The most important question you'll ever ask

We are all in search of something. We are always evolving, changing.

But what if this wasn't true. What if all that matters is something you've had all along.

Before death, you are stripped of everything and left with just one thing;

Yourself.

Perhaps the most important question you'll ever ask is who is that person?

Moment of the week

I'm at work, jamming to some music with my co-workers.

me: Hey guys? Do you ever break out into dance when you're alone in your house?

Dennis: Ummmmm. Noooo (pause for 2 seconds) but I can see you doing that.

(everyone starts laughing)

Jeremy: OMG. That's the funniest thing I've ever heard.

me (silently thinking): What the hell is so funny about breaking out into random dance?

Bleak

It seems like with the end of summer, so to comes the end of my blissfulness. Rosie's dad has decided to step back into her life. It's been not even a week and I find myself completely drained. I feel depressed, I can't sleep and Rosie has picked up on my carefully hidden emotions.

I haven't slept more than 2 hours at a time in 5 days. Rosie is restless. She can't sleep and thrashes around, waking up every 30 mins and crying herself back to sleep. I lie in my room staring at the ceiling. My nerves are frayed, my attention is zapped and I feel like I'm going to break any second. Custody talks are not going well. Why is it that after disappearing for 6 months, 3 days after my lawyer calls, D appears at the doorstep of his parents begging to let him move back home? He has broken up with his girlfriend and needs a place to re-collect his life. He realizes his "mistakes" and wants to start fixing things.

A 15 minute talk alone with him is like pounding my head against brick. He still lies, he still exaggerates, and he still has his head stuck up his ass. He says all the perfect things, but I hear undertones of deceit. Something in my core is telling me not to trust him, don't give him an inch but will the necessary people see these things too. I wonder at his sudden return home. Is this a stupid scheme to devoid me from sole custody? Does he drive back to his girlfriend every evening to reassure her that I will drop everything and he'll be back soon? He is still paying rent and I have seen her calling him.

I need to protect my daughter from him but I don't know how to. Was I wrong to keep her? Would she have a better life if she had a mother and a father? I rock her to sleep in the dark, door closed, muffling all sound. Just me and her... I am humming our lullaby. The sound bounces off the walls making the small room feel bare. I feel the responsibility of her precious life bearing down on me. I feel so alone. At the end of the day, I am all she has.

The first thing my best friend's dad said when he saw Rose was, "Ah. A baby raising another baby". He lay his hand on Rosie's forehead for a minute and shuffled away shaking his head.

Miss Incredible

I'm in shock. Rosie only cried for 30 minutes before falling asleep! Ferberization = success!!!! Ok, it's really only day two but both nights, she's only cried for half an hour vs. the hour and a half last time :-)

I feels weird being "normal" again. I almost didn't know what to do with my sudden spare time. It's incredible how that one effort of pushing Rosie out of my bed has done. I can DO stuff when she sleeps. I don't quite know how to explain this shining, white light that seems to have fallen upon me. ha ha. Incredible.

However, with every up, there's a down. Rosie is behaving wonderfully but my teenage sister is not. My family is being attacked by the teenage rebellious stage. It's getting annoying. My sister is delusional and thinks that she can survive on her own and doesn't need us. If we say no to any of her commands, she disregards it and walks out. My mom pulled a leg muscle this week and had to take care of Rosie. She asked my sister if she could refrain from going shopping to stay and watch Rose. My sister left anyways. I've tried talking to her maturely and dripping with empathy but she's taking it the wrong way. She's twisting it to benefit her. I'm at my wits end. My last attempt to smack some sense into her is with "the experiment".

She thinks she can live on her own, I'm going to let her (to a certain extent). If you want to live on your own, then you better prove that you're financially able to or else the homeless shelter is where you'll find yourself. She can do whatever she wants but rent, utilities, groceries will need to come from somewhere. Oh, and feeding herself might become burdensome.

It's frustrating that in a time when she should be focusing on applying for college and university, she's going to be scrambling to realize that her knowledge of the world is a lot smaller than she thought. It's going to be a hard lesson but one she'll have to take or I'm afraid my parents will soon snap and ask her to leave permanently. I would describe my used-to-be sweet sister as the typical, conformed teenager with no passion (except texting and shopping), no goals and livin' in the suburb bubble. I was pretty stupid when I was a teenager, but my sister has surpassed me.

Another tidbit of news, Rose's dad has broken up with his crazy girlfriend and has moved back home. What a stroke of luck (this is sarcasm). This happens 3 days after he receives a call from my lawyer informing him that I have filed for sole custody. We shall see what happens. I will need to talk to D soon. I hired my lawyer to do this for me, but he made me realize that I could only hide so much from D. My lawyer won't always be there to talk for me. I am procrastinating so much. All instinct is telling me to not give him an inch, don't give him a chance to ever hurt Rosie again. My heart is asking to be compassionate and to believe that maybe, good will prevail.

It doesn't help that he's appearing in every dream again.

August updates

I'm writing this as Rosie lies next to me in bed, her screams muffled by her feet. Life has passed by in a blur of work, Rosie, sunshine and family gatherings.

I regret not writing in my blog as much as I used to.

A few updates, ferberization was a complete fail. Rosie gets uber sweaty when she cries. That coupled with the 40 degree whether we had created a very uncomfortable position for Rosie. I'd come into her room to find her bed drenched in sweat which was cold from the fan blowing on her. The cooler weather is starting to come in so I will try again soon. I'm said to admit that I do enjoy sleeping with her now. It's comforting being able to sleep next to another human and wake up at her smile. I didn't expect it, but Rosie wakes up with a smile on her face almost every morning.

She rolls over now too. She just did it and I'm watching as she struggles to unpin her left arm from underneath her. It takes her a good 6 or 7 rolls before she finals has enough momentum to pull her arm out. It's hilarious. I can't leave her on my bed unsupervised anymore. She'll move quite quickly but pushing her feet while keeping her face planted in the mattress. She hasn't yet learnt the role of arms in crawling.

Life is great. I'm having a blast at work. I'm learning so much working with SIFE Carleton. Our website is soon coming up so I'll be posting that up soon. :)

My Journey Through Adoption: The end

My counselor was a surprise. I was very suspicious of my lawyer by January. I was starting to think that she had purposely kept the profiles from me so that I would feel like I had no choice but to select from her list. There was no time left to find the other lawyer and get to know him in order to get his profiles.

My counselor pushed me hard about my decision to give up the baby. The first thing she asked was, "What's stopping you from keeping your baby?"

"Mostly money. I don't want to have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet. I can't live with my parents. I'm not done school. I forfeited my maternity benefits (about $500) in order to get off work early".

"Money should not stop you. Have you looked into welfare?"

She told me about her past experiences with birth mothers. You usually stay in the hospital for a maximum of 48 hours, unless there are complications. You get 48 hours with your child before the adoptive parents take him/her. It's recommended you don't see the baby. Wait, WHAT?

I couldn't believe what her words. I thought maybe she was confused about my situation. I wanted an open adoption. I wasn't just give birth and walk away.

"The girls who stay every minute with their baby till the hospital throws them out are the ones who suffer the most. Honestly, I've had to carry girls out of the hospital because they're crying so hard. I love my job, but I hate this part".

She looked me straight into the eyes.

"Theresa. Trust me on this. You have no idea how much your heart is going to break when you walk out of the hospital room and leave your baby lying in her crib. You don't know when you'll see that baby again. Once your parental rights are gone, you have no say in that baby's life. Don't make it any harder than it has to be".

I'm pretty sure a part of me died when she said this. All I could picture was my counselor cradling a 16 year old girl slumped in her arms as if the world had beaten her to the ground and there was nothing left. Was that going to be me?

The next day, I looked into welfare. I'm going to rant a bit about how stupid the system is. Hopefully, you'll never even have to call and inquire about welfare. The system wouldn't qualify me for welfare until I had $500 in my bank account. By then, I had about $1000 left from my savings. If I was put on welfare, they were going to force me to get a job and get off welfare as soon as possible. The entire thing sounded ridiculous. The process was idiotic in itself. You had to be in immediate need of money (ie. on the verge of poverty) for them to CONSIDER you.

"Screw that", was my response.

-----------------------------------------------

I, finally, got my profiles a few days after meeting my counselor. Let me shatter your world for a bit. What comes to mind about these profiles is NOTHING like in reality. I received 8 profiles, was told to read through them and to only take, maybe, 4 of them home.

Pause.

You mean I can't even leave the office and take my time reading through them?

"No, I just don't want 4 good profiles leaving the office that I could maybe give to someone else if you're not even going to pick them", was Andrea's reason.

I think it was in that moment that I decided I was going to keep the baby. Everything after just reaffirmed it.

You would expect these profiles to be lengthy, highly descriptive and informative. Again, NO. I can't even describe to you how disappointed I was at this essential part of the adoption process. The profiles were hand-made, duotang type packages that were self complied by the potential parents. They had headings like "How I met Julie... Why Andrew is the perfect father... Why we believe spanking is wrong".

That was the stupidest column. Of course you're not going to say you believe in spanking! No one would choose you. Why do you even bother to waste space writing it!?

I felt like I was carrying fairytales in my hands. Every family sounded too perfect. Fake. Guess how thick these duotangs were? I'd say no more than 10 pages. Maybe 4 if you took out all the pictures. I was going to choose the future parents of my child based on 4 pages of fluff.

I asked to see the notes that the social worker who evaluated the parents took.

"Oh! I can't give you those. blah blah bullshit bullshit. I can read you them though". She scanned and highlighted the good stuff.

This is the part that always makes me facepalm and want to punch something really hard.

"When can I meet them?" I asked.

"Oh! Meet them?" (why the fuck are you shocked that I want to meet them?) "You need to make sure in your heart of hearts Theresa that these are the parents you're going to choose if you want to meet them. Don't break their hearts. These people desperately want children and you don't want them to get their hopes up".

I left with 4 profiles but I knew that I was done with this. I knew I could raise the baby. I knew that I was the best option. I knew that I didn't want Andrea to get one penny from my baby.

I told her a week later that I had decided to keep the baby. She asked me to return the profiles and said, "Yes. I had a feeling you'd keep the baby considering how attached you were to it".

Of course I'm "attached" to it you stupid woman! It's my god-damn child!

I returned the profiles with a fake smile saying I'd keep her updated. I've never heard from her since. My counselor emailed me once to ask why I changed my mind and never responded when I told her the nicer version of the truth.

The experience was horrible for me but, maybe, it won't be so bad for someone else. I talked to an old elementary school friend who had given up her baby for adoption 3 years ago. Her process was infinitely different than mine. Her lawyer gave her profiles the day after meeting her. She gets to see her baby whenever she is in town. Her parents are just as involved in the baby's life as they would have been if the baby had stayed with my friend.

Maybe it was fate the entire process for Rosie to stay with me. Maybe what happened to me is just the standard. Maybe this is something that we'll never know because no one wants to re-live their experience ever again.

That is my adoption story.

My Journey Through Adoption: Part 4

I guess I should continue my story.

After I came home from my failed abortion appointment, my parents shook their head and said, "Ok, let's get you a government job to raise the baby". ha ha. My parents (and I think all asian parents) believe that working for the government will end all suffering.

When I told my parents NO, I was going to give up the baby for adoption, they didn't believe me but said to do whatever I thought was best for me. So, I started the process. I had previously met with a counselor at Planned Parenthood who gave me the names of the only 2 private adoption lawyers in Ottawa.
Note: My experience at Planned Parenthood was a huge disappointment but maybe that's just me. Probably best to try every resource possible if you find yourself young, single and pregnant.

I called up the lawyer, let's just call her Andrea. Andrea was beyond reassuring. She picked up her cell phone as she was backing up her car into the garage. Needless to say, not the best first impression but she called me right back as soon as she got in the house. I remember the experience to be very prompt. She said what needed to be said, she arranged what needed to be arranged and left me feeling assured surprisingly.

We met. We talked. Things were going well.

I stopped talking to D for my entire 2nd trimester. I was done with his foolishness. Andrea told me that it was best to keep him out of the process. From her experience, the men tended to get in the way and make things harder than they needed to be. What if he didn't like the family I chose? What if he his criteria differed signifcantly from mine? What if he didn't sign the adoption papers to give up the baby?

I was terrified of D. I didn't know how far he would go, I still don't.

I dropped him, cold turkey. He texted once the entire time. I worked with him a few times at the pool but never gave him a second glance. My friends told me he would watch me like a puppy, craving any bit of attention. I laughed and felt empowered.

School came and went. December approached and I still hadn't seen any family profiles. I was starting to panic. The baby was due in 3 months and I had no family. What kind of mother would I be if I just handed off my baby to someone I had known for less than 3 months?

I wanted an open adoption. I wanted to be in my baby's life from beginning till end. I wanted visits, I wanted photos, I wanted her to know me. I knew the only way I could get this was if I had a good relationship with the adoptive parents, but I needed time to build that. Time was definitely running out.

I kept subtly pushing Andrea to get me profiles. I had to be careful because she was the one selecting profiles for me. Here's what scared me the most. There were only 2 adoption lawyers in Ottawa. Each has their own separate list of parent potentials. Those lists contained 30-70 people. If I exhausted Andrea's list, I would have to run to the next lawyer and Andrea would lose her money.

The abortion counselor had warned me. At the end of the day, the only way the lawyers get paid is if they get a baby.

Andrea was having hard times in her private life too. I understood and pitied her, but my baby's life was in her hands and she was not doing enough. As a birth mother, I'm allotted one counselor to help me get through the process. I met her mid-January. By then, all I could think of was, "I'm not going to find parents. How am I going to raise this baby?"

I had started creating back up plans. I had started planning my new life.