Adoption Support at Forever Parents

Mothers Day Thoughts From Mothers Who Adopted

Happy Mothers Day! I hope you’re enjoying the day with your loved ones.I recently asked members of the Forever Parents adoption forums for their thoughts on Mothers Day. Here’s what they had to say;**I am so excited for Mother’s Day this year. It will be even more special because we are also having a baby(ies) (in our case) dedication! Our whole family will be there to share in this very special day. Later on I will be hosting a dinner like I do every year for my mom and DH’s mom. Can you tell I am excited?!?!?!

**When we were trying to conceive and then during our “waiting for a baby” through adoption Mother’s Day was the most dreaded day of the year for me. I felt so selfish for three years b/c I could not get excited and yet here was my mom, a beautiful person and wonderful mother that I wanted to celebrate and did while my heart cried tears and sadness for myself.

This will be my second Mother’s Day as a mom. I don’t see myself any differently than a mom who physically bore her child. I bore my son through emotional and spiritual pain who like a mother delivering her child in a hospital bed feels and then ends with the most overwhelming sense of joy. I felt my joy in a hospital nursery as a nurse handed me my son and said “Here is your mommy”. I may not have lay in a hospital bed waiting for him to final pop out but it was me who my son waited on as I drove 13 straight hours feeling I would never get there and then finally when I arrived there he was. I guess it was a different kind of waiting but with the same beautiful union in the end (or the beginning, however you want to look at it) as we met one another for the first time.

My son’s birthmother, that is what we call her and she herself, has two other children. She celebrates being their mom on Mother’s Day. The Sunday before is Birthmother’s Day and we have chosen to commit to sending her a card and small gift that day so she can celebrate her choice to give our son life and to make an adoption plan which I know was very hard for her. Without those two important decisions I would not be celebrating Mother’s day. It is my hope too, that by remembering her on that day, she can fill whole as a mom on Mother’s Day with her other two children. I hope that makes sense.

**Mother’s day doesn’t feel very special to me. For years, I celebrated in honor of my own mother, and always wished for the chance to be the person being honored on that day, but year after year, my children didn’t come, and Mother’s Day was just a reminder to me of what I could not accomplish. The the year my mother passed away, Mother’s Day was difficult. I no longer had my mother and I was still not a mother myself. The very next year, I was still not a mother, but was preparing to travel to get my infant twins within a few days. It was still difficult, my mother was gone and I still didn’t have my babies safe in my arms.

I had gone to J.C. Penney several days before mother’s day to purchase a few items for the babies to take on the trip. I was given a complimentary Mother’s Day gift for having spent a certain amount of money. It was the first time I was ever honored in such a way and I lost it right there in the store and could not regain my composure. It was all so very emotional that I still can’t express all that I was feeling that day.

My beautiful babies were placed in my arms about a week later and that is the day I became a mother, and we became a family and that is the day that holds the most meaning for me.

On Mother’s Day, my feelings range from neutral, to melancholy to sad. It’s a day that reminds me of the loss and pain of the years we tried to build a family, and it reminds me of how empty I feel without my own mother to guide me through the early years of motherhood. May 20 is the day I am grateful for. It is the day that is the joyous reminder that hope and faith can be restored and life can have meaning and purpose.

**The meaning of Mother’s Day today is nothing like what Julia Ward Howe envisioned. It was not a day to celebrate being a mother, nor a way to identify who had children from those women who did not, nor to be personally showered with attention. It was a day for women themselves to mend differences and find similarities, and promote peace in the world. Mothers, women who were motherly of all kinds, were sought to bring that nurturing, loving spirit to bring people together. So the question should be, what have we, as motherly women, done to bring peace and harmony in the world this year?

** Personally, I have no special connection to Mothers Day. I just can’t get excited about a day that has no meaning to me. I became a mother on October 30…that’s my Mothers Day. I’ve felt this way long before I even adopted my children and I’ve always buy my own mother flowers on my birthday, because that’s the day she became a mother. Judging by the enormous amount of money that is spent on flowers and dinner on Mothers Day, I would say I’m in the minority with this issue but I guess I wouldn’t be me unless I had something to rebel against. LOL

**As Mother’s Day approaches, my thoughts are no different than when I was a mom through biology. I don’t view myself as an “adoptive mother”, nor do I consider my children “adopted”. —-I’m just their mother and they are just my kids. Our adoption will have been final one year as of this May 26th, but honestly, it’s not a day that I point out to anyone. –In fact, that day is sentimental to me b/c that is the day my husband proposed to me several years ago.

My children do not consider themselves adopted and do not point that out to others, so I feel no need to share that part of their lives for them. We are a family that came about differently than most, but we don’t point out all those differences….if we did, we’d have one long story to tell!!

I give no thoughts to the bio-m as Mother’s Day approaches either. She is not my children’s mother and the term “birthmother” is not one that is used in our home. Although my children once shared a home with her and once grew in her womb, there is no history or bond there, so I feel no need to create one. My children ask me what they looked like at birth, how much they weighed and what their first words were — they have chosen to “create” a history of infancy in which I gave birth to them. They don’t ask “what did my bio-m or A say I looked like at birth”, they say “Mom, was I a chubby baby?”

In my children’s minds and hearts, I’ve been their mother since the moment they were conceived. As Mother’s Day approaches, I’m so grateful that I have a strong bond with ALL of my children, regardless of how they came into my heart and home. I’m a mother –plain and simple.

I think women who have become mothers through adoption are viewed in a variety of ways. Some choose to wear the badge of “adoptive” and if they are happy with that, I think it’s great. I think some view adoptive mothers as “heroes” who have “rescued a child/ren” and I think that’s silly. The mothers I know who became mothers through adoption adopted because they wanted to hear the words “Mama” or “Mommy” and adoption was the only way that was going to happen. I don’t see the way my family was created as heroic in any way. I wasn’t adopting so that I could “rescue” anyone —I wanted to be a mother again and I had kids the only way I could!!! It was a selfish act on my part if there ever was one!! As Mother’s Day approaches, I’m proud to be a mother.

**This year, for the first time, I am not acknowledging my children’s bparents. With my ds bmom walking away from the adoption and all that has been going on with my dd, this year, I feel that I deserve to have this day all by myself, without sharing it with them. They have never sent me a card but I have alway sent them a card, a small gift and pictures. It has always been a one way street and for the first time, I actually forgot about them until yesterday and made the decision, I’m not sending them anything. I finally feel that I’m entitld to this day. For the first time since becoming a Mom, I’m going out to dinner with my family as well as my brothers family and my mother. This year, the focus is on our family.
(later on this same member posted again)
ok…I couldn’t do it. I had to send dd bmom a Mother’s Day card. She is always kind to me and I can’t allow the day to go bye without a card. I always send a “thinking of you” card. I think she would be hurt if I missed this year and I couldn’t bear to make her sad on a day, which brings me so much joy now.

**I am truely honored to be my childrens mother. I too suffered and actually refused to go to church on mothers day where they handed out rose corsages to the mothers. I wanted so badly to scream at the top of my lungs “DO YOU KNOW HOW BADLY THIS HURTS?” I wanted to be a mom so long that I relish in being honored by my family. I refuse to be honored by the church with the flower because I know how painful it is to publically display your “mother status”. We celebrate quietly and privately. So for all of you waiting MOTHERS, My thoughts are with you each year at this time. You are MOTHERS in your souls.

**I have some terrible Mother’s Day memories from my “waiting to be a mom” days, and most of them happened in church, of all places. I thought that going to church would make me feel better because I usually find a lot of comfort in my faith. So, I went to church one Mother’s Day, and that one hour in the sanctuary turned into an endurance test for me. First, there was the Mother’s Day insert in the church bulletin, which listed the names of hundreds of mothers in the congregation. I chose not to read it. Then, the pastor asked all mothers to stand and be recognized. I was the ONLY thirty-something woman who remained seated while I choked back my tears. Young children sang a song for the mothers – another heartbreak to see those little children, knowing that my child would have been among them if I had not been infertile. The sermon was all about celebrating mothers. The final touch was the youth group giving out carnations to all mothers as we left the sanctuary after the service ended. Of course, the teenagers assumed that I was a mother because of my age. I could not bring myself to take the flower, so I declined it, which hurt even more. That was a miserable day. I stopped going to church on Mother’s Day after that until I had a baby in my arms.

I’d like to also share an e-mail I received today from Scott Noelle from enjoyparenting.com.

:: A Radical “Mother’s Day” Message ::

Today is Mother’s Day in many countries, and mothers everywhere are being honored and appreciated for the invaluable contribution of mothering.

That’s the bright side…

For many families there’s also a subtle dark side of Mother’s Day: focusing on the *sacrifices* mothers make for their families.

Mothers’ self-sacrifice is typically celebrated by reversing the sacrificial current. For one day, the other family members take over the mother’s “duties” so she can be free (theoretically) to focus entirely on her own pleasure.

Don’t get me wrong: I think one of life’s simple pleasures is contributing to the pleasure of others, and that includes the good feeling of pampering mothers. It’s the undercurrent of *guilt* that so often taints the fun.

When the subtext is, “We’re doing this stuff for you today because you *can’t* have what you want the other 364 days of the year,” it actually *perpetuates* the cycle of self-sacrifice, resentment, and guilt. So here’s a radical proposition for every mother who has ever bought into the idea of self-sacrifice as a virtue:

Decide that EVERY day is Mother’s Day! Don’t settle for anything less than a predominantly pleasureful path of mothering, and remember that the best way to raise kids who enjoy life is to let them see your commitment to enjoying life yourself.

(Note to self-sacrifice addicts: If you think I’m saying you should force yourself to be happy… think again!)

http://dailygroove.net/radical-mothers-day

Copyright (c) 2007 by Scott Noelle

Related Tags: mothers day, adopting, adoptive parents, adopt, adoption

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