This is the day last week when I turned into a neurotic mess and had to be sedated for the rest of the week. I’m not that bad today. I will most certainly keep the Xanax close at hand though. I’m waiting on my docs to decide what else I need.
Today I’m left with questions and uneasiness about yesterday’s experience. It was 1969. I jokingly say that I was a prom accident. It fits the time frame, but I really don’t know anything else and my Mom just won’t talk about it. While in-utero, did I have a caring family and a caring birth mother? Abortion obviously wasn’t an option, so did she get sent away to Aunt Millie’s in the city until the little problem went away? Did they constantly argue and fight about how much shame she had brought to the family and how she had sinned against god and now everyone had to suffer for it every time they looked at her? Her sin would be inflicted on the entire family. My guess is options two and/or three. I was adopted from a hospital that, for that time period, would’ve been a trip for my adoptive parents.
Reflecting on yesterday, I feel cold, empty-disconnected. I almost feel like I either shouldn’t exist or don’t have the right to exist because of the inconvenience or trouble I caused in my proto-life. I know that it makes absolutely no sense at all. I also know that the situation was completely out of my control. I know that these feelings are irrational. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the feelings of emptiness and disconnection are there.
cazandoconejos 
This is totally meant to help & not to harm so please take it from that perspective. Why would you think that abortion would not have been an option in 1969? There were definitely abortions performed during that time. Of course, I do not know your history so I’m only going by what my heart wants to say to you. I picture a scared mother that wants to give life to her child during a time when being an unwed mother is very looked down upon. Just for the sake of not seeking abortion, I would think this would be out of an act of LOVE, a choice of life for her child. Ignorance in our society thought it was best at that time to keep the birth mother from bonding with her child not knowing the importance of this act. I’m so sorry this happened to you as well as the other terrible things no person should have to experience. I pray that you can begin to heal from the ignorance of our world. Please know that you do have people that care, even those you’ve never met & they are in your corner rooting for you! And know that you are in NO WAY a mistake in this world. I see your kind words helping others very often. I hope that nothing I have said to you has offended you & know that I wish you nothing but well. I thank you for allowing me to go along this personal journey. Blessings & much love!
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I know abortions were taking place in 1969. I’m just assuming that for some reason that option was off the table for this family. My heart as well wants to believe exactly what you said. It wants to believe that the adoption was an act of love as well, but the feelings are conflicted at the same time. I almost wish my adoptive mother had never told me. I don’t think there would’ve been any harm in that. I looked sort of like and acted just like my grandfather on dad’s side, so I’d have never questioned it. But something still isn’t right and neither of my parents will really talk about it. One says I was in the hospital for 3 months before they could have me. The other says six. In the meantime, I was in a crib or an incubator or something. I might as well as have been Borg. They tell me I was a good baby and that I rarely cried. I was a happy baby. I would assume that’s because I learned early on that crying didn’t get me anything, so it was just an exercise in futility.
My mom told me I was adopted when I was six. I didn’t care. I didn’t understand. I wanted to go back outside and play. She was my mom and that’s all I knew or cared about. But, that’s when things started to get a little strange. You were adopted? So she’s not your real mom? What happened to your real mom? How does it feel to be adopted? I can’t imagine being without my real mom…And we can’t forget the “family history” part of every medical form that exists. If the hole, disconnect, emptiness anxiety or whatever emotion you’d like to attach to it didn’t already exist, it certainly did by the end of high school. Even today, ‘Wow, you’re adopted. That’s really cool. My brother in law was adopted too. What’s being adopted like?” (Oh, Idk, what’s being a pickled beet like?) It’s like with out headaches. Someone always knows someone who knows someone who knows someone…
I understand and fully realize that the feelings or emotions I’ve attached to this are completely irrational, but they’re there for some purpose. Oddly, being adopted, I am pro-choice. There was some biological reason that all of this happened. Maybe it was to help my physiology cope with all the shit that was to come my way that I would survive. Somehow, through whatever environment, that little ironclad tadpole kept swimming and growing until it became a human when I burst out into the world.
The tadpole has no memories of swimming and growing into a fetus. The fetus has no memory of the trauma of a warm, safe place and being shoved out into a cold, harsh environment. The baby’s first memory, deep-deep-deep inside of it’s tiny little brain is of its parents’ faces smiling down on it with the promise of protection and unconditional love. That last sentence is missing from my psyche and I learned the hard was that love is not unconditional.
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