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. (*%&(#&%