I don't remember leaving the hospital. I remember being at home and sore like after all my children were born. I was in mom's bedroom. She was there with me. It seems like lots of my family was gathered around me. We were talking, everything was going fine, sort of gentle. I was hot. I can remember that.
The people who adopted my daughter came by to say good-bye. They were on their way home 300 miles away -- with my baby. Seems like I watched them come in the front door -- mayby not. They walked in all by themselves -- no baby. I looked behind them to see. I wanted to see my baby. I wondered if they left her in the car.
Suddenly, I burst out crying -- crying hard, uncontrollably. I was in a complete panic. I had no idea why I was crying. I didn't know what was wrong. I couldn't stop. I heard the woman who adopted my daughter saying frantically, "What's wrong?"
I looked up at her and it occurred to me that I shouldn't cry in front of her, but I just cried harder. Mom answered her that nothing was wrong "just go" she said to them. The two repeated this exchange then they left.
I felt so, so empty again. I felt lost and helpless. And, I felt confused. I had no idea what this crying, this emptiness, this pain was all about.
That's all I remember about that night. I have no sense of what came after that, but I do feel that I did not stop crying for a long time. They were gone; she was gone.
Nothing much happened in the next 6 months. Life went on. I don't know how I was doing or what I was doing. This time period is blank in my memory. I know that six months later I asked mom if we could go to the coast and see them -- the people who adopted my daughter.
And, we went. I remember arriving in the town. I'm sure it was dark. We went to my aunt and uncles house to stay. I couldn't wait until the next day when we could go to their house. I wanted to see her, to see what she looked like. I wanted to hold her, maybe just once.
Six months was no arbitrary time. It was significant. It was my last chance to change my mind. That is what I'd been lead to beleive. That's why I'd asked to go there. That's why I wanted to see her. I was aware of that much.
I wasn't going there to change my mind. That's what I told myself. I was going there to see. Not just to see my daughter, but to see how I felt when I held her -- to see if I could go through with this. I knew that, just the same I told myself that I was just going to see, not to take my baby back. How in the world did it happen to me that the idea of taking my baby back seemed like such a bold unthinkable thing to do? How could I have felt that way?
Finally, we were in the car and on the way to their house. I was starving now, jonesing. It seemed like we would never arrive. What did she look like now? How big was she? Could she crawl? Would she cry when I held her?
I don't remember arriving. I just rememeber that she was asleep when I got there, and the woman who adopted her would not wake her up so I could see her. I waited impatiently while mom and this woman who was in possesion and control of my daughter talked. I don't know how long it lasted; it seemed like hours. I tried to look like I wasn't about ready to jump out of my skin. I tried to look like my daughter behind that closed door wasn't the only thing on my mind.
Why did I think I had to put on this strange front?
Why did I think I had to hide my feelings about my daughter?
We had to go. Not what I wanted, though I found it unbearable to wait in this house and listen to this talk with my baby daughter so close and not in my arms. Yet, I would have waited forever.
Then I left.
I left obediantly, compliantly -- with my mother. I left my daughter there asleep in the crib these other people had provided for her -- without looking at her without touching her without holding her in my arms without kissing her cheek without smelling her fragrance without hearing her tiny voice.
How could I do that? How could I let this happen to me?
That night, after everyone was in bed and the lights were out, I cried; I cried until the sun came up. I was stunned -- in a state of shock. I wasn't even sure why I was crying. No one had told me that it would hurt to lose my daughter to adoption, and I couldn't make that leap of understanding all by my mixed up seventeen year old self. Not here, not the day I came home from the hospital -- it was supposed to be a good thing. And, I couldn't reconcile this pain, this terrible emptiness, this bottomless pit, this horrible dispair -- with something that was supposed to be good.
They all slept in this studio apartment above a garage, while I cried. No one came to comfort me. Did they ALL sleep right through my sobbing? Or, did they just not know what to do for me? Why didn't someone jump up and turn the lights on and shout, "Look what it's doing to her! We have to help her. Help her get her baby back. Now, right now! We can't allow this to happen to her."
No one came to my rescue, and I was unable to rescue myself. I never tried to see her again. It hurt too much. I knew that somewhere deep inside me -- that it hurt too much to try to see my daugther even though I always knew where she was. That was how I rescued myself. I stayed away from my only daughter, and right now as I type this I think that is a really twisted way to think. No woman of any age should be put in a position that leads to that sort of convaluted thinking.
Maybe I wasn't ready to be the unmarried mother of two children. But, neither was I prepared for the trauma of losing my child to adoption. Wouldn't it be easier and more humane to prepare young mothers for motherhood than for this trauma? At any rate, I wasn't offered help for either. And, I think if they had offered me counselling to help deal with the pain of adoption -- I'm pretty sure that would have raised red flags -- even for me as troubled and confused as I was. That last thing I needed at this time of my life was to lose my baby to adoption.
It wasn't a conscious decision to stay away from my daughter. If I had been able evaluate the situation, if I had even a scrap of the information available today, if I was able to make a conscious decision about what I needed to do -- I would have demanded to get my baby back. I would have scratched and clawed and fought like an animal until I had my daughter back, in my arms and in my arms to stay!
However, I did get -- from the woman who kept my baby from me, before I left that house -- four pictures of my daughter. Before you embrace this as a happy ending, take a look at one of the pictures. Do you think that this picture could comfort me about the loss of my beautiful baby? Do you think I would be satisfied in the coming years to have this image of how she looked when she was six months old? Do you think that I would find joy when I looked at this picture of my precious baby girl? Or, do you think I would find sorrow?
I found both -- wonderful joy and comfort when I looked at these pictures and tremendous unbearable sorrow. As the years passed, I found less and less reason to look at the pictures. This was what I lost then. I wondered -- what am I losing now, right now?
Twenty-four years passed.
I did not forget. I did not get on with my life.
Life went on and dragged me with it.
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