Before any of you think that I am making things up, I'm not! Birth Mothers Day is a real holiday, obviously not as well known as Mother's Day, but still a holiday. It was created in 1990 by a group of birth moms for Seattle. It is on the saturday before mother's day (so this year its on the 7th and mothers day is on the 8th). The purpose of this holiday was to educated those who don't know about adoption or at least the birth mothers point of view on adoption, to acknowledge birth mothers and the choices they made, and to "celebrate" the fact that they did the right thing. (I put celebrate in quotation marks because I don't feel like its the best word to use, but I can't think of another.) There is some controversy over this holiday. Some birth moms didn't choose adoption for the right reasons and others feel like its not fair to acknowledge them. Some adoptees want nothing to do with their birth parents, and don't feel like birth moms should be acknowledged. Personally, I think its what ever the individual thinks about it. If on person doesn't like it and the other does, whatever its their opinion. For those who do celebrate and acknowledge it they can do lots of things to celebrate. Some adoption agencies will have parties or luncheon for the birth mothers they have and some birth mom groups will go and do their own thing. There are special cards you can send to birth moms and adoptive moms online and probably neat adoption gifts if you want to go that route. Me? I'm going to be in Yosemite for both Birth Mother's Day and some of Mother's Day, and I think thats where I need to be for both those holidays.
Mother's Day has never been a big deal to me. If anything I would hate Mother's Day because it meant one thing: Cleaning. Every year for the last 5 years or so, my mom has asked Sara and me to help her with this huge cleaning project. The last 2 years its been the garage. Here's the thing with the garage, its not a huge garage, its average size and its full of average things. Suit cases, bikes, outside toys, sleeping bags, etc. The problem is the amount of stuff we have. When it was just my mom, Sara, and me we had a lot of junk and stuff to begin with. Then my mom married my stepdad, and along with him and his kids coming to live with us, his stuff came too. All of his stuff. So now we have lots of stuff, and as time went on we bought more and more stuff. So now its a garage filled with stuff of things we rarely use. So when we clean it, we have to clean it in parts. Luckily a few weeks ago we had a block wide garage sale, and the worst part of the garage was cleaned out. This year my mom wanted to work on the shelves, but I'm not going to be here so we can't (oh darn!). So I'm going to do something nice for her instead, which I will not say because I know she reads this blog and I don't want to give it away.
Anyway getting off topic, Mother's Day was never a big deal to me. Last year though, it kinda became a big deal. I was around 4 months pregnant and working in a dry cleaners. I worked with a great group of people most of which were my age and also had kids at young ages, some younger than what I was. On sundays only two people would work, usually me and other person. Mother's Day it was me and this guy Augie. He had a 6 month old at home and was about the same age as me. The whole day, when people would come in they would say "Happy Mothers Day" or "Have you told your Mother how much you love her today?" or something else, Augie would tell them that I was pregnant and going to be a mom. So they would tell me happy mothers day and ask other questions. So picture this, I'm four months pregnant. I am fully aware that the small parasite inside my uterus is mine but I refuse to acknowledge that I was his mother because in 5 months, according to the state of California, I won't be his mother. I needed to keep that mind set otherwise I would have fallen in love and never given him up. So hearing "Happy Mothers Day" and having it be said to me was unwanted. But I liked it.
I liked hearing that I was a mom. As time went on I did fall in love with Jude and liked the idea of being his mom. When I took on that mind set, I worked a lot harder to be the be the mom that he deserved while I had him. So I ate better, tried to walk a lot, drank A LOT of water, slept in the positions that were acceptable, wouldn't eat anything that was on the no-no list, and even made him a baby blanket that he hopefully still is using. I was a pretty good pregnant mom, my only faults were soda and lack of sunlight, but Jude came out a week early very happy and very healthy.
So here it is, Mother's day and I'm not a mom anymore. I wont be acknowledged as one and I'm not sure that I want to be. In response to my freak out a couple of weeks ago, I started a project that I've decided to be Katie's Mother's Day present. I'm not telling you what it is, because I know Katie reads this blog, but hopefully I'll have it done in time. I am also doing things for my mom, but thats it.
I don't know how I'm going to react this Mother's Day. I honestly don't want to go into any kind of bad funk. I don't want to cry, listen to his playlist, be constantly thinking of the whole thing in a negative way. So, I'm going to Yosemite National Park to stare at the stars and possibly interact with nature. No internet, unlikely any cell service, and hopefully enough battery power in my ipod to last the weekend. Just me, my friends, and the great out doors. Heres the real kicker, I hate camping. My hope is this weekend will distract me enough to not become sad, or at least for not sad for a long period of time.
So to all you moms out there. You deserve to have an amazing day. Moms do so much and take so much crap from us kids. So go out an tell your mom how much you love her and how much you appreciate her. And don't just stop at your mom, tell your grandma, aunts, older cousins. Because they have probably done some amazing things for you too. I know I have been blessed with many different moms in my life. My mom drives me crazy sometimes, but she has been there for me countless times. My Nana always makes me laugh. Natty has given me great advise and lets me talk about anything, plus she gave me Katie. Katie is a wonderful mother to Jude and she's been taking care of her nephews and nieces before Jude came along. I couldn't have found a more wonderful mother to raise and love my son.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY EVERYONE! <3
No comments:
Post a Comment