offensive, I am sorry for any hurt they cause you, but I am fallible, human and trying to be transparent so that others can learn and maybe be better for it.

There was a point on our trip that I actually said out loud "SCREW YOU INTERNET". Screw every person who ever belittled my motherhood. Who called me an "abductor" or an "adoptress". Who told me my sons could never REALLY bond with me. Who instilled a deep, even unacknowledged fear that I could never be a real mom to my sons. Screw the people who said we weren't really a family. Who forced me to defend my children's relationship to each other. To ME. To their Dad.

I am angry at myself for letting those words seep in to my soul. The foundation of my motherhood. My womanhood. For having to make a conscious decision to face those secret fears. Its not "your" anonymous opinion I have EVER cared about, but you made me question my sons' opinion of me.

I KNEW how I felt about my sons. That my love for them was the same as my love for the sons I birthed. I knew that MY bond to them was unmoveable. I knew my committment level to them was lifelong and miles deep. You random internet people have dared question me on that, but I knew. I KNEW. You could never, ever shake MY love for my boys.

But you placed fear in my heart of my sons' view of me. And for that I am angry. I am angry because it was wasted fear. Wasted times I have worried. Wasted energy that I could have spent simply BEING their mom. The mom they needed. The mom they needed to heal. The mom they needed me to be.

We can carry the weight of a loving, complex, imperfect, flawed family. And we are better people for knowing our roots and having known the people that helped make us who we are.

L - email

I have never denied the need for openness if at all possible. The need for adopted children and adults to know and have a relationship, if at all possible, with their first families. The need for open records. The hole that some adoptees feel that can sometimes never be filled. I dont deny attachment issues (heck we've lived them). I don't deny that there is abuse in all sorts of families, including adoptive. I don't deny that there are some really crappy parents out there who don't try to understand the needs of their children through adoption. And I certainly don't deny that some adoptions are completely unnecessary.

But hear me loud and clear internet. Listen to me because I am not going to ever bother to explain or justify again.

I SAW in my son's eyes on this trip I AM, without a shadow of a doubt, his mom. A REAL mom to him. Never again will you instill in me fear that I am not enough. That I have or will inevitably fail him. That he doesn't love me, or need me, or that I am a poor substitute. We ARE a family.

I hate what I let you steal from me. I hate that I let you create in me an insecurity that didn't need to be there. Never again, dear random internet people, will I believe your lies.

And more importantly, neither will my son.