My dad said, in a lecture to me about how unprepared I am for the birth of my child, "There is no way you can understand the overwhelming need to parent your child. It is the driving force behind mankind."
Is it bad that I sort of look at this as the entrance test to some really huge, universally understood and yet vastly secret club? There are billions of parents in the world, and they all know this thing that one can't know until they become a parent. It's kind of like sex - everybody does it, but for those who don't, it's a huge mystery. And now I'm being handed a key into this club, but it's like the key is on fire or covered in spikes or something - I get to have it, but it scars me forever. I'm both intensely curious and overwhelmingly terrified.
And do not make fun of my love for SVU. It is immensely entertaining. Even if it is giving me second thoughts about letting T&V raise my kid in Soho.
Hi, Lia--You commented onmy blog, so I thought I'd come say "hi". Wishing you and your baby the best in wherever this journey leads you!
ReplyDeletei'm curious as to your dad's comment. why does he think you can't understand the urge that elliot spoke of? is there some sort of code that you must follow before you pop the kid out, and if you know it then you're not allowed to feel love for him?
ReplyDeleteand yes, i'm an svu geek too. no judging here.
Hi! I saw your comment on another blog I read and just wanted to say hi, and good luck, and that kind of thing. I wish I'd started my blog when I was still pregnant!
ReplyDeleteA counselor I was required to see when I was pregnant (I was placing, and was on state aid for pregnancy stuff, so she was required to visit me once) told me that making the decision once was well and good, and it was good to have the plan and everything, but that I would basically have to make the decision again from scratch, almost, when I was in the hospital, holding him. It was one thing to love him when he was an abstract, inside-my-body baby, and a whole other thing when he was a little human being waving his arms and looking into my eyes.
Does that make any sense? Of course, that was just my experience. Again, good luck!
Yes it is a club or as an old friend described it when I gave birth, "The Parents' Union".It's a tiny bit like before you have sex, good sex that is and don't know what it's about.You can see others parent, be parented, but until you give birth the world hasn't opened up for you.
ReplyDeleteBeing a parent can be the most fulfilling, satisfying, frustrating,worrying thing in the world and a million wonderful things besides but it is real; real life in which you have responsibility for a tiny human who relies on you for nurture and love.Many things are innate for mothers and often that protective love we feel is unlike any other.
Adopters can love children and bond with them but they will never, ever have that bond and attachment that comes with pregnancy and birth.
Your feelings are your own and are normal, many feel the same in pregnancy.You are right to see the gravity of it all, it's the most important thing you'll ever do and you can prepare yourself for it if you want to.
Good wishes,
I'm home every day at my email address on my profile,drop by for a coffee and a chat anytime,
Von
Hi! My name is Susie & I'm an SUV addict :D
ReplyDeleteI am a first mom, and to put it short & sweet ~ I would not wish this life (as a first mom) on my worst enemy! I also have to repeat what others have said about open adoptions. They ARE NOT legally enforceable. Research for yourself, the number of adoptions that close immediately after birth, or close when the child gets old enough to start voicing their love for their first family & the parents feel that continuing a relationship with them will come between them and the child. If you are not willing to go into adoption knowing that you may never know how your child is doing, if your child is even still alive, than adoption is NOT a choice for you. I am lucky. I was reunited with my son after almost 30 years. 18 months later & we still have not met (he doesn't want to yet), but at least I know he's alive & happy.
Please take to heart all you are learning from the first parents & adoptees while making this decision. Adoption is often made as a permanent solution to a temporary problem!
Your dad is right.. and so is Elliot ( SVU addict as well)...
ReplyDeleteI look at reliquishment as giving my motherhood away before I even knew what it was about...I didn't know what I was doing and no one told me otherwise...
Motherhood will change you forver..but there is joy and it can be yours.. adoption is the scarring part.. unfortuneatly it't not like being curious with a hot stove. If someone tells you not to touch the hot stove and you do, you get burned, but you can make the same choice again next tiome or learn form it, but you heal form the burn. With adoption, you don't heal form the burn and you don't get the same choice again.. this child, the only one like it in the world will be gone with a signature..
Explore those doubts.. and don't touch the hot stove.
Okay. I've seen this behavior two posts in a row and now I just want to start slapping people. Each person's experience is their own.
ReplyDelete"now I'm being handed a key into this club, but it's like the key is on fire or covered in spikes or something - I get to have it, but it scars me forever" that kind of covers it. There is no experience that can prepare someone for see a child that is made partially of you, of the father, and is still entirely its own. Similarly there is no removing the pain that is at the heart of every adoption plan. Adoption hurts. It is also, sometimes, the best way to respect and love everyone involved. That's why it's important to do a lot of reading, thinking, and feeling through the adoption plan now. That way, when you have that "no going back" experience of seeing the tike you're growing, you're the expert. No one can claim they know more than you do about your adoption plan, about how you feel, or what's right for you and your kid. But getting that expertise hurts like hell. I can't lie about that. Adoption is just as easy as it is evil, which is to say it's entirely the opposite.
"Adopters can love children and bond with them but they will never, ever have that bond and attachment that comes with pregnancy and birth."
ReplyDeleteThat is Von's comment and, as an adoptive parent, is extremely offensive. I may never know what it is like to give birth, but I have held my newborn baby and the baby in my home right now is my child. Maybe a fair way to exemplify what it's like would be to say that no natural-birth parent will EVER know what it is like to have the bond that forms between a parent and an adoptive child... the bond that forms between a baby and a woman that KNOWS this child came to her from another woman but also knows this child is hers and was meant to be hers and is the blessing waited for and prayed for (for many, many years).
The experience of child-birth itself is not the only way to have a unique and impenetrable bond with one's baby.