His letter ... just a dream

I woke up this morning and remembered a wonderful dream I had just been having. My son wrote me. In my dream, he was about 14 rather than 18. I could see him writing to me although obviously in real life I couldn't have, so I should have noticed in my dream that I was dreaming. (I usually do when there are inconsistencies like that.) I think part of me needed to just enjoy the dream.

His letter was about one page and handwritten in a jerky schoolboy way. He asked me who my daughter's babysitter was and if she liked her babysitter. I don't remember the other parts of the letter although there were other questions. I remember realizing that I could write him back and that I could do it right away. I have been so conditioned to his mother's once a year letters that usually have no direct response to the previous letter from me.

So obviously part of me is still very much hoping for contact now that he is 18.

June 1991

Meeting new patients and making up their charts is one of the things in my current job that has made me realize how old my son is, that he is all grown up and all that. I've met patients, male and female, that are around his age ... a little older, a little younger.

Then the other day I had to make up a chart for a girl who was born in June 1991 as she sat in the waiting room with her 23 year-old boyfriend. I felt sick to my stomach. A full grown person with an adult life (she works and doesn't go to college) born the same month and year my son was. I HAVE MISSED EVERYTHING AND WILL NEVER, EVER HAVE IT. I don't know my son, he doesn't know me. There are no memories, no traditions, no nothing. I am not his family, I am no source of comfort and remembered love to him. If we ever do meet again, we will just be people who get to know each other. Boy did that come screaming home to me that day.

It was all I could do to make that chart and sit through the initial interview. I considered asking my coworker to do it but then thought, don't be such a coward, Jayne.

I have since had to do another chart for a boy born March 1991 and did not have that same reaction. Sure I noticed 1991 and did the math and all that, but it was just as removed as someone born in 1988 when my friend had a baby that her parents made her give up for adoption. (I had moved away and learned about it later. I talked to her shortly after placing my son, but I have lost touch with her. I keep looking for her on Facebook - and elsewhere - and can't find her. Damn our custom of women changing their last names after marriage.)

June 1991 is just a trigger for me I guess. Will it get easier? Probably not.

Birth day

Tonight as I was putting my daughter to bed I pulled out her framed picture from the hospital and told her how it was a picture of her on the day she was born. I held it up next to her face and she smiled. She said, "Who is that baby?" And I told her it was her and that she was looking at me in the picture. My daughter pointed off to the side of the frame and said, "You were there?" And I said, "Yes, I was."

I am really surprised at how emotional I've been since I did that. It stirred something up and I can't put my finger on it. Oh, I know it has everything to do with my son and not having the follow-on memories. I think part of it is still feeling like (and fearing that) someone was going to take her away from me. And part of it is looking at a picture of a second newborn of mine that seemed too perfect to have come from me. Yet another child I didn't deserve. Nothing about her newborn picture looks anything like me - the shape of her head, her widow's peak, her nose - almost as if God was mocking me.

I love my daughter very, very much. And I still miss my son immeasurably. I realize he will never really know me, even if he one days reaches out for contact because all his childhood memories are from another family, a completely different upbringing. At least I was able to choose that for him and he has had a good life so far. I only hope that I can manage to be a good mom to my daughter. It's really, really hard - the patience, creativity, energy and self esteem a good mother needs is sorely lacking here. I keep thinking everyone else in her life does a better job and she needs more right now than what I can give her, that it's time to give up the part-time job and go back to work full-time, let her have the structure and instruction in a full-time preschool program.

I just don't know. Doubt creeps into my decision making process and I feel that I am abandoning her if I put her in a full-time program. If others are with her the bulk of her day, five days a week, who is really raising her? But I can't go on the way it's going now - doing my best and feeling like it falls short every day.

Rambling

It was a rough July.

A bunch of stuff has accumulated and apparently pushed me over some kind of line. I admit I can be uptight/hyper/high strung ... pick a personality adjective. I've wondered from time to time if I am a little too stressed, maybe a little crazy even. Now I've got some physical issues stemming from my neurosis of never being good enough and feeling like I'm running on some kind of damn hamster wheel. In early July I started having tingling in my hands, which made me worry, which made it worse, which made me lose sleep and appetite.

I know part of my issue is my ongoing grief about my dad. I burst out crying at stupid times. It seems like this summer the reality of his death has really, truly hit me. With all the physical tingling I decided to try grief counseling and it felt good to have someplace to go where it was safe and expected to grieve. In a break-out session I was paired with the hospice chaplain, a female Episcopal priest. As my story tumbled out I came "this close" to telling her about my son because that's all part of it, too.

While I thought that knowing he didn't want contact was at least some kind of resolution and therefore good, it is still a rejection. Yes, he must feel some rejection, too, but my sense of self worth is zero. My son wants nothing to do with me, my dad is gone. Do I matter to anyone?

My husband is a sweetie but he loves his recliner and his laptop ... and I am tired of competing. My daughter is so young and shouldn't be responsible for my happiness. Then I realize that really, no one is responsible for my self worth except me. But at my age it's hard to become comfortable with that mindset. I am so used to the idea that I have to perform, that I have to strive to be perfect, that I am not good enough.

And I circle back to the performance thing. Is that why I gave up my son? Because I was performing as the 'good girl' who does what she should? That I could redeem myself? That I would earn P&M's love/respect/gratitude/fill-in-the-blank.

Well that didn't quite work out and lately I have truly been regretting my decision to give him up.

I am too old to be the mother of a 3 year-old. She wants me to be her playmate. I have trouble playing with Little People. I have no imagination or patience. Then I feel guilty for not being more enthusiastic. I hear my mother's negative thoughts in my head (can't I have a moment to myself?) and again feel guilty.

Would I have been that worse a mother 18 years ago? I somehow think I would have managed and he would have been fine. He wouldn't have the private education he's gotten or the time at the summer home they have, etc., but he still would have been loved.

And because I have felt so guilty for giving him up, I have only left my daughter when I've had to go to work and a few rare occasions when I've gone to the movies. So I haven't had any time to myself. I've not left her overnight while others I know have left their INFANTS! in the care of grandparents and gone off to the beach for an entire weekend. HOW?!?!?

And now I think I'm burning out.

So in the past week or so I've flirted with the idea of returning to work full-time (I work part-time) and putting her in a good daycare where she would have the interaction with other children that I think she needs (playmates!) and the structure of a day that would get her ready for kindergarten. But then I think to myself, "Isn't that like giving her up? Having someone else teach/train/raise her 5 days a week for most of her waking hours?" Which is a voice that is also saying, "See? You aren't good enough to be a mother."

The Due Date

Today, June 19th, was my due date back in 1991. It's still such a significant date for me. I think it goes back to that "static" motherhood idea that I posted about a few days ago. I've thought about it, and him, a lot today.

Happy Birthday

Today my son turned 18.

Grief, the overwhelming kind

The grief of relinquishing a child is overwhelming and I just didn't always handle it well. Okay, it consumed me and sometimes I did not do well dealing with its omnipresence in my life.

Since I was in my very early 20's, I tried 'having a good time'. After all, isn't that what I was supposed to be doing? Isn't that why I was supposed to give up my baby, so I could have a 'normal life' for a 20 year-old???? But given the opportunity to drink at a party, I would often drink too much, and my grief would only feel even larger. My early 20's were such a dark, lost time.

I remember the evening of my 22nd birthday vividly. I worked a 12-hour day as usual. After all, if I worked hard at my 'good job', wasn't that one of the 'right' things to do, that I was supposed to do with this second chance and all that? I came home to my then-husband and just knew it was over. I felt badly for him because it wasn't his fault. I remember thinking to myself I should be happy. I was still so young, still had so much opportunity in front of me, had a guy who was good to me, blah blah blah blah. And as much as a fog as I was in, I strongly felt like there was something significant about turning 22. I'll never forget it. Sitting there in the late summer light, on the floor of carpet that really was beyond the age of replacement in a rented house, there was something about 22 but I couldn't quite place it.

The other night, in the middle of the night, I got it.

My daughter was born on the 22nd.

Coincidence? Maybe. But I believe in signs, especially considering how hard it was for me to try to become a mother after years of believing I didn't deserve to be one.