Increasingly hard

I have not been able to write lately because I have not been able to feel. That's not exactly true. I cry quite easily these days. I'm 37 weeks and 2 days pregnant and am very emotional. I have been avoiding feelings about Leslie again though, that's what I mean by I haven't been able to feel. The feelings are just below the surface I don't know how to access them nor do I really want to. I go through many phases like this. During these times I simply want to avoid my feelings. I often think that they're easier to manage if I avoid them. Logically, I know that this isn't true. I understand that this is maladaptive behavior that does not help the healing process. I wonder though, will I ever really heal? My therapist believes that the pain will never subside. I will always experience grief and I need to get to a place where I accept the feelings that come up. I need to be able to "sit with" the feelings rather than suppress them, avoid them, and pretend that they do not exist.

I know that a major reason why I am having such a hard time waiting for my son to arrive is somehow related to the loss I feel. I have been waiting ten years to be a mother. What's a couple more weeks, right? Oh it's hard alright. I can't move around much because I have such bad pelvic girdle and round ligament pain so I'm stuck at home much of the time. The minutes feel like hours. The hours feel like days. I want my son to be born so badly. Now if I was living in ignorance of my feelings the way I have for much of the time since I relinquished Leslie, then I would not see the connection between the almost desperate desire for my son to be born and the loss associated with the adoption. Well, I'm aware now so I know that the waiting is extra hard for me. People try to cheer me up by reminding me that I am so close to having my son in my arms. Really though, that just irritates me. I guess they don't know how long I have been really waiting. I have been waiting ten years, but once my son is in my arms the waiting does not end. I have to continue to remind myself and accept that I will always be waiting. My son who is about to be born will never be a replacement for the daughter I gave away. I am sure in many ways I will grow as I give love unconditionally to my son. I think that that love might also help me to heal in some ways. However, that love will never replace the love and the loss I feel about my daughter.

Today I absentmindedly took Leslie's pictures off of the fridge. I did it without thought, without understanding the meaning. The meaning is that right now it's too hard to see a picture of her face each time I open that appliance. It hurts too much. That's okay. I have to have compassion for where I'm at because judging my process never helps. Right now, I see a picture of her face and I feel sad. I also feel anger. I wish someone who was in a position to help me, namely my social worker, would have told me that most birthmothers feel deep pain at many times throughout their life because of the loss. It angers me that the social worker is an adoptive mother. How could she be unbiased? How could she be the support that I needed? I'm angry that I hurt. It's not that I would have made a different decision if I had known about the future pain. The choice I made was best for Leslie and me. I deserved to have all of the facts and possibilities presented to me. This is why I'm angry that I hurt. Right now I blame the adoption agency and I blame the system for letting me live my life without the knowledge about how I would be impacted. Here I am, ten years later, and now really starting to deal with the pain. I'm finally facing it. Well, I'm facing it as well as I can at this time.

Writing this blog is one way that I am attempting to confront the loss. I think it's important for birthmothers to share their experience. I hope that at some point a woman who is considering relinquishment reads what I write. I want her to know my experience. Although I have read many psychological studies that state the loss will permeate the birthmother's life, I am not presuming that my experience is the "norm." The reason why I would like another woman considering relinquishment to read about my experience is that I would hope that me sharing my true feelings would impact her in the way she needs it to. I was literally blind going into the decision. I never spoke with another birthmother. I never read anything written by a birthmother. I had no idea what any birhtmother experienced. I made my choice out of desperation. In retrospect, it would have benefited how I handled the grief if I heard/read about other birthmother's experiences.

Well, I have rambled on and I am not sure what else I can say about anything right now. I will sign out with an honest check it. I'm hurting. I am trying not to think about Leslie because I do not want the grief to overwhelm me, especially since I'm already third trimester hormonal and emotional right now.