Just another manic Monday

“I wish it was Sundaaaaay”… just kidding.

Today’s really slow at work and I feel like my body is still asleep.  I’m way bored, other than talking to Ki on MSN, which I’m having a blast doing.  It’s so nice to talk to her!  On Saturday Bart and I saw his dad, Julie and his sisters for the first time in 2 years.  It was so much fun.  We went up there (Heber) and got there around 6:30 and we were there ’til 2:00 in the morning!  So, I didn’t get to bed ’til about 5am, then slept ’til about 12:30 Sunday.  Ha.  We went to Zack’s last night and played Apples to Apples (we played up at his dad’s and Bart had so much fun that we went and bought it) and got home around 11 and of course since I had slept like half the day Sunday, I wasn’t tired!  Well I am TODAY because of it.  I didn’t get to sleep ’til probably 1:30 or so, but still had to get up for work.  I’m sure I’ll make up for it tonight.  I bet I’ll fall asleep before 10!

I weighed myself this morning for the first time in about two weeks and I really thought I would have either gained weight, or at least just stayed the same, because since my dumb sunburn, I basically haven’t exercised at all and last week I ate really badly… I lost 5 lbs!!!  I almost cried, I’m so happy :).  Gets me more motivated to jump right back into full exercising now that my sunburn is gone and doesn’t kill.  haha.

Well, I’ve had this window open for like an hour, so I think I’m just going to close it.  lol

On the road again

Often times, my blog titles don’t have any meaning, it just happens to be the first thing that pops into my head.  No reason.

My sunburn is healing fairly fast (compared to some past experiences) and I’m really glad that by Monday, it should be completely gone.  Well, at least the pealing and splotchy spots.  (ew)  My brother gave me some of this cool sunburn spray stuff that I put all over my face on Wednesday night when I was there.  I forgot to bring it home with me, but anyway, when I woke up Thursday morning, almost all of the burnt dead skin was completely off!  I thought maybe coincidence, but I did not put it on my neck and my neck hasn’t healed nearly as fast… so that kinda proves it to me!  Thanks big bro   It still looks fairly gross, but I don’t really care, it feels so much better.  I’m wearing a normal shirt today!

I’m starting to get really excited about our family camping trip to Lake Powell this month.  I guess I haven’t really mentioned it before, but yeah – my family is going camping on June 27th.  They’re staying for almost a whole week and unfortunately I can’t afford to take that much time off work, so I’ll just be going the 27th thru 29th.  Bart has to work, so I’ll be going without him :(.  Heidi and Sage will be down from Seattle, so yay!

Our lease at our apartment is up at the end of this month and I’m finding it nearly impossible to get a hold of the office staff during business hours.  They seem to really never be in the office and regardless of what time I call, they never answer.  I’ve left voicemails and even sent an email, hoping to maybe schedule a specific time of day we could go there to do it, but I’ve had no reply.  I’m getting a little stressed about it, although realistically I don’t really have a reason to be worried.  She KNOWS that we intend to stay and that we wanted to renew, so it’s not like she can rent out our apartment from under us.  I guess I’m a little more stressed about the fact that our rent may or may not increase and I don’t know what to be prepared to pay in July.  I really hope it’s not a significant increase.  It’s difficult for me to think about the $880 a month we’re dumping into rent when we could probably get a house and have a payment not a whole lot more than that and actually have our money going somewhere.  I’ve figured that with the 12 months that we’ve lived in this apartment, we’ve “wasted” a total $10,554.00.  *Sigh*  Kinda hard to ignore.  I really wish we could just get a house now and not even renew here.  Of course even if we DID have the money to put down on a house, I doubt it would be at all humanly possible for us to find a house, get everything done AND move in less than 30 days :p lol.  I just need to stop thinking about it.  I’m grateful for the way things are going and that we’re getting stuff paid off.  It’s a good feeling.  This will be my first month with no Golds Gym payment!!! Woohoo!

I’m happy it’s Friday.  I’m looking forward to relaxing this weekend.  This week has been extremely hectic and stressful at work and I haven’t been able to sleep because of this dumb sunburn.  Maybe by tonight it’ll be just a little bit better to where it won’t be so uncomfortable to sleep on.  Here’s hopin’.

Burnt

I hate getting sunburnt, mostly because every time it happens, I get annoyed at myself because ALL I had to do was put stupid sun screen on and it wouldn’t have happened. At least not this bad. I haven’t had a sunburn this bad (this painful anyway) for at least 5 years.

We went to Lagoon on Saturday with Bart’s mom, brother and niece and I forgot to bring my sun screen with me. Lisa had SPF 15, which to me is about as effective as rubbing milk on my skin and we were there for 7 hours walking around in the sun. Of course since we went on “Rattle Snake Rapids” and I got all wet, it was probably like a magnifying glass for the sun to get to me. Even more annoying, I was wearing a half sleeve “baseball” type T and I have a DUUUMB burn line. HAHAHHAA. I guess I should be grateful that it isn’t covering my entire body, but now whatever shirt I choose to wear for the next 3 weeks is going to look ridiculous because of the red “collar” I have.

I’ve been putting Aloe Vera on it all day and alternating with a cool rag (on my face and neck) and I HATE the way the gel type Aloe Vera feels after it’s dried. It’s sticky and gooey feeling and having it stick means any time I touch anything like a pillow or my hair rubs against it, it sticks to my skin. If I turn my neck too far, my skin sticks together and it feels like I might as well be ripping of layers. Maybe it would feel better if I did just that!

I stayed home from work today, which is the cause of my boredom now and my boredom turning into grumpiness. This is the first time I have “called in” at this job and I HATED it. I really don’t like the feeling of sitting home doing absolutely nothing and now that the work day has ended and Bart’s gone to work, I have NOTHING to do and time is going too slowly. I wish it would just speed up to like 11:00pm and I could go to sleep. Regardless of whether it kills as much as it did today, I AM going to get dressed normally tomorrow and I AM going to work. Ugh.

To make it better, yesterday Bart and I were coming back from Zack’s and I was walking up the stairs and out of no where, my back basically gave out and like… stopped working. I thought maybe I had just stepped funny and it caused a weird shoot of pain in my back, but no… it’s been like that all night and all of today. It feels fine basically when I’m sitting/laying still, but the process of standing up and sitting down really, really hurts. It’s amazing how my body just feels like falling apart all at once… it can’t be gradual! The only thing I’ve come up with is that maybe my back did something funky on one of the rides at Lagoon. I know that when we went on the Cliff Hanger and it slowly turned us upside down for about 15-20 seconds, I remember thinking that it felt weird. It didn’t hurt, but it felt like a slow motion of pulling my back away from my spine. I can’t really explain it. Then when we were turned upright again, it felt as if someone had stretch me by pulling my hands in one direction and my legs in the other direction, disconnecting my top and bottom half of my body! I know, I sound quite strange.

I’m gonna stop this rant before I make myself in a worse mood and pray that I can get dressed with at least a remote amount of comfort for work in the morning. *Sigh* Waiting for tomorrow…

Simple things

I’m kind of amused, but realized today that Bart and I haven’t really spent more than a day apart, like actually APART, for quite some time.  He works graves, so I’m used to not seeing him Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, but he’s in Vegas ’til tomorrow night and having him actually GONE is a whole lot different than having him just at work.

It’s probably mostly just because I KNOW he’s gone rather than just at work… and I miss him!  HAHA!  He left early Monday morning and should be home tomorrow night, but still, having him actually gone and not seeing him for the couple minutes in the morning and a couple minutes after I get off work, it’s a lot different!!  I went to bed last night thinking “I would hate to have to do this every day!”  It’s such a small and simple thing, but it doesn’t take a whole lot for me to realize how much I love him and love having him around.  It might sound mean but, I actually like the fact that I’m missing him.  In a weird way, I kind of wish he was staying all week, but at the same time, I am excited for him to come home tomorrow.

I’m such a girl!!  LOL!

I surrender

Well, last week my social worker emailed me and said that she called and left a voicemail with Magui and Geary to basically ask what their intentions were, (whether to write to me or not) and that she’d let me know if she hears from them.

I’m not going to let it run my life anymore. I’ve discovered (with the help of people who love me) that I’ve been in a downward spiral ever since Dustin’s birthday and it’s really affecting me and almost all of my relationships. I’ve been trying so desperately to hold onto anything and everything that I could that allows me to still keep a piece of him with me… I’ve been trying so hard that I’ve been letting it basically fuel everything in my life the past few months. It’s killing me.

Therefore, I’ve decided that I need to accept the fact that I may never hear from them again. There’s nothing I can do about it and I will take the advice given and treasure the things and the memories I do have and not dwell on what I don’t and can’t have. I’ll just leave it to “fate”. If there is such a thing.

Waiting On God: A Birthmom’s Hope
by Michelle

There was a time when I was full,
Full of life from within
It felt like forever but went so fast
Some say I should let it lie in the past
But how can I?

It was my heart that tore
When I handed him over through that door
For a moment I turned to look,
For my pain it shook
My soul from within.

I know they will love him
I think this is right
But this pain keeps me up at night,
Wondering if, how, when
I will ever see him again?

Will he understand
It was not my hand
That pushed him away
It was God’s plan
So I opened my hand.

I hope I pray
That on that day
My heart will be repaired
From all its pain
To share a single breath as one heart beats
No one can separate
A mother and her son,

Between us now is time and space
But I can still see his tiny face
It beams with life, joy, and peace.

God had a plan
A plan to repair
My soul from despair
I will rest for now
God will show me how
To wait on Him

Time goes by, so slowly…

As you can see by the dates, it’s been an entire month since my meeting with Sandy and she told me that they told Magui my letter was there waiting for them. When I left there, I was under the impression that Magui would be going there to pick up my letter that night, so I still assume that she did. I’m starting to get really frustrated, even though I’m trying NOT to, but I just keep thinking “how could they not write me after reading my letter?” I just feel so… I don’t even know a word for it. I almost feel BETRAYED… as childish and silly as that sounds. I feel like I’m being cheated. Of course I feel selfish even saying these things, but I am just being honest.

Saturday night, Bart and I were moving things around in our room… – we got a new TV, so we were moving the TV that we had in the living room into our bedroom and the TV we already had in our bedroom has been on my cedar chest that Geary made me. We brought the TV stand in from the guest bedroom so we didn’t have to keep the TV on my chest. I didn’t like it there because I haven’t had access to get into it for almost a year – Anyway, after we moved everything, I got some stuff out to clean and polish my cedar chest and of course I opened it and started going through all my stuff. My poems from the adoption agency, my poetry that I had written, Dustin’s blankets, foot molds, etc. and also my old journal. When I saw it, Bart suggested that I read it and see if maybe it would help me get some of my memories back. I’m very grateful that I kept a journal, even though it was for only the first 6 or so months of Dustin’s life, but still, those first 6 months were probably the hardest. I took his advice and Sunday morning I started reading it, the same as I would a regular book. It was so strange how some of these entries I really don’t remember writing, but I know it’s my writing. I know it’s me. Even though so far it’s small things, it IS helping me remember things. I started that journal the day before I went into the hospital to be induced. The first entry on January 9, 2002 basically said “I’m going into the hospital tomorrow to be induced. I hope everything goes ok. I’ll write when it’s all done.” After that, I pretty much wrote every single day for 6 months straight. I didn’t read through the whole thing, but I read about half of it. It was harder than I thought… to read those memories. Particularly the entries full of pain. Things I did not remember until reading them now. It makes me feel a little better knowing how far I’ve come. Sometimes when I feel like I’m falling apart I can look back and see that today is NOT that bad compared to 6 years ago when I couldn’t even breathe without reminding myself to. You know… Bart said something (sort of accidentally) that in a mean way, made me feel better. Made me feel like finally someone is standing up for me. Standing on my side. Just in random conversation (while I was polishing the cedar chest) I said something like “I wonder if Geary would make me a new chest if something happened to this one?” and Bart almost immediately said “If he can’t write you a letter, I doubt he’d take the time to make you a new chest”. My first reflex was to be defensive, as usual. They’re my family and I don’t want anyone talking mean about them. I try so hard to make polite excuses and make up fantasy reasons as to why they’re not communicating with me… but honestly I’m tired of being nice! HE’S RIGHT! After the brief instinctive reflex to defend my sons adoptive parents, I almost immediately had a feeling of “thank you for agreeing with me”. I guess it also made me feel somewhat comforted that Bart does care. He’s expressed before that he never knows what to say when we talk about the adoption and he’s never REALLY expressed his opinions on it because he feels like it’s not his place. To ME, it is his place. He may not be Dustin’s birth father, but he cares more about Dustin than his REAL birth father does… He used to get so excited when I’d get a letter or a new picture. We’d read the letters together and look at the pictures and he’d hold me while I cried. I cried because I was so happy to watch my baby grow. I chose to have them raise him, but I always thought I’d still be able to watch him grow through the pictures.

I feel like I’m being impatient, but if I were to express myself openly… 100%… I’d be screaming. No. I’m NOT being impatient. It’s been TWO god damn years. TWO! It’d be different if it were a few months… but it’s been two years. I feel like I don’t even know who they are anymore. I feel like I don’t know who my son is anymore. Like I’m not a part of him anymore. Like he’s slipping further away than he already physically is. I’m so angry and I don’t care. I’m frustrated and tired of being nice and trying to make excuses for them in my mind. It’s like I have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other and they’re screaming at each other. LOL. Most days, the devil is winning. Because I just feel angry. Maybe I’ll find out more if I finish reading my journal, but I’m feeling like I doubt it. At least along the lines of whether they TOLD me they didn’t plan to write anymore.

I feel like I’ve been angry at everyone and everything for quite a while now. At least since my major outburst a couple months ago. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Literally. It scares me. I’m snappy to the people who are closest to me. People who were there for me throughout the entire thing. Why?

Sandy had told me to wait a month or two and if I hadn’t heard anything, to let her know. I realize that it’s been like EXACTLY a month now (no, I wasn’t counting, I just suddenly realized it) but I’m tempted to call her and ask her opinion. I mean… do I keep waiting? HOW LONG DO I WAIT?!?!?!?! I’ve been waiting TWO YEARS already. I can’t control these feelings. I really can’t. I used to control them very, very easily… as if I was trained to… but now, I just feel angry almost all the time. I think about him every day ANYWAY, but lately I think about it ALL the time. I know nothing about him. He’s practically grown… and I don’t even know what he likes to do. What his favorite color is. I wonder if he’s lost any of his baby teeth and if he can write his name. I just don’t know what to do. At all. I don’t know what to do with these feelings.

For the first time since the moment my son was born… for the first time… right now… I’m starting to feel angry about not having him. I absolutely hate that I just said that.

Still breathing

I had an appointment with Sandy today (scheduled over three weeks ago) and I lived through it and of COURSE (as I knew) it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be (emotionally).  First of all, I asked her if she remembered or had record of our “agreement” the day I met Dustin’s parents, before he was born, and she said that the permanent adoption records are archived in the Salt Lake location so she wasn’t 100% positive, but said she did not recall anything specifying that they WOULDN’T write after a specific time frame or anything.  She also said that there at the agency, their standard, which of course is just their suggestion, they can’t REQUIRE anything… is that after 4 years, the adoptive parents will write and send a picture(s) once a year, traditionally on or around the child’s birthday.  So, as far as she understands, as well as I did, they should technically be writing at least once a year, indefinitely.

Secondly… I asked if the letter I wrote a few weeks ago had been picked up and she went and checked and it wasn’t.  It’s still there.  This of course kind of upset me (because at this point my biggest fear is that they want nothing to do with me and Dustin won’t get my presents or letters at all) and I started crying and she said she’d go see what she could find out.  She came back and told me that she had the secretary call them right there to inform them that they had a letter waiting and Magui  seemed really excited and asked when they closed and how late she could pick it up, etc.  so apparently she didn’t know there was a letter waiting.  I truly don’t believe that she’s capable of faking something like…  This is why I have had such a hard time accepting that maybe they didn’t want anything to do with me.  It just isn’t THEM.  It just doesn’t make sense…  If they KNEW how I felt, I don’t think they’d ignore it, which is why I really felt the need to write them that huge long letter.

She also reassured me that they would contact me if anything had happened to him.  I explained to her the dreams I have quite often of him being killed or kidnapped or… well a lot of things.  The dreams come too frequently for me to pass them off as nothing, but I’m sure it’s just my subconscious reacting to what I don’t KNOW.  You know as well as I do that I tend to over exaggerate emotions.  If I don’t KNOW how he is, I somehow immediately assume the worst.  She checked though and there is nothing in their file to indicate that they didn’t desire any further communication.  Of course that has happened in the past and I’ve talked to birth mothers who’s adoptive parents have decided to completely cut off communication, but she said that if that were the case, there would be a very clear “No Communication” document in the front of their file, which there’s not… they also have not moved.  They update their information once a year (as do I) and they are still at the same address they were 6 years ago… so I can cross that off of my list of worries.  (Hey, you never know… they could move to Zimbabwe).

She suggested that I wait a month or two and if I still haven’t heard from them, to let her know and if I’d like, she will call them to get more information… and maybe just to get a solid answer on whether they intend to keep communication open or not.  That’s all I really want to know.  I really hope that my letter will explain it well enough and that they understand and are willing to continue writing me.  I acknowledge that ultimately, it’s their decision and there’s nothing I can do about it and I’ll just have to accept it if they choose to not write anymore, but I really hope that they can maybe try to put themselves in my shoes and be understanding to my feelings.  Regardless, I will respect their decision, because I respect them.  As long as they allow me to continue writing, I’m fine with it, because all I really truly care about is that Dustin has the letters that I send him when he’s older.  I don’t want him to feel the way I do right now in wondering “why did the letters stop?” or think that I stopped caring…

We talked for an hour (sessions are always an hour, so it’s nothing special) and I feel better having heard her opinion about some things.  Mostly that pretty much all the feelings I have and everything I’m going through, is normal.  Almost every birth mother she’s worked with has, at one point or another, had the same feelings.  She said memory loss is common.  The subconscious does physically block out things that are too emotionally painful. Somehow in the back of my mind, I know those memories are there, but it’s as if they’re muted.  If I can’t hear them, they don’t exist. 

So… as expected, I do feel a lot better just having talked to Sandy and at least I know that I didn’t agree to some crazy thing without my “sane” knowledge.  So, we’ll see.  I’m trying not to, but… I’m already getting my hopes up.  I can feel it.

Birth Mother Syndrom

I read this article today (a small clip from this was posted on the birth mothers forum sometime last year) and I really found it interesting.

There are an estimated 6,000,000 birthmothers in the United States – biological mothers who have surrendered their children to adoption (Jones, 1993). I am one of the 6,000,000 – together with a multitude of sisters, mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, aunts, nieces, cousins, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. We are educators, students, physicians, office clerks, salespersons, lawyers, accountants, tellers, beauticians – from all walks of life, all income levels, all ages. Although we may be standing side-by-side, we are unseen by each other and unseen by society. Traditionally, birthmothers have constituted an invisible, marginalized group of women whose cloak of invisibility was woven by secrets, lies and shame. The Internet, however, has opened a pathway enabling many birthmothers to receive support from and provide support to other birthmothers. Over the Internet lines, birthmothers are liberating themselves from their prisons of silence and have begun to share their stories with other birthmothers. As a member of one online birthmother support group, I became aware of: (1) the marginalized status of birthmothers, (2) the social construction of relinquishment, adoption, and motherhood, and (3) the large-scale discrepancies between the actual experience of relinquishment and what was told would be experienced by parents, clergy, social workers, therapists, physicians, etc. It became increasingly apparent to me that my personal experience of relinquishment was shared by many others. Common themes emerged as we communicated our experiences and feelings to each other: annual rituals performed on the child’s birthday, descriptions of a deep pain in one’s heart and hole in one’s soul, aching arms, the desire to take in the scent of one’s child after reunion, avoidance patterns, intrusive thoughts, histories of post-relinquishment depression, suicide ideation, substance abuse, and abusive relationships, etc. Comments such as “Not one day has passed when I have not thought about her/him. Not one day has passed when I have not ached to hold her/him in my arms once more.” appeared repetitively in the postings. Hundreds of previously silenced voices were carried across the Internet daily.

The thousands of birthmother stories that I have witnessed suggests that birthmothers as a group have been victimized, oppressed, and traumatized by their relinquishment experience. This topic begs us to probe into the marginalization and traumatization of birthmothers. My working definition of marginalization is one of exploitation, social injustice, and inequality. I approached the concept of trauma from both a physical and emotional perspective: (1) a serious injury or shock to the body or (2) an emotional shock causing lasting psychological damage.The existence of a birthmother syndrome has been proposed by researcher Merry Bloch Jones. Jones has developed the following profile for this syndrome:

Horizon

I got an email from Sandy last night. It’s been over a week since I wrote her an email asking about the adoption “agreements” and she hadn’t responded. She finally did and basically just said she has been really busy and that every time she tried to reply to my email, she would be interrupted. That’s about all the email said, other than asking a time that we could schedule a session together. I can’t do it until at least next week, so I asked her for Thursday (20th). Her last appointment of the day is 4:00 pm, so I’m gonna take that because I don’t think I want to leave work any earlier than that.

We’ll see. I think no matter what she tells me (good or bad), I’ll probably feel a little better after I talk to her. I hope.

Snapped

Last night was probably the worst night, by far, that I’ve had in the past few years.  I guess it was only a matter of time before I “snapped”.  I don’t know where it came from or what has happened in the cob webs of my mind to cause this, but I’m trying to just deal with it now. I’m starting to get bits and pieces of my memories that I didn’t know I had and to say the least, it’s a bit painful to be reliving that portion of my life. To be reliving the emotions. I hadn’t realized how numb I was throughout the whole process. From the day I decided to placed Dustin for adoption, to the day he was born up until the day I handed him to his parents are all quite a blur. They always have been, but I have held as tightly as I could to the memories I DO still have from those few days. Now out of no where, I’m getting memories coming into my mind that I didn’t know were there. I guess faaaar back in my mind, I “remember” things, but I never acknowledged them as my own memories… it sounds so ridiculous when I try to explain it into words, but it’s basically as if I read a book a few years ago and I remember certain points of the book, but not the entire story cover to cover….

The one section of memory that I’m having a difficult time with is the day that I met Dustin’s parents face to face and we went into a room with our social workers to talk about… things. I remember meeting Shelton, Dustin’s older brother (who was two at the time) and that I thought it was cute/funny that he was speaking Spanish and English at the same time. I remember him saying “cookie”, although I don’t know what else he was talking about. I remember hugging Magui and Geary and Magui putting her hands on my stomach. Last night, the piece I got back was that I am pretty sure my parents were in the room with us, as well as my oldest sister (although I’m REALLY not sure if that’s true or if I’ve somehow just placed her into a partial memory). I don’t remember anything that we talked about. I don’t remember discussing how we’d like to correspond with each other (specifically how LONG they intended to correspond with me). I was up the entire night reading through all the letters, looking through all the scrapbooks and pictures I have of him. I read and re-read the letters over and over, particularly the last letter I received from them in 2006. I was trying to find some indication that maybe they intended that to be the last letter they ever sent me? I just feel more confused. The letter was so… “normal”. Telling me how Dustin was doing, that he was very polite and loving and he loves to open doors for people. They told me he loves the teddy bear I gave him and he always makes them kiss it goodnight before he can go to bed. They said he loves to give hugs and is an extremely caring child and he can tell when someone is sad. They told me he protects his brother, even though Shelton is older than him, he is almost bigger than him. They were at a birthday party and a boy hit Shelton and Dustin went over to the boy and pushed him and said “don’t hit him, he’s my brother”. They ended the letter by saying “let us know how you’re doing. We love you very much”. It doesn’t seem to me that they didn’t intend on writing anymore :(. It sounded to me like an open ended conversation or something. I need to know.

I called Sandy on Monday, she didn’t answer, so I called on Tuesday and left a voicemail and she hasn’t returned my call yet. I had originally decided that I’d wait until Monday of next week to see if she returns my call, but after last night, I really don’t think I will be able to hold myself together for 4 1/2 more days. I talked to Kent and asked if he’d be alright with me taking a semi-long(er) lunch so I can go down to the agency and hopefully talk to Sandy. If she’s not there, I’ll probably just ask to talk to any social worker there… I’m thinking maybe I’ll feel better just GOING there. Maybe they’ll at least be willing to give me Sandy’s email address. I would be satisfied with that.

Anyway, I’m having a hard time breathing today… my heart hurts and my whole head is throbbing from lack of sleep (and an unhealthy drainage of tears and snot) and my face feels swollen from crying. I really hope going there will help, but you know me… I’m preparing for the worst possible thing I can think of.