Becoming a Grandma

reblog Nov. 4, 2014

baby me, adopted

By Trace (Lost Bird-Adoptee)

A few days ago I became a grandma again. I cried quietly when I got to hold my precious new granddaughter, who has all her fingers and toes and hardly cried a peep.

As I was holding her, I imagined how lucky she is to have her whole family with her (both sides of her extended family were there.)

Then I imagined how I must have felt when my own mother Helen disappeared and was not there to hold me. Or nurse me. Or dress me. Or sing to me.

I was placed in an orphanage. I had two living parents, a huge extended family, yet they put ME in an orphanage.  How can I ever thank you Catholic Charities for tearing me from my own flesh and blood and for doing this heinous thing called "stranger adoption" because my mother was unmarried, when my own father wanted to raise me?

I cannot imagine how traumatized I was when Helen never came to hold me.  I just know it is blocked in my body somewhere, buried so so deep I cannot reach that primal pain.

For many infants handed to strangers, they experienced birth trauma, when shock takes over and your baby tears are actually screams.

Then we get a bit older and experience even more trauma.
Read this:  http://splitfeathers.blogspot.com/2010/11/four-traumas.html

There is so much joy in becoming a grandma. To imagine my grandchild being ripped away from our family and handed to strangers, it's not possible for me to imagine that.

It is impossible for me to imagine that happening to her.

 

UPDATE: Our oldest granddaughter celebrated her 20th birthday recently... our youngest granddaughter will be 10 this year.  Trace