No Unicorns Allowed...Meanies Unite!

Hi..my name is Christina.

(altogether now) Hi Christina!

I'm probably one of those meanies that you are afraid of. And before you go jumping the gun and automatically assuming (you know what happens when you "assume" right?) that I'm a birthmother-who-was-forced-to-give-up-her-baby-but-things-are-different-now-don't-you-know...I'm not.

I'm an adoptee.

I speak for myself...I have my own opinions...and sometimes my comments get deleted off of blogs because my voice doesn't count. ::shrug:: 

Oh, here's the comment that wasn't allowed on this post that was discussing using the term "birthmother", by the way:

@David and Amy...I'm sure that my adoptive parents said that their love for me was perfect as well. And I suppose that in their eyes, it was a perfect love. But you're right, you DON'T know my situation...and let me tell you, my childhood was hell. Again though, even if my childhood had been full of and unicorns and ponies and puppies, I STILL would have rathered to have had my natural mother and my natural family in my life. That's just my personal experience..and I'm not trying to speak for anyone else. 

A woman DOESN'T stop being a mother after they give up their child. They carried that baby for nine months, nurtured the baby with food and comfort and love. And to say that doesn't make someone a mother sounds very righteous and spoken like a true martyr, in my opinion. I should know..my adoptive mother would have said the SAME EXACT THING. You say you spent 8 1/2 years trying to figure out what a mother is...I've spent 36 years of my ENTIRE LIFE trying to figure out the SAME THING..and I am so glad that I can say that, for myself, my natural mother has ALWAYS been a mother to me, even though we were separated for 34 of those years.

(By the way, I think it's rude when people use caps lock when commenting on someone's post, but that's just me.)

@Sterling..Thank you for your email that you sent me, I'm in the process of responding. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting it, but I appreciate you taking the time to write me to explain your thinking.

The blog author, after I told her that I thought it was distasteful that she allowed flippant humor about adoption through, but deleted my comments, told me that she'd emailed my comments to the people I was addressing in the above paragraphs. She then asked me if I was referring to Ashley's comment on her blog being flippant and I said:

You don't need to delete it...but yes, I was referring to Ashley's comment.

I guess I'm just used to having a free forum on my blog where discussions can be had without comments being deleted. I need to remember that not everyone feels the same.

By the way everyone, this was the part of Ashley's comment that I specifically took offense to...

"Seriously, how lucky am I to have someone loving my daughter so much??? Poor people who haven't adopted. I've got twice as much mommy love going toward my daughter. Neiner neiner neiner...".

If it's mean of me to call someone out for being rude (not to mention the fact that she spelled "Neener Neener Neener" incorrectly), then I'm proud to wear that title. I'll add it to the list.

And if someday I get banned from someone's clubhouse for speaking my mind...then pass the cold risotto because by God, I'll eat all of it.

Let Me Introduce...

Keeper. 

I was going through some random Photobucket pictures, specifically searching for "Speak No Evil" photos and I came across the below image.  It is haunting me tonight because it really does look like an older version of my eight year old self...aka Keeper.  In my therapy sessions, I've described Keeper as having very piercing eyes, but no mouth.  Here she is:

Give Me All Your Money

When my kids were little, I was poor.  Like, we're talking scrounging-around-under-the-carseats-to-find-change-for-gas poor.  After my son was born and I'd left his father, we moved in with my amother in her one bedroom apartment.  Maddie and I shared a air mattress and Chase slept in his port-o-crib.  It was difficult...and because I didn't have a lot of money, what I had went towards food and diapers..and nothing else.  My car got repo'd during that time...and I lost 30 pounds because I was making sure the kids were eating.  Chase was still drinking formula but I only ate Maddie's leftovers.  A french fry here, a half eaten bowl of cereal there.  I made do.  It was hard though..and I hope to never experience that again...

I never begged for money though.  Not once.  Which is why I find it totally disgusting that there are potential adoptive parents out there on the internet begging for donations.  They are fundraising for a child in a faraway land...just because they want a newborn or because they want to add to their family.  It's gross.  And I cannot believe that it's allowed to continue.   My aparents probably borrowed the money for my adoption (the whopping $225.00 back in 1974) from my grandparents but I bet they paid them back as soon as possible...they may have been abusive monsters but they did have the decency to pretend that they could afford their coveted children. 

I think this quote from the Ladybug Blessings website sums all of this up nicely..

"At Ladybug Blessings we understand the expenses, the love and your longing to give a child a home and a family. We are honored to have the opportunity to be a part of your adoption fundraiser process."

I'd only be slightly sick to my stomach if the word expenses wasn't brought up as the first thing to think about in regards to the problems surrounding adoption...as it is though, I may have to spend two, three or maybe ten years sitting in front of the toilet. 

Turn That Frown...

I was looking through some old pictures of myself the other day.  Not the middle school or high school ones in which I was wearing BCG (like these for example) but the photos from when I was little.  Way before abuse entered my world..or at least, way before I could remember the abuse. 

I noticed that in a lot of them, think 99.99% of the time, I was frowning.  No smile..nothing.  In the other .01% I had the biggest, cheesiest grin..stupid looking really.  I have a feeling those were the pictures in which my mother was behind the camera...probably getting seriously irritated with the child who refused to smile. 

"Smile dammit...what the hell is the matter with you??  Your sister smiles in ALL her pictures...why aren't you?!" 

Oh, I don't know...maybe because I didn't have much to be happy about.

Here's a couple of examples:

And going back even further in my childhood...we get..

Polite Eruptions

Two weeks since my last therapy session.  Sigh.  Wasn't too bad today...could have been worse I suppose.  Tonight was spent yelling and screaming.  Yes, on purpose. 

I had expressed my recent frustration at my son's father and the child support I'm not getting.

Actually, that's not true.  I'm getting some support.  Just not the right amount.

He's court ordered to contribute $112.50 every two weeks.  That's it.  It's $45.00 plus $11.25 towards the arrears he owes me per week.  So, here's what I've gotten the past four cycles:

08/11/2010 $46.13 TRANSFERRED TO BANK

07/28/2010 $19.40 TRANSFERRED TO BANK

07/14/2010 $23.69 TRANSFERRED TO BANK

06/30/2010 $53.96 TRANSFERRED TO BANK

Notice the amounts?  Divide them by two and you'll see what I actually ended up getting per week.

Is it any wonder why I'm pissed off sometimes? 

So, my therapist told me that while we were tapping, we were going to yell.  Didn't matter if I swore...didn't matter what I said...it just mattered that I got it all out.

And so, I tried.  I expressed all the things that have pissed me off recently and even in the past regarding my relationship with my ex.  Curious about what those things were?  Here's a sampling...

-Calling CPS on me when Chase was a few months old...because he had a diaper rash and the sniffles
-Getting irritated with me for checking my watch every five minutes in the car as we drove to the hospital because I was in labor.
-Leaving me at the hospital so he could go home and chill out on the computer until the actual birth of our child...and almost not making it back in time.
-Not allowing Chase to attend my afather's funeral because he didn't want him to be around so much sadness...Chase was six months old.
-Posting rude and vulgar things on his Myspace profile about me
-Blaming me for keeping him from Chase when in actuality, he left the state and ran away to Louisiana to make a new life for himself.  Honestly, I think he would have blamed Hurricane Katrina on me if he could have..lol.
-Not coming to my side when I got in a major car accident with my 2 and 1/2 year old daughter..and five months pregnant at the time.
-Letting my car's battery die in the middle of a snowstorm and making me go out and jump it because he was afraid of getting shocked by the wires.

Now I was pretty damn proud of myself for venting about all that stuff...but after we were done, she looked at me and said, "You know, that was pretty polite...some of what you were saying he'd done made me raise my eyebrows...but you were just...mild...". 

We worked through why that was.  She asked me what would have happened if I'd yelled and screamed in anger as a child and I told her that would have never been tolerated.  It just wasn't safe.  I kept my emotions in check so I wouldn't get in trouble and have to deal with the wrath of my mother. 

Some days, I feel really fucked up.

The Appendectomy

This blog post by my friend Linda got my creative juices flowing. 

The girl in the story got pregnant, but her parents told everyone that she had a "tumor".  And instead of fessing up once the girl had her baby, the parents made up an elaborate lie about how a baby just mysteriously showed up on their doorstep with a note pinned to his clothes.

Me?  I wasn't a tumor.  I was an appendix.  At least that was what my grandparents told some of the older relatives in the family.  They said that my mother had had to have emergency surgery when in actuality, she'd given birth to me...their first grandchild.  I was the first niece born in the family...the first one to give birth to the family's grandniece and nephew.  But because of how my life's puzzle was put together, I had to read my uncle's jubilant Facebook comment when my cousin had her daughter. 

"Today, we welcome baby Maggie to the world.  And with her birth, I become a great uncle!"

I know it's got to be just as strange for them to turn their thoughts around and see that I'm actually "here"..but it doesn't make it hurt any less.

I am the appendix ripped out of my mother's stomach and tossed away in a sterile bowl.

Adoption is an emergency appendectomy

Unblock Me: A Plea For Help

No seriously..something's wrong with me.  I keep avoiding the issue in the hopes that my emptiness will ease, but it's not working.  I don't know what to say.  I'm not sure what to think.  I don't want to go on a vacation from my blog but really, WTF. 

I'm good at reading everyone's blogs...good at thinking, "Wow, I wish I'd written that..".  I want to give something back to my readers..not just fluffy posts about writer's block. 

I'm hoping that this week will help me clear out the cobwebs and get back to the business of telling my story...back to the reason I started this blog in the first place..to help others.  So, I'm reaching out to you guys.  What do you want to know about me?  If we were sitting down together, having a cup of coffee, what would you ask?

Call this post my own personal Formspring.  I'll answer your questions in later posts...

God knows what the hell I'll do if no one comments..lol...

Sleepy Happy Grumpy Mopey...

In a funk.  Yup.  I'm definitely in a funk.  The past few days I've been toying with different posts but every time I go to start writing, it all comes out sounding like crap.  Verbal vomit, if you will.

Therapy is on hold for two weeks...she's on vacation this week and I'm on vacation next week (SQUEAL!).  I definitely need a break from work..and I can't wait to spend some quality family time with the kids and Steven.  It starts with a town concert that Maddie's singing in, continues with beach days, the zoo, playgrounds, picnics, natural family reunion and a birthday party for the son of one of my best friend's.  Chock full of fun..chock full of love. 

A lot of you know that I've started a separate Facebook profile for my adopted self.  I know that I should be strong enough to combine the two..adoptive life vs. natural life..but it's difficult for me.  In my head, I'm still the fragile girl who had to please EVERYONE.  Had to remain quiet lest she anger her parents.  I hate that I'm still afraid of my mother's wrath...that I still crave her approval...and am afraid of hurting her...I hate those things.  But it's hard to undo 36 years of fear overnight.  I wish it were easy.  I wish that I could truly be free for one day from the pain and the grief..and the feelings of guilt when I post pictures of my kids on Facebook and I hear from my natural mother that she lets my adoptive mother comment first so that she doesn't seem to be stepping on anyone's toes.  I want to yell at her in those moments and say, "To hell with that!  Comment when you want!!".  But I'd be hypocritical.  Because I understand why she does that.