Mother's Day?

I met my birthmother twenty two years ago. Is that right? 1989. I just graduated high school, was about to go into college and in the middle of all that - we met.

This is my first post to this new blog. I'm wanting it to be a space where adoptees in reunion can talk about their experience. I want to talk about my experience because my experience has a breadth and depth that astounds me. Twenty two years in reunion. We've come a long way, but there will always be issues, always things unresolved, and I still find it all so interesting.

Along the way I've found some friends that are also adoptees, also have been in reunion, and I find it amazing to talk to them. Beause unlike so many other things in life - marriage, kids, parents, work - there isn't much out there about what it's like to be part of this whole big strange family that we're in. Hell, there is plenty out there on mixed-marriages, blended families, gay parenting, all sorts of "non-tranditional" families. But, our strange family - us adoptees in reunion - still feels a little in the dark. It's uncertain, and we all just plod through it on our own. But, when I talk to friends who have had similar experiences as they try to adjust their lives to fit this new, strange, blended family, I am amazed by the reassurance I feel. We are not alone. There are things about this that make sense, that are predictable, that are "normal."

And so it goes.

I just read my birthmother's posting on her blog.
http://qualityfolk.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/prodigal-mother/

It made me smile. There's so many ways that we're alike, but there are a whole lot of ways that we're different. Reading how she expresses things vs. how I do is one of the interesting differences. It's so reassuring when you're first in reunion to finally have people that you have so much in common with that the differences are insubstantial. Now it's the differences that interest me the most. It's what makes me feel the most like "me" instead of who I am by either nature OR nurture. It's just me.

We had an interesting mother's day. We've been working on a book for the past seven years or so - her side and my side of our reunion. Again, I wanted to get our story out there for people who are new in reunion and wondering what it's like to be in reunion for longer - what does the end of the road look like. Of course, there is no end to the road, but it's come to a comfortable place that fits in with its odd shape into our lives.

We get our book to a friend of my birthmother's who is in publishing. Right on mother's day. At the same time, my husband and two itty-bitty kids (5 and 3) come in to bring me coffee and comics in bed - and Parade magazine. Dane (my husband) says, "I think you should see this." I open Parade and see there's a recommended book, a memoir, called "Jessica Lost" about a birthmother and the daughter she gave up for adoption recounting their experience of a long-standing reunion.

Well, crap. There goes thes past seven years' work.

Or...

Fuck it. This isn't about that. It's not about who gets there first. We're all in this together. I WANT to know what it's been like for others. I want to know there are others out there sharing the same experiences.

I'm not going to read it - not yet. I still want to get our story out there and get it out without the influence of another's writing. But it does free me up in a way. I want to connect with others, talk about what things are like and share what we're going through - together. Working on the book with my birthmother (Kate is her name, by the way), has been great and bonding - but isolating. It's isolated us into our own personal narrative, which is important, yes. But there's the other side - the side that makes us all in this together. That's one of the amazing things about it is that even without knowing what others are going through, when you find out, they do sound remarkably the same. And what does that mean for us as people? Interesting, isn't it?

So, I hope to find others out there and hear your stories as well. I don't want this to be all about me. I want to hear from you too. I want to know how other adoptees in reunion handle Mother's Day. I want to hear what it's like for other adoptees in reunion to go to a family reunion. I want to hear your stories and share mine so we all hear what's going on for each other.