I was asked to write Adopt-a-tude's second post in a series about the ABC reality show Find My Family. I most happily agreed.
So, yes.. another post on how I feel about ABC's Find My Family, just in case I have not been clear about it!
Sara Lee and the Evil Poundcake
Did you ever have a craving for 15 years? It's an awful thing.
It's kind of odd because in allot of ways, I don't have allot of people from my past in my life. Like when people complain about their families, I really can't relate anymore.My parents are both gone; my mother to cancer, my father to some strange life that has not included me for the last 20 years. My grandparents are all dead, cousins few and distant, and only my brother really, as predictable as the wind; comes for Thanksgiving every year. I do think it's for my stuffing.
I don't have the people anymore, nor their issues, or idiosyncrasies, or drama of a family holiday. I don't have to worry about my mother driving me nuts or giving me that look. In many ways, it is very liberating to live a life like this; I feel very free, I worry about disappointing few. But, of course; sure as I mourn just the passing of my family as company, I also feel more unanchored. There is no place to go home to anymore.
So what I have is there stuff. I have their furniture and odd bits; the contents from my mothers and grandmothers pocketbooks; every mass card from every family member or neighbor that died in Massapequa Park from 1956 on; my grandparents dresser set, with all my childhood memories, is my own; the roll of pink hair tape, old dishes and pans, my mother's hand written recipe book. I have a story attached to just about every possession that I own.
Yet, I am the keeper of their stuff and the maker of the food. Sometimes, I get it right and my meatballs taste so close to my grandmothers that I just sit in the kitchen while cooking, eating out of the pan, and am too full by time it's ready to eat. The making of thanksgiving items is always so surreal, as I use the same book, the same pans, the same utensils and the view of the food is the same year after year.. as I chop the mushrooms for my mother's hailed stuffing, I can squint my eyes, and can create a sensation as if I am in my mother's house, cooking on her stove. So real can be that thread through time and space, that it feels as if I could just spin around fast enough, it will be my mother's golden straw and rust colored 1970's daisy wallpaper that greets my eyes.
There are other foods that so strongly bring me back home and I cherish them since my mother's home is gone now, my grandfathers is no longer full of dusty smells and buried treasures. I have the greatest hankering for good old Italian meatball soup. I don't know if it was a version of Italian Wedding Soup or not, but I think I have to make it from memory. Still others, are still available and just bring me back home. Stouffers French Bread Pizza just brings back high school and how we use to eat them after schools. Heat them up in the toaster oven, but could never wait for them to cool off enough; the first bite always burnt the roof of my mouth something fierce, but that too, is part of the memory now. Some foods, like the Italian ices of my childhood have to be purchased from the local Long Island stores that we got them from for .. now 5 generations! Others, like the dry cookies that I was given at Gimbals shall never return. Something, I have just incorporated into my daily life and will be part of my own children's tastes of home. If only that was the case with Sara Lee Chocolate Swirl Poundcake.
I want Sara Lee Chocolate Swirl Poundcake so bad I can actually cry over it.
My mother use to buy it regularly and I just ate it up. I would try not to demolish the whole cake in one sitting, but it was hard, real hard! Kept directly on the kitchen counter, next to the toaster over, my favorite thing to do was to slice off a piece and warm it up. The chocolate would melt down, the cake so warm and buttery. You could pull it apart on the cocoa induced fractures; popping warm morsels of cakey goodness. I can't tell you when the last time I bought Sara Lee Chocolate Swirl Poundcake. I know it was a constant growing up on the Island, but I don't think I have found it up here in the Hudson Valley since I moved.. or if I did it was long ago in times of Grand Union. The fact is that there is no store that carries it close to me now. How do I know?
I called Sara Lee
I also wrote them. And emailed. And have complained loudly for YEARS every time I peer into the frozen cake area at the supermarket with hope. I was told that only Super Wal-Mart and Super Target would have it, but I know that they don't. Nor does Hannaford, or Shoprite or Stop and Shop. And if I am to follow what the Sara Lee Rep says, there is no Sara Lee Chocolate Swirl Poundcake within a 100 mile radius of me.There is plain Sara Lee Poundcake, but that is just not going to do it.
In fact, I am a little concerned because I can't even find it on the website, though I found the strawberry version ( which I have never had and do not want to). Here's what the Strawberry Swirl Poundcake looks like.
The Sara Lee Chocolate Swirl Poundcake looks exactly the same, 'cept it's chocolate. And better.
And driving me crazy.
I can't order it form Sara Lee. They tell me to talk to my local stores. I'm serious, I have not had this damn cake since my mother died..and that's almost 15 years. I want my cake. And I want to eat it too. The whole thing! I want to taste that feeling of comfort and home again. I want Sara Lee Chocolate Swirl Poundcake.
*****
ETA: I must add, that I have an cake angel. You might know her.. she comments her.. my friend DebP.. who has volunteered to be my cake smuggler. We are now part of an interstate cake smuggling ring. She's a cake pusher. I'm just being silly with this becasue I am so thrilled. Really, huge THANK YOUS to Deb and my cake needs. Kudos also to the other Deb who also was right on in offering to be a ckle smuggler too. Sorry Deb, but Deb asked me first, so Deb is going to do it.
And can we tie CAKE into adoption? Of course I can! See, first off we have here all triad memebers workign togetehr. See, one Deb is an adoptive mom, the other Deb is an adoptee, and I am, doh, a birthmother!
And the other thing that is just amusing..
Hey Deb.. did you ever think that when you first met me you'd be sending me CAKE??
I know the answer is noo, becasue she thought I was evil and scarey!hahahahah
and now it is the time on sprokets that we should laugh!
***
SARA LEE CAKE UPDATE
How surprised was I today when my cell phone rang and the caller identified herself as a something director at Sara Lee? Surprised enough that I walked away from my meeting and took the call! Was I in tears and so filled with immense gratitude that they were touched enough by this very blog post? Yes, because she was personally taking over my cause for cake and has promised to overnight me a CASE of my beloved Choclate Swirl PoundCake?Shall we repeat that?
A CASE of POUND CAKE from SARA LEE!!
Yup.. a case of my chocolate swirl pound cake shall soon be mine! And yes, I will share. After I eat one whole cake by myself.
You know what? Nobody better even try to not like SaraLee; In fact, as support of sSara Lee and their most excellent customer serive and social media outreach ( did I say that they CALLED ME!!).. I suggest that you become a fan of SaraLee on Facebook because they rock.
Primal Wound Book Tour: Birthmother Musings
I was open to the idea of this Prima Wound book tour since I knew it had been some time since I had read my copy this adoption classic. Plus, the last time I had read it I was in the midst of a massive adoption book read in; so much of it got jumbled with tons of other facts and figures. I tend to read like that and assimilate information that way anyhow. I can quote ideas and often facts, tie them together in neat new ways, but don't ask me who the author was or half the time the name of the book. I just don't retain that information. In a way, it was like picking up the Primal Wound anew.
The first chapter or two were very emotionally draining for me. I just broke down and cried while reading it much to the worry of poor Mr. Rye trying to sleep next to me. It's hard trying to explain that I really did want to continue on with this act that was so clearly upsetting me.
I took allot of great things away from my second reading. May things I missed the first time; maybe just with fresher eyes. Some ideas are still bubbling, so I'll have to get back to that. In the meantime, I have these here questions from the Examiner's Primal Wound Book Tour. Make sure when you are done reading here, you go check out the rest of the tour.. more questions, but no tests!
On page 92 Verrier writes, "Birthmothers also have a sense of loyalty to that lost child. There is a high rate of secondary infertility among them (perhaps as high as 40%). Those who never conceive again say things such as: "I couldn't be unfaithful to him. I have a hard time even holding my little nephew." For me personally, (as a birthmother), I felt the exact opposite. I feel as though, in a way, I've been holding my breath since giving up my baby girl years ago, just waiting until the day when I could have another baby and get to keep her this time. (Which is what finally happened this year!) For the other birthmothers, did you relate to this statement? What has your personal experience been in terms of pregnancy and motherhood post relinquishment? Both in terms of what path you've taken and your feelings about it? .
I was more like you, I think, as I went on to give birth to my second son Garin less than four years post Max. I know that I was very happy to be pregnant again, thinking that was in better circumstances. Of course, no matter what those circumstances were I knew all too well that I would never go through adoption and relinquishment again! In fact, before I became pregnant with Garin, I remember very distinctly telling his father early in our relationship, "And if I should happen to get pregnant, I don't care what you do, but I will have and keep this baby." It was not mean to be a threat to him, but a pure and simple fact.
I was newly if not hastily married, but feeling optimistic. I really believed that good things were now owed to me because I had suffered and done this one great thing: this act of great and wise sacrifice; the relinquishment. I was thrilled to be a mother for real this time, to have a child that would be mine. You know how so many say , " I'm was just not ready to parent"? Well, I was completely ready to parent.
I had spent pretty much the entire time post relinquishment until then in the company of children. Preferably, if I could arrange it, within the same age group as Max, now an unknown fantasy child. I got a degree in early childhood education. I was an exclusive babysitter. I taught nursery school. Looking back, I see that my choices were completely influenced by the act of relinquishment and the needed outlet for my maternal instincts. It was almost masochistic and I was completely in denial at the time; feeling that I was on a journey for my life's work, but I only was fascinated with kids after I had given up Max and before I had Garin.
I believe I am very good mother, not perfect, but human. I am a very relaxed mother in many ways.. but sometimes that gets me nervous. It seems to me that just "regular" mothers are often more overtly concerned for their children. I don't mean to imply that I am not interested in their welfare, but I certainly cannot say that post relinquishment I felt the hyper vigilance or that someone might take away my children because I was failing. I know more birthmothers seem to have to fight that, but I think I have felt that I did not earn the right to show worry over my children in a way. Like I do not have separation anxiety when my kids go to school. And I love a babysitter. I don't care if they go to their grandmother's for a weekend and no, you don't have to call and talk to me because I am not worried!
How can I worry over my kids when they are 6 and 8 and at their cousins when I left my four day old newborn among strangers? I have no right to that feeling and THAT has kept me form being more of the mother I would have liked to be. I wish I was warmer with my children in that degree. I cherish them. I adore them. They fascinate me and I love watching the people they become, but I don't let myself worry over them all. Maybe it's just survival and if I had allowed myself to worry over Max it would have killed me; but I feel so out of touch from that part of me and I wish I could get it back. I think my worry is dead.
Birthmother Loyalty and Post Relinquishment Motherhood
Search, Reunion, and Abandonment
In the chapter "Reunions as a Means of Healing the Adoption Triad" Nancy Verrier states "Under no circumstances should a birthmother search if there is any possibility at all that she might abandon her child again!" Would this statement cause you to not search for your child, given that life often throws unexpected curves at you and you could not completely guarantee that you would NEVER abandon your child again? After all you don't know who your child has grown into - you could have completely opposing views on life, morals, ethics or other things that could cause you to not be able to maintain a relationship with him/her. How can birth mothers who search help to minimize this risk for the adoptee? I often say that I never made the decision TO search; searching just happened one day. One day I was curious and just opened that door of allowing that wonder for just the smallest second..and what followed was a title wave beyond my control. It was worse than any addiction; once I sat down and allowed myself to make the first inquiry on Google, I searched for 3 days straight until I had found my son. So I wasn't thinking at those moments; I was consumed by a maternal instint, a need, that was indeed Primal. That said, I think I knew that mentality. And I say it in that way because I could not have said "I won't do this because Nancy Verrier said not to", but because I had talked with enough adoptees to know how important and venerable the concept of trust was. I knew that rejection was a concern and that adoptees could act out to test this new relationship. I think that I have always at least been consistently concerned with making sure that I have done "the right thing" for my child. At one time that was relinquishment. AS I learned new things it became finding him. I can't think of anything that any of my children could do that would make me completely abandon them. Maybe I would have to draw boundaries if things were unsafe, but you can't round up love. I think that mothers are better prepared for reunion if they get involved with the idea of reunion before the actual act occurs. I mean, I always feel so bad for the poor mom who either just has no clue and has to navigate through the emotions of a reunion with nothing as a guide. The feelings are so overwhelming, so unexpected, so strong, that indeed, if you had no clue you might think you have lost your very mind. I think that Nancy Verrier is very corrected in saying that while everyone has a right to their feelings, how we act on them is most important to control in certain ways. Whether a mom searches and wants a reunion for years or the adoptee does and she is taken by surprise, I do think that we own it to our children to try and be still what they need. That's the job of a mother; to be there and take care of our children. We couldn't do it then when they were babies, but in so many ways they come back as babies still and we need to step up and be that mother in the best capacity that we can now. I know we have taken allot and we have wounds too, but I just don't think we can lose site that it's never going to be all about "me"; not when the other is our child. And that makes it terribly hard again. Too often, we still cannot be natural or often comfortable, Reunion is not like every other relationship. It's not like any other relationship! No one knows what they are doing and there is no real guidebook for these unchartered territories! As a birthmother, I am acting as a real mother when I struggle to control my own neediness with my son. I must be always processing new emotions and taking apart everything that I do feel so I can get to the root of it and then, and only then, I will allow myself to react to my feelings. It takes me very long to act on something that I want because I must always fear if I have a right to want it. And even knowing all that; I feel like I am failing. I haven't spoken to my son in over a year and there is no reason really why. Of course, I have not heard from him either and there is no reason why there either. I don't know if that is natural or not. So I struggle constantly with a sense of panic over "losing' him again and I balance it by knowing that I am exactly where I have been and he knows where to find me too and I just have to wait for what he wants. I certainly don't feel that I have the right to be all" OMG what's wrong. What did I do? Why are you not calling? What happened? Are you OK? I want to see you/ Your brothers and sisters are always asking about you. Why can't you come for the holidays. Just move here" That's all feeling talking.. and I constantly have to be mindful that I can't put my pain on him. I made him an adoptee though my stupid bad choice. Now, all I can do is lake it as easy as possible to be an adoptee.For the Good of the Child
As a birthmother I was drawn to Chapter 10 and the discussion of the 'Cardinal Rules for Adoptive Parents.' I think if my role had been reversed and I was an adoptive mother, as much as my former birthmother self would like to be recognized, I do not think that I would consciously do this. I would be honest with questions about the birthmother and compassionate, but in my mother role I would try to emmulate everything that a good mother is for her child....and this would not be taking anyones place. I am his mother. I would ask both adoptive mothers and birthmothers what their thoughts are on this. I like to think that if I had experienced the exact opposite of my life, and I had infertility rather than hyper fertility, that the core me would still be the same. As it is I am able to recognize and empathize with the feelings of adoptees and adoptive parents. I know I do not ever really see things in black and white; rather amorphic and ever changing shades of gray. It drives my husband crazy. I can change my whole point of view with one long ruin on sentence. I know that circumstance and choices drove me to strive to be the very best birthmother that ever was for a long time. I'm still working on that. I would like to think that the same drive would, under a different situation, still motivate me to be the very best adoptive mother that I could be too. I think the common denominator is that I would naturally strive to do the very best for my children. Since I am self motivated through learning, I would even hanker to think that my learning curve as an adoptive mother would have followed a similar course of finding out things online, though similar places. And honestly, I am always most intrigued by what I do not understand. So I would like to think that even if I was an adoptive mom and even if I had come from the most horrible agency in say Texas .. I think that I would have been open to learning how to be compassionate regarding my child's birthmother because I would have found out that it would be the best thing for my child. I think I would have forced myself to as deeply believe it as possible that adoption means a child simply has two mothers. I think I could have pulled it off because I do acknowledge that truth and don't have an issue with it from my end now.Assimilating the Birthmother Self
I ask help from birthmothers such as myself who have spent most of their lives, remaking themselves since the adoption of their child. I find that my self confidence came slowly and with considerable study and determination to reactivate my earlier joyfulness, energy and that desire to make a difference in my life. I believe that I found and followed some very powerful dreams and that overall I have felt fulfilled in a way that was important even though the importance in my later life did not include other children of my own. As I now am meeting my son after 42 years, I am finding that my self confidence frequently feels as though it is melting away or drifting out of reach, leaving me drained and a stranger to myself. I am very fearful, because the person my son is meeting is someone who no longer exists....yet is manifesting herself into the now me. I know very few birthmothers and I believe that dialogue in regard to self confidence is something essential. This request for comment from birthmothers is actually based on Nancy's book completely. In Chapter 13, The Reunion Process, she outlines what she sees as Barriers to Positive Relationships. I have fear, I have guilt, I have shame, I have rage, I have anger and I work constantly on not letting them dominate me. I have made much progress with guilt and with shame. Anger I am trying to just accept. Bottom line, I want myself back. I want to take back my power so that future relationships not only with my birthson but with my husband will not be grounded in the sandy soil of self doubt. I can apply most of your first paragraph to myself with the exception that I did have other children after the adoption. But then also, myself worth and esteem did not take a long time to return. In fact, I have often both questioned and attributed my feelings upon my return post adoption since I did feel that I was something special. I drank down that adoption Kool-Aid that agency gave me and I liked it. I was amazed that these total strangers both at the agency and that I lived with, thought that I was a good persona and really seemed to like me. I was really hell bent on making them proud and doing everything that they wanted me to do. I returned from relinquishment of my son thinking that I had not only the key to heaven, but I was smarter, more selfless and wiser than the average knocked up chick! I think what you may be feeling is the true return of many of the emotions and feelings that you forced yourself to walk away from after your son's birth. If you consciously worked hard to remake yourself, that also can imply that you did try to change. And that can mean forcing yourself to not feel the way you did before, or think that way... and that would include feelings about the pregnancy birth and relinquishment. It's almost like denial of feelings but in a more controlled way with a healthy desired outcome. That's all very logical, but reunion is pure emotion. We have to give in to those feelings in many ways at least to process them. As one of my wise birthmother guides once told me: adoption is like taking a computer that is designed to do one thing and trying to program it for something else. It might work fine for years with the new program installed, but the old one is still there. And all you have to do is find that one key into that program and the computer will do exactly what it is programmed to do. Whether we walk away from our motherhood though choice, or we deny to survive or we make conscious decisions like you did; we have tried to shut off that natural process that should have been completed back then.. now there is that key and everything has rebooted again. I think you will find you equal footing again, but you have to assimilate within that true nature of the program still.. and that means you have to let it naturally go through the process all over again. It's like growing up all over again, but at least this time you know that you can do it and you know where you want to get back to! It sounds normal to me and I know many mothers, including myself, have felt that sensation of our younger forgotten identities. I would just continue with what you are doing. You are self aware and that's more than half of it. I would hanker to guess that while it might take longer than expected, when you come out the other end, you will find that you are in a better place then you started from.Deciding on Adoption and Adoption Information
If you had read this book as you were making your decision, how might this information have changed your decision-making process? Not necessarily the outcome (which you may or may not have regrets about) but the thoughts that went into the decision to place. My favorite what if! I did honestly believe at the time that adoption was the best outcome for my pregnancy for both my baby and myself. I recall how painful it actually was, some years ago, hearing for the first time in my online wanderings the very idea that adoption could have possibly NOT been the best thing for my child. I was horrified and very angry at those who dared to threaten the good nature of adoption. It took allot of listening and some real time to process that idea and all the emotional baggage that went along with it. I felt, at the time, that the very nature of my personal foundation would crumble if this thing could be true. I had built myself up on all the karma points that I had earned from being such a good selfless birthmother and now, now you dare tell me that it might have actually HARMED my BABAY that I did so much to ensure all things good to? I think the theme of my answers here have been that I really do believe that I have done and would have done what I thought was best for my child/ren; so with that I think it is very clear in the Primal Would that the bond between mother and child is necessary. It is best for babies to stay with their biological mothers in more circumstances than adoptions lets on. I hope that I would have been able to see through my doubts and fears to have heard that. I want to think that it could have slapped me into understanding that I could do it and I would have parented. I do believe that if UI had gotten through the last few months of my pregnancy at home near my mother and away from the agency, that I would have only had to give birth and what is naturally in me would have kicked in. I do think it would be very worthwhile to have mothers considering adoption to not just be told to read the book, but to discuss it quite thoroughly during any adoption counseling. At least then, she would have the chance to make a somewhat informed decision. At least then she could have an accurate idea of what her child might feel. At least then, she might understand that even if she is a single mother; mommas are not 100% interchangeable. At least then, she might know that not just any motherhood, but her unique motherhood, would have worth to that baby and that might be the best thing. I like to think I would have concerned enough to know that the only way i could guarantee that my baby would not have any of the troubles facing an adoptee was to raise him myself.To continue to the next leg of this book tour, please visit the main list at The Open Adoption Examiner.
Adoption Classes Offered in NY's Husdon Valley!
I just got and signed my contracts in the mail, so I am guessing that it is looking official!
I AM Teaching Adoption Classes this spring!
The Ulster County Community College Spring Course book is not online yet, but these are the class descriptions!NEW! Adoption Search and Reunion
Searching for a family member and then embarking on a reunion across lost years is often described as an “emotional rollercoaster.” Most undertake this journey with little or no road map, but with great expectations and fears. This class is perfect for anyone who is planning, or even considering, a search for a separated mother, father, child, or sibling through adoption or other situation. The class will discuss the emotional preparations; hopes, fears, and feelings will be acknowledged and validated. Best practices of the actual search process, along with extensive recourses and helpful hints will be covered in this class as well as the joys and pitfalls of reunions will be addressed. Your instructor, Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy, has spent almost 10 years independently researching adoption issues in preparation of the successful search and reunion with her own son in 2007. She has spent countless hours learning from, talking with and educating others on adoption issues on her blog, with adoption lobbying and activism and at national adoption conferences. Fri, Mar 5 - 26 • 6 - 7:30 pm 3 sessions • $45 NCC 852-01 • BRC No class Mar 12NEW! Ethical Adoption Primer
Many think about adopting a child with only the purist of motives, yet as the news constantly informs us, adoption can compounded with various ethical considerations that can defy even the best of intentions. Every parent, whether adoptive or not, wants only the best for their child, but for many, who have never yet walked the path, the lessons come too late. Often adoptive parents are told incorrect information, taken advantage of based on their emotional vulnerability and mislead by the very professionals that they have put their trust in. In this class you will learn what the adoption agencies won’t tell you because they fear that you might take your fees and walk out the door. Learn the risks and best ethical practices for domestic, foster care and international adoptions and be prepared for the journey. Class will be lead by Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy; a local adoption advocate and ethical adoption activist with almost ten years of extensive adoption triad research, and 22 years of personal adoption experiences. She has appeared on The Montel Williams Show as an expert in adoption scams and served on the blogger panel at the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Research Institute/ Ethica Adoption Ethics Conference. Fri, Apr 9 & 16 • 6 - 8 pm 2 sessions • $40 NCC 854-01 • BRC Better get cracking!
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