So much...part two

I've been reading several blogs written by Birth-mothers.

Why am I doing this?

It's hard. So hard to read these blogs...

So full of pain for the decisions they made, the children they gave up for adoption. So full of regrets, loss and sadness. And anger. Quite a few of them are so angry at Adoptive-mothers whose communications and updates about their adopted children dwindle or even cease altogether with the passing of time.

The Birth-Mothers write of too many broken promises in their lives.

One Birth-mother's blog I found very interesting and inspiring - Coming Clean: Confessions of a Secret Birthmom - because of her unceasing efforts to try to reconnect with the Adoptive-mother of her child and to get to connect with the child she gave up for adoption 17 years ago. And doing so in a way that is amazingly sensitive to everyone involved. What I find so amazing in this blog in particular is that the Birth-mother, while certainly expressing her own grief and suffering as a result of giving her child up for adoption and of broken promises from the Adoptive-mother, she is also (whether she realizes it or not) quite sensitive to the Adoptive-mother's situation and feelings - trying to reason out in many posts why the Adoptive-mother is the way she is. This is one of the first Birth-mother blogs I have read in which the Birth-mother acknowledges the fears of the Adoptive-mother - not that this makes the situation any less difficult or painful for all of the players, but at least there is an attempt at understanding. It makes me wonder if the Adoptive-mother on the other end of the Birth-mother's e-mails is trying to understand the feelings of the Birth-mother. One can only hope...

So, why am I doing this? Reading these blogs?

Because I want to understand what it's like from the other side of the adoption table. A woman is going to relinquish her child to me and my husband. As such, I feel that I have a responsibility to understand or at least to try my best to understand and be mindful of her point of view -her perspective - her feelings - even her needs.

Can I just blithely think that some woman is going to hand over her child to me, walk away and never give that child another thought? That Chris and I and the Little One will just become a family and the Birth-mother will go away forever? Or that we will never hear from the Birth-father?

No.

Will I ever fully be able to grasp and be mindful of the sacrifice being made by our Birth-mother?

Probably not.

But I am going to try.

And so I am spending time reading the blogs of Birth-mothers and trying to understand and be mindful of what my role is in this process. How I can move forward as an Adoptive-mother in relation to the woman who is going to be responsible for allowing Chris and I to become Plus One - a family.

Chris and I have yet to determine the level of "openness" in our upcoming domestic adoption. I'm pretty sure that we have some long, challenging conversations ahead of us in this regard. There are major implications for everyone involved in our becoming Plus One - our child, Chris, me, our families, the Birth-parents and their families. Whatever level of openness we ultimately choose will affect all of us and how we move through the world for the rest of our lives.

It's a big decision.

It's a huge decision.

And so, for my part, I am information gathering. Reading, processing, questioning, and trying to understand so that I can work with Chris toward making an informed decision that feels good to us and takes into account the future needs of our Little One.

Unfortunately, no decision will be perfect and I imagine that all of us involved in this adoption will struggle at times. Still, we'll make our decisions - the Birth-mother to choose to place her baby and us on the level of openness with which we'll feel most comfortable - and move forward as best we can, hopefully in a thoughtful/mindful manner.

So much to consider...

Becoming a mom...for Sarah

I was surprised today when I discovered a rather lengthy and serious comment left Thursday night on my May 28 post "Becoming a mom...a new idea"

Thank you so much, Sarah, for leaving such heartfelt thoughts. I'm honored that you felt safe enough to share your worries here. You didn't leave a way to contact you so I'm just going to hope that you return to "In the present moment..." and I'm writing this post for you.

Please know that I am (obviously) no expert. I'm just a woman trying to sort through the journey I'm on with my husband and the prospect of becoming a mother.

Please also know that I hear you and I can empathize. In fact, it was odd reading your words because so much of what you shared sounded exactly like journal entries I've written over the years! You shared your fears about: being home all day, being lonely and bored, the pain of child birth and the fear of post-partum depression, not being able to travel, not being a good mother, your relationship suffering as a result of the stress of raising children, and money issues.

In spite of your fears, it seems to me that you are doing great things for yourself as you contemplate the prospect of motherhood - like looking online to see what other women are thinking/feeling/fearing/hoping, looking closely at your own fears and motivations, seeking books to help educate yourself and work through some of your fears, and best of all you are seeing a therapist. While I don't feel it's my place to give out advice, I would encourage you to continue doing the things you're doing - especially working with a therapist if he/she is someone with whom you feel comfortable.

You asked if I know of any books about would help a woman who fears motherhood...I have not read any that deal with the specific topic of fear and motherhood. Instead, I have focused on working through fear/doubt/anxiety in general - by working closely with a wonderful therapist who is helping me to address and understand my issues as a human being.

There are resources from which I have drawn incredible comfort, solace, inspiration and learning and they are mainly focused on mindfulness...Some of my favorite books:

Inner Wisdom by Louise Hay

The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and John Kabat-Zinn

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters by Bernie Glassman

Additionally, I have found that listening to Buddhist teacher, Gil Fronsdal, on my commute to and from work has been a source of great peace and learning for me. I downloaded Dharma Talks by Gil Fronsdal and have found the following talks to be of special interest and use in my life:

1. The Five Hindrances: Doubt (11/24/08)
2. Mindfulness of Thinking (weeks 1-4 given 8/13 - 9/3/07)
3. What is Mindfulness? (4/13/08)

The other resources that have proven to be the most incredibly helpful and inspirational are, of course, the many wonderful people in my life: my husband, parents, friends, colleagues, therapist, and folks like you that I am meeting online. It's truly amazing how willing everyone has been and continues to be to share their stories, advice and wisdom. The more I share my concerns, the more kind and generous people make their way to me to help me in this adventure. I am so grateful and blessed.

What will work best for you, Sarah? I don't know. But you appear to be seriously exploring the possibility of motherhood and I imagine that if you continue on this path that the resources you need will find their way to you just as what I needed found its way to me.

As I said before, I am by no means any kind of expert, but I will always try to share what is happening on this journey to parenthood.

I wish the very best as you sort through your own journey, Sarah - whether you choose to pursue motherhood or decide that perhaps it is not quite for you. If you feel comfortable, I hope you'll keep in touch and share where you are in your process.

The Good Mother...thinking about my thinking

I think...therefore I am.

Really?

Because here's what I've been thinking for the last few days:

"What if I'm not good enough?"..."Maybe I'm not good enough."

These are not the thoughts that I want to be if I am indeed who I am because of my thinking!

Like some tiny, vicious winged insects that keep buzzing around my head and that I keep shooing away...they just keep coming back.

Over and over and over again.

Buzz buzz buzz...

Gil Fronsdal, Buddhist Vipassana teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood, CA, had the following to say about thinking and repetitive thoughts in a wonderful talk entitled "The Mindfulness of Thinking":

It's amazing...it's awesome...it's awful how repetitive our thinking can be - at least mine can be. Probably some of you also. You can think the same thing 3 or 4 times, right? 10 or 20 times? 50 or 100 times? 500 times? With slight variations [each time]...just thinking over and over and over again. If someone walked next to us and talked to us as incessantly and repetitively as we talk to ourselves, we would think they were crazy. We would probably want them institutionalized...please!...we'd bribe them to be quiet. Anything!

He continues:

The world of thinking [is] really marvelous and wonderful and something to be marveled at and it's also something awful. It's something frightening. It's amazing the amount of suffering and damage that can come through the world of our thinking. So an important part of any spiritual life and certainly in a mindful life is to have some handle on the whole domain of thinking - the world of our thinking.

A good percentage of our suffering can be traced back to our thinking... for some people thinking becomes the medium through which the channels of suffering get expressed or get actualized or get felt. So if we want to become free from our suffering or get a handle on our suffering it helps a lot if we can get a handle on our thinking. And so it takes some time to look at our thoughts to understand what's happening there. The advantage of it - of learning about our thinking - is that then also we can appreciate when our thinking is not causing our suffering, but instead adds to the richness of our life.

From another Gil Fronsdal Dharma talk on "The Mindfulness of Thinking":

Many people don't realize how caught they are in the world of their thoughts...We might not even see that there is a problem or an issue...But then there can be this moment when there is a shift in the mind and the mind separates itself from being so closely tied or velcroed to our thinking. There's a kind of pulling away - a separation - and you say, "Ohhhh...there's thinking that's going on." There's a very clear recognition - "There is thinking."...To step back and realize "Oh, I am thinking" ... with the right kind of perspective - it can lead to a sense of freedom or a sense of ease or a sense of, "Wow, I'm not so caught in that world."

So apparently the annoying vicious little doubt-filled thoughts buzzing around in my mind are just one small part of the wonderful, marvelous, awful and sometimes frightening world of my thinking.

Buzz buzz buzz...

And it would seem that because I've allowed myself to get caught by these horrible thoughts about doubting my ability to be a mother -

"What if I'm not good enough?"

"Maybe I'm not good enough"

- I am causing my own suffering!

So, perhaps

• by "getting a handle on my thinking,"
  
• by not allowing myself to get so caught up in the world of my thinking,
  
• by taking a step back from thinking, and recognizing and identifying "Ohhh. This is just thinking"
  
• and by recognizing that I am not my thoughts...

then I can free myself from my self-induced, thought-caused suffering.

Or am I just thinking about this way too much?