Bethugknee

CarolinaGirl2014

@bethugknee I've been thinking about you this month with it being your LO's birthday. How are you handling that, especially having your daughter at home? Do you have contact with your LO/ family?

bethughknee

I'm leaving work now and don't really mobile bump but I will try tonight OR I will answer tomorrow!

Short answer: I'm doing a lot better emotionally this year than I have in a couple years past. He was 7 on March 8.

CarolinaGirl2014

So glad you're doing better! I've heard that birthdays are the hardest.

bethughknee

Okay, so I do have contact with him and with his parents. The adoption has always been very open from the beginning. I wasn't sure that's what I wanted before he was born. I felt like I wouldn't want to intrude but after he was born and I got that instant IN LOVE feeling, I wanted so much contact. So I'm really glad that they were always so willing for things to be open since it really helped me. I did attend his first birthday party because I happened to be in the area and he was living near where I'm from. His dad is a Dr. in the Air Force though so they have moved quite a bit. They now live in CA so I haven't seen him in quite some time and logistically, it probably will not happen this year either. But his mom is very eager to have he and my DD meet which I think it just awesome.

Actually, my nurse from the morning AFTER DD was born was a birth mother. She came in at shift change and I had been up ALL NIGHT because DD's first night was pretty rough and she asked me if I was "the birth mother." It was so funny to hear her call me that haha. Anyway I was already on the verge of tears from exhaustion and because DD was only not crying while she was nursing or being walked around and the nurse told me she had also placed a baby for adoption when she was 20. She told me it was tough for her when she had her take-home DS for a little while but that it got easier very quickly. So of course I cried. A lot. She was just so sweet, too. I wanted to do early discharge and just be OUT of the hospital and she helped us expedite the process even though L&D was packed to the brim that week and all the peds had like 11 discharge cases per day. I am so lucky we had that connection and she was so helpful because I really just needed to be home with DD and MH.

The past few years on my son's birthday I just haven't felt like I've come very far. I wanted to have a degree before he was 5 and I didn't. I wanted to see him more but it's expensive to travel like that and I have been traveling with family and with MH and I got married and years have just escaped me. But this year I was happy to remember it was his day, I got some pictures via email and it was nice but I also had a 2 month old to care for so the distraction was great and I finally feel like I've accomplished something since the adoption. I was a little worried that after DD was born I would have feelings like I hadn't waited long enough and wasn't good enough to be a mom yet (and I have but just a little) but for the most part now everything feels right. Finally.

How are YOU doing?? Are you still able to pump? I will admit I read some of your Adoption board posts just to check in because I just remember being so inconsolably sad for the first year after my adoption so I'm glad that you are handling things so much better than I did!

worleygirl

@bethughknee‌ thank you for sharing this part of your life with us. You are a strong person.

bethughknee

@worleygirl It's my pleasure. It's a very easy thing to talk about, now.

cnctf

I hope you can get out to CA sometime soon so your kids can meet! Thank you for sharing your story.

bethughknee

@tiffy1693 Yep! My DD was 1/7!

CarolinaGirl2014

Thanks for sharing! I think a lot about how I'll handle it one day when I get to take a baby home. That's amazing that you had a birthmom for a nurse!

I'm doing well. There are downs, of course, but I make myself focus on the positive (TB helps for that b/c I get a tiny bit of actually being a mom here). I talk about it a lot, which I think really helps.

Feel free to comment on any of my adoption board posts! They're lurker-friendly. I like getting the perspective of other birthmoms and I know it helps for AP's and PAP's- some have told me that my openness has affected how they will handle their relationships with their future bmoms.

Still pumping! A has a bad MSPI and so far she hasn't done well on everything her mom has tried. She is now introducing a special rice formula. Once she gets a few days of that in her and I know she's OK I plan to wean because I need my life back. At first I think it saved me- I didn't have to go from A being 100% dependant on only me to nothing at all. She still needed me, I still had a connection with her only I could provide, and it completely consumed my life those first weeks when I think I otherwise would have been a mess. But now I'm ready to go out with pumping in the car!

wow. that was long.

worleygirl

@bethughknee‌ My DD was 01/07 too!

nolagal79

@bethughknee‌ and @CarolinaGirl2014‌

You are both amazing, selfless women. Lots of people should strive to be more like the two of you. Thanks for sharing your stories.

kteeswei

@bethughknee‌ I love you so much! You are amazing, seriously, blow my mind amazing. You have two lucky kiddos.

Hmvbaby14

@bethughknee‌ @CarolinaGirl2014‌ You are both such strong, amazing women. I am in awe of your strength and positivity. There are a lot of women that need to hear stories like yours. I wish you both the very best!

bethughknee

@CarolinaGirl2014 I'm glad you've been able to have that connection with her but I understand needing your life back! Pumping even just for daycare takes up a lot of time for me so I have serious respect for EP'ers. (looking at you, too here @katieswei! )

Even with as open as my adoption is, I still spent the first year so scared that his parents would change their minds for some reason and not want contact with me anymore. I didn't have a reason to think that, I just worry about everything all the time. So after his first birthday when I realized we had all made it a year and were closer than we had been even in the beginning, I felt like I really started living again because it was safe to. I don't know if that makes sense. Anyway I think the first year is the hardest so the fact that you have such a great outlook on things already I think is a great sign for how you'll feel in the years to come.

CarolinaGirl2014

@bethugknee I'm so glad you shared that! I have been feeling the same and has been my biggest struggle. Every inevitable bump in the road navigating this relationship makes me think I'm a nuisance, needy, a bother, and that they regret agreeing to our level of openness. Every change makes me think they're separating and distancing themselves from me to set up a less open adoption where I hear from them and see her a couple times a year. And it makes me angry at A's mom even though I know it's in my mind. She has accidentally gone back on several thibgs, but I know it's just her high-stress/overwhelmed personality that's come out since being a mom. I'm a worrier, too. (I don't express this to her bc I don't want to add more to her plate and put a strain in our relationship). Can you relate to any of this?

bethughknee

@CarolineGirl2014 YES. I can ABSOLUTELY relate. I felt so afraid all the time for the first year. Maybe it's a combination of all the hormones or the fact that it's just SO life changing, or something. And it's a huge risk! I mean, there's just no way to know how it will turn out and there aren't a lot of birthmothers out there so it's not easy to talk to other people who have been through the same thing AND adoptions are like fingerprints. There are really no two that are the same.

I remember being really scared when I would go like a week or more without hearing from my son's mom. I would count the days as soon as I emailed her or replied to an email. "Okay now it's been 5 days. Now 6...etc." Really, she was just a busy FTM and now that I have DD I understand it but there was no way for me to get that at that point. I can barely keep up with my friends and even with my son and his parents now so I understand that having a baby is busier than I ever imagined but it just always felt like forever between emails and packages and stuff. And I definitely held back contacting them because I was so afraid to overdo it.

Nothing I say can take away that anxiety but I do hope you're able to find some peace knowing that I don't think it's possible in an open adoption to be a nuisance. I think feeling angry or annoyed is to be expected because it really is an experience that involves grief and that brings about a lot of extreme emotion.

The first time I saw my son after the adoption he was almost 4 months old (we were living in different states) and we met for lunch and I was just so overcome with I don't even know what that I cried kind of hysterically almost the whole time. I wouldn't really let his mom hug me though because I was so embarrassed to be so emotional in public. She got pretty upset with me after that because she felt like I was pushing her away or brushing her off but after we talked through that, THAT was when we got really close because it sort of broke down the walls I had up to make sure they wouldn't "hurt" me. It seems like you are even closer with A's AP's since you pump and everything so you probably agree that it's like adding family members. And it takes a little while to learn how to communicate and realize that you can't really offend your family too much so it's okay to just be yourself and ask for what you need and just level with them. I hope it gets easier for you like it did for me. But it's still early so give yourself more slack when it comes to how you feel. This is such a journey and it's only the very, very beginning. And I am always a bump message away! (Or real email if you ever want to trade those too. )

CarolinaGirl2014

@Bethugknee you are amazing! Thank you! I needed to hear all of that- will PM you my email. Thought our convo so far might not be a bad thing left public b/c another birthmom might benefit. I know it's super personal, though.