|
momof4 -> RE: My birth mother found me yesterday... Any thoughts? (2/12/2008 11:19:08 AM)
|
Yes it is difficult to say how many kids I have! I remember when we met back in '94, and when I was showing him pictures of my 2 kids (youngest hadn't been born yet), he looked at my other son and asked, "Is this your first one?" and I said, "No, silly, he's my second!" I hadn't realized how bad I had felt until that moment to have gone for 21 yrs lying aout how many kids I had. It felt wonderful to be able to tell the truth finally. Tehn when my family and I went to a football game where he was playing, at the same college that my dad and 2 older brothers had attended, and he had free tickets for me to pick up, the woman at the box office asked me if my son was a football player, and I said "yes", and gave his name, it felt, oh I can't describe it! But it was then that I realized how much damage continual lying does to a person. I felt so free to finally be able to tell the truth! I could literally feel a pile of bricks fall off my shoulders! That was one thing I hadn't expected, but it was a very pleasant surprise. Now that we don't see each other, I'm back to lying, and I hate it. sometimes I don't say how many kids I have, but I just give their names and ages, and then silently, to myself, add my firstborn. I'm still lying, but to me it doesn't feel as much like lying as just saying I have 3 kids, and leave it at that.
Thanks for the update. There was an interesting story on the news here the other nite. It was about this brother and sister from Korea who had been adopted as toddlers. Their birth parents saved 11 months worth of wages to come to the states to visit them! The kids are now in their 30's. Just think of the motivation to be barely subsisting on your wages, but taking yrs to save enuf to come to the US to see the kids you gave up long ago. Is there any doubt that they love those kids more than anything? They spoke to each other thru an interpreter. The girl said, "We never thought we'd feel such a bond with them, like we've always known them." or something like that. It sure is a bunch of emotions that come at a time like this, and I don't think you are ever prepared. It's always a surprise. I have head people say "I would feel..." and then imagine feeling a certain way, and then not feeling that way at all, in cases like this. Be prepared for a range of emotions. You might feel real anger at some point, but realize where that is coming from. It's b/c the infant in you still rages against losing her original mommy, the one whose movements and voice she got used to while in utero. Then you're born, and wham! that mom is gone, and you have to get used to a different mom, not better, not worse, just DIFFERENT. The baby can't understand this, so she is angry with mom for leaving her. I know this all sounds stange, but if you read up on this , it will make sense to you. Look for a book called "The Primal Wound" by Nancy Verrier. She has written other books, but that is her first on the subject. She is, interestingly, an adoptive mom who noticed differences in how her adoptive daughter relates to her vs how her "born" daughter does, and did tons of research to find out why. I think if you can read some of her stuff, you will be better prepared. It's never as cut and dried as we would like it to be, and this is where my son has so uch trouble. He wanted to find me in theworst way, but after he did, he couldn't handle the emotions, so it was easier just to keep me at a distance. He won't read any books I suggest to him, b/c he says he "knows" what is wrong, and it's nothing that's in any of those books. He can't let me go completely, so that's why we can still communicate thru email, keeping up on "news" etc, but never delving into all the emotional stuff like we did when we started. He has a big thing about his "comfort zone" and it's been this way for yrs. What he won't admit is that sometimes the right thing to do is to go outside your comfort zone.
|
|
|
|