As a birthmom I think I have this need to see the parents I choose as pretty much perfect. Actually personally almost everyone seems perfect compared to me. I know I'm not supposed to compare myself to others because we are all so unique but its hard not to because I just want to know if I'm 'normal'. Reading these blogs of adoptive parents is revealing to me that they too have insecurities. I am starting to realize that people are not perfect and that is ok. I worry too much about what people think of birthmothers. Not me personally but just the idea. What would come to the mind of a single mom if I told her I gave up the chance to parent? Could we still be friends? Maybe, unlikely. I wish that I could understand why people are so afraid of the very idea of a birthmom but are very sympathic to adoptive parents. To me its like people like to believe in heaven but the fact of hell is unthinkable. To me you can't have one without the other. Gee... I hope that the site doesn't think I meant to swear...lol. I am beginning to realize that adoptive parents weren't neccessarily prepared for parenting. Maybe they didn't feel like they could take a parenting course if they weren't sure they would get a child, maybe they didn't buy any baby stuff for the same reason. In my mind before I even choose the parents for my birthchild I had this idea in my head that their are dozens of people with completely done nurseries who have finished five or six parenting courses and are just more than ready to parent. The truth is that there are couples who dream of parenting but don't actually have to courage to prepare until they get that phone call. They are all just people. I worry that because of all the scary stories of birthmother with addiction problem or mental health problems or just relational and stability problems that probably the vast majority of birthmothers who are living clean, responsible and healthy lives, like me, will be put into a stigma that isn't right!! I want people to know that birthmothers can be, and most of the time are good people!!

When I think about my birthchilds life now and my life it is not a question of whether I should have parented or placed but whether I should have choosen the family I did. The family I choose now has a child that was born to them and it is obvious that they favor this new person. I don't think they even realize they do. My worst fear as a birthmom is not that the parents I choose will close the relationship we sometimes have but whether or not they actually 'want' to parent my birthchild. I have only learned now that I could have had so much help to parent but I am embrassed to admit that I had to much pride to accept any help. I imagine sometimes what my birthchilds and my life would be like now if I had choosen a different family. There was a family the birthfather and I considered before deciding on the parents and I know because of a agency newletter that this family did succeed in adopting their second child but I think they waited far too long. I sometimes wish I could have choosen them then their wait and the ages of their children would be much closer and my birthchild would have had an 'adoptive' sibling. Something I wanted and expected, but then my birthchilds parents did not expect to have a child born to them. I really wonder sometimes if they wish that I hadn't choosen them at all now that they have a child born to them. That might seem crazy....but I am human and am allowed to have doubts.

NOT MY OWN

Not my own.

Against my soul and body,

Logic tells me it is so.

Mindless Passion caused life to grow,

Answered a hope I did not know.

Of Nature we are the same,

Becoming more is your fate.

Decided for you is a different way,

For always as my Love will be,

With regret my word remains.

You do not belong to me.

Most people when they think of adoption and open adoption they think about how the adoptive parents have to accept the reality of a birthfamily. From my point of view it also come from the birthfamily too. I am very encouraged by the fact that my own mom seems to have accepted the decision I made to place instead of parent. For the first year or so it seemed that she was afraid to even put a picture or two out. She has never heistated to frame almost any picture of anyone in my whole life. Her walls are covered with pictures EVERYWHERE so it hurt my feelings a little that she couldn't accept my choice at first. Now, I think since she had the chance to visit with the parents I choose she feels that they are a part of our family now. I know that most parents who adopt think that just one person is joining there family but in the minds of birthfamilies it is them that is joining the family. Maybe the whole world is just one big happy family. I know thats too liberal and impossible. I wonder if it would offend the parents I choose to know that my mom considers them are part of our family. I hope that they would possibly consider my family as part of theres, even just in thought but not pratice. We are all just people. Nothing to really be afraid of.