I'm reading a book right now about the loss experienced by birth mothers (again, oddly, no mention of the loss experienced by birth fathers). And in this book there was a kitten, and a pair of mittens, and a little toy house and a young mouse... no, wait, sorry, that's the other book I'm reading. In this book I'm reading the author states that the loss of a child to adoption is an unrecognized loss, one that the mother is incapable of truly grieving because there is no comparable loss for the rest of the world. She is, in essence, in grief limbo. The child is dead to her, yet still alive. She is cut off from him forever, and he from her, parallel and apart forever. And so she is not afforded the right to grieve by society -- it was her choice, after all, that led to this loss. The child isn't dead, the loss isn't real, and she should forget it and move on.
I have sympathy for the birth family (see, I include the dad. And the grandparents. And everyone else involved. Take that, you sexist bastards!). I know their loss is real, very, very real. I've gotten as close as anyone can to that experience. I've held a child in my arms and said goodbye forever. I've kissed his little raisined fingers (the skin of a newborn is so strange, so rough and new at the same time) and placed him carefully in the arms of the woman who will raise him.
And then I came home to the "It's a Boy!" balloons and an empty bassinet, and lay on the wonderfully cold bathroom floor, head pounding, throwing up for hours.
The loss is very, very real.
Like the birth family, I am right now in grief limbo. Tron was never my son. He was not mine, physically or legally. I did not grow him under my ribs, feel his kicks all night long, carry his weight pressing against my back. I did not expel him from me in a rush, my breasts leaking at his absence.
And yet my arms feel just as empty, just as heavy as they did after each of my miscarriages. It is odd, isn't it, the feeling of empty arms? The physical pain at the absence of a child.
The book I'm reading, the other one, not the one with the mittens and the mouse and the toy house, this book gives me no right to grieve. I am the enemy, the adoptive parent, colluding with the agency to steal another woman's child. It is not a loss for me, they argue, because he was never my son, and is being raised by the woman who most deserves him. Because the biological tie is so strong it negates all other considerations -- poverty, mental illness, abuse. He is better off with them, I must tell myself. It is better to be raised in a house of chaos, of arguing and hitting and a mother who cannot get out of bed because of her depression, a depression so deep and so strong that she is physically unable to work. Better to ride the bus and walk with three small children in tow because there is no car to get to the doctor. And no money to pay the doctor besides. Better to put off the visit, that cough will have to get better on it's own.
Because my love would never have been enough.
I am, after all, the enemy. I am the not-quite adoptive mother. I did not lose a son. I have a "failed adoption." I took a test and didn't quite pass, because I couldn't grow a child.
He isn't dead, the loss isn't real, and I should forget it and move on.
