I haven't posted a lot this month, April hasn't been a good month for me for the last 36 years. My daughter's birthday was the 21st and it's one of the hardest days of my life, since I've never seen her. You would think that after all this time, I'd have learned how to deal with the loss, but I don't think giving a child up for adoption against your will is something you ever get over.
I have so much resentment against my mother over that, it's one of the reasons I refuse to have anything to do with her. The first thing she wanted to do when she found out I was pregnant (I was 17 the summer I got pregnant, before my senior year of high school) was make me have an abortion. She was madder than hell when her gynecologist told her I was too far along for that. So she searched around and found a Catholic home for unwed mothers and shipped me off there in January of my senior year (heaven forbid anyone should know her daughter was unmarried and pregnant in 1972). She didn't know that I had told my friends all about it (when she found out it wasn't the big secret she wanted it to be, she blamed it all on my dad's sister-in-law, who didn't have anything to do with telling anyone anything). My dear mother also didn't bother to tell me that my aunt and uncle had volunteered to take me in and help me with the baby when it came. All I heard was "how could you do this to me" and "if I had known you were going to be out screwing around, I'd have put you on the pill", this in spite of her accusations that I was out fucking every guy I ever looked at from the time I hit 14 (and I was a virgin until I was 17, but she'd never believe that). Then, after she shipped me off to the home, she didn't tell anyone in the family where I was, other than my dad's mother (who must have been in agreement with her, since she didn't bother to tell anyone else in the family where I was). My mother also told me that my dad said if I didn't give up my baby, I couldn't come home (I don't know if this was true or not, I've never had the nerve to ask him, but I kinda doubt it. My mother is the one who runs the family, dad is one of those "don't rock the boat" people, my mother, if she doesn't get her way, will not only rock the boat, she'll fucking sink it). The guy who got me pregnant had gone back to Memphis with his family, but came back to town for a visit, found out I was pregnant with his kid, and went to find me. My mother refused to tell him where I was, and no one else knew, so he went back to Memphis and I didn't see him again for another 4 or 5 years, and by then, it was too late to do anything. All I know about the family who adopted her is what Lutheran Social Services told me, which was that they couldn't have kids and had already adopted a boy, and wanted a daughter. I don't know if she knows she was adopted, or if she's tried to find me or her dad (hell, I don't even know if they put his name on her birth certificate with mine). About five years ago, I signed up online with an organization in Arizona that helps adopted children and birth parents reconnect, but I haven't heard anything from them or anyone else.
My mother considers her first grandchild to be my brother's daughter, who is 2 years younger than my daughter. I told my sister-in-law one time that I would love to see the look on my mother's face if my daughter ever came looking for me (since she'd probably go to their house, it was my address when she was born). Evidently she told my mother I was looking for my daughter (I wasn't, at the time) because my mother called me up and read me the riot act, said it was over and done with, that she wasn't my daughter anymore, I had given her away, blah blah blah (I think it really pissed her off when I got pregnant with my son 3 years later and refused to give him up like she wanted me to). But I wasn't living at home then, I'd been on my own for 3 years (because she dumped me in Spokane with her little brother when we went on vacation the summer after I graduated from high school, the August after my daughter was born). I didn't even tell her I was pregnant until the month before my son was born, and if they hadn't been coming to Washington on vacation and expecting to see me, I wouldn't have told her at all. When I did tell her, she expected me to give up my son too, and I told her "I don't live with you anymore, you can't tell me what to do with my life, and no, I'm not giving him up." I really don't know if that was the best decision I could have made, for my son, at least. I know that he was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and in spite of me not knowing the first thing in hell about being a good parent (I tried not to be an abusive bitch like my mother, but I wasn't always successful), he turned out to be a damned good man (in spite of me, because of me, I don't know).
I sometimes wonder how my life would have been different if I had been able to go and stay with my aunt and uncle and keep my daughter, but at the same time, I'm glad I have my son in my life (and I probably wouldn't have had him if I had kept my daughter).
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
27 comments:
Comment moderation is enabled. If you're a troll and trying to slander someone or just being generally an asshat, your comment probably won't see the light of day. If you want to have a reasonable, civil discussion, welcome, and feel free to comment.
To the troll at IP: 70.242.65.196 , adsl-70-242-65-196.dsl.stlsmo.swbell.net, your comments will not be published, nor will they be read. They will be automatically deleted. Get a life, sad sack.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thinking of you.
ReplyDeleteWow. That's...I don't know what to say. That's heartwrenching, to say the least *hug hug hug*
ReplyDeleteI'm one of those people who believe most things happen for a reason. As you noted, you might not have had your son if you hadn't gone through the experience with your daughter. Hopefully she has had a wonderful life with caring parents who valued her all that much more because of their own past experiences.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I can't even begin to understand how painful this has been for you. You're in my thoughts.
I found this post from the sidebar at Shapely Prose. Your story is SO similar to my aunt's. She got pregnant when she lost her virginity. Her mother tried to get her to abort, and when she wouldn't, sent her to live at Gladney and give the baby up for adoption. She has endometriosis and was never able to have another child. She was lucky and able to reconnect with her daughter about 9 years ago, but only because her daughter also had endometriosis and was trying to find her birth mom's medical history.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry if I'm speaking out of place.
I wish I could either give you a hug or share a drink, a good stiff one.
ReplyDeleteI never gave a baby up, but when I was 15 I also got pregnant and my mother hit the roof also. I was given the option of keeping the baby or aborting it, I'm still ashamed to admit that I chose to abort it. My home life was so bad I was afraid that if I kept the baby that I would be stuck there in that house for too many years. I also knew that my parents wouldn't be able to stay out of things and end up either raising the baby themselves, or else telling me what to do as far as raising it myself.
My baby would have been 30 next month...I remember that every year and it's puts a real damper on me for the whole month, since I never knew when my due date was.
Even though I was promised that the subject would never be brought up, it was...having my nose rubbed in it for years. I'm also convinced that my mother stopped loving me then, because things were never the same with her. She's passed on now, so I can never find out for sure. I've never talked to my sisters about it, they both think I had a wonderful relationship with her.
I could go on about this for quite a long time, but I won't...maybe I should do my own blog.
I hope things work out for you, and that one day your daughter will find you.
I'm thinking of you too. I'm sorry for the way your mom handled things, and I hope you can reconnect with your daughter someday. Take care.
ReplyDeleteYou can put personal ads in Memphis papers or on Craigslist. I think you can write a letter with your contact info and give it to the agency that handled the adoption for them to give her if she comes to them looking for you. I know there is more than one place for getting adopted people together with birth families.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry your mother was a heartless bitch. When I was a senior (73-74) there were 3 pregnant girls in my high school of less than 300 students, only one was married at the time. It didn't seem like that big of a deal then.
liz - thanks :)
ReplyDeletesparklepants - thanks for the hugs, they do help :)
rachel - yeah, I also believe things happen for a reason. And I know it's all the shit I went through that's made me the person I am today, and I like me as I am now, but it would have been so much easier not to have gone through some of it.
rhillian - you're not speaking out of place at all. What happened to me happened to a lot of girls back then and sucked big time.
daisy - thanks. I'm sorry you had to opt for abortion (been there done that too, another long story) and that's not something that's easy to live with either. But you do what you have to in order to survive. hugs
jennifer - thanks. I don't know if we'll ever reconnect, I just hope she's having a happy, fulfilling life.
nonegiven - I left all that information with the agency at the time I signed the papers, just in case my daughter might want to know family medical history. I don't live at that address anymore, and neither do my parents, but it wouldn't be that hard to find family, our last name in that town isn't common (there's my aunt, my parents, my aunt's son, my brother's son, so if it's our last name, it's one of my relatives, and most of them know how to get hold of me if they have to, they just don't, other than my aunt).
There was another girl in my class that was pregnant, and she finished high school and had her baby and kept it, no big deal. It wasn't that big deal to most people back then, just to my mother. I think only because it happened to me, and she never wanted me in the first place. I say that because when my brother got his g/f pregnant at 17 (both of them were 17), she arranged things so they could go out of state and get married, in spite of the g/f's mother's opposition to it (at least, that's what she told me when it happened, and that was in '73, just one year after my situation). Supposedly, the g/f's mother wanted her to have an abortion and my mother hit the roof. The g/f's mother didn't want her daughter marrying into a family that had a daughter who was a whore (me) and a mother who was an opinionated bitch. Which logic made no sense at all to me, I was a whore because I got pregnant before I got married, but her daughter, who also got pregnant without benefit of matrimony, wasn't (sounds like more of my mother's twisted logic, not the g/f's mother's words). But I wasn't there, so I don't know for sure. That's another cause of resentment between my mother and I. I needed to abort/give up my baby, but my brother's g/f, oh no, they had to get married. Also another reason I don't have much to do with my brother anymore, we're about as opposite as siblings can be (not to mention all the favoritism my mother showed him).
My mother and I reunited when I was 19. She had been looking for me, off and on, for years. Not to interfere--she just wanted to know that I was okay and was happy. The adoption was her choice, however. Her parents had offered to raise me as their own. For specific reasons--which she told me--she preferred that I be adopted.
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate in that my parents knew my birth name--they caught a look at a file they shouldn't have seen.
I knew that I had been baptized before I was adopted out. I went to the church where I was baptized and they were able to give me a baptismal certificate, complete with my birth mother's name.
After that, and some detective work, I was able to track down my mother. It was much harder for my mother to do it from her end.
I wonder if you can leave contact info for her somehow. It seems to me that your mother would be the sort to refuse to talk to her or tell her how to find you.
"...he turned out to be a damned good man (in spite of me, because of me, I don't know)."
ReplyDeleteIt's BECAUSE of you, Vesta. Try to remember that. I'm sorry for what you were put through. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
Rose
I found you when I did a goodle search for plus size clothing catalogs. I was delighted! Thank you for making this blog.
ReplyDeleteHugs and kisses, purple girl. I'll be praying for you and for her. I sent you an email with a bit more of a personal message, but suffice it to say, I hear you. Just take your time and we'll all be reading when you're up to posting more. Or I will for sure :)
ReplyDeletegeogrrl - you're right, if my daughter turned up at my parents' house, no way in hell would my mother let me know (but my aunt would, if she knew about it).
ReplyDeleterose - thanks, he's a good kid (even though he's 32, he's still a kid to me *g*).
sarah bloom - thanks for reading, and I post links to plus-size clothes when I find ones I like.
annie - thanks, you know me so well :) hugs right back to ya
Your daughter isn't looking for you, dummy. You're the one who ditched her. You were 17...your mother didn't own you...and YOU were the one completely responsible for giving the girl up. If I knew that was how I was given up, I wouldn't want to find my cowardly mother either.
ReplyDeleteanonymous - it's obvious you've never been abused by your mother and so cowed that you thought you were worthless. I was 17, hadn't graduated from high school yet, didn't have a clue about how to go about getting a job, finding a place to live, setting up a budget, or how to take care of a baby. When a girl has been told all of her life that she's a worthless piece of shit who will never do anything right and never amount to anything, it's rather difficult for her to think that she could raise a child on her own, especially with no place to live and no income. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Have my baby, keep her, and live on the street? Because I can guarantee you that if I had said I was not going to give up my baby, that's exactly where I would have been, out on the fucking street with nothing but the clothes on my back and whatever the baby was wearing that the hospital discharged her in. That would have been a great life for her, wouldn't it.
ReplyDeleteIf you've never been in that situation, you don't have any room to talk and call someone a coward. You're the coward, since you aren't even badass enough to leave a name and email. So ya know what? FUCK OFF, YOU CLUELESS MOTHERFUCKING DICKWAD ASSHAT NUMBNUTS IDIOTIC MORON! AND MAY THE FLEAS OF A THOUSAND CAMELS INFEST EVERY HAIRY PORTION OF YOUR ANATOMY :)
Vesta - I'm really sorry you had to see that. I'm sorry I saw it myself, but even if you hadn't posted it you would have seen it.
ReplyDeleteMr. BRAVE, COURAGEOUS anonymous who likes to call other people cowards...are you KIDDING me? First of all, what in fuck do you have against this blogger? She's obviously never done anything to you, so what could it be? It makes no sense.
Now, dear Braveheart, do you know anything about children? If you did, you would know that even happily adopted children (and sometimes especially) often like to eventually contact their birth parents for a great many reasons. Curiosity is one. They often want to know why they were given up, and sometimes they even want to thank their birth mothers for doing the selfless thing and giving them such a great start in life with loving adoptive parents. If they aren't so thrilled with their adoptive parents, sometimes they want to rail as well. It happens. My parents split when I was an infant, and you can bet your ass I tried to contact my birth father later (vesta, there's a whole story there I won't go into lest I take all day here). Sometimes it's wishful thinking - you have had a hard life and you think your birth parent will want to rescue you from it.
There are a million reasons children want to contact their birth parents. Not the least of which is closure. Or medical reasons. Or love. Or too many others to count.
And there are a million and one reasons for you to fuck off and get a life of your own. I don't believe you're in some intense inner pain, as so many bleeding hearts think of trolls as being - and I don't give a fuck if you are. I wish you a thousand times the pain you're in now. And if it doesn't happen in this life, I rest assured you'll burn in hell anyway. Forever's a long time, my friend. And we ALL die.
Vesta,
ReplyDeleteI just started reading your blog & I need to comment on this entry. First of all, I am your sister-in-law, & I wanted to get something straight about me getting pregnant. Yes, we were 17 but we were engaged before the pregnancy & planning to get married. Your brother was going to another state because of being in the service & we didn't want to be apart. We planned the pregnancy as a way to make our parents let us get married. Mom knew I would NEVER agree to an abortion. And I know for a fact she never, never called you a whore. Now, almost 35 years later, we are still married with 2 wonderful kids & 4 grandkids. I am sorry you & your Mom cannot get along. Too many hurts on both sides. I have tried to stay neutral but it does upset me to hear you talk about her like you do. I know that it was hard for you to give up your child, but it was hard on them, too. I don't think you realize how much. I hope that someday you do find her, I would love to meet her. Love to you & your family.
Well, sister-in-law, you've only ever seen the good side of Mom. You didn't have to hear her tell you to STFU, she didn't want to hear your shit after listening to the bitches at work all day. You didn't have hear her tell you that A's weren't good enough, they should have been A+'s. You didn't have to hear her accusing you of fucking every boy you looked at. You didn't have to have her going through your diary/letters and making nasty comments on them. You also didn't have to put up with being beaten, or have your mother say she couldn't stand it when you fought with your siblings and pick up her shit and leave for hours on end, never knowing if she was coming back or not. You want to know why I talk about her the way I do, that's fucking why. She never wanted me and she let me know it early and often. She has NEVER, once in my life, told me she loved me and she has NEVER hugged me. So don't tell me I don't have a right to talk about her the way I do. She likes you, and always has. She not only doesn't love me, she doesn't even like me. According to her, I'm worthless, always have been, always will be. I tried to set things right with her, and she won't have any part of it. So fuck her. She wants an apology for what I said when I left Illinois, and I'm not apologizing for telling her the truth. She's living in her own little make-believe world, and she can have it. She doesn't want me, or my kid, in it, so we're not. Her choice at first, my choice now.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing, sister-in-law, your staying neutral in all this? Yeah, by not having anything to do with me for the last 11 years, and it would have been longer than that if Jon and I hadn't come to Illinois to see Mom and Dad right after Sonya was born. So don't tell me how much everyone else was hurt by me having to give up my daughter. NONE of you have ever talked about it, told me how sorry you were, or anything else.
ReplyDeleteAnd NONE of you had the kindness to let me know when Dad had his first heart attack and almost died. I had to hear it from Jackie because none of you thought I gave a rat's ass about Dad. So he could have died, and you wouldn't have let me know, because you're too busy staying "neutral" and kissing Mom's ass so she doesn't get down on you like she does everyone else.
Thanks a lot for telling me that my experiences and feelings aren't valid, that it's all about her, just like it's always been. Doesn't matter that I felt like a piece of shit for a long damned time and made a lot of bad decisions because of it. Doesn't matter that I thought it was all my fault that my mother didn't love me. None of that matters, because my feelings don't count, as usual. Your daughter has known how to get hold of either Jon or me for the last 4 or 5 years, but I don't see anyone in the family emailing us. Jackie has had my phone numbers, through all the changes, for the last 10 years. I don't see any of you asking her for it so you can call and talk. This tells me just how much my son and I matter to my family. In other words, not at all. So I don't care how much it hurts you to see me talk about my mother this way, the truth usually does hurt. You can choose to believe her version of things, but talk to people who've known her for 30 or 40 years, you'll get another whole perspective on her (and not a very nice one, either). But none of it's her fault, it's always everyone else's fault, she's perfect and never does anything wrong (and if you believe that, I have a bridge for sale).
(((((Vesta))))) It's like deja vous, but you know that. Just hugs.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Annie. I wouldn't normally have gone public with this, but since my sister-in-law evidently doesn't want me to email her directly, public it is.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteJesus, don't these people just crawl out of the woodwork like termites.
ReplyDeleteFuck you, anonymous. Go bother someone else. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter how you spin, there are people who care about this woman, and there's NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. You CAN'T CHANGE IT. So best leave it alone.
Annie - they aren't going to leave it alone. I think it gripes their asses that I refuse to keep my mouth shut about being abused (none of those who are pissed about this post think I was). But like I said in reply to a nasty email I got last night, if posting about what happened to me gives one other abused girl/woman the impetus to get out of that situation and get help, then it's all been worthwhile. Sweeping this shit under the rug and pretending it doesn't happen or doesn't leave deep, lasting wounds doesn't help anyone. All it does is perpetuate the abuse, and I'm done with being abused by anyone, ever again.
ReplyDeleteThis is so sad. I can't imagine how you must have felt all these years. You probably grieve everyday.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by my blog and posting. You have a wonderful blog, and I will be returning for future posts.
Cripes. Vesta, my family doesn't have a clue about my blog or site or anything else - I don't WANT them to. They're dead AFAIC. God bless you for everything. Many many hugs.
ReplyDeleteApril - thanks, I found your blog by accident and stuck around to read more. It's a bright spot in my day when you post :)
ReplyDeleteannie - I didn't want my family to know about my blog either (well, my aunt could know, but she's cool, so that's different). But now that they do know (my niece has a blog on blogspot), if they don't like what they read, tough shit, no one's twisting their arms to make them read it. This is the first I've heard from my SIL in over 10 years, and my niece is sporadic with the emails (my son and I are lucky if we hear from her once a year, on average). But with the way they feel about us, that's fine with me. They can keep on living in their happy little make-believe world where abuse doesn't happen, never has, never will because everyone in their family is perfect and never makes mistakes (yeah, right).