Mother's Day

Well, Mother's Day is this weekend and as a reunited adoptee, it is a rather loaded day. Thankfully, when I became a mother 2 1/2 years ago, it allowed me to make Mother's Day about me. Last year, we were so broke that even a greeting card was out of the question so I didn't send anything to my amum, thought I'd just call her on the day. She called me on the Friday and told me she was divorcing me for not sending her a card - my lack of attention was compounded by the fact that none of her 3 sons sent anything either. We all foolishly assumed that she would be adult and mature enough to not be a bitch about it. Only my eldest abrother and I copped shit for it - middle abrother, aka Golden Boy, was let off the hook by virtue of being her favourite and younger brother was let off by virtue of being a fuck up all year round. So the 2 children who do actually call her regularly and have the supposedly best relationship with her are the ones that scored the shitty guilt trip - awesome! She didn't answer the phone on Mother's Day and had made a big deal that if a card hadn't arrived before the day it didn't count so I needn't bother sending the card that my son and I had been making when she called.
For those who don't know, several years into my reunion I had a minor breakdown. I went into therapy for it and made the mistake of sharing my feelings about it all with my amother. Being the narcissist that she is, she made it all about her, told me I didn't have issues because of adoption, that it was all about her divorcing my adad when I was 12. It got to the point where she was calling me every day to tell me one more reason she had to divorce adad - the reality is that she had an affair and ended up leaving adad for that man after adad paid for her to have a facelift and boob job. I ended up doing what she has done on many occasions, I wrote her a letter to tell her I couldn't cope with her while I dealt with all this stuff, that I just needed a little bit of space. She wrote a letter back telling me to have a nice life with my new family. We didn't speak for 3 years. The only reason I did get in touch with her again was because I got pregnant.
So I think that little break was really healthy for me because when she had her Mother's Day meltdown last year, I just figured well, at least I won't have to talk to her for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, my eldest abrother went into full damage control mode, made his daughters sit down and make cards for her and sent them on the Friday and then called her every day until she finally picked up the phone. I used to be that person. In years gone by, I probably would have turned up on her doorstep with gifts and flowers and apologies. It was actually a wonderful revelation to realise that she doesn't have that control over me anymore.
So this year, as I sent cards to her from me and my son, I wondered if she would blindly enjoy them, preen over what a wonderful mother she must be to receive such lovely cards, or will she realise that they are simply a pre-emptive strike to ensure that there is no repeat performance of last years tantrum? I would say probably the former. And what she will never know is that I spent Mother's Day last year and will be spending Mother's Day this year with my natural mum, the mother who loves me unconditionally, who would never lay a guilt trip on me and the mother who I can be totally myself around.

Adoptive Breast Feeding

A controversial topic, adoptive breast feeding is considered to be a beautiful bonding experience by those who adopt and disgusting child abuse by many adoptees and natural mothers. My experience of it is this. My adoptive mother likes to tell me the story of how she was so clucky after bringing me home that she started lactating. She tried to breast feed me but I rejected her attempts as I was 7 weeks old and had only been given a bottle, and possibly because I didn't know what to do with this strangers breast. She once said jokingly that it hurt her feelings that I rejected her and that I should apologise to her. It took everything in my being to not scream at her that I thought it was unbelievably sick to try and breast feed me and that it wasn't my fucking fault that I didn't know what to do with her tit. But I didn't say any of that because I am a good little adoptling. I did not apologise but I did say "I probably didn't know what the hell to do with it, I mean, I even had trouble getting my son to latch, it's not that easy."
I have just read a post about an adoptive mother who forced her 20 month old adoptee to breast feed. She started by giving him bottles of her pumped breast milk but the poor little boy was so traumatised by his experience and being in a strange house that he would not let them cuddle him. He was not sleeping, when he did he would wake often and cry. She started sleeping next to him, doing skin to skin contact, co-bathing and putting her nipple in his mouth while he slept. He eventually submitted to all of this and started feeding from her. The comments on this blog varied from "Disgusting" to "what a wonderful way to bond and what a lovely thing to do for the child." Personally, I vote disgusting.
For those of you reading this wondering what my problem is, I want you to think of it this way - if a complete stranger picked up a 20 month old child and tried to cram her breast into the child's mouth insisting that breast milk was good for the child would that be wrong? Yes, it would. This is what the child is experiencing; they are not aware that a piece of paper with adoption decree written on it means that this woman is legally their mother. All they know is that a strange lady is putting her breast in their mouth. Some of the techniques described in the blog would be questionable even if a natural mother did them with a child at that age. I also wonder how people would feel about an adoptive father using skin to skin contact and co-bathing to bond with his adopted 20 month old son or daughter. What happens in 20 years when this child is an adult in therapy repeating the memory that this woman that he did not know got naked with him and shoved her breast in his mouth while he slept?
Adoptive breast feeding is not about giving the child the best start in the world, it is about the adoptive mother wanting to feel like a mother. Breast milk contains specific proteins and antibodies for the biological child. The lactation drugs that many adoptive mothers use are known to cause depression and some that are used to induce lactation are used to treat schizophrenia - no research has been done on what that does to the child who is consuming it. There are other ways to get to know your adopted child, other ways to make them feel safe, adoptive breast feeding is just not necessary and I sincerely wish that "adoption specialists" would stop encouraging it.  

Ten Years On.

I was reunited with my natural mother, my half brother and half sister ten years ago. I have a lovely relationship with all of them and see them more often than I see my adoptive family. I find that spending time with them is easy and I don't feel the need to put on a face or behave a particular way. And yet I still feel the occasional twinge of "do they really like me?" and "am i just an unwanted hassle?" My nmum and I had our reunion on New Years Eve so we planned to have a 10th anniversary dinner. That afternoon, nmum called me and cancelled because she and her hubby were really sick with food poisoning. We left it that she would call me to reschedule. She still hasn't. We have emailed and texted a couple of times. A few weeks ago, my 2 year old son got hold of my mobile phone and called her and we laughed and said we should catch up soon. We still haven't.
I hope she is just busy, I hope I haven't done anything to annoy or upset her, but I just don't know. I get so tired of all this shit, so tired of wondering if I have said or done something, so tired of watching my p's and q's with my amum. so tired of being adopted. Before my reunion, I really didn't think that much about being adopted, but now that I know my natural family, it's like I can't not think about it. I really do wish that it had never happened.