Welcome Back

Posted in Blog, Motherhood, Uncategorized by Mommyhood Land Blog

I miss writing.
Writing with no agenda, writing just for me, therapy for the soul. That’s what this was for me. At least before it was. Before 2020.
Then 2020 happened, and then 2020 happened to everyone, and it just didn’t stop.
I lost myself, I got lost in a fog, just a dense fog that I didn’t know which way was up. I was so lost that I didn’t even realize I was lost. I thought I had found myself. I didn’t, I really didn’t. I was just so overwhelmed that I was grasping for air and trying so desperately to convince myself that I was fine. Oh how I tried to convince myself everything was great, that I was standing tall.
I was so very lost. Anxiety consumed me. Depression raged inside me and all around me. Fear darkened everything. Self doubt crippled me. Emotional wounds ripped me open leaving gapping painful holes all over me, I swear I could feel them as if they were as real as me and you. And I still tried to stand up and smile. I lost so much of me. Parts of me broke and completely crumbled.

2020 started with an emotional hit, then another hit and so on and so forth, I had some medical issues, day surgery, my mom had a car accident, my daughter was healing from her surgery she had a few weeks prior to the new year. Then I got the message, a cousin messaging me on a DNA site asking how we were related. Within days I spoke to a stranger who may or may not be my biological father, and got another DNA test. Got the results from that. Spoiler, he was my biological father. I met him. And then Covid locked down the world. Fear took over the world, chaos took over.
It was an emotional roller coaster, all of it, and it didn’t stop.

It’s been 3 years. The fog has started to lift. The emotional wounds have started to heal. The trauma doesn’t knock me to the ground every day now, just some days. They are farther and further apart now. I feel my strength returning.

2020-2022 was a lot. Especially 2022, it was the year of heartbreak, devestation, clarity, healing, hope, and happiness, and peace. It sounds strange, but it was. By the summer of 2022, so much had happened. So many life altering conversations, situations, circumstances, had happened. It was cathartic. Summer of 2022 I released it all. The pain, the hurt, the tears, the trust and respect I had for some people and situations from different walks in my life.
I saw my self respect, my self worth, I saw it clear as day as if it was a fragile glass ball, and I guarded it like my life depended on it, because at that point it did. Summer of 2022 I spent in my garden, I spent with my plants, I spent in the water and sunshine. I got back to nature. I tried new things. I did things that scared me. I even made my own jam with fruit from my own garden. And honestly that would mean a lot more if you knew me in real life. I felt a shift within my soul and I embraced it with open loving arms.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, I also poured myself into therapy. I let my guard down with friends and family.
The fog lifted, the world started to make sense again, and I started to heal. And I found myself. I put the broken pieces back together that I needed to. I embraced the pain and learned from it. Some broken pieces got left where they were, there was no going back. I healed. I found peace.

2022 wouldn’t be 2022 without one more ass kicking though. I had surgery in October. The healing from that both physically and emotionally has kicked my ass once more. I’ve spent countless hours crying, crying from the physical pain, crying from the emotional pain. The unexpected grieving that came with it that completely knocked the wind out of me.
I know that if this situation had happened before, the outcome wouldn’t be the same. The strength, self love, self worth, and healing I had already started, helped me and guided me through this.

I’m not sure what 2023 will bring. I hope it brings more happiness, more peace, more healing, more adventures that lead to better understanding and self love.
Honestly at this point, I have no “plans” for 2023, no “New Year’s Resolutions”.
I want to just go along and embrace and welcome all that is for me, and see where this adventure takes me.

30Nov2021

Adoption Awareness Month – Belonging

Posted in Adoption, Blog, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

November is Adoption Awareness Month. As an Adoptee and Birth Mother, I can talk forever about this, so lets talk again. Remembering that it doesn’t matter if you are an adoptive parent, birth parent, know an adoptee, read a book, or anything else, unless you are actually an adoptee, you will never truly understand. So please for the love of all that is holy, stop telling Adoptees how to feel, that their feelings are wrong, that they are over reacting, or anything else like that. Adoptees have every right to feel everything they feel, all the conflicting, hard to understand feelings, they are all valid. Just because you dont understand something, does not make their feelings wrong.
So lets talk about belonging. Its a strange thing. We simultaneously belong to multiple families, yet dont fully belong to any. We are forever an option. In our adoptive families we struggle to belong, we dont look like anyone, we dont have the same mannerisms, traits, we struggle to fit in and blend in with our families. We notice all the questioning looks we get by people trying to figure out our connections to each other. We have even had to deal with strangers comments and questions. Our adoptions are constantly pointed out to us, when people compare looks, especially at family events. We are constantly referred to as the “adopted children”. When we go to the doctors and asked for medical history, there is a big blank spot, or adoption is simply written there. In school its pointed out every time we are asked to do a family tree, learning about genes and asked to go back in our family tree with eye colour, hair colour and such. We are constantly asked if we will ever look for our families, then guilted as soon as we decided to do it. We are asked what its like to grow up in a home with strangers. We are referred to as being “chosen” or “picked out”. People ask us how much we cost for our parents to ‘buy’ us. When people do family trees there is constantly a symbol next to our names for adoption. More times than people care to admit, adopted children are placed for adoption again because they didn’t “fit into the family”, or some other issues came to the surface. We are considered an option. We are told we will be sent back. When we get in trouble, we are told in must be in our genes and what a burden it must be for our families to deal with us.
Then if and when we are able to find birth families, we are treated an as option. We have to wait to see if our birth families will accept us or reject us, again. Always an option. IF we do get accepted, we rarely ever fully get accepted. Our lives before they met us dont matter because they never knew us. We are never truly the first born, second born, third , or last born, because we weren’t there. When people talk we are separated in speech, like “my kids and you” or “my boys and you” its always “them and you”. There is always a subtle separation in speech. We are told to wait till kids are older to be told about us. We are told to wait because older generations can’t hear about us right now. We are kept secret from some members of the family. We are told to wait till their kids are fully grown before they will consider spending holidays with us. We are told they have their own traditions and things they love, and they won’t grow and evolve those things to include us. We are told that to involve us in traditions would be the same thing to them as throwing away years of family traditions with ‘their family’. Always the separation in speech. Never fully accepted. We aren’t considered ‘close family’ when it comes to family events, birthdays or holidays. We are told that people need time to adjust to our existence. We are told that people that are supposed to be our family need time to figure out if they want to ‘try to be friends and see where that goes’, instead of truly accepting that we are family and include us as such and work towards building relationships that way as sister/brother/cousin/son/daughter or whichever it is. We are always treated as an option. Someone that belongs, but not fully. We are welcome, as long as we stay in our little corner over there, and dont mess with their family setting and traditions. If we dont fit in just right, we are again abandoned, because we will forever be an option for people. An option they can walk away from whenever a single issue arises. We constantly walk on egg shells out of fear of being abandoned again. Many times adoption reunions fall apart after a couple years.
We belong to multiple families, yet not fully and truly. Its a weird sense of belonging, being on the outside looking in, longing for acceptance, longing for connection, feeling at home, being surrounded by family, being loved and accepted, and still feeling alone.

~Michelle

23Nov2021

Adoption Awareness Month

Posted in Adoption, Blog, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

November is Adoption Awareness Month. As an Adoptee and Birth Mother, I have a lot to say on the subject. This is however a subject that only Adoptees can truly understand. It doesn’t matter if you are an adoptive parent, birth parent, know an adoptee, read an adoption book, or anything else, unless you are an adoptee, you will never really understand. And every adoptees journey is so different.

Being an adoptee is complicated. We are constantly told that we should be grateful, feel lucky, and be happy that we were “saved” or “chosen”. And here’s the thing, we can feel grateful, we can feel lucky, we can be happy with the life we did get, we can love our life, we can love our family, and at the same time we can still feel angry, hurt, sad, abandoned, long for a biological connection, we can mourn for a life we never had, mourn for the loss of all that could have been or maybe even should have been. And we can experience all of these emotions at once, and not have it take away from feeling grateful, or happy, or hurt, or abandoned. It is so hard to put into words that will ever truly explain what it is like to be an adoptee. To live with such drastically different feelings conflicting with each other all the time.

I’ve lived my life with people telling me how I should feel. Telling me my feelings are wrong if they have ever been anything other than grateful. I’ve had people be mad at my existence.
I’ve been called selfish and ungrateful, rude and mean, for wanting to find my birth family.
I’ve even been called selfish for wanting to then spend time with the people I found after spending my entire life apart from them.
I’ve been told I was never wanted and that they never wanted to ‘waste’ a name on me when I was born.
I’ve been called a home wrecker, intruder, and worse, because I found my birth family.
I’ve had people separate me from “real” family, and put in a little corner off on my own.
I’ve even been told I am too old. When I found who I believed was my birth father, thats what he said to me. This man believed I was his daughter right from the start and even tried to find me when I was 2 years old so he could fight for custody of me. But then when I was almost 28 years old, I found him. And he didn’t want anything to do with me. One of the many reasons he gave me, my age. He said I was too old now. He said I took to long, and I was too old now, and none of it mattered, and I was too old to celebrate anything, too old to care, too old to start building a relationship. He was so angry at me that I took too long to find him. He had other choice words too say to me over the years, but anyway, that was the first time someone complained about my age, used my age against me, told me i’m “too old” for something, but it wouldn’t be the last time. Throughout my journey other people have told me the same thing and used my age against me for various reason.
I’ve mourned the death of a man I believed was my birth father, just to find out years later he wasn’t.
I could go on and on about the things said to me. The way people treat me as an after thought, as an option, mad at my existence, and more.

But here’s what Adoption gave me, besides trauma, abandonment issues, heartbreak and more, it gave me a beautiful family that has loved me so fiercely. It gave me two parents, that at 36 years old I can honestly say they have always been there for me, never missed a holiday, from Valentines Day to Christmas, never missed a birthday, never missed a school event, been there for every milestone in my life, the birth of each of my children, they were there and visiting the hospital every single day I was in there. They have been there for each of my Mother Days, especially my first after my oldest son was born, which I couldn’t have gotten through without them. They even celebrate my wedding anniversary. Always there for me. And in turn they have always been there for my kids. Every birthday, every holiday, every school performance, every event at school, they were there. I’ve lost count of the amount of cakes my mom has baked with my daughter every time she says its a dolls birthday, or a stuffed animals birthday, it doesn’t matter, my mom is there to celebrate with her and make it special. Family trips all together. When my kids were/are sick, my parents were/are the first people I called, and my Dad would sit up with me during the night and the kids while they had croup, or an ear infection or whatever, my parents were there. Because of the parents I got, I was able to live in Kenya. The people I met there, amazing friends that have become family. Not to mention I met my oldest sons birth father there. Without living there, I never would have met him and had my son. And I can’t imagine a life without him. And my husband, who I met through a cousin on my Moms side. And now I have 3 more beautiful children, and an amazing man in my life. And I wouldn’t have had them, met all the people I have, lived in all the places I have, done all the traveling I did, if life hadn’t put me down another path, if someone else didn’t make one of the biggest decisions in life for me, a choice I didn’t make or was given a say in. And I am so incredibly grateful the life I have had so far, the people I have met, my family, my friends, my husband and my four kids. There is no way I could wish that away. But having said all that, I still mourn for what never was. I still feel sadness over missing out on years with so many other people. Its a complicated thing. It doesn’t make sense. And it is so hard to mourn for something that you never even had. But all while feeling grateful and loving the life you did have. So I dont know what else to say in this ramble. Other than its Adoption Awareness Month, and being an adoptee is complicated, amazing, beautiful, trauma filled, beautiful, and every other mixed emotions.When an adoptee tries to explain their story, share their complicated conflicting emotions, dont try to correct them, dont tell them how they should feel. Let adoptees feel what they feel, and not be shamed for it. Listen to what adoptees have to say, even if you dont understand it.

~ Michelle

12Feb2021

One Year Later

Posted in Adoption, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

One year ago my world got flipped all around. Everything changed and nothing made sense. Yet somehow it all made sense. A year ago I wrote this post about a DNA test I took on one of those sites, I thought nothing of it, because you know, I already had all my answers from my 10 year search. But turns out I was wrong, so very very wrong. And the man I believed to be my birth father wasn’t, and I had to start all over. This time however it only took 17 days. In 17 days I messaged a stranger on Facebook, took a paternity test, and met my birth father. All in the span of 17 days my world changed forever. And then you know a global pandemic happened and put all plans on hold and made it impossible to meet people, family, and spend time with them.

Here we are, one year later and I am still trying to wrap my head around everything. Its been a lot. And today is a lot. I have all the emotions fighting it out for dominance. So many big, giant, conflicting emotions. A lot has happened in a year. Relationships have changed, which I guess is a totally natural thing, one way or another, good or bad, relationships change. I still can’t figure out the right words, or emotions to describe the last year. Yet I’m going to try, for my own sake, I need to get this out. I need to make sense of things.

This past year has been amazing. It really has. It has been so wonderful, magical even. Things have just clicked. There are these things, these little moments, these little things about myself, that just make sense now. Things I have kept to myself my whole life, parts of myself that I always kept just for me, because it didn’t feel like it was right to show them to the world, that no one around me would understand or connect, and now, it makes sense. The connections are there. And its weird, it feels foreign, I don’t understand it most of the time, but it all feels right at the same time. One of the strangest things has been to meet people that I look like, you know, other than the tiny humans that I created and birthed myself. Like being able to see myself in other people, and not just looks, traits, habits, beliefs. Its been such a shock to me, and I just don’t know how to explain what that is like after 34 years of life to finally experience that. Something that is just so common to most people, that it never crosses their minds, something so common that its not a big deal to people. And here I am completely crying and falling apart about it.

Can we also talk about how weird it is to find these people, essentially strangers, but they are family, and you feel a connection to them, but they are still strangers, and having to build friendships/relationship with them. Like we are strangers, but I’m their daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, granddaughter. But despite being genetically connected, we are still strangers. Who just happen to look alike, be related, and have things in common. But still strangers, and still family, all at the same time.

Also I need to mention that for the first time in my life, for my 35th birthday I got to spend the day with a biological parent. I still think about that day, and I am still in shock about it. That day meant so much to me. It was and still is such a big deal. Something so simple and easy that a lot of people never give it a second thought. And yet I had to wait till my 35 birthday to have that happen. Its unreal. That day was simply amazing.

Despite all the good and wonderful things, there has been so much fear and anxiety. And overwhelming amount of fear and anxiety. A big dark scary cloud that just follows you around constantly, threatening to ruin everything in the blink of an eye. Because sometimes adoptees get rejected by their families. Sometimes families decide they dont want them, they aren’t a real member of the family, they dont belong, and a whole list of a million other reasons. Sometimes adoptees are the ones to change their mind. But in my case, after 10 years of searching, 7 years after finding my birth mother, and 1 year of this, I know I’m not going to change my mind. I know what I want. But these people I just found, these strangers who also happen to be family, I dont know what they want. They never knew about me, never knew there was even a chance I was out there, never waited for me, I was never a thought for any of them. I was a total and complete surprise. My first reunion of course didn’t go well. So that fear of rejection, that fear of things going badly, was/ is all too real for me since I have already experienced it. And a year later, it is still there. Some days are better than others. Some days its a dull hum in the background, other days its front and centre. I hoped by now, a year into this, that it would be gone by now. Maybe one day. Hopefully one day. Hopefully soon.

I’ve also had to heal from the last reunion I had, the last 8 years with my birth mother. The guilt I have for believing her for 7 years. The pain caused from the man I believed was my birth father. The anger at myself for it all. The anger at her for her choices. There has been a lot of anger and guilt and pain I’ve had to try to heal from. Some days are better than others. It has been a slow process. I dont know if thats just a normal thing, or because it is mixed in with so many other things going on. Some days its hard to separate my feelings from the joy and happiness I feel, and the pain.

Having the chance to know my story, my real story, get real answers has been amazing. Yet in a way it has also been heartbreaking. That I can’t explain, even though I badly wish I could. Even just to myself. But I can’t and it is driving me crazy.

So really how do you even begin to describe a year like this? A year of finding your truth, your family, your connections, and followed right by a global pandemic. A global pandemic that has its own fears, anxieties, hardships, stress, depression, and is keeping you apart from some of the people you want to be with the most. Its been so hard, and heartbreaking. To know these people and have to stay away. Its soul crushing and destroying. The timing of all this. It makes it so hard. I believed my birth mother for 7 years, thats 7 years I lost with these people, 7 years without a global pandemic that I would have the freedom to know and meet and spend time with these people. But nope, that didn’t happen. I had to have all this happen right before and during a pandemic and global lockdown.

So here’s to a better year, a year with less fear, a year with more connections, a year of building better relationships, getting to know people, and hopefully being able to see them and spend time with them. Heres to a year where my emotions aren’t so raging and out of control. Where things make sense, where I can explain my emotions.

~ Michelle

26Feb2020

Finding The Final Pieces

Posted in Adoption, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

I think its safe to say my adoption search for my birth parents is finally over. 17 years after my search first started. 7 years after finding my birth mother, I finally know who my birth father is. For the first time, at age 34, I can finally answer the most basic questions, who’s your birth father and who do you look like.

See, two weeks ago shit hit the fan. You can read about that here.

The last two weeks are a blur. In two weeks everything changed. I lost the family I thought I had, and found a whole new one. I’m still trying to process it all. What it all means. All the new connections I have, all the new family members I have.

My Adoption Tattoo

How can you even begin to process all this?

I know there are adoptees and birth parents and adoptive parents that read my blog and reach out to me. And how I wish I had some words of wisdom here. But the truth, I have no freakin idea what to do, how to process this, what the next steps should be, how to handle them.

I have so many conflicting emotions, all the feelings, its hard to sort them out and see clearly. I don’t know which to follow, which will subside, I don’t know what to embrace and what to let go.

Maybe if this journey had been spread out, and I had more time to deal with the feelings as they came on, instead of everything happening in one day.

In one day, everything changed. Then I had to wait two weeks for results from a paternity test. The longest two weeks ever. It was torture. I was talking to a stranger, spending hours every day talking to him, getting to know him, not knowing what the DNA test would say. I was mad at myself every day for getting attached to this person that could potentially turn out to have no connection to me. Then we got the results. We match. We are without a doubt Father and Daughter. And now here we are. Here I am, trying to process. Trying to figure out what I want and need, while considering everyone else. Yes this is my story, my journey, but it doesn’t just affect me. It affects my kids, my husband, my family, my birth father, his wife, his family. My circle just got so much bigger, and I want to take care of it, and do right by everyone.

Everyone keeps asking how I am. And I say fine, good, alright. Every answer, but the truth. Not because I’m lying, but because I don’t know. I honestly can not tell you how I feel. Part of me wants to run to these people, part of me wants to hide, part of me is happy, part of me is scared. So very scared. Scared something bad will happen. Even scared something good will happen. Figure that one out? If you do, let me know, because I can’t explain that one. You get the point. Every conflicting feeling, I have it right now.

The last time I found a birth parent, it didn’t go well. I thought I had all my answers. I thought I had all the dots connected. And I was ready to close the book on that chapter and leave it behind me. I basically did. I had walked away. I had gotten on with my life and came to terms with it. I was not prepared for all this. I never dreamed this was even a possibility.

And through out all of this, all I can think of is the damn song from Frozen 2: “Into The Unknown”. And also “When I am Older”. Because maybe one day this will all make sense and I will understand why things happened the way they did. Why I had to go through so much pain first. Why I had to wait till I was 34 for answers. Why it happened this way.

~ Michelle

12Feb2020

I took a DNA test and found out that my adoption journey and search isn’t over yet 7 years after I thought I found my birth family.

Posted in Adoption, Blog, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

If you have been following along with this blog you will know that adoption is near and dear to my heart. I am adopted, you can read about that here and I am also a birth mother, you can read about there here. I even have an Adoption Tattoo.

I knew my entire life that I was adopted. There was no moment that stands out as “the moment” that everything changed and I found out. My family talked very openly about it. When I turned 18 I began the legal search for my birth mom and hoped that she would lead me to my birth father. As my birth father was not aware of the adoption, or me, he was not on any paper work, or at least thats what my paperwork said. It took nearly 10 years to track down my birth mother (Don’t even get me started on the government and the stupid ways they handle adoption and records). That was about 7 years ago. She was able to tell me about my birth father. Finally I would get answers and learn about my roots and where I came from.

Finding out about my birth father was a hard pill to swallow. Finding out that he did in fact know about me my entire life and wanted nothing to do with me was hard. Dealing with that rejection was hard. But at least through him I did find a half sister. We bonded and got to know each other. For the past 7 years I’ve talked to her off and on, watched my nephew grow. I’ve talked to other relatives, aunts and uncles and cousins. Then my birth father died. I had never once talked to him or met him, but still I mourned his death. I was so angry with him for so long. For years I held so much anger towards him.

And then last year my son I gave up for adoption did a DNA test on one of those sites. He was curious to see what his ethnicity was. Because even though he knows who his birth parents are, both of his birth parents are actually adopted as well. So even though I am in my sons life I can not give him certain answers. A few months later my sons mother offered to buy me a DNA test on the same site so that we would be able to determine which side of the family comes from where. So I did. I didn’t think anything of it really. I didn’t expect much out of it. I figured I knew. I was doing it for my son.

So I got my results. I didn’t really check the DNA matches since I figured I knew what would be there. But then I noticed something as the matches started coming in. No one had the same last name that my birth father had. So I searched through the over 6000 matches on the site, no one had his last name. It didn’t even show up in peoples family trees as a distant relative. The truth started to sink in. The man I believed to be my birth father, the man I had been so angry at, the sister I had gotten to know, they weren’t actually related to me at all. She’s not my sister. He’s not my birth father.

A part of me didn’t want to deal with that. A part of me just said “hey maybe no one in that family has ever signed up on this site. Thats possible. They all know each other, so why would they.”

One morning I woke up to a message “Hi, it looks like I’m your cousin” and she proceeded to fill me in on so much family history that that was clear that she was not related to my birth mother and no possible way to be related to who I had believed was my birth father.

I tried to talk to my birth mom about it. She insisted that he was my birth father, until I told you about the DNA test site. And the truth came out.

And now here I am, at the age of almost 35, and after 10 years of searching, 7 years of accepting what I thought were truths, getting to know people, mourning a death, I am back to square one. I have no idea who my birth father is. I never thought this would happen. I never thought I would search for so long for a family just to have them taken away again and start all over.

So apparently my adoption story is not over. Not even close. My journey continues.

And now I deal with trying to find my actually real birth father, and possibly being rejected again and going through that all over again.

Michelle

19Jul2019

Two Weeks Is Not Enough Time

Posted in Adoption, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

Have you ever had so many conflicting emotions? Feeling all the feels all at once? So many different things pulling at you that you don’t know which way is up? Thats been me the last few weeks. I feel so emotionally drained and raw right now. I feel like emotionally hung over. It is so hard to explain. So bare with me as I try.

An old picture of all 4 kids together. With my daughter actually sitting on the lap of my oldest sons (adoptive) moms lap. This picture means the world to me.

I got to spend 2 weeks with my oldest son. My son I gave up for adoption. I am so blessed to have a relationship with him. To get to know him, see him, talk to him. I am forever thankful that his mom allows him to come visit us. She is truly the most incredible woman ever.

My 3 younger kids absolutely love it when their big brother comes to visit. They look up to him so much. They all get along SO well. It’s amazing to see them together. It makes my heart so incredibly happy to see them all together. But it also hurts so much. It is so cliche to say that its bitter sweet, but basically, yeah it is. I am so happy to see them all together, to have all my kids under one roof, to sit down to family meals. I feel complete. But I also feel like there is a giant hole in my chest. I feel like my chest is being ripped apart with every breathe I take.

Here is my son. Someone I carried within me for 9 months. Someone who I love so fiercely. Someone who looks like me. Sounds like me. Someone who is apart of me. And yet that isn’t my son. I didn’t raise him. I don’t know him the way I know my other kids. I don’t get to hold him like I can my other kids. He doesn’t call me mom, because again, I’m not his mom. I see a scar on him and I have no clue how he got it. Yet when I look at my other kids I can tell you every story behind every scar. I don’t know his likes and dislikes. I don’t know what those subtile faces mean. I’m looking at my son who isn’t my son. It’s hard. So incredibly freakin hard.

I love having him here. I love being around him. I love spending time with him. I’m over joyed every time he comes to visit. There are no words to properly describe the love and joy I feel. But there are also no words to describe how equally heart wrenching it is. How much it breaks me every time I say goodbye to him. How much is breaks me when he’s here and seeing him with his siblings, sitting at our family table and knowing it won’t last, knowings it is only for a few days.

I got to spend two awesome weeks with all my kids together. Two weeks that went by in the blink of an eye. Two weeks I will forever be thankful for.

~ Michelle

5May2017

The Tea Girl Of Hummingbird Lane – Book Review

Posted in Adoption, Blog, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

I recently read The Tea Girl Of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See, and I just have to share it with you.

I was drawn to the idea of this book because it is about adoption, which as an adoptee and birth mother, adoption is a huge part of my life. I was scared of this book when I first got it, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know how adoption was going to be shown in this book. I scared that this book would completely break my heart. I was scared that this book would show adoption as something horrible – which it is not, not always. This book surprised me. This book made me laugh and it made me cry, for many different reasons. This book is beautifully written.

The Tea Girl Of Hummingbird Lane is an amazing story about family, traditions, love, family separated by culture, and great distances, adoption and the love a mother has for her child. Li-yan’s mother for her, and Li-yan for her daughter, and her daughters adoptive mother’s love for her adopted daughter. A mothers love is strong and never ending.

Lets start the with the premise of the book. The book is about a girl named Li-yan and her family. They live in the tea mountains of China. They live a quiet life in their village away from the rest of the world. They are very much about traditions, traditions set long ago. The way Lisa See describes it all, the village, the forest, the tea, you can see it all. You can taste the tea, you can smell the tea. Lisa See paints such vivid pictures of Li-yan’s life you are left feeling as if you actually knew her and visited her. The way she goes into Li-yan’s family traditions, so much detail. I was left feeling like I had actually met all these people from the book, and was sad when I finished the book. Thats how you know a book is good- when despite the ending, you are sad its done.

But it was not the talented writing that drew me to this book and kept me reading, it was the story of adoption. If that makes sense. I was so invested in finding out what happened to Li-yan and her daughter. It was being able to connect so strongly with two very different characters. I felt so many emotions reading this book. I could relate to two special characters on so many levels throughout this book.

From a birth moms, and mothers, point of view my heart broke for Li-yan during her pregnancy and as she gave her baby away, and all the days after that. From an adoptees point of view I could relate to her daughters story. I felt the struggle of both of them. I felt the heartache of both of them. I felt the longing of both of them. I couldn’t help buy think of my own story while reading this. When Lisa See describes Li-yan watching her daughter get taken away, I couldn’t help but remember the day I walked out of the hospital and watched someone else hand off my son to his new family. When she writes about Li-yan’s daughter returning to China for the first time I remember my first time going to the city where I was born. My own adoption is considered local, so I could not relate fully to the cultural differences that Li-yan’s daughter experienced. But I still felt her struggle and feelings.

Adoption is tricky to write and talk about. Not everyone is happy about it. Not everyone likes it. Not every one agrees with it. Yes this book was one of the best books I have read about adoption. Could parts have been improved on? That depends on who is reading it and their point of view on adoption. To me, the book was beautiful. The whole book, not just the adoption aspect of it. The background story, the detail, the other characters. The writing was fluid, the writing was beautiful.

This book left me wanting more. I actually spent some time researching China, tea making, adoption in China, the tea mountains in China, the history that Lisa See talked about in her book. I started this book strictly interested in the adoption story line in it and left loving every part of this book.

I will say the ending upset me! I won’t tell you what happened, as I don’t want to spoil it. But I could have kept on reading. I wanted to keep on reading. I needed more. I’m sure the author, Lisa See, left it that way so you could paint on your picture, write your own story. But I didn’t want to, I wanted to keep reading her story.

If you read this book, which I recommend you do, please share your thoughts and feelings of it with me. I would love to hear your thoughts on this book.

~ Michelle

*I received a copy of this book from Simon and Schuster, all thoughts are strictly my own.

7Jul2016

Talking To My Kids About Adoption

Posted in Adoption, Blog, Motherhood by Mommyhood Land Blog

Something was brought to my attention and I felt the need to write this down. I am adopted, and I am a birth mom. There is no denying or hiding it. Its a major part of me. And really it is something I would never try to hide or deny. There is no shame in adoption, in being in any part of adoption. And there is also the minor detail about having an adoption tattoo on my arm in plain sight that I show off proudly.

Growing up I don’t remember any single moment that I was told I was adopted. It was a simple fact that I grew up with. When I placed my son for adoption I knew without a doubt that any future children I had would grow up knowing all about him. Fast forward 3 children later and they all know about him. My daughter is only 2, but she has spent every summer of her life with him, and sees him on FaceTime, and sees his pictures around the house. She may not understand, but she knows he’s her brother.

No, telling my children that they have an older sibling that was placed for adoption did not hurt them, or scar them in any way. No I did not tell them “too soon”. Well unless you mean I talked about their older brother even before they could talk, then sure, maybe it was “too soon” as they couldn’t talk about it and join in the conversation.

My children have grown up with the fact that they have an older brother. Being that my oldest son was placed into an open adoption. My oldest son was able to meet my 3 younger children all before they were 6 months old and been able to visit them every few years.

Adoption isn’t something to be hidden away, kept in secret, only talked about in dark corners in the middle of the night in whispers.

I am adopted. I am a birth mom. Why should my children grow up not knowing these things?

Yes, my children miss their older brother. Yes, I miss him. Yes, it hurts me to know they miss him. Yes, I have answered many, many, many questions over the years and will probably continue to do so. Yes it is hard, some days harder than others. Yes, we have all cried countless tears. Is it worth it? Yes. My children all know each other and get to grow up together and create their own special bond together. Seeing all four of my children together, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Adoption should be talked about. All the time. Adoption is not a bad thing. It is nothing to be ashamed about. Adoption is a beautiful thing. Adoption is all about love and family. Because of adoption my family has grown in numbers and love, a love that crosses the oceans.

Just as my kids grow up knowing that the sun rises and sets, they know that they have a brother who has another family and has his own life path to follow, but that he is still their brother no matter where he lives.

~ Michelle

8Jan2016

Three Years After I Found My Birth Mother

Posted in Adoption, Blog by Mommyhood Land Blog

Roses my Birth Mother gave me the one and only time we met in person

3 years ago, yesterday actually, I found my birth mother. Or she found me? We found each other?

I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was a cold winter day, I was about 10 years into my search, I had made a break through and actually finally found people that knew her, one problem, no one seemed to know where she was at that time. I was trying to clear all the stress and drama while I walked to school to pick up my boys. On the walk back home my phone rang, as soon as I saw the area code my heart stopped, it was the area code from where I believed my birth mother was. I tried to calm myself, telling myself it was probably just some numbers calling me back after I left messages. I took a deep breathe and answered the phone.

On the other end of the phone was a woman asking for me by my birth name. It was her. She was real. She was alive. She was actually on the other end talking to me.

I screamed.

Then I verified her information, made sure it was really her. It was real. It was really her.

I screamed again.

When I got home I didn’t want to attempt to get the boys in the house, since they would be so loud, so I sat outside in the cold. (If you know me, that is a BIG deal) I was outside for over an hour. We talked about everything, mostly just shooting off question to question at each other.

The first few days and weeks we talked all the time. There were good morning and good night text messages, phone calls, a constant string of texts, I had to re-charge my phone countless times during the day. I have never used my phone so much or talked on the phone so much.

The “honeymoon” stage was such a blur. So much information was exchanged, so many questions were asked, so, so, SO many feelings were running around. Then something happened. The phone calls stopped, the text messages slowed and stopped.

3 years later I sit here, trying to figure it all out. Trying to piece together what happened. Trying to figure out why. Why it went this way. Why this all happened. Did I do something wrong? Was I not good enough for her? Was I not what she imagined?

3 years later and she has become a stranger again.

In all the questions asked, I’m left with a million more.

I don’t know what will happen, I don’t even know what happened!

This whole journey has been such a strange, crazy, unpredictable, emotional, rollercoaster. Sometimes I can’t even tell which direction I should be facing.

Should I have found her? Yes. Did I ever imagine that something like this could happen? No. Would I change it? I don’t know. Because I don’t know what I should change. I don’t know where things went ‘wrong’ to lead me to this path. I don’t even know if this is the ‘wrong’ path!

What I can tell you is that I never dreamed it would be like this.

Growing up I had a million different scenarios in my head, none of them even close to this.

In an adoption everyone wants a happy ending. Most birth mothers hope that if and when their child comes back it will be happy. Most adoptive parents want it to go well because they don’t want to see their child hurt. Most adoptees just don’t want to be hurt, they want answers.

When I think of my adoption journey I almost feel like a failure. I was lucky to finally find my birth mother, I was lucky she wanted to find me. But some where, some how, something, maybe, went wrong. Or maybe this is just how it was meant to be. I don’t know.

I imagined that we would have some sort of relationship, friendship. I didn’t imagine I would meet her and lose her again. I never thought she would become a stranger. I never knew someone and a situation could cause such confusion, and bring on so many questions, and so many different feelings all at once.

I found my birth mom 3 years ago, and I have even more questions than when I started.

This journey has been so much harder and emotionally draining and confusing than I would have dreamed possible.

Maybe the next 3 years will bring some more answers. Maybe. If there are even any answers to be had.

~ Michelle