Archive through January 26, 2001
The ClubHouse: The Game II - Mysterious Puzzler: Discussions/Challenges:
The Never-Ending Personal Thread:
Archive through January 26, 2001
Guruchaz | Monday, January 22, 2001 - 03:18 pm  E, I just read your second story and I had a couple of questions. If you don't feel like answering them, I understand. Do you and your wife still keep some sort of contact with the birth parents? How does that work in an adoption? Is that something you just have to temporarily erase from your minds until they get a certain age and want to know? Just curious. |
Joni | Monday, January 22, 2001 - 06:28 pm  Wow that was an amazing story. I know what it's like to lose a child. When I was 20 I found out 5 days before christmas I was pregnant. My boyfriend was in PI and I was in VA> The shock hit me hard. Two days latter before I could even tell anyone about it or get used to the idea I found myself on the bathroom floor in pain and tears. I was rushed to the hospital and it was there that I had the miscarrage. I was 5 months pregnant so we could tell the sex of the baby. It was a little girl. I named her april. I had to give her a name. I know that I was not ready to be a parent but it was hard. In the future it will be hard for me to concieve. I have a problem ovulating. But I will have children whether I give birth or adopt.. |
Azriel | Monday, January 22, 2001 - 06:41 pm  I've had two miscarriages, Joni. I know how painful that is Knowing it was for the best doesn't lessen the hurt. |
Spamgirl | Monday, January 22, 2001 - 07:09 pm  I'm so sorry Joni... I've heard so many stories of miscarriages (through my site), and they never get easier to hear... I can't imagine how devastating that must be... As I've found through my research, many people believe that these babies who are lost before they're born or of a disorder after birth are angels sent to us... although they spent such a short time here, they knew their purpose, and are forever watching over you... her spirit will be with you forever, will guard your children, and will hug you for eternity... |
Joni | Monday, January 22, 2001 - 07:13 pm  I think you are right Spam. I will never forget my little girl though I never really got to have her |
Guruchaz | Monday, January 22, 2001 - 07:21 pm  One of my longtime friends and his wife who live out of town have had two miscarriages to deal with. They were very hush hush about it except to very few people. I can't personally fathom going through that type of pain and frustration and they didn't want too many knowing about it. Just before Thanksgiving, he told me that his wife had been carrying for nearly 5 months after a third attempt and things looked optimistic. He said he didn't want to jinx it by talking about it so we haven't discussed it at all since then. As it stands, their baby is due in March. |
Juju2bigdog | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 07:58 am  We had some discussion in afternoon chat yesterday about sharing intimate details in this forum. Newamush and I were of the opinion that we just couldn't do it unless we had some sort of bond or basis first. Others, Elite and Azriel come to mind, were quite comfortable with a greater level of intimacy. Here's about where my intimacy level is: Yesterday Bigdog and I went for a walk on the beach, and BD had some bread with him. As you may know, if you have any food, the seagulls will swarm all over you trying for handouts. So BD was walking backwards and throwing bread to the seagulls who were flying into a pretty strong wind. I was walking forwards out of the line of fire of the seagulls. We were all proceeding at the same pace, BD walking backward, gulls flying, me walking forward. It was like a moving still tableau if that makes any sense.
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Guruchaz | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 10:15 am  <pictures Juju shielding herself with an umbrella to block the line of fire> |
Elitist | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 12:46 pm  Joni and Az miscarriages are really a tough thing to go through. Joni if you decide to adopt, let me know - my wife and I have been through it twice and have also helped a lot of other couples through it. I can point you to a lot of places for help and support - things we had no idea existed till after we adopted our son. |
Elitist | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 12:59 pm  Gu I don't mind answering your question, but you will have to listen to another story My daughter's birthparents did not want anything to do with us or her. After the child was born, I don't think the birthmother saw her more than once, and we know the birthfather did come and see her before we took her home. My son's birthfamily, on the other hand, wanted to keep track of him. We agreed in our meeting with them that we would keep in contact and send photos and updates. We also agreed that sometime in the future we would get together so they could see him - with the stipulation that we all seek counseling first to make sure we were ready, and if we thought our son was ready to do something like that. We kept our side of the promise, including sending them a video we had made. Usually the phone calls were between my wife and the birthmom because they got along so well. Then about six months after he was born, about 11 p.m. the phone rang - it was the birthmother. She told us that her husband had passed away unexpectedly. We were in total shock. Since then the frequency of contact has dwindled till we haven't heard from here at all for some time. We are trying to make sure she is OK, but haven't been able to find out. We hope she is well. There is a lot of controversy over whether there should be ongoing contact with the birthparents, and whether you tell your child they are adopted. My opinion is that the birthparents need some closure and reassurance that what they did was correct, and ongoing contact facilitates that. It also ensures you a source of knowledge of the adopted's genetic background which can be vital for medical reasons, but also helpful as they age to understand better where they come from. It also helps the adoptive parent's fears about "someone" coming to take their child away. Knowing the birthparents as we do, my wife and I have none of those fears. As far as raising the child, we expect him to know he is adopted as he grows - the trick is telling him enough for his maturity. We definitely do not want to wait till he is 20 years old then say "hey, by the way, you are adopted". But we also realize, for some reason, adoption is still not totally accepted in the US, and that people say cruel things without realizing it. We are taking the stance now that we really don't tell people they are adopted unless we think they really need to know, just to allay some of that prejudice and hurt. |
Guruchaz | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 01:08 pm  You mean like kids at school saying cruel things or other adult parents? Thanks for sharing that E. I appreciate it. |
Joni | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 02:11 pm  I have considered Adoption however now that I am in the process of a divorce that is on hold. I don't think that on my own I am ready for a child. I want to be able to give the child everything that he/she needs and wants. |
Elitist | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 02:22 pm  Well kids are always cruel - it is the adults that are the really stupid ones. I went off on this in chat the other day - it really pisses me off. Like when people ask you "Who are their real parents", or "you had kids the easy way". Or when they whisper to other people "Do you know they are adopted?" when they think you can't hear or see them. And those are just the nice ones. |
Guruchaz | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 02:47 pm  Yes, the ever popular "side talk". It's never truly behind the back. That's ridiculous, but so are most people. |
Merlin | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 06:01 pm  Elitist, I want to come back to this and give some input from someone who did not see their birth mother for over 30 years. I also have a good friend who *found out* he was adopted in his late teens and can share his perspective that he told me. |
Guruchaz | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 06:07 pm  Hi Merlin! The life stories everyone has to tell just blows me away. I can see in the statement above, along with your previous story, how you and your dad could be so close. |
Merlin | Tuesday, January 23, 2001 - 06:26 pm  And that is another story I want to get to guru, we were close but not in the way you may picture it. |
Elitist | Wednesday, January 24, 2001 - 08:44 am  Merlin - I am really interested in hearing about your story. One of the things we worry about is how adoption will affect our children as they grow up. We think by being open it will help head off many of the problems and angst that you hear about with adoptees that are suddenly told when they are older, or find out by accident. It is amazing the number of people that you find out have some connection with adoption - either an adoptee, adoptive parents or relatives, or birthparents. They seemed to come out of the woodwork when we started into this. Of course now we know the secret handshakes and passwords, so we can spot them pretty easily |
Elitist | Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 08:49 am  Juju - I just reread your post again for about the tenth time. I keep thinking it should be an oil painting, or perhaps one of those defining moments in a really good romantic movie. You know where they are talking about love with long silences between, then the camera pulls back on the deserted beach with the two of you surrounded by seagulls, as the music swells. |
Elitist | Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 08:58 am  Just to let you guys know the lengths people will go to try to conceive. We had tried a lot of things to try to conceive - drugs, ovulation cycles, tests. We also found out my wife had endometriosis, and surgery was required to remove it. After this we thought we had the best chance ever to conceive, so we went back to tracking her ovulation cycle by her temperature. As luck would have it, I had to go on a trip to Chicago one week on business. After several days in the cold and snow (it was a really miserable time of year to be there) and several days more looming ahead, my wife called me in the afternoon and said "Get your buns back here, it is prime time". So I tell my boss and the others that a family emergency has come up, that I am going to have to fly home this evening then come back the next day (I was indispensable). So I drive to O'Hare in the snow, have to park in the middle of nowhere, catch the train into the airport, and get a flight home - hoping there would be no delays. Caught a flight, made it home about 10 p.m. then hit the sack right away. Then up early the next morning, drive to the airport, catch the return flight, fly back to the snow in Chicago, drive into the city, and then back to work. And of course it didn't work. |
Guruchaz | Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 09:36 am  E, I don't know whether to laugh or to sympothize. You've both had quite a time handling all this. |
Elitist | Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 09:37 am  This one was definitely a laugher You always see these movies about people trying to have kids and the lengths they go, but when it happens to you, at some point your realize how hilarious it really is. |
Guruchaz | Thursday, January 25, 2001 - 10:41 am  I'm circumcised. I don't really have a story to go along with that. |
Merlin | Friday, January 26, 2001 - 06:32 pm  This is my story about birth parents. My dad and birth mom divorced when I was about 2 years old and my brother was an infant. Yes, that makes it occur in 1952. If anyone is aware of how hard it is for a dad to get custody of his children in our current culture, you can just imagine how hard it would have been in an era where men weren’t considered capable of caring for children like a mom. The fact is my dad got full custody of my brother and myself. There was no court battle because my dad would not of had the money to do so. The only conclusion to this is that my mom gave us up, handed us to my dad, and said for him to take care of us. My dad remarried about a year later and we were raised by my stepmother. This is the woman who is my mother for me. She always has been and always will be. I know there is someone else out there who gave birth to me and is technically my mother. What I know in my heart and mind is that this person is not my mom. My mom is the woman who took me to be her own and cared for me. I saw very little of my birth mother as a child. The last time I remember seeing her I was about 4 or 5 years old. She was taking my brother and I to a rodeo and we were dressed up like the cowboys that were the thing of that era. We were excited, but the excitement was more for where we were going. There never was the bond for us that children have with their mothers. My birth mother showed up late and an argument ensued about how thoughtless she was for making us wait so long. My birth mother left. That was the last time I saw her for the next 30 years. She did not try to make contact with us, but neither did my brother and I try to contact her. I could have found her, my dad knew how to contact her relatives and find my mother. I always wondered about her, but I never tried to do anything about it. Part of the hesitation came from the fear that I would hurt my step mom’s feelings by trying to contact my birth mother. I loved my step mom and didn’t want to hurt her by looking up the one who gave birth to me. When I finally did tell my step mom I wanted to talk to my birth mother, I could tell that it would have never been a problem for her if I had done this. My step mom supported me completely. The next contact was when my birth mother wrote me a letter. I found myself responding to the letter and saying all the things I had thought for the last 30 years. I was excited at first because there were always questions I had for her. We corresponded for a while, but honestly after the initial curiosity wore off, I lot interest. That is where it remains today. I have a friend who found out by accident that he was adopted as an infant. He was going through a filing cabinet looking for something and ran across the adoption papers. He had never been told he was adopted. His initial reaction was hurt, because for him it was like it was keep secret. The way he saw it was that there was something wrong if his adopted parents needed to keep it a secret. The next stage he went through was the curiosity about his birth parents. When we talked about this, I realized it was the same curiosity that I had experienced. He was told how to contact his birth father and mother. He paid a couple of visits to both. Basically the same thing happened for him also, he lost interest after the few visits. He knew who is mom and dad were, they were the couple that raised him, not the ones who gave birth to him. What is the curiosity about the birth parents? Basically universal with all children who discover/know they were given up for adoption, why did they give me up? Why did they not want me? You will find some adoptees wanting to stay in contact with the birth parents and some who don’t. One of my adopted daughters has never seen her birth father. She knows I adopted her. I have told her that if she wants to meet him, it is okay with me. I told her I would go with her or what ever she needed from me if she decides to meet her birth father. My daughter told me she had no desire to meet him. When do you tell your child they are adopted? Go with your gut instincts. You will know the right time. I don’t think you can pin it down to a certain age. In the case of my daughter, she questioned why she looked so different from her sisters. She made the statement, “we don’t even look like we have the same parents”. I felt it was time to tell her, but I honestly don’t remember her age. By the way, my conclusion about why my birth mother gave us up was made by me when I was about 5 years old. Not really an age to be making these kind of conclusions. There is another story to be told about this. |
Ocean_Islands | Friday, January 26, 2001 - 06:45 pm  I have two cousins that were adopted. When I was 7 or 8 years old, one of them was talking about being in court. I asked her why she had been in court. "Because I'm adopted," was the reply. I was pretty surprised, but not shocked. It was simply something I had not known. My dad always tooks lots of movies of us. He took movies of my cousins, too. My aunt and uncle had tried to adopt a little boy at a certain point, and there was some problem with the birth mother wanting the child back. But this boy had already been placed in their home. And because of this my Dad had movies of this boy. My aunt and uncle lost their case and had to return the boy to his birth mother. Many years later, the movies of this boy were very upsetting to watch, because no one ever knew what had become of him. |
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