Jealousy

Dear fellow Birthmother, Stop sitting at the edge of your bed crying. It breaks my heart for I too use to do this all the time. It’s hard seeing it on Facebook and Instagram that all your friends who are married are going to have a baby. I get it! It’s hurting you! You’re angry! You’re jealous! I get these feelings trust me! We all placed for different reasons. Abuse, assaults, emotionally not ready, financially unstable, or being homeless. We placed out of fear. We placed because we were forced. We placed to protect our birth child from harm’s way. We placed because we had for too many reasons that will always be left unsaid. Yet the one thing that I wish someone told me was that jealousy can consume you. It can destroy you! It keeps you awake at night. It keeps you from moving on. Keeps you from being happy. It can also keep you from accepting your choice and moving forward with your life. I remember when I found out one of my older friends was pregnant. I was so happy for her. Yet it hurt me so much that she had a cookie cutter of a “perfect life” it made me so jealous. It tore me to pieces. I will not say names due to privacy. While she was going to have a baby, I was about to place and go through something so hard and something so scary. She was picking colors for her nursery and asking me what was the best shade of pink. I felt so empty inside. I had to draw myself away. While she was preparing to have a child, I was preparing to have a loss. She was shopping for clothes, while I was shopping for a frame to put my first picture in to sit beside me on my night stand so I could see my birth daughter every day to fill in the void of sorrow. She was taking belly pictures while I was hiding my stomach in shame. She was picking names while I was eating a tub of ice cream to take away the emotional pain for a minute. I was jealous. I was scared. I let the jealously consume me and tear me into a million pieces. I started to grow anger towards her. Thing is she never did anything wrong to me. She held me hand and embraced me when I told her what was happening to me. She did nothing wrong, she was a good friend. A damn good friend. I let my jealousy get in the way of our friendship. I let it make me become this monster. Well in other words a bitch. As I sit here now I think how lucky I am to have overcome this awful character trait I I’ve once had. It took a year After Placement to admit my wrongs to her. It took a year of being alone and hating the world to admit that I let jealousy consume me. She forgave me. She held me while I cried and told me that she understood. That she was scared for me as well. I’ve noticed as the years have passed people have asked me if I’m jealous of my birth daughters adoptive mother. I’ll be honest. No I never have been. Yet I have been jealous of my friends. I was jealous for many reasons. They got to have their child while I placed mine to protect her from harm’s way. To protect her from an emotional wreck. They had their shit together while I was still trying to find mine. I promise you that this jealousy phase will pass by. I promise you that once you get through this it will make your healing journey a lot easier. I know I’m not a Dr. or a psychiatrist yet I have been here. I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve placed. I’ve cried. I’ve hated life. I’ve grieved. I’ve had PTSD. Yet I’m also here. I’m happy. I’m healing. I’m embracing. I’m living life alive.