Writing My Wrongs

The Answer is No and Yes

"There is one pain I often feel, which you will never know. It is caused by the absence of you." - Unknown

“Do all birth mothers feel the way you do? I would feel awful if I found out my children’s mothers feel so badly about giving their child to me?”

Yes, I was asked this question by an adoptive parent.  It is so loaded for me with so many possible answers and explanations I don’t know where to begin.

First, NO. 

Not all mothers feel like I do. How could they? They did not have my experience, they had their own. They are not walking in my shoes (which as of right now are black, high heeled shoe boots from Nine West dirtied with salt and slush), they are walking in their own.

The single common denominator between mothers that I know, mothers that I fraternize with, hang out with, support and share with, is a deep pain and loss of our child.  It is on that playing field we can bond.  We can look into the eyes of another mother and just see the same pain, the same loss. We can be told by a complete stranger that she lost her child and we will immediately reach out to her, pull her close and cry with her.  We have felt that mutual loss.

However what brought us to that loss, how we were treated during it, and afterwards, varies as widely as our looks. As such, our feelings and reactions will vary as well.

That doesn’t mean we don’t love our children or that it was a good thing for our children to have been adopted.

Consider my friend Dee.  When she joined my support list several years ago, she was quite confident that she was fine with losing her daughter to adoption.  She did the “best thing” and the “the right thing”.  I could argue facts with her that the “only thing” is far from “best or right”. I could also tell her that “best thing” to an adoptee who suffers from primal wound is offensive.  Best for whom?  I didn’t argue with my friend at first. I am in no position to challenge her reality. Her truth is her truth just as mine is mine.

To me, she did (and still does) appear to be generally fine with the loss of her daughter. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true, she is “finer” I am. She doesn’t feel the depth of grief and loss and trauma that I do.

Oh, sure, she feels it. She misses her child and now, after a few years of talk with other moms, does indeed feel she did the only thing and not the right thing or the best thing. She realizes how she was used and manipulated by the broker who took her child. She is angry about that. But still, she is healthier than I am.

Why is this? If we both lost our children to the same network of baby brokers, why is Dee somewhat okay and I am a walking wounded?

In Dee’s case, she was certainly slightly more empowered than I was. She was not sent away. She was not threatened with lawsuits or promissory notes. She did not tell her caseworker prior to surrender that she wanted to keep her child.

She believed wholeheartedly from the day her child was born she did the right thing. She was in a bad living situation with the father, with her housing and more.

I didn’t believe that and I wasn’t in her situation. Sure my family had problems but both my family and my daughters fathers family were middle class, hard working, god fearing (ha) people. I had options that should have been explored before I was shut away in the lovely home.

My friend Hattie and I had dinner a few weeks ago. She, like Dee, is one of the moms that tells me she knows, deeply, truly, she did the right thing, the best thing. She has never felt traumatized, never had flashbacks, or felt remorse over giving away her child. (Yet, interestingly, she has spent 18 years waiting for the time to find her. Hmmm?) Like with Dee, inside I cringe and want to challenge Hattie’s reality but I don’t.

Do I want to challenge it because she is indeed wrong or because perhaps, I want someone to feel like I do?  Who would I be to tell anyone their feelings are wrong?  My belief is that feelings are never wrong or right. They just are and they should be respected.

I have friends who are in open adoptions.  Presumably, they don’t feel the way I do. They have not had to wander the face of the earth watching every childs face wondering if that little girl with the green eyes and red hair is their daughter. They KNOW where their child is. They know how their child is. They see their child.  They know who is raising their child and where. They were reportedly more empowered than I was in making their decision. They don’t suffer like I did for 19 years wondering if my daughter was even alive or even adopted.

But I am sure they suffer. I am going to guess that knowing where your child is, seeing your child, adds a new level of pain to adoption. I don’t think for one second that open adoption guarantees the moms don’t feel the pain I felt. I suspect it makes them feel something entirely different but they feel it none the less.  They get to be personallly, face to face, daily disregarded and denied. They get to watch their child call someone else Mommy. They get to stand by and do nothing when maternal instincts they cannot fight tell them to do something. How doe one even quantify that type of pain and agony?

I personally believe that many agencies use the lure of open adoption as yet another coercive, sugar coating tactic to get children (particularly since it is rarely enforceable). I don’t believe it is as good as many like to think it is. But again, I say that with an outsiders view only.  To me, open adoption, is still in many cases an unnecessary separation of mother and child only with the ability to see the pain versus having blinders on it like I did. Pain out in the open or pain behind closed doors is still pain. You cannot make pain and loss look pretty.

Open adoption, closed, locked away in a maternity home, coerced, or doing the right thing, abandoning your child in an orphanage due to poverty, still results in the broken bond between mother and child. 

It still causes life long pain and fractured identities. 

Pain.

Pain that in many cases did not have to be. Pain that could have been avoided if proper support and guidance had been provided to an expectant mother. Pain that the adoption industry continues to perpetuate to be in the best interest of the child.

To the adoptive mom who asked me if all mothers feel like I do? I say again no, they don’t. But don’t think for a second that they don’t feel at all. Don’t believe for one minute that they are happy they gave away their children. 

They miss their children. Their lives are forever changed by the birth and subsequent loss of those children. Their children are wounded (no matter how wonderful and loving you are).

You as an adoptive parent have the ability to minimize that pain for the mother and the child you adopted.  You have the ability to insure that adoptions are ethical and truly necessary and not because you want a baby and you have money. You have the ability to recongize primal wound, to help your child find their roots, to connect with their heritage and much more. You have the ability to stop the industry from producing more walking wounded mothers like me.

Use your ability.

Please. 

As much as misery may love company, I really would rather be alone in this grief than see more mothers pushed off the adoption assembly line to join my ranks.

Pair Annoyed

"I don't believe in fate or destiny. I believe in various degrees of hatred, paranoia, and abandonment. However much of that gets heaped upon you doesn't matter - it's only a matter of how much you can take and what it does to you.” - Henry Rollins

June of this year will mark three years in reunion with my daughter.

We have not met f2f nor spoken on the phone. We had sporadic communication early on and it has died off.  She has requested I not send presents (Well, more like refused the ones I sent versus requesting directly I not send. I read between the emotional lines.)

And still I hang on.  It is what a mother does. I have believed that I am doing the right thing in respecting boundaries and not pushing for meeting, talking or  making any demands. In fact, its been over two years since I even suggested meeting. I don’t plan to again any time soon.

I discussed this over a chat session with a friend recently and she asked me this (and yes, she is an adoptee):

“Do you think daughter might be mad at you for not insisting on meeting? You think you are respecting a boundary but maybe you have grossly disappointed her by not being more insistent?”

Okay, now see, this is the kind of comment I DON’T need. 

This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night, chasing an emotional tail, guessing and second guessing, fearing and worrying.

Honestly?

No. I have never thought that. But now that you mention it, I suspect I will.

Will I do anything differently (besides worry that is)? No.

I continue to believe that she wants this. I feel I must respect her contact preferences. If I learn, years down the road, I did the wrong thing, I cannot and will not allow myself to beat myself up about it.

Like all mothers, I am doing the best I can given the information I have been given.

But yeah, thanks chat friend, for jacking up my paranoia. It has been a bit too low lately.

: /

Avoiding Juno

"The traumatic moment becomes encoded in an abnormal form of memory, which breaks spontaneously into consciousness, both as flashbacks during waking states and as traumatic nightmares during sleep. Small, seemingly insignificant reminders can also evoke these memories, which often return with all the vividness and emotional force of the original event. Thus, even normally safe environments may come to feel dangerous, for the survivor can never be assured that she will not encounter some reminder of the trauma." p37, Judith Herman

As mentioned in a previous post, I am selective about which burning buildings of adoption trauma I run into. I know what I can handle and what I cannot. I know what can trigger me to collapse into a puddle of tears, curl into the fetal position and gasp for air over the loss of my child - even 22 years later. I know what causes me to autistically rock like Adam Sandler did in Reign Over Me and I know what can cause me to sink into a dark abyss of pain that I struggle to climb out of.

Since I have two other children to parent, a professional career to tend to, bills to pay, I am careful about allowing that falling, fetal position, loss of air feeling to overwhelm me. (Frankly, even today, with all my therapy, I am still terrified that if I were to completely let that feeling overcome me, I am afraid I will be left in a catatonic state from which I will never return.  Trauma therapists argue that is not possible and that I indeed need to let that entire feeling come over me but as of today, I am not strong enough. It still has me. I am still terrified that if I let those gates of hell open, I will not come back..and I will abandon two more children.)

For this reason, I have avoided Juno and have no intention whatsoever of seeing it.  It is akin to taking a knife and sticking it in my gut.  I am no longer that foolish. I have indeed learned from my experience. 

However, I have enjoyed reading the various posts by friends on Juno. Many I have marked as Shares in my google reader and can be found in the left column of my blog.

The latest piece I have read is by Jess DeBalzo, author of Unlearning Adoption.  While the entire article is good, the final paragraph (excerpted below) is key to me.

"Rather than allowing the glamorized version of adoption portrayed in Juno to influence their beliefs, it is my hope that any young women who came to see open adoption is a reasonable solution in the face of an unplanned pregnancy will go on to educate themselves about what it really means to lose a child to America’s billion dollar adoption industry.  After all, being strong, smart, and savvy means recognizing propaganda -- and rejecting it.  "

Amen to that, Jess. Amen

A Tale of Two Ladies

"Synchronistic events offer us perceptions that may be useful in our psychological and spiritual growth and may reveal to us, through intuitive knowledge, that our lives have meaning. "- Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, The Tao of Psychology, p.7

I find it spooky.

Or weird.

Or odd.

Or coincidental.

Or indicative of some other power at work here.

Let me explain.

It is a tale of two Ladies.

Lady 1 is an adoptee from Easter House. She was born in IL and adopted by a family in IL. She and I became friendly several years ago via my ehbabes.com list and we eventually found her mother, also in IL.  Lady 1's first mother went to high school with another mom that lived in the maternity home with me. Odd? Coincidence? Perhaps.

I visit Chicago last fall to meet with Lady 1 and her partner.  They are both in their early 20s and excited about moving to Chicago. They obtained an apartment in Lakeview East. I used to live in the same neighborhood right after I lost my daughter to adoption.   Lady 1 is excited and wants to show me the apartment.

Imagine my shock to arrive there and find out that Lady 1, adoptee, I reunited with her first mom, is living in the EXACT SAME APARTMENT I lived in 21 years prior.

Now to Lady 2.

Lady 2 and I met online five years ago. She lost her daughter to Easter House, the same agency I lost mine to. Only Lady 2 surrendered in my home state. Odd? Just a tad bit.  Lady 2 contacts me two weeks ago. Her daughter is now 20 and she wants to find her. I agree to help.

In our discussions, we learn that Lady 2 lives four miles from me.

We meet for dinner and have a lovely evening. During conversation, Lady 2 (who has the SAME NAME as Lady 1 above), tells me where she and her husband live. I dont tell her at that time but it reminds me that my ex husband and I once looked at a home on the same street.

Yesterday, while shopping in the area, I decide to drive down the street of Lady 2 and see if I am remembering correctly that we did indeed look at a house on that street.

Sure enough, I see it. Slow down, smile. It is still a very cute home.

Going on my way, I send Lady 2 an email from my phone. I tell her that I once considered buying a house on her street. I tell her the house number and why we did not buy it.

Lady 2, Easter House mother, writes me back and tells me SHE LIVES IN THAT HOUSE. She bought the house when my husband and I passed on it.

Is that just a tad bit weird?

Two Easter House adoption torched indivduals living in homes I either lived in prior to them or considered buying prior to them?

Birthday Babies

“And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.  It's the life in your years.” - Abraham Lincoln

My eldest son turned 10 yesterday.

It was his first birthday that I did not celebrate with him ON his birthday.

It was his fathers day of custody and they went out to a hockey game, took some friends of my son, and my other son and had a good time. I have been invited to participate this evening in a similiar event but I wont feel the same to me. His birthday was yesterday and he already celebrated it.

It was difficult to say the least.

It was all too reminiscent of my daughter not being here on her birthdays.

One would think that missing nearly 22 years of my daughters birthdays would harden me to the fact that I missed my sons.

It doesn't.

Mommies are supposed to be with their children on their birthday. Sure, I saw him in the morning, sang him happy birthday, put him on the school bus but it wasn't quite the same.

This was the first birthday in divorce land. I will have to plan something different for next year.  This I have some control over.

My daughters? All rights terminated on May 19, 1986.  My rights, feelings, desires, birthday wishes mean nothing. Right? (Wrong).

My daughters birthday comes up in a few months. I may still be under the "no present ban". I don't know. As with Christmas, I will write her, inquire if it is okay to send a present. If she doesn't respond, I will assume that means "no". Perhaps I will revert to days gone by and plant something for her. I used to plant trees and flowers on her birthday. I would watch them grow and imagine they were her growing and getting more beautiful with each passing day.

My children's birthdays are days of celebration. If I cannot do it with them, I will for sure do it without them.

Maybe in some odd way, some parallel universe they will sense it.

Maybe they will hear me singing, horribly off key, "Happy Birthday to you..."

Want More Words

"One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.” - James Earl Jones

If you ever want me to fall in love with you, as a friend or a romantic interest, here is the recipe:

1 - be a wordy, linguistic, expressive or literary type

or

2 - be someone who can be hugely validating of pain, trauma, and emotional challenges.

If you happen to have both, wow, we could be in for a long lasting friendship or amazing love affair.

A few examples of this:

• A few months back, a male friend of mine, that I was yeah, like sort of dating, came up from behind me, grabbed me rather roughly and begin reciting a Russian poem to me in my right ear.  To add to the drama, he recited it in fluent Russian and added the right amount of literary inflection.

I did not understand a word of what he said to me in Russian but the entire scene excited me. I coulda dropped 'trou in a second. (I didn't).

• Since the day I have known him, my daughters father has a habit of expressing himself, our relationship, his feelings through song lyrics. At any given moment he will send me a song, snippets of lyrics, that perfectly, instantly, succinctly and deeply drive home an incredible emotional point.  In addition, while a rather withdrawn introverted person on the surface, behind the mask of silence, lies a man with an uncanny ability to express himself in writing. Again, wow. Gulp.

• Several months ago, my Russian poem reciting friend and I were watching television in my living room.  My ex husband called and I took the call while sitting with my friend.  The call became challenging and emotional (as many post divorce calls often are) and I got up and left the room to give myself some space from my friend.  When I returned to the room after ending the call, my friend sat silent. 

I returned to my seat on the couch, friend wrapped his arms around me but he said nothing.

Several minutes pass and he says "That sounded like a difficult conversation. Are you okay? Do you need some space?".

I melted inside.  Understanding, validation, compassion.

• A few years back my then husband returned home from one of his many business trips with a gift for me. This was rather rare and as a result I was a bit surprised. The airport gifts were typically for the children.  I unwrapped the tissue covered package to find a pink tee shirt with green lettering.  Across the chest was printed "I love singer-songwriter types".  Now my husband was definitely NOT this type but the fact that he realized I was?  Heaven.

• Two nights ago my younger sister called me to relay an event in her life. She had been out with a few girlfriends and the topic of adoption came up. One of the friends at the table was in the process of a kinship adoption of her nieces twin infants.  As she told the story of her pending adoption, the other girls around the table (my sister excluded) began to gush and goo over how wonderful the future adoptive mother was, what a great thing she was doing, how lucky she was, how lucky those babies were.  My sister?  My sister sat silent and struggled to be happy. My sister, through her experience with me, and reading this very blog, has come to realize that while there may be positive aspects about it, there are also many horrible aspects as well.  She called to share this with me and without even knowing it, she validated me.

What the hell does all this rambling have to do with adoption?  I thought about this the other day when I pondered for the bagillionth time how I have not heard from my daughter in what will soon be eight months. 

I thought how our last exchanges were difficult ones and how I fear that she is not writing because she fears her words will be taken out of context.

I recall how when I sent her an audio letter for her birthday (we have never spoken on the phone) she "loved it as it could be trusted..where as words cannot..as they can be written..edited and rewritten and you lose the emotional aspect of them.."

As a communications professional, I understand her concerns, but you know, she doesn't have to write anything deep or emotional.

She could write me what she had for lunch yesterday and I would love it.

Seek First to Understand

“To understand everything is to forgive everything” - Buddha

If you were to meet my ex husband he would likely credit me with a few changes in his life. He will tell you it was my influence that got him to try buffalo wings, swiss cheese, get contact lenses instead of thick Doonesbury eyeglasses, and even buy his first sporty type car.

It was an Eagle Talon TSi AWD turbo. He loved it. It was a manual transmission and had a black exterior and grey interior.  Ex hubby is a speed demon and he loves to tell the story of going some crazy speed over the Sikorsky Memorial Bridge “with another gear to go”.

The only negative to the car, and I really cannot blame the car, was that I could not drive it. I have never learned how to drive a manual transmission.

Oh, ex-hubby tried to teach me. He really did.  He wanted me to not only drive that car but to learn in general so we could, in the future, purchase manual transmission vehicles. He wanted desperately to teach me.

On a cold day, on the even colder pavement of the Danbury Fair Mall, he tried.

And he yelled.

And he told me to give it more gas.

And he got out of the car after I told him he was stressing me out.

And he stood by and watched as I ground gears.

And he yelled some more “Why can’t you do this! Why can’t you give it more gas? What is wrong with you?  Can’t you hear what I am saying?”

I tried to explain that I could not “feel” it needing clutch, gas, break, shift, whatever. I couldn’t.

I asked him to draw me a picture. Maybe if I understood mechanically WHAT I was doing, I could then see it in my mind and I could do it.

I needed to understand why I was doing what I was doing.

He laughed at the suggestion. I got angry. I gave up. We went home.

This memory came to me yesterday while I was pondering TheRightThings comments about why I continue to immerse myself in potentially painful adoption books, blogs, etc. if they are so triggering. 

I realized that I am trying to understand and there are times in my reading when things finally make sense and I am able to let them go. So yes, my reading, my writing, my work does indeed over the long term with the right book or words, indeed lessen my pain.

Consider the Lucifer Effect.  The way the system worked AGAINST me and mothers like me may have been obvious to some but it wasn’t to me.   I knew it, on the surface, but I had to read it in the right context, put it in the right context and the LE book did that for me. I was able to clearly, deeply draw parallels to the heinous behavior of those in the Stanford Prison Experiment and even the Abu Ghraib trials. I was finally able to truly see systems theory at work. I could see how I was dehumanized, deindividuated, isolated, intimidated and worse.  I was able to say “HOLY FREAKING MOTHER OF YOUR GOD IT WASN’T JUST ME. I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE TO BLAME FOR THE WOUNDS ON MY DAUGHTERS SOUL!!!”

I did not see it that way before.  The author, Phil Zimbardo, essentially drew me the picture I needed my husband to draw for me 20 years prior. Only Phil’s picture showed how society and systems can make good people do really awful things like give away your child against your will.  Even better, how you can place that child in the care of utter and complete strangers with no idea where they would send her, if they would feed her, or what they would do with her.

At the core, I believe is due to the Oh Shit Moments (OS!M)  that I continue to read and do what I do. As painful as it is, it does indeed help. It makes a difference to me and even to those that I help with search and reunion.  And if its true, that the only way out is through, then I just need to push through this.

To be fair, there are some things I clearly avoid. I don’t participate on forums. I don’t read the blogs of haters – haters who rant about their natural mothers, haters who refuse to see that many mothers had no choice.  I dont fraternize with known adoption nutters.

I just don’t.  As is obvious, I can be my own worse enemy. I have no need to go into the cyber ring with some adoptee or adoptive parents who has the need to lash out and destroy all natural mothers. Those environments do me no good. That is not to suggest those ranters or angry types don’t have a right to be angry – they do, indeed. It does however suggest that I cannot draw a healthy boundary between the role of another mother who abandoned her child and myself. The lines get blurry for me. I feel too deeply, to a paralyzing level, for all of our children that have been wounded by adoption. 

It is as if, I, as a mother who did surrender her child, feel some sort of group collective burden.  It’s hard to explain. It’s like I am attached, on some energetic, psychological level to all mothers who lost their children to adoption.  I can allow myself too easily to accept the pain of others. (This may be rooted in the scapegoat role I held in my alcoholic family system) They drain me and deplete me of very valuable emotional energy that I need to use for myself and my friends that I support. 

I gain  little to nothing by trying to convince some prospective adopter that lives out where Jesus left his shoes that there is evil as well as good in adoption.  I don’t need to debate my position with adoptees who wish to use me as the whipping post stand in for the natural mother they feel abandoned them.  I used to. I don’t anymore.

I have learned my limits. I am indeed selective as to which burning buildings I run into.    When there is a need, a need that appears to have a benefit to the cause, I will refer those individuals to mothers who have a different type of strength than I do.  There are the Clauds and Nics of the world that have the ability to engage in the battles I don’t. I trust in their ability and dedication and also believe that if there is something they believe I can do, they will contact me.

For now, my energies, my dedication is into my own well being, my children (and that includes my daughter) as well as my search, reunion and family preservation efforts.

All that being said, I will continue to read, when I can, as I can, for I am confident it does indeed help me.

But I do greatly appreciate TheRightThings concern. I even appreciate that my ex attempted to teach me to drive a manual transmission. I just really wish he could have drawn me a picture of the engine.

It would have come to me eventually.

OT: My Home Has Grown by Four Feet

I am officially an adopter.

My sons and I adopted "Stewie" this morning.

He is a domestic short haired buff colored kitten.

He is rather spunky right now (of course being a kitten) but doing well. He has been given all required shots to date, neutered and is reported to be a friendly but feisty little boy.

Thats okay. 

There are two of those already living here.

(click image for a larger, clearer view)

I am adopting.

“Some people think that if they change the names of things, the things themselves will have changed, too” - David McKay

Last night, while sharing a plate of Texas cheese fries at our local Chili’s restaurant, it was decided that my sons and I would get a cat.

We don’t currently have any pets at home. I have had cats in my past lives but my ex-husband was not a fan of the felines so during my marriage we had none. I am not a canine fan and as such, dogs were also not an option.

My oldest son once had a goldfish named Nemo but we found Nemo floating in his bowl one day. That ended our family pet experience. (And really, is a fish considered a pet? I don’t know about that. That seems akin to a pet rock to me, but, whatever.)

Regardless, over the cheesy fries, two sprites and one cosmo martini, it was decided.

We shall adopt.

Rather than hunt for a newborn, we will visit our local humane society and see if we can adopt one from there.

In discussions over names, I informed my oldest son that the cats at the humane society generally already have names.  He looked a bit downtrodden at that since he had spent some time musing over Max, Puma, Hermione (that was my suggestion) and Bella. 

He asked why we would could not rename him or her. It was just a cat after all, who would know?  I started to comment but he interjected.

“Oh, but wait, its adoption, right? Sister had a name and was renamed. That’s confusing to her, right?  Maybe it is better that we keep the cat’s original name after all. That is after all its name.  We don’t have the right to change it.“

Gulp.

Yes, my son. I agree.

It Reminds Me of Me

“As long as one keeps searching, the answers come” - Joan Baez

Ugh.

Do I really want to read this book?

You Remind Me of Me: A Novel (Paperback)
by Dan Chaon (Author)

"Three lives viewed through a kaleidoscope of memories and secret pain assume a kind of mythical dimension in Chaon's piercingly poignant tale of fate, chance and search for redemption. As he demonstrated in his short story collection Among the Missing, Chaon has a sensitive radar for the daily routines of people striving to escape the margins of poverty and establish meaningful lives. Here, a woman's unsuccessful effort to rise above the pain of giving away an illegitimate baby, and to fight against mental illness and offer love to a second child, blights all their lives... "

I am about 100 pages in and wow, its tough.  Seriously tough.  The maternity home references, the character reaction to the home, her feelings, etc. are quite powerful and yeah, equally triggering.

Books like this take me some time to get through. While normally I can devour a book in an evening, a weekend or a few days, books like this get opened, closed, picked up, put down, cried on, thrown across the room and even at times given away or discarded. (The Primal Wound has taken quite a beating in my house and as of today it is not even here. I lent it to a cutie boy aDad friend of mine to read to better understand his adopted daughters).

I muse over this books and wonder why I read such things.  Is this my way to continually punish myself? To continually walk into the emotional torture room and self-flagellate? Or do I get some sort of healing from it? Am I stronger upon reading or weaker or somewhere in between?

What am I hoping to find in all this adoption trauma reading I do?  The answer? Some explanation? Some golden key to understand how and why this was done to my child and me?  Some healing balm that suddenly makes it alright?  Some explanation for why and how social workers who KNEW that separating mother and child was damanging - yet they did it anyway? Some understanding as to how Seymour Kurtz and his ring of baby thieves can sleep at night knowing what they did to so many mothers, children and adoptive families all in the name of the almighty dollar?

What am I looking for?

A friend recently told me she thought that her search for her mother, and eventually finding of her, would fix her. She thought she would feel whole and better and normal.  She doesn't. While she is happy she found her mama, she still feels broken and twisted.

Normally, I would have hugged her, offered some inspirational words or resources or others to talk to.

I couldn't. 

Her statement made me realize how broken and twisted I am as well.