It has been a week now since I sent my First Daughter Ashley a message on facebook. The message was short and sweet. Started off with a "not sure you are the person I'm looking for". I know she is my First Daughter, but I did not want her to panic. I went on to explain that I am a Birth Mother who lost her First Daughter to adoption 23 years ago. I chose "lost" because I wanted to keep her and I didn't want to go into telling her I was coerced, and I didn't want her to think I willing to give her up. I made it very clear that I did NOT want to disrupt her life, I just wanted to know if she was happy. All she had to do was respond with a yes or a no and if she was comfortable with more then that would be great! I wanted to keep it easy for her...all she had to do was type yes or no...that's it. The message was wrapped up with me telling her if she is my First Daughter then I wanted her to know she has always been in my thoughts and I carried her in my heart and if she is not then I apologized for this "weird random message". Signing the message was a little difficult, I wasn't quite sure how to do it. I finally decided on signing it with just my nickname everyone calls me by, my name on her OBC in parenthesis and my current last name. I figured this would give her the choice to call me whatever she wants with no pressure.
The message was short, to the point, tried to help make it easier for her, tried to leave it open enough for a response, no pressure and a little humor.
So I wait. I am proud of myself for not checking my messages every 5 minutes, I only check it two - three times a day. The sent message is still showing up in my messages, I don't know how to check to see if she has opened it and I don't know if she deletes it if it will be deleted from my messages too. On the bright side she has not blocked me...I know, strange way of picking out the silver lining, but I will take it!
If she responds in a negative way I know I will be okay. I might be a little disappointed, but it will not throw me down a path of self-destruction (been there, done that, got the t-shirt).
If she responds in a positive way then I will probably shout my joys from the rooftop!
But right now I worry that I am being ignored. I don't like being ignored, hell, my personality is too big to be ignored!! I just wish I would get something as simple as a "Yes, but I am trying to figure out how to respond" or a "Leave me alone!" Something, anything, I need this band-aid ripped off quickly, not pulled slowly.
I know it has only been a week and I know better than to expect something in return so fast. I just wish I knew if she read the message and if she is trying to figure out what to say or if she wants me to just go away. This feeling of not knowing is making me feel very anxious and I just don't like that feeling.
14 comments:
With Facebook you can't see if she has read the message or not but what I did was pay attention to how many friends my daughter had on there nad when it went up then I know she had signed on to Facebook.
Oh what torture to still be waiting! I hope you hear a positive response very soon. I'm so glad that you were able to talk to your daughter about Ashley, and so very happy that she received the news so well.
Here's to more great things happening for you!
I hope you get an answer soon, and I hope it is the answer you want. Of course, no one will know until it happens. And waiting must be torture. Keep sharing your story, because it will educate others about the pain of loss to adoption.
Good luck. And I'm hoping you can later blog about reunion.
i wish my mother felt like you do.
I am an adoptee... and I send HUGS to you... I wish you well and hope she connects with you soon. I never was contacted and my birthmom passed before I found her. I think we would have liked each other... at least in my fantasy that's how it goes. My adoptive mom was also a birthmom and she carried with her a secret pain, every day of her life. I wish you well and hope to see something good for you! I know my brother and other adoptees I know have no interest (they say) in finding... I can't imagine that to be true. I hope you get that magical email response soon. There are a lot of adoptees that are standing in the background and rooting for you!!
I've been reunited with my son for 7 years. I have learned (the hard way) do not assume or let my mind run away with crazy ideas, I am usually wrong and within reason, let my son be in control. I hope you get good news soon and if you don't, do not give up, it's a long slow process. I have seen many adoptees and moms who were rejected at first eventually build a good relationship. Good Luck. :-)
Birthmothertalks - unfortunately her friends are set to private so I can see if there is any movement in that area. I am watching to see if she changes her profile picture...or if she blocks me.
Susie - This waiting is making me anxious! I just need for her to rip the band-aid off...good or bad. A huge weight was lifted when I told my youngest and I was so thankful that she was so understanding.
Anonymous #1 - Thank you and I do hope I get a positive answer soon. In the meantime I try to remind myself that this is ultimately her choice and I need to respect her decision.
Anonymous #2 - Big Hugs!!
Anonymous #3 - Thank you and Hugs back to you! I have learned alot from Adoptees. Y'all have given me many things to think about. I also know that the stories y'all have written have and will also help me have some understanding.
Anonymous #4 - That is probably the hardest part for me right now...keeping my mind from running with crazy ideas.
When my son contacted me on facebook last year I inadvertently left him hanging for a week as I neglected my pm inbox. This was partly due to getting a new phone which I was learning to use to access facebook, and having a joined a group which decided to pm me every day to solicit protest action. I got fed up deleting the messages and for a while was ignoring my growing inbox. When I decided to go through and delete the 10 messages that were sitting there, it was only good fortune which prevented me from deleting the message before reading it. It was an enormous but entirely welcome shock and we are now one year into our reunion. It was an excruciating period of waiting for him and he will teasingly remind me of it, when I am being impatient about something. My message is that there are a great many reasons why you may not have heard anything, and the majority of those reasons would not be unwelcome to you. Whatever the eventual outcome of your attempt at contact, reunion will be a very long process. Stay strong, keep the door open and don't hesitate to seek support from the rest of us who understand exactly how you feel. I wish you very well.
Good luck to all you mothers united and non reunited with your children. Just want to say I support you all and to tell you how brave you all are. I can think of nothing worse happening to a mother and the whole world should know that babies only ever have one mother and thats the mother that gave birth and life to them. The rest is all bull shit its egoistic women living in a fantasy world. trying to fulfil their own needs with someone elses baby. No mother has choices when her baby is taken from her it is pure coercion. My heart goes with you all. From the sister and aunt of a mother and her child. I understand what happened to you all and I will never stop telling the truth.
I sent a very similar message to my daughter last July. I have been waiting for a response for over a year now. :( I sent another short one at Christmas...still nothing. I have given up hope on ever hearing from her and now wonder if I should keep trying or if I should just leave well enough alone.
I hope your daughter responds - one way or another - soon.
Melynda
This makes me so sad.
It *is* possible that she never saw the message. She may have her FB privacy settings set so that messages from strangers are filtered out. That's how my settings are. Best of luck in contacting her eventually.
Didn't have time to read all the responses to your post but just in case someone else hasn't pointed this out, in regards to FB, if you send a message to someone that is not your friend already on fb, the message goes into a folder called "other" and most people do not even know it exists to ever go look at it. You have to purposely go looking for that folder. Sometimes even after you explain to people where it is, they have a hard time finding it. The person that is not your friend never gets a notice that a message was even sent to them. So maybe it would be good to consider a different avenue for the approach that at least gives her a chance to respond or not respond. Maybe a certified letter or something through snail mail. If she signed for it then you would know she received it and had the opportunity to read it and respond if she wanted to.
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