"'I was adopted because I have _____________'"

How many times have we adoptees filled in the blank about why, oh why, oh why we were given up?

Finally, some good news:

I just read this little article at the Adoptive Families Magazine website in which a social worker explains that it's important that adopted children get to make their own "lifebook" or scrapbook so they can express their feelings and ideas about being adopted and so that their adoptive parents can witness those feelings and ideas.

Let me just say: we have come a long way, baby. Doing something like this was so far off anyone's radar screen when I was a little adopted kid. I wish I had been guided as a child to express some of the fear, confusion, and guilt I felt as an adoptee. Instead those feelings had nowhere to go and so instead they got stuffed away somewhere and have been seeping out for decades in everything I've written and all over every relationship I've been in.

So, kudos to you, social workers who encourage adoptive parents help their their adopted children do this emotional work, kudos to the parents who have the guts to do it, and most of all, blessings on the forthcoming generations of adoptees who may grow up with the ability to name, expose, and dissipate the shame, guilt, and fear associated with being adopted.

Turning the Corner

A little update on SuperBob:
he's doing much better! My brother has been feeding him nonstop, and with the appetite inducing magic of prednisone, the Super One has gained 15 pounds back! And he has energy! And he even talks on the phone now!

With regard to my writing midwife/pitocin:
I don' t want to jinx it, but I am going to try a writing experiment for the next two weeks: My son and I will ride the train downtown in the morning, where I'll take him to science camp, then I'll write all day in cafes, libraries, what have you, until 4pm, when I'll pick up my little scientist and take him home on the train. A sort of forced writing retreat. Wish me luck and perseverence.

And with regard to feeling wild and free
(see picture of me in grand canyon with crazy hair a few posts ago):
I'm planning not one but two backpacking trips with friends this summer, and one or two camping trips with my little family.

The universe is on our side. The universe is on our side. The universe is on our side...

a little more about the universe

Superbob is still hitting some bumps in the road. Last weekend, while strolling through Target with my mom, he fainted and whacked his head on the floor when he landed. An ambulance ride to the ER ensued, where, after 6 hours, the final diagnosis was that he was severely dehydrated. He has also lost 30 pounds. So my brothers and I are gearing up to take turns going out to California again to help out and to give my mom some much-needed respite from Cancer World. In fact, one of my brothers is headed out there today, thank goodness. I'll probably go in two weeks.

I don't think any of us knew how hard this was going to be. I, for one, have been in quite a funk since Superbob went into the hospital back in March. I have been so sad that it has been difficult to say "yes" to things. Instead, my psyche has shut down and I say "no, no, no," not wanting to let any more bad into my life.

But by way of explaining the poem I posted a while ago, I have lately been trying to re-convince myself that the universe is on my side. That saying "yes" to possibility, to friends, to help, is in fact a way to say "no" to the bad stuff.

Back from the Land of Superbob

It was like living in a little nest with my parents.

How to explain this?

They are currently living in a small apartment across the street from the Stanford Medical Center.

So living there with them for a week without my husband or my child or my job, and caring for my dad and helping out my mom felt sort of like being an infant again (I had my parents all to myself! Plus they let me sleep a lot.) and sort of like being a mother bird. I had nothing to do but to help my dad and my mom feel better.

It was very peaceful having few real world distractions and performing tangible tasks--so very unlike my usual life in which everything feels scattered and difficult to quantify.

By the end of the week, my dad was definitely doing better than he was when I arrived. He was walking a little faster, feeling less nauseous, and smiling a little more. It was a quantifiable improvement, even though he's still very sick.

And I felt sad to climb out of that little nest in which the most important thing--really the only thing--to do was to care for one another.

But I had to fly home.

The Return of Superbob

Superbob is out of the hospital!

Thanks to everyone who has been keeping him in their thoughts.

I am with him now, helping my mom with his 'round the clock care, and I'm so happy to be here.

He still has to go to the hospital every day, but the fact that he no longer resides in the hospital means he is getting better.

Tonight I sat at his feet and clipped his toenails for him, then massaged lotion into his dry and swollen feet and ankles.

I felt grace in the room.

Superbob has rescued me so many times from so many bad decisions and bad situations, and he's not the kind of guy who ever really lets anyone do anything for him, so to be able to help him a little felt very rare and wonderful.

A New Low In Reality Television


(this is a still from the one I'm watching right now.)

...or is it a documentary? I'm referring to the new television series "Adoption Diaries," an episode of which I am watching right now. I'm a bit flabbergasted by the show's goal to condense the entire length of a pregnancy, an adoption application process, and the placement of a baby with an adoptive family into one half-hour segment. It's so short, in fact, they throw in another segment of another adoption process just to make the program last a whole hour.

So one adoption isn't worth even one hour on television? What is the takeaway message from this show, then? It's all neat and tidy and wrap-up-able in thirty minutes?

They do show some of the uncertainty and sadness that the birthmothers feel, but the show definitely seems slanted toward the experience of the adopting family.

The whole thing seems really gross and exploitive to me. UGH.

This just in: I just watched a commercial about the show that comes on AFTER "Adoption Diaries" . It's called "The Locator," and it's about--you guessed it--a guy who helps family members reunite after they've been separated for decades by adoption and other such situations.
Unbelievable. Really, now.

Touched-By-Adoption Blogs

Hi there, everyone:
Are there any blogs by adoptees, birthparents, or adoptive parents that you read and would recommend? I'm always on the lookout for new ones--the ones I like are found on my "Blogs I like" list. I'd love to read your faves.
Please share!