Why I need to stop looking at #birthmom on Instagram

The only picture I have of my birth mom and I before I was an adult. I got this when I was 26.

I don’t like to admit it, but I am a pretty emotional person. While I don’t cry all that often, I feel things deeply…both my own shit and the shit of others. This skill is helpful in working as a therapist, especially since I’ve learned how to have boundaries professionally, but when it comes to the blurred lines in my personal life…I’m less than able to do so.

Most of the time I’m just tra la laing through the interwebz, and then BAM I come across something, that, for whatever reason, slams headlong into my gut (which, I feel, is where most of my emotions lie, anyway). Sometimes it happens in real life, but mostly, due to an online presence, I find myself sucked into a vortex of feeling and can’t quite get myself out of it.

Like, for example, yesterday, when I was trolling around on my adoptive sister’s Instagram page and saw a picture of her with her birthmom. With the hashtag birthmom, I thought to myself “hmm, I wonder who’s posting under that hashtag.” And there I see them…bellies upon bellies. These young women are posting to something called ‘birthmom,” when they haven’t given birth, haven’t relinquished their children yet, and are documenting their whole ordeal for the world to see and I felt this WAVE of sadness.

These girls aren’t birthmoms. They are moms. Their children are their children, nobody else’s. They don’t have to relinquish. They won’t know what they’re going to feel until after the birth…or months…or years later.

And so, unlike other times where I’ve taken a deep breath and walked away, I posted to one woman’s page, something about making sure she was 100% sure, because the adoptive parent’s had already named HER daughter something else, without consulting her. Those are red flags in my opinion. But she got mad at me, and I felt sad…for her…for her baby…for a country that is focused on the million dollar industry of separating children from their parents because of conventional rules on things like age or education level of a parent (I’m not talking about kids taken because of abuse or neglact, ya know).

I know that I should just walk away from situations like that, but there’s the piece inside of me that thinks, “maybe nobody’s told her she could be a mom,” or “maybe nobody’s told her that it’s her child still, that she can make the choices,” or that I can somehow save just one. It’s like that cliche idea from The Catcher in the Rye, where he wants to stand at the edge of the cliff to catch the children from falling over and losing their innocence. And I’m seeing it happening, the falling, and can do nothing about it. And I feel so sad for those little babies, those little mes, who will grow up in adoption-land without needing to.

Adoption Terminology

What do you call your natural/first/birth/biological mother/father/family? Why? Are there different rules for different family members? What term(s) is not acceptable to you? How do you refer to them to others? If you’re in reunion, do you introduce them the same way? How does your natural/first/birth/biological mother family feel about the term? Does it matter to them? What about your adoptive family?

In real life, I refer to my adoptive parents as my parents, and my adoptive siblings as my brother and sister. Only in blogoland, when trying to differentiate or emphasize my adoptedness, do I call them my adoptive parents. When I introduce them to others, I introduce them as my parents. And only when someone makes an assholey comment about how tall I am, do I tell them that I am adopted.

In real life I introduce my biological/first dad as J, since that is his name. Sometimes I might introduce him as my biodad if it’s in a situation where people are going to wonder a) why he’s there and b) why he looks so much like me. He introduces me as his daughter, which I love. If I am nowhere near my adoptive family or my in-laws, I introduce him as my dad, or as my father. In blogging, or online, I refer to him as my natural/first dad for those who are schooled in proper adoptee language, and biological/birth dad for those who might be confused by the former langauge. I don’t get my panties too in a twist about what terminology I use for him, what annoys me is when people “correct” my use of a certain term. I will decide what I damn well please, thankyouverymuch.

My biological mother, on the other hand, is always my biolgical mother or birth mother in conversation. Perhaps I use her given name, E, and sometimes when I am feeling very generous online or want to fit in with my peeps, I use the most accepted ‘first mom/natural mom’ bit. I don’t get the chance to introduce her to people, as she is so messed up with drugs/alcohol that I very rarely even get to see her in her home, let alone out in publice. Which I am fine with.

I don’t really know how my biological family feels about what I call them. And I don’t actually care. I mean, they relinquished me to be raised by strangers, I don’t really think they get much say in what  I call them. And my adoptive parents refer to them as my birthparents, or J as J, but I also don’t care what they think about what I call them. I think, that, as long as I’m not refering to THEM as my adoptive parents in public (or private) they should be fine.

Adoption & Sex Education

Growing up adopted had the benefit of never imagining my parents having sex. And, unlike my other friends, I was never confronted with the  reality that they were having sex, because I never walked in on them, or heard late-night noises, or came across anything that would indicate they were anything other than completely celibate. And both the adoption narrative and the conservative Christian ideology completely supported my worldview.

Because, I had assumed that, since sex was to make babies, that my parents had tried, once, and found that they couldn’t make babies that way, so they went the route of adoption. And the sex-education that my parents began teaching (in 2nd grade mind you, WAY ahead of the public school system), was “age appropriate” and biologically based. The one book I remember them using, was by Dr. Dobson, or some other Christian big-whig, and talked all about abstinence and how my body was changing. I knew so much factual information about sex, that by 9th grade, when we had moved across the mountains, I got annoyed at the immature students who would snicker when the word boob was mentioned.

The problem with the way my adoptive family approached sex, was that they forgot all mention of how it would feel, so when I was making-out in the car with my first boyfriend and had the urge to take off all my clothes, it frankly surprised me. I didn’t want a baby, and sex was about making babies, but hot damn it felt good and that was quite a conundrum.

When my parents found out, they were, FURIOUS and the most hurtful thing out of their mouth was, “are you trying to be like her?”

Never before had the contempt for my young, knocked up, birthmother been so apparent. They had clearly tried their best to keep the judgmental attitude toward her a secret, though their words confirmed what they thought of her: a whore. And I, her daughter, was nothing short of the apple falling from the tree.

Of course, looking back now from both an adult and counselor perspective, it was no accident that I began having sex at the same age my biological mother did, and that I was working out some psychological issues and trying to connect with myself and with my mother. I want to believe that if my parents had had the tools to recognize that, they might have had more compassion, but I doubt it.

Falsified Documents

Potamus has been around for almost a year, and I have yet to send away for his birth certificate. I know that I need to, and the paperwork really isn’t THAT burdensome, but part of me feels so much hesitation to do it. In some ways I am scared to get a copy of his birth certificate and to see mine and Boof’s name on it, listed as mother & father. In even stranger ways, I’m worried that I will get a copy and NOT see our names listed on it.

My emotional reaction to something so simple as a birth certificate stems from my very own birth certificate. Because, my birth certificate is fake. Well, amended at least. For most people, their birth certificates are an accurate reflection of their birth story. There are lines for mother/father, time of birth, attending doctor, hospital the birth happened in, etc. But, for me,the birth certificate that I am allowed to have is not a historical document. It is a government falsified document that was created to reflect a storyline from years ago that perpetuate the idea of adoption being ‘as if born to’ the adoptive parents. So, instead of reflecting what actually happened (being delivered from Mama E’s body), it lists Mama L and Daddy B as my parents.

“But, they are your parents”, is an argument that I get from the general public. Yes, they are my parents. But they are my adoptive parents. They have adoption decree that is a legal piece of paperwork showing that they are my parents. Their names on my birth certificate is a government way of trying to change the storyline. My mom did not give birth to me, she is not even there in the hospital when I was born, so why is she listed as such? Has our country gone the ways of 1984 and begun to re-write history? Because, no matter how many times you write it, or the government writes it, my mother did not carry me in her body, nor did she expell me from her body in a birthing process. Maybe I “grew in her heart,” but this is a birth certificate we’re talking about.

But my historical record DOES exist.  The original one, with Mama E and Daddy J’s name on it. My birth name. The factual events of my birth story listed.

And I can’t order it.

I can’t see it, by government law. Even though I am an adult, I cannot order my own original birth certificate. Not even a copy, one that couldn’t be used for anything.

But you know who COULD order a copy of this historical document? Mama E or Daddy J. Even though I am an adult, I have to have my biological parents order my birth certificate for me.

In that way, I am still considered a child under the government’s laws, which is why I have been working to get the law changed. Because, when Potamus is grown, he will be able to order a copy of his birth certificate, so why can’t I?

Potamus, the day he we was born, from my body 🙂 (he looks huge, but he was only 7lbs!)