Well, I'm an idiot.

I made a pretty dumb and insensitive comment on another blog the other day and got it rammed down my throat. I'm really not good at this internet thing, but hopefully I'll get better.

I'm at an early stage in this and it's really hard to step outside my own bubble. The last few days have been particularly rough, since I got a book in the mail from IAC called "Dear Birthmother" and I've spent most of the time since reading it and bawling. I want to respond directly to the people I've severely annoyed, but it's probs best to let them be. I don't think they'll ever see my point of view because they've never been me, and I won't see theirs for the same reason. But on the unlikely off-chance that they see this, I want to say I'm sorry. I don't mean to be blind to the pain of adoptees. I only know my own, and in my pain I lashed out against somebody I didn't know who I perceived as being unfair. Her words hurt me very much. But it's her blog; she can write what she wants on it. I guess I just take exception to all birthmothers being called cold, unfeeling bitches for considering placing their children up for adoption. I'm not a bad person. I'm just a scared girl who doesn't know what to do. I would have gotten a lot less grief, from everybody in my life, if I had just gotten an abortion.

But that is so unbelievably not an option. I was talkin to Max Power and we were joking about something sex-related... probably me saying I totally would have stopped talking to him if he hadn't been so dynamite in the sack, or something else immature. And he said, well, you sure woulda been a lot less pregnant. Then we both got quiet. "I wouldn't change it," I said. "Me neither," he said.

We love this baby. Doesn't that count for anything? We will never stop loving him. But we have no money, nowhere to live, no jobs or insurance. We both have had nasty drug habits (although it's amazing how cold turkey you can quit when you get pregnant). Most importantly, even put together we don't have a lick of sense. But that doesn't make me WANT to give him up.

I've been reading the fabulous Mei-Ling's reunion archives for the past day or so and they've been blowing my mind. Feeling torn between two families, two cultures, and two potential ways of being is just the most intensely crazy thing I've ever heard. I don't want that to happen to my baby. I don't want 20 years to go by without him seeing my face or hearing my name. Well, more than that I don't want 20 years to go by without seeing his face or hearing his name, but whatever. It's not about me.

All I want to say is that, I haven't made a concrete decision to go for adoption. But I was sitting on my bed reading "Dear Birthmother" and talking to Max Power about feeling sad, and he looked at me and said "I know it's terrible, but you know we can't keep this baby." I didn't really know what to say. You're right? Fuck you, it's my baby, get the fuck out? Both thoughts were weighed equally in my mind and jammed into each other on the way out of my mouth. So I was just quiet.

Doctor's appt on Thursday. I'll know the sex for sure, hopefully, and I should get to hear his heartbeat.

Some Big Secret

ADA Casey Novak asked the ever-so-dreamy Detective Elliot Stabler (in an episode lightly centered around adoption... kinda) "If you found out you had another kid out there, would you want it?" And Stabler replied, "Damn right I would... it's not an obsession. It's a love. It's a connection that transcends anything and everything. I would die for my children. And there's nothing in the world that will change that. Ever."

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.

Oh right - My story

My name is Lia. I am 20 year old college student and I really don't have my shit together. I am about 14 weeks pregnant, and this is my blog for dealing with that.

I didn't know what to do. In this situation I always thought I would just "take care of it," that getting pregnant was just like a really expensive yeast infection. So I went to Planned Parenthood and they acted exactly like I wanted them to in my idealistic, non-pregnant state. You know... abortion is no big deal, here's what the state tells us to say, great see you in 24 hours for your procedure. But being there pregnant, I felt very strange about it. I mean, you don't think anyone will change their mind? That maybe we are just here for information? But no - nobody was, myself included. Then I got a sonogram (mandated to know how far along I was - 11 weeks and 5 days) and I saw my baby. You know that Friends episode where Rachel gets a sonogram and she can't see the baby and Ross has to point out that peanut-looking-thing and go "honey, that's it"? Well this was not like that. My baby has a face. It's got my nose. I can tell. Poor thing.

So I started researching adoption. Tentatively. But eventually I found this agency called IAC which specializes in open adoption. I knew I wanted a gay couple, in an urban setting (seriously don't ask me why - I have no idea) and IAC actually lets you SEARCH for gay couples (do you know how many agencies just DON'T HAVE THEM? It's atrocious.) and I found T&V (names withheld to protect the innocent). They're great. We're getting to know each other. They live in NYC, near campus, which is great. Even though I'm shacked up in Philly for the summer, they're close by.

And the father - gah, more on that later perhaps (if I stick with this).

So. I'm due mid-December (by my calculations) which will either be at the start of winter break or during finals! Who knows!