Month: June 2012

Best Interests of the Child

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Hi all.  I am still around.  I underwent nine hours of surgery on June 8th and am in the process of a lengthy recovery and rehab. I am on short-term disability for what I hope is truly a short-term. I don’t do resting well.  I have an active mind and many projects in process and it is a struggle to be idle.  If I had this amount of free time under different circumstances (read: not physically challenged) I would be writing like mad, making jewelry (just started with PMC3), studying, registering for new classes, taking photos, gardening, working on my home, taking day trips with my sons, experimenting with new hair colors and so much more.  As it is, I am relegated to reading, all I can do at present. Have read many books the past few weeks. While I am a voracious reader and am enjoying the books, I am hungering for the day when I can do more.  I see my surgeon for a post op follow-up this week and I am hoping to obtain clearance to introduce more activities into my schedule.

Wanted to offer one news item.

Registration is up for the St. Johns Adoption Conference in October. Register here. I am attending (first adoption conference I am NOT speaking at and I am rather looking forward to it). I am also rooming with the amazing ThirdMom once again.  Do let me know if you plan to attend.

“Best Interests of the Child?”
Race, Religion, & Rescue in Adoption

Conference Rational (excerpted from conference site)

“… join an exploration of a set of poignant, fundamental issues inherent in the adoption experience, although they are often not always openly addressed. We are referring to the many preconceived notions of the ideal family unit that prevail in our society and that have made the adoption experience challenging and painful to many; to the unexamined though well-intentioned motivations for adopting that may unwittingly create a complex dynamic between adoptees and their adoptive families, and complicate the development of healthy relationships among members of the adoption triad; to the paucity of accurate information about the unique nature of the adoption journey for each member of the triad and at each level of their experiences. This lifelong adoption journey evolves from when the idea of adoption first emerges and leads to the arrangement of an actual adoption, to the first encounter between strangers, through the various demands that emerge along the developmental progression of adoptees, and through the vicissitudes of their educational experience, the challenges that emerge during the dating experience, and their decision whether or not to establish their own family units, and on through middle and late adulthood. Indeed, research shows that adoption incurs lifelong consequences.”

The Box

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The last time I went under general anesthesia I had carpal tunnel release surgery performed on my right wrist.  Prior to the surgery, I had arranged to meet with my daughters father and I asked him, practically begged him, to take ownership of “The Box” in the event of my death.  It can be suggested (and I would likely agree — now)  I was being a bit melodramatic. Who dies from carpal tunnel surgery? Even if you questioned the risks associated with general anesthesia you would learn that  morbidity rate of anesthesia hangs around 1 in 10,000 administrations in otherwise healthy patients.  Yet I was concerned. I can state I was more concerned with the idea of dying without my daughter knowing her story than I was well, with dying.  Seems a little backwards (now).

Years later reflecting on that surgery on the eve of a more complicated, lengthy one (6-8 hours under anesthesia), I find myself comforted by my lack of fixation, now, around The Box.

For those not familiar with The Box, I offer that is a fireproof box containing nearly 30 years of emotional information related to my love affair with my daughters father, my pregnancy, confinement to a maternity home, adoption surrender, continued affair with her father, search and reunion. The box contains love letters from my daughters father, birthday and holiday cards, photographs of him, jewelry, movies, books, audio tapes and more.  It is essentially the story of my daughters conception and adoption surrender all in a neat (okay, maybe not so neat) tidy box.  The contents are voluminous.  Poetry I have written, correspondence between her father and me, print outs of email conversations between my daughter and me post reunion, and much more.

Historically, this box was HIGHLY triggering to me. I once said I could hear my teenage expectant mother voice weeping as I opened the box.  Opening it would cause me to lose my breath, cry, even become depressed for days.  There are way too many demons contained in the metal box, far too much trauma, too much emotion.  It is the physical manifestation of years of pain and sorrow. It is my recipe for conjuring massive PTSD flashbacks.

I opened it yesterday and you know what?

I am good with it all.  Yes, it is still a sad collection of documents and images. It still has the power to make me weep and sometimes lose my breath but the power to destroy me for days?

Gone. Kaput. Adios. Hasta la bye-bye.

I am not feeling any overwhelming concern for The Box. I don’t even care, now, if my daughter never sees its contents. Whereas I once thought I was saving it for her, to tell her story, I no longer feel that way.  It, and I, well, we have evolved.

I am not sure what I will do with it. I feel partially drawn to craft it into an amazing book – epistolary format (think Nick Bantocks Griffin and Sabine trilogy).  Maybe I will. Maybe I wont.  What I will do today is share some of the contents of with you.