It has taken me a while to respond. I have written a lot of my thoughts on the other thread you started BCFD, about your friend being pregnant.
I feel good about adoption in general. I feel very bad about sub/infertility in general.
It wasn't exactly sub/infertility that brought me to adoption. I was going to adopt anyway. But I still hoped to have a time when I might experience birth (of a child who would survive for me to care for) and breastfeeding. Not getting to experience that, at least not so far (we still have sperm in our sperm bank...we still might try more...we had not gotten to IVF yet, but were rather doing injectibles when we quit because ds was placed in our arms), has been sad for me.
Even though we still might ttc again, and even though I have gone to therapy and worked through a lot of my grief about my infertility, I can't bring myself to even visit the ttc forum here. I can't even look at my books on fertility. I used to love reading and hearing birth stories. Now I avoid them. I used to love seeing moms breastfeed (and I have at times been a huge lactivist), but now I feel a pang of grief when I see them (even though I still am big on breastfeeding).
I couldn't have even tried induced lactation for adoptive breastfeeding due to the foster care regulations and climate here. After ds' adoption was complete, at 13 months, I did try placing him to the breast just to see, and he was so confused and horrified at the idea.
No one IRL has ever not understood when I have explained that we couldn't legally breastfeed my children. Everyone has been very gracious, and even when I have gathered with other Mothering mamas in my area, there have been some who have had bottles for various reasons. (Although I do have to say that I also feel a tiny bit left out since the Mothering mamas in my area do a lot of meeting up at LLL.) However, I can't say that *everyone* on these boards has been so understanding. There have occassionally been individuals who have even claimed they would do it in secret if they were only foster parents. But these people weren't foster parents and didn't know what it was like to fear everyday that you might lose your children because legally they weren't yours yet. It is so vulnerable. And when people get really self righteous about it like that, it rubs that raw feeling of vulnerability combined with grief over infertility, creating wounds.
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| I also suspect that bf'ing is overrated among bf'ing mamas as a tool of bonding. My bff bottlenursed her son, and I really don't see any differences between that and nursing. Her son always was fascinated when I nursed my daughter, and my daughter was always fascinated by his bottles. |
I think that is absolutely true, about it being an overated tool of breastfeeding. We bottlenurse. We hold our babies close. We snuggle them as we feed them (even with dfd, who has major sensory issues that cause her to panic with closeness, we are slowly, slowly, slowly working her to being able to snuggle). There is bonding in the bottlenursing relationship too. And there are also lots of other ways to bond.
Many years ago-- and long before we adopted-- one of my sisters, with whom I have a pretty unstable relationship, told me that since dw and I planned for me to carry our pregnancy and breastfeed, that dw would have a less bonded relationship with our children. "Men just can't have the same relationship with their children that mothers can, and it is the same for anyone who hasn't breastfed, for example." Any formula feeding mommies (for whatever reason) were essentially less of mothers in my sister's eyes. I really hope she has grown up since she said that. She has been fine in terms of treating both dw and I respectfully as parents, so that is a good sign.
I personally think that there are enough reasons to breastfeed, that one doesn't need to overempasize bonding. I mean, bonding is perhaps one of the most critical factors in survival for human infants...in order for babies to survive, women and men need to feel attached to their babies and babies need to feel attached to their caretakers. That's why it is hardwired for all mothers and all babies. It is why in adoption, we can still have hormonal changes (I totally had a hormonal post-adoption-- well, post-placement-- depression when ds, then dfs, was born and placed with us), etc. etc. Since bonding is so crucial, it doesn't make sense, from the standpoint of evolution, that it would depend so, so heavily on one single aspect of parenting (that is, feeding). No, instead, we see that humans can overcome great obstacles in order to bond, and that we are creative and can bond equally deeply regardless of the way our children receive their first nourishment.
And then there is that attitude of, "Oh, well, formula is okay if you have absolutely no other choice, but for everyone else it is poison!" I have seen that come up on the boards here periodically, and sometimes it comes out more subtly in the idea that bottlefeeding moms should absolutely wean their children from bottlefeeding/formula at one year and not even consider extended bottlenursing. In my mind, it is either poison or not. I can totally jump on board with the idea that it is inferior to breastmilk. I am not exactly happy about all the corn syrup, and the lack of antibodies, etc. But I can't wrap my head around the idea that the stuff that has nourished my children since birth is poison.
My ds is 21 months and still bottlenurses. I hope to let him self-wean, if dw is on board with that. The formula has not only kept him from starving (and maybe even helped him thrive), but bottlenursing provides him with tremendous comfort (comfort nursing), and I believe that has value.
I used to care about what people thought of me as a mother. I used to walk into the food co-op, child in sling with a bottle in his mouth, and worry that people would act weird about it. It doesn't help that I live in a pretty AP friendly town, with lots of slung breastfed babies, etc. But now, the world vanishes when I am feeding my kids. I couldn't care less what other people think. I have come to such a place of acceptance and confidence that obviously, I am providing the best for my children. Their stories will never involve having been breastfed because that wasn't an option for them. C'est la vie! (Sp?) *Every* kid, even the kids of self-righteous parents, or seemingly perfect AP parents, has things they get and things they don't. Some have stay at home parents and some don't. Some have parents who have postpartum or postadoption depression and others don't. You get the idea...
Perhaps one of the things that complicates matters is that in our culture, there is still a lot of shame and negative connotation, as well as misconceptions, around adoption. If it isn't that sort of "less than" thinking about adoptive parents, there is the idea that adoptive parents are "saving" poor, needy children, and if there isn't that sort of myth, it is the whole concept of adoptive parents as "baby snatchers," even in cases-- as we have seen on this forum-- in which the child's birthparents have been terribly abusive or neglectful...
Yes, MDC ought to have an adoption stories subforum. MDC ought to have -an adoption smiley. And it shouldn't have to be this after-thought. And we shouldn't have to request it, in what seems to be the proper forum, and then wait months and months and months and months with not even a response.
Lately I think for me, a lot of my grief has also been centered around my inability to protect my children inutero and, for dfd, in early life. When I think of what they experienced before coming into my life, I get so sad. I wish I could have been there to shield them from those experiences.
Some of it is mixed in with the natural grieving process as we discover more about ds' delays, and dfd's sensory and neurological issues, and find things that will be struggles for them. It's hard.
Someone over on the special needs forum pointed out that part of it is that we can never go back, and have this naive experience of bringing our children into our lives and early parenthood of them. We see these blissful pregnant women fretting over what color curtains to put in their "nursery," or the women eagerly about to begin ttc, and we can never go back. There is a loss of innocense there. And yeah, that explains a good amount of my grief.
And also, I have gone into my second foster-adoption, even, a lot less naive than I was with the first. And I grieve that. I grieve because it makes it hard to bond with dfd because my survival instincts kick in, and put up all sorts of emotional protective mechanisms. So I have really had to work to bond with dfd in a way I never did with my first foster-adoptive placement, ds. I worry about dfd missing out on something crucial, and I grieve the pre-adoptive relationship we could have had if this was our first time around the block. I can't go back to that naive place.
I really hope we do get an adoptive stories subforum. That is a nice idea, BCFD. There is something very life-affirming about telling our stories, and I know that each of us have beautiful adoption stories. I would talk about looking at all the bassinets in the special care nursery, checking the bassinets without a mama next to them, and wondering which was my baby. I would talk about the special care nursery nurse who said, "Let me introduce you to your baby," and who, the next day, left us a gift with a card that said, "You are already a family of heart." I would talk about the time when ds was three days old and lethargic as all get out in the special care nursery and I had a total meltdown because I was so afraid for him. I would talk about stopping for lunch on our way home from the hospital with ds, and how the server there from that day *still* remembers us and says hi whenever we come in. I would talk about how sometimes, when ds had been sound asleep for some time, in the very begining, we'd almost forget we had a baby (he arrived so unexpectedly!), and then we'd walk into our bedroom and see him in the crib and our hearts would leap..."there is a baby in there!" LOL.
I have explained to her that it is rare and not many women are infertile as best I can to a 5 yr old with special needs! She gets stuck on ideas and won't let them go.
: Since I am a single mommy now and expect to be one for a very long time, I don't see adopting another child in our future. 
