Being BabyGirls's mommy is a waste?

On Friday, I chaperoned BabyGirl's field trip. I drove a minivan full of children plus the school's new Marketing/Admissions person, Mar.

Mar’s young, in her 20s, very well-educated (she’s working on a PhD in Educational Policy, has an MS in social work, an MA in history, and is thinking of picking up a JD in her spare time); first-generation American whose parents came from Jamaica; and passionate about children, education, and social welfare. Since Mar’s new to our area and hasn’t made it to that museum yet, I invited her to come with us, and, well, I was assigned to drive FIVE kids and needed another grown-up to manage the chaos.

I like her. She’s young, idealistic, and working hard to meet the goals she’s set for herself to make the world a better place. She reminds me of me when I was her age: focused and driven on education and career.

In the blizzard-slowed hour-long drive, we talked. Mar mentioned that some of her friends are starting to marry and begin families, and that she’s not interested in any of that yet. I reiterated that her focus on education and career are fine (not that she needed my affirmation), then she said that she wonders if, in 10 or 15 years, she might regret not having started a family yet. I mentioned that there are lots of ways to make a family; that it’s about being a parent, not being pregnant; there are children in need of families; and that medical science can work wonders.

Her response? That my point about being a parent vs. being pregnant is poignant but that:

"It seems like putting all the effort into a child who isn’t your own is a
waste."

This, from someone with a Master’s Degree in Social Work and working at my daughter's school, was disheartening and a little alarming.

I don’t think she knows I’m a mom-by-adoption, and I wasn’t about to get into a big discussion on the validity of parenting-by-adoption because the car was filled with BabyGirl’s school friends. But I still find myself getting torqued up about it.

Pink Curtains

I know the building because BabyGirl and I drove them to the hospital when labor started. I know the windows because I helped her down the stairs between the contractions.

Driving past the apartment complex where Baby #3 (Audrey, to us) lives with her parents, I saw that she has new pink girly curtains in her room. She'll be two years old in a few weeks.

Why does it still hurt so much? It's not like she was with us for very long--only 4 days. Why do I still feel the need to look at those windows?


When I "interviewed" BabyGirl for the big letter to her firstfolks, one question was what she wished for the world. Her answer: that everyone could have a brother or a sister...

It's official!

My consulting business is up and running--legally. I've been consulting for a while, informally and without registering with the state, but, as of 1:27 this afternoon, I made an honest woman of myself.

AI is an official business providing architectural research, architectural history reports, National Register nominations, Historic Structures Reports, Section 106 Reviews, and restoration consulting. Now, all I need are some business cards and enough clients to keep myself busy while BabyGirl is at school. I can begin advertising now that I'm legal so that should help with the clients, I hope, and the business cards are in process at a local print shop.

I'm excited and scared to death at the same time. This is real grown-up stuff and I haven't been a real grown-up for over six years. I have a surprising lack of self-confidence especially knowing what all I accomplished when I was still working full time.

I once read that Harriet Tubman once said that when she got scared (and she had a helluvalot more to be scared about), she just "put her scaredness under her feet and stood on it." Since I haven't worn high-heeled grown-up shoes in the longest time, I should be able to balance on my giant bubble of scaredness pretty easily in my sensible mom-shoes. I hope. Even that feels a little tenuous right now.

Just keep breathing, just keep breathing...

What to say?

A couple of times a year, I handwrite a loooong letter (10-15 pages) to BabyGirl's firstfolks filling them in on the mundane and every-day details of her life. Everything from her current fascination with fairies and princesses to how we selected her kindergarten to her favorite colors and how she fills up time during the day. I take notes over time to make sure I get the details right, and I try to help them to feel like they're a little more involved in her parenting.

We keep the original in BabyGirl's memory box and send copies to her firstfolks. No one else gets to see these letters--not that there's anything incredibly private in them, we just want the letters to be special for just her firstfolks, not some big distribution list; after all, if they'd been able to be the mommy and the daddy, they'd already know this stuff. Right?

It's about time to get going on a new letter. I wonder what, specifically, firstmoms and firstdads would want included. I have no idea if anyone other than me is reading this, but I'd love to hear ideas from the firstfolks out there. What would you want to know?

I'd send her cash if I could...

I'm about the biggest law-abiding geek there is. Especially when it comes to children. But if I knew how to find a momma and her twins, I'd send them money since she's already spend nearly a half-million dollars to get her babies back.

Surfing for new blogs to follow, I came across http://away2me.typepad.com/ and was incensed to read two articles from two newspapers. 10 hours after signing adoption placement paperwork for her twins, their momma changed her mind. Within the laws of Florida, she was entirely within her legal rights, and the children should have been returned to her immediately. The babies are 17-months old and still living with their potential adoptive parents. There's so much wrong with the whole thing!

http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-803325.cfm and http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/525742.html

My heart goes out to the momma. I'm angry at the potential adoptive parents for not returning the babies ASAP. I'm furious at a legal system that would allow this to happen. I'm anguished for a culture in adoption that makes this an all-too common story.