After 4 years of being in contact with my birth mom, my relationship with her was beginning to go in the opposite direction of where I wanted. Her calls were not as frequent. When we did talk, our conversations were short and very impersonal. Fearing that she was going to end contact with me, I stopped talking to her about things that were bothering me. I pretended like I was fine, we were fine, everything was fine. I continued going through the motions of life, outwardly doing what was expected of me, but completely torn up on the inside.
I was constantly questioning myself and replaying conversations over in my mind thinking of all the things I should have said differently. I didn't understand why she was rejecting me. I told myself over and over that this had to be so difficult for her. I was probably pushing her too hard or bringing up too much of the past at once. I made so many excuses for her, ultimately blaming myself for everything that was wrong in our relationship.
I continued the facade that my life was great and all was well for months. We didn't see each other near as often, but I busied myself with other things. A friend of mine taught a class at a local university called "Issues in Adoption" . Most of the students in that class would become social workers or work for independent adoption agencies upon graduating. I was one of her guest speakers. I would go in and talk about my experience as an adopted child and about my reunion. I got to the point where it was hard for me to talk about adoption period. If anything, I wanted to tell the students to talk people OUT of adoption. I wanted them to teach parents how to take care of their baby instead of giving them away and how screwed up that innocent child would be one day growing up separated from their biological family. The last time I went, I hit a wall. I just couldn't do it anymore. I was tired of pretending I was happy. Frustrated, pissed, depressed, shocked, hurt, abandoned...that's all I had to talk about, and since that's not what anyone wanted to hear, I apologized to my friend and walked out of the class.I cried in the parking lot for almost two hours. I was on the verge of just completing losing myself. I didn't know what to do.
I started writing to my birth mom since it was hard for me to confront her over the phone...those conversations never ended well. So, in my letters, I shared how I was feeling and how torn up I was about the wedge that was driven in between us. When she responded to my letters, they upset me even more. They said everything I had said...as if she took my letters and entered my name in place of where hers had been.
Around this time, I had found out that we were expecting our second child. I thought maybe allowing her to be a part of this would just maybe restrengthen our relationship. I wanted to invite her to come along to ultrasounds (my pregnancies were all high risk after I had the twins, so I had an ultrasound every 4 weeks), but when I talked about my pregnancy in general I felt like she didn't care. I was tired of being hurt and feeling like I was nothing to her. I was tired of feeling like I was putting forth so much effort, just to be rejected over and over again. I decided that I just didn't care anymore...self-preservation was all it was, but who was I kidding? I realized that she was pulling away and it hurt me to the core.
I went through the majority of my pregnancy with very little contact with her. I would call her periodically and rarely did she answer. She would eventually call back, but it could be a week or two in between. We definitely shared the stubborn gene. I would sometimes purposely not answer when she did call because I thought that was what she did with me. Whenever my son was born, I didn't even call her. I was so hurt and felt she didn't care about me so, I didn't want her to share in our joy. Not such a great move on my part, I know. I remember sitting on my hospital bed the day after I had my son and I could not stop crying. My mother in law thought something was wrong with the baby and I wasn't telling them -- that's how bad I was. I am sure a lot of it was post pregnancy hormones, but what triggered it all was the fact that my birth mom was not present. I wanted her, but I could not understand why she did not want me.
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