Grandmother: I suppose if I really thought about it, at age nineteen, nearly five years ago ..when I was at the adoption agency signing the relinquishment papers ...I would have known. But no one told me.

I would have known that not only was I severing my rights to my daughter ...but also my rights to my future grandchildren. I gave not only my daughter to another ..but I also gave my precious grandbabies. With my own signature, all loopy and slanted, I became a birthmother and a birth-grandmother.

She will be called mother, and she will be called grandma. I will be called Skye.

 

Siblings:

On that chilly November day, I did not just separate mother and child--I separated choiceless children. One is now an adoptee living with another family. Another, my son, is left behind in a wake of unanswered questions and broken dreams. He is left to pick up where his sister left off--to be the firstborn of the family, but never of my heart.

My only excuse is: "I could see far enough to know that I wouldn't be able give my daughter what she needed, but I could not see far enough to know what I was doing to my future children."

I stood there, a fresh twenty years old, and signed the rights to my daughter to another. Barely breathing from the act of relinquishment, my yet conceived children were far from my mind. They had no voice, for they were only a glimmer in God's eye. I made the choice for them, just the same as I had for my daughter.

Now, more than ever, am I aware of what I have chosen. I did what cannot be undone. In saying that, I have no regrets, but one: I wish I could have seen a bit further.

While helping to build a family, I broke my own.

 

While you were sleeping:

I wish I would have woken her. Our last hour together in the hospital seemed to have flown by. The ticking of the clock goes with the beating of my heart. A reminder to make my peace with my daughter before I let her go. I tell her of my love, my sorrow, and my hope ? and yet she sleeps.

I watched as her chest rose and fell with each breath. Her skin was the color of cream, and it beckoned me to kiss her once more. Why didn?t I rouse her? She woke without me, to a then stranger who would become her mother. I am sorry Emily, that I did not wake you first ...

While you were sleeping,

Left to knot and fray ...

 

Our Bond:

I wish I knew more before placing Emily. I still would have placed her for adoption, because I placed her because of reasons of my heart, not reasons based purely on circumstance, but I would have at least known. Something was taken from me when no one told me the truth.

I wish someone would have told me the truth about the birth bond. I wish I had known that my daughter would indeed know that I was not the one holding her three days after her birth. Her cries for milk were mingled with her cries for me, her first mother. I woke with breasts leaking for a child who was not there ...and across the distance, a child woke for a mother who was not there. They told me she "wouldn?t know".

She knew, and now I know too.

 

The Pool:

I envision a diving board perched at heights higher than I have ever dared to climb. Slowly, I pulled pregnant body up the rungs, holding on with all my might. When I reached the top, I walked the length of the diving board, and stood at the edge, ready to jump. I was about to dive into an emptied pool; and everyone knew it was empty but me ...and yet, no one spoke up. And so I jumped, and I hit bottom.

Here I am today, telling others about the pool. Maybe it is already filled with soothing waters to cushion her fall, but it just might be empty. If it is empty, she can choose to not jump in, or fill it up before she jumps.

Now, I float upon the waters that fill a once empty pool ..waters salty to the taste, waters familiar, waters that were once my tears. Yes, placing Emily altered Skye. When I relinquished Emily, I also relinquished a part of myself.

 

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