I started to write this blog as the legislation was about to change in Ontario allowing birthmothers and adoptees the opportunity to know each other. That bill was vetoed and it stalled the information being shared to make that possible. After trying for a second time to open records June 1st 2009 will see that dream realized.
For those following this blog you know I am in reunion with my son. It is a comfortable reunion but still a painful journey as I try to navigate reunion's pathway.
I have been thinking about how important it is to me to have the information from the original birth record and to access the adoption information. I have also marveled at how I have accepted my son into my life without any formal or legal acknowledgement that he is in fact my son. Many of the birthmothers I have had contact with have done the same thing...no tests or legal documents to prove that the children we claim as ours truly are ours. My heart is the only test I have ever needed. In every ounce of my being I know this boy/man is my son. The rational may be his birthdate or the place of his birth or his looks being so much like mine. Maybe there is rational is a temperment much like mine, his similar actions or mannerisms that make him seem to be my son. Interestlingly he has accepted me as his natural mother too, no questions asked. I could have dropped from the sky, knew he was adopted and a few things about him and just happened to claim he was mine. What is this bond we have?
From the first time I was told by his adopted sister that she may have some information for me I knew this was my son. My heart quickened and I was reminded of the first time I felt him move inside me. For the longest time after when I would see his picture or hear his voice I felt that "quickening" just like a mom feels her child stir inside her womb.
It all comes back to the heart. I know, I just know he is my son.
The government has kept the applications we submitted the first time they were going to open records. Mine will be amongst the ones they first process. I still want the paper work but it is not to prove anything. It is to somehow right a wrong that was done although I know full well I won't be satisfied. The wound is too deep to be mended by a piece of paper that should never have happened. My consolation is in knowing he is mine, always and forever.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Adoption, the Life Sentence
While I was listening to a song last night that had nothing to do with adoption, it struck me that even the most dangerous criminals have a chance at parole. As a birthmother I have no way to escape this life sentence impossed on me 38 years ago! Do I sound angry? You betcha!
There is no escaping the bars of feelings that surrond me. I can well imagine how that person trapped behind bars, jailed for a crime they truly did not commit would feel as the minutes of their lives ticked by with no way of getting out. I wondered why I was so facinated when a local man was released a few years ago from prison. He had served almost 20 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. After being tried and found guilty of killing a young health care worker in Saskatewan in the 1960's he was sentenced to life in prison. Even that is only 25 years...I am at the 38 almost 39 year mark!
I know now it was not because of the sensational media coverage I was so intense on following his case. It was because I felt I have been wrongly tried and convicted of a crime in a sense. My crime was two fold...having sex without being married and getting pregnant without being married. I had been place behind bars of self doubt and inner loathing imposed on me by the society, social worker and family members that were suppose to protect me. Unlike the man jailed unjustly I have believed for all this time I deserved the sentence imposed on me. And just like the young man wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit, I trusted the system to do what was right. How wrong we have been.
I am not a political activist by any means. I want to protest the crime and something inside of me wants to scream injustice for us all...all the birthmothers who trust the system when it said you will move on, you will have other children and this is for the best. #(*$%^#&*$ I am angry.
Today I am in reunion with my son. I love him dearly and have an opportunity to move beyond the pain of relinquishment. Every once in a while I reflect on where we have been, imagine how it would have been to raise him and again I become angry that somehow I had trusted a system to know my best interest and his and it failed us! Angry that I accepted I was a criminal and the life sentence given to both of us. I am not sure how he perceives adoption in his life or how he has or has not worked through those feelings. One day I hope we talk about it. Right now I am too angry. (*%&(#&%
There is no escaping the bars of feelings that surrond me. I can well imagine how that person trapped behind bars, jailed for a crime they truly did not commit would feel as the minutes of their lives ticked by with no way of getting out. I wondered why I was so facinated when a local man was released a few years ago from prison. He had served almost 20 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. After being tried and found guilty of killing a young health care worker in Saskatewan in the 1960's he was sentenced to life in prison. Even that is only 25 years...I am at the 38 almost 39 year mark!
I know now it was not because of the sensational media coverage I was so intense on following his case. It was because I felt I have been wrongly tried and convicted of a crime in a sense. My crime was two fold...having sex without being married and getting pregnant without being married. I had been place behind bars of self doubt and inner loathing imposed on me by the society, social worker and family members that were suppose to protect me. Unlike the man jailed unjustly I have believed for all this time I deserved the sentence imposed on me. And just like the young man wrongly convicted of a crime he didn't commit, I trusted the system to do what was right. How wrong we have been.
I am not a political activist by any means. I want to protest the crime and something inside of me wants to scream injustice for us all...all the birthmothers who trust the system when it said you will move on, you will have other children and this is for the best. #(*$%^#&*$ I am angry.
Today I am in reunion with my son. I love him dearly and have an opportunity to move beyond the pain of relinquishment. Every once in a while I reflect on where we have been, imagine how it would have been to raise him and again I become angry that somehow I had trusted a system to know my best interest and his and it failed us! Angry that I accepted I was a criminal and the life sentence given to both of us. I am not sure how he perceives adoption in his life or how he has or has not worked through those feelings. One day I hope we talk about it. Right now I am too angry. (*%&(#&%
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