July 20, 2014

I have been thinking a lot today about the blog I kept throughout my 365 Day project in 2010.  I've been thinking about the fact that I intentionally sat down and wrote something for an audience almost every night for that whole year.  It was a difficult year for my whole family and actually some of my friends went through some big stuff that year, too.  Three other friends lost a parent that year and one friend suffered from Lyme's, still suffers, but then was caught in the middle of a diagnosis.  Anyway, it was hard, but I wrote every night.  I took pictures every day but 6.  So why am I having a difficult time writing consistently for this one. 

My best guess is that I want this to be on topic and not just a running narrative of life.  I want to write about my mission writing this book, my journey learning about motherhood through this lens.  It is not always easy for me to articulate what it is I am thinking and learning about this subject.  The subject of adoption is red hot and sensitive. 

The other day Claudia Corrigan D'Arcy posted an excited status that a book she had written a chapter in was out.  Very cool!!!!  That post became flammable.  I have watched the eruption around language several times now.  I went immediately to one of my writing places and wrote a reaction asking people to read Claudia's chapter before they criticized.   Here is this person who works tirelessly to help people hurt by adoption and she was called all sorts of names by the very people she wishes to help, and no one had read the chapter, yet.

I came home from writing my post and I went to type it in, but first I reread the comments on Claudia's status.  They felt so huge and I felt like I needed to shut up and learn more before I jumped in the  brine.  So I did not post my writing.  I went silent.  Now sometimes silence is good and sometimes it is exactly what I want to fight.  I want all to have voice, to not fear joining in the conversation.  But I feel that is difficult to do in this particular venue.  Instead of voicing one's concerns, people jump and call each other names.  I am use to being in the thick of things and I know I am able to communicate, but it is scary in this case.  I don't want to be jumped on.

That said, I will continue to write what I learn. 

 

 

I also want to remind people of the Fundraiser.  I've received some fun auction items.  Tom Ashley of Dancing Bear Farms in Leyden donated a fig tree in it's second year.  Tai Kwon Do Center of Greenfield, donated a gift certificate, Carole Crompton donated a felted phone case, I have assorted beautiful jewelry and Donna Meller donated her skill and time and made the flyer.

 

 

I'll post a list of everything before the day.  I think everyone knows that Emma and Chris Worth are performing and so is Phil Rabinowitz.  I need more appetizer makers, so if you are in the mood for donating appetizers of some sort, please connect.  It should be a wonderful event and I am looking so forward to beginning the interview process for the book.  It is all really exciting.

 

Thanks everyone for your love and help.  It's wonderful. 

 

 



Healing Motherhood

July 10, 2014

I have been thinking a lot about the logo my 13 year old goddaughter made me for this project.  I told her I wanted it to have something to do with healing, but I left her to her own imagination.  What she designed is a symbol for healing motherhood.

 

 

 



 

In my situation healing began with the process of healing my relationship with my mother.  Sometimes I can recognize the hard work it took on both our parts and other times I wonder if it was just age, maturity.  But I know better, I know too many women who are still confused by their negative feelings: betrayal, the sense of not being seen nor nurtured by the one person whose job it was.  And then these same women went off and had children of their own and had no idea how to nurture. Yet, so many of them did it and raised strong wise women and men.    Why do mothers get such bad raps?  Why is motherhood criticized so terribly?  And why does society blame mothers for so much wrong in the world?  Did you know that the educational level of the mother is a strong predictor for the economic success of the child?  This is a commonly used indicator in global policy making and resource sharing. I’m not going to answer these questions or describe how awful I believe this thinking is, I’ll save it for another day, but it is a strong indication on how much society places on the shoulders of mothers.

Our society sets up women to fail.  Women are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  A woman can’t get welfare help if she has children and goes back to school, but it is her educational level that indicates the economic success of those children.  But if she doesn’t go to school and is collecting welfare she has to attend some program, not college, for 20 hours a week and put 2 year olds into day care.

My mother raised seven children with an alcoholic husband who died when she was 52 and 5 of those children were teenagers.  She was an extremely smart woman and a valued professional flutist.  So how was she supposed to nurture all of us alone?  I forgive her.  I forgive her for not supporting me to draw upon my natural abilities to love and nurture and to raise my own child. I forgive her for giving into societal pressures and forcing my hand into giving my baby up.  I do.  And I believe that forgiveness is the first step to healing motherhood.  We need to accept what is and forgive.  And we need to accept the fact that forgiving does not mean forgetting or not feeling.   We have to name the losses and betrayal.  We need to express the feelings and to forgive.

I believe telling our stories in creative ways is a form processing and healing.  It is a way of naming our feelings, naming our truths and finding our way through them, not held trapped by them.  And it provides us with ways to share with others who have experienced similar things, who may have found healthy strategies for living with pain and challenges, or who can just understand.  Telling stories of motherhood, declaring the societal contradictions, the no win situations, and the lows and the highs helps everyone to make peace with motherhood; to heal motherhood.

Thus, my project is an opportunity to allow women to tell their stories, to give voice to the truths about being an original mother.  It is place to continue the healing process, to begin to forgive, to begin to educate the public, and to reclaim our motherhood.    

 

 

Catching Up

July 3, 2014

Well, I suppose a lot of you are wondering what’s going on, Lindy.  The last date of the Kickstarter was June 12^th. I am amazed how quickly time has passed.  I need to explain why I have been so silent when it was clear I was so excited by the idea of creating this book; documenting the voices of original mothers.  After being so verbal about a giant learning curve and meeting many peoples and having contact with not only new people, but a new community, a new field of study, I seemed to have vanished.  I didn’t mean to, really.

small portion of my family; picture by Melody
 

       

          I have been diagnosed with extensive osteoarthritis and have been almost immobile for about a month.  Fortunately during this process part of my family arrived and camped out in my yard making me laugh and encouraging me to keep walking towards my dream, just make sure to take my cane and swim.  So I am back on the job now.

          I’m asking for help.  I am being upfront about needing help pulling the next stage of the project off.  Several of my friends have already stepped up to the plate, including a friend letting me use her restaurant for an upcoming Fundraiser, musicians donating their time and artists and others giving me items for the silent auction we will have.  Many people have already offered to volunteer.  I am very thrilled.  This fundraiser is the first part of my Plan B. for getting Strength To Speak written and published.  It is on Aug. 10^th at Mesa Verde in Greenfield.

          I am intrigued by how difficult it is for my generation to ask for help, to be clear about what one needs and to accept it when it is offered, Yet, we also are very willing to step in and help when someone does make a request.  We are a generous and caring group.  If we subtract money from our picture of needs two interesting thoughts occur to me.  One is I become incredibly aware of how much we all have to offer that we don’t acknowledge as valuable.  And the second thought is how the dollar really is an overwhelming necessary evil.  This project illustrates both points.  It illustrates the contradiction, the complexity between these two points.  Unfortunately, I am unable to pull this off without money, but the doing of it, as broke as I am, makes me feel abundant with riches.  Here I am asking people to share their most vulnerable spots, to look at my most vulnerable spot, and what that has accomplished is the buildup of abundance in my life.  I feel as though I am extremely blessed.

          So I will continue to walk.  If you are local and want to help me put on my fundraiser event, please contact me.  If you are not local, the second event will be launching an on-line fundraiser for a smaller and more precise budget.  Stay tuned for that.  If you are an original mother and want to participate in my documentation, please contact me.  I continue to look for voices. 

          Again and always thank you for your support and help.

June 23, 2014

My parents were married 67 years ago today.  Neither of them are alive to celebrate it on this plane, but I am sure they're smiling about it.  My dad died before they reached their 25th, my Mom died in 2010 a well loved and single woman.  Her story is really interesting and needs to be told and some day I hope I can write it and do it justice. 

Last week I had several of my family come to visit, three generations and an assortment of uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents.... fascinating how we are all linked together by blood, still representing at least four continents and several different lifestyles.  We came together and played and ate and laughed and remembered Mom, our matriarch, even Zoe who is now 7 said she missed Great Grandma Jean. 

It is these times that I think of my own daughter and wonder how she would fit into this mismatch bunch, a bunch of whacky wonderful people with great talent who just seem to get smarter, better looking and more artistic with each generation.

photo by Zoe

 

These three are all my Mother's great grandchildren.  She has a bunch more, but these are the three that visited this week.  All three of them are sweet and fun and I had a really good time hanging out with them.   And for the first time in my 61 years I was jealous of my siblings, because they are grandparents; what a wonderful role to play.  They are all so in love with each other, you can feel that amazing strength of family love.  And yes, I received a lot of it, too.  I get so much from my nieces and nephews and the new generation seems willing to love me, too, but they are not mine. 

 

I have decided to break the budget up into three parts for my book project.  I am going to do a new on-line fundraiser, a local fundraiser, and I am going to look into grants.   I truly believe this book is important to write and that it is doable.  I am really open to suggestions, so if you know of a source, please let me know.   I want to continue on and be able to publish the untold stories.  

 

So keep your eyes open for this blog, I am going to maintain it.  I will continue to write and share my photos in it.  I will keep you up to date about the book and about my bird learning.  Join my blog, post your blog site, please pass things on.  This will continue to build my network of support for The Strength to Speak about the Courage to say Good-bye.

 

all photos by Lindy unless otherwise marked.

copyright Lindy Whiton

 

 







Day 37

Ok, the bird count for today is small, but it is inspired.  Great Blue Heron, and a tanager, then the usual redwing blackbird, robin, crow and mallards.   The day was not too hot and not too rainy and gentle on the eyes and great for the lens.  Thank you.

But it was not terrific for the Kickstarter project, although again, interesting who did connect and I am so grateful for those few.  I'm going to watch Maya Angelou's memorial service speeches tonight to get inspiration for creating a plan B.   I believe I will do two women's stories this June and repost the Kickstarter in 2 weeks with 2 examples done.  They will have to be women who are close, but I've received so many responses from original mothers that I think I can do that. 

Meanwhile,
<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/130449645/creating-strength-to-speak-a-book-about-adoption-a/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>

A word about the image: it was drawn by Emma Worth, my goddaughter.  It is a celtic symbol for motherhood and the orange tree is symbolic for healing; thus, healing motherhood.  I think she did a wonderful job.  I made bookmarks out of it, too.  You can have a copy for a 10 dollar donation to the project.  Only 72 hours left.

Message about restoring original birth certificates to adult adoptees.

Subject: An Executive Order to restore Original Birth Certificates to ADULT ADOPTEES by enacting the ADOPTEES RESTORATION ACT
Hi,
For almost an entire century, Adopted Adults have been denied access to their medical history, their culture, their genealogy and ancestry and the answer to the age-old question - "Who Am I"  -- this not only affects them, but it also affects their children and their children's children.  
That's why I signed a petition to President Barack Obama, which says:
"For the President to enact an Executive Order which would restore the Original Birth Certificate to every ADULT ADOPTEE in America in one fell swoop because it is a civil and constitutional right! "
Will you sign this petition? Click here:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/an-executive-order-to-1?source=s.icn.em.cp&r_by=10628279
Thanks!

Day 36

Only 4 more days.
The May flies are out in droves, don't they know it is June?  My backyard haven has been occupied by little black bitey gnats.  Right at the moment a giant black cloud is blocking a beautiful bright sun.  But it is moving quickly.  I know this is all a metaphor for my larger life.  Sumac is taking over this field and I haven't had it mowed, yet.  So  much of it is about priorities, but I have to say, this space is a priority for me, for it is my chapel.

At the moment I cannot see any birds but I hear at least six different songs? Cardinal, robin and a nearby sparrow, swallows just flew over head and they are noise, and a call I haven't learned to recognize.  Blow away cloud.  I want a few more moments to write.

I am loosing faith that my Kickstarter project will reach its goal.  I am beginning to think about other options for funding the project, for it has just become larger and stronger than ever.

I keep saying this project is about healing and I am sure of that.  The number of people who have touched my heart in the past 35 days is incredible.  I don't want to drop the dialogues and I don't want to stop witnessing peoples' stories.  I'm supposed to witness them.  I want to continue the dialogues.  I want to create this book.  Many have asked to tell me their story, many have written part of their story, and I have learned an enormous amount.  So I will continue to keep this blog after Friday and I hope a plan b and a plan c will get created so that the project can be done.  If you have ideas, let me know.

 

I took this photo at the Haiku Circle's day long event yesterday.  There is something very special about bringing people together into the circle of their people.  This group was a community of poets.  They came together at this lovely home by a pond and cooked a giant soup in a caldron and ate fruit and bread.  I was caressed by being there.  I would like to do a similar event for those people who work so hard in the field of adoption.   Once I am far enough along with my book I will bring two groups together separately and jointly: the group of original moms, and the group of hard working activists.  We will have a day of nurturing activities.  You wait and see.  It'll be great.

 

Meanwhile, 3 more days on Kickstarter.com

 

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/130449645/creating-strength-to-speak-a-book-about-adoption-a/widget/video.html" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"> </iframe>

please give if you can.  Please share one last time.  It's a big goal, but... two or three larger donors and 100 small ones would do it. 

Thanks for your efforts thus far.

 

 

Day 32

by Lindy

 

I have started to photograph birds this spring.  I don’t really have the equipment to do it justice; I need a lens that zooms a little further and a little faster, but I have had fun trying.

It started with my trip to Robert and Cynthia’s grave site the other day.  Vince and I were looking for big birds but instead a bluebird perched on a gravestone right in front of us, declaring beauty is precise.  It is contained in this small, compact, perfect body that sings and flies.  We also saw a yellow-bellied flycatcher that was acrobatic and keeping us occupied while other birds and turtles laid eggs, ate little eggs and occupied the small wetland.

The next big shoot was in my backyard, the cedar waxwings had left and not a lot of grackles or crows seemed to be around.  I haven’t seen the blue jays in a couple of weeks; however a cardinal and his wife have taken over.  Chickadee and sparrow family have found places to put their nests.  Goldfinch are nearby, bats fly over at dusk.  And today when I came out of the house four ruby throated hummingbirds were enjoying the quince.  I felt like I’d entered a miracle.

Why am I so interested in birds this summer?  I am not sure.  I mean I always have been but for some reason I’m driven to memorize their names and detect their calls.  Is it because paying attention to their behavior and their beauty is a meditative practice that allows me to release the heaviness of the attention to original mother stories?

Since I launched my Kickstarter.com project I have made really interesting contacts.  Women who need to tell their story have connected with me.  I have been so pleased to have those connections; I have also had women angry at me for using the label birth mother.  I have heard   anger from adoptees and moms about adoption in general and the awful acts that are done under the umbrella of doing "good.” I am being educated, indoctrinated into a movement that is complex and heavy.  I have been moved to tears every day since I began this journey.  I am thrilled by it.

I wish I could hear Desmond Tutu speak again.  I went and heard him in a church basement in Cambridge with Loren several years ago.  He was so freeing, he was calm and at peace and his gentle humor was so direct, precise.  I left that room knowing I had just been given an amazing gift  I had been in the presence of someone who was grace; he was at peace with all that he had seen and lived through.

That’s what I want for me.  I want the sense of peace, that gentle humor and calming connectedness.

And believe it or not, I think photographing birds helps me to find that state.  It is the act of completely focusing on something that is entirely free of tension, like practicing an instrument or singing in a chorus.  It is embracing something outside of one’s self.

I can take on this project riddled with sorrow and anger and I think it helps me and I can be of help to others.  But I need that mental balance.  I need to have a spiritual release and birds maybe my answer.  That could have been the message brought to me by the bluebird, lovely and precise.

 

 

 

Please go to Kickstarter.com and click on Explore.  Type in Greenfield, Ma. and you will see my project with Emma's beautiful Healing Motherhood symbol on it.  Give what you can.  It will be most appreciated.  

Day 30

htthttps://mail.google.com/mail/?

 

 

 

 It has been a great day today.   Vermont View Magazine published my op ed.

 

http://www.vermontviews.org/vermontviews.org/Op_Ed.html

 

 

 

Also, people love Gerard's photos of me.  If only people knew what a turn around it was for me to do a two and a half hour shoot.  It is usually me who is taking the pictures.  Anyway, he did such a great job.  I'm so thankful. 

 

The other link I just posted is for CUB (Concerned United Birthparents)  They are having a special until Father's Day on the membership fee.  It is really worth it.  They immediately connected me to an even wider world of adoption. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/adoptionbookslist?fref=nf 

This is a facebook page which focuses on books on adoption.  There have been some fascinating books on their list this week.  Anybody looking to buy me a present can get me Carol Schaefer's new book, Searching.  I really want to read it. 

 

Time is running out.  Please, if you meant to back my project and just haven't done it yet, will you do it tonight?  10 days left.   I hope that people who read the section of my story in the paper will be moved to donate.  Anyway, if you can't donate, share it anyway.  The more eyes on it the better. 

 

Thanks so much everyone!!!!

 

update #9 on Kickstarter.

I am placing this update here as well as on my Kickstarter board because I know that not everyone will be able to see the update.  I still haven't figured out who gets sent what, so if you have read it, I apologize for the repeat, but if not, I hope you do.

 

 

This project is about healing.  It is born from the belief that telling one’s story, telling the truth is a road to healing.  I believe the secrecy and shame are like slow internal infections and that it is extremely important to remove them from ourselves.

I have spent the past few days just reading adoption blogs.  There is so much anger in them.  There is good reason for people to be angry.  There has been a lot of harm, a lot of lying done in the name of being good.  Shame and secrecy have lead peoples’ lives for decades.  Once they discover they are not alone and that they didn’t do something because they were bad or sinful, but vulnerable and scared, anger arises in volcanic bursts.

One major focus of the anger is the new cultural norm to label everything a disorder; everyone has a mental illness or a disorder.  Adoptees that were removed from their mothers at birth and never found a sense of belonging have a disorder; this disorder has made them high risk for depression, acting out behaviours, suicide and addiction.  What good does it do to label them with a disorder?  Why not address the cause not the symptoms?  Why not help people understand the feelings, not label them with a disease?

It has long been recognized that “calling it by name” is the first step to recovery or to changing.  My therapist once told me that “emotions are like dogs, you have to call them by name and then tell them to sit.”  That has lead me to naming my emotions, recognizing them for what they are and not labeling myself as sick.

This project is about healing; it is about naming our truths, removing shame and guilt, taking care of ourselves.  To do so we’ll have to name cultural conditions that facilitate our guilt, our shame.  “How could you do this to me?”  “How could you ruin the family?”  I was never asked those questions, my mother never uttered them.  I was lucky.  I read those words a lot in other mothers’ stories.  My guilt came from thinking only someone cold and heartless would give away their own baby.  That is the shame that has directed my life until recently.

Why should everyone else care? They should care because we are talking about healing people, family and community. Our communities have hundreds of people in them wrestling with their own reasons for shame and secrecy, their own reasons to tell stories.  Adoption is just one such issue, the one I care about the most, the one I understand the most.  But it is not the only one.  We need to begin to heal as individuals and as communities.  We need to be a society that embraces grief and makes room for it instead of choosing addictions or other means of shielding our hearts from those strong emotions.  We need to grow; we need to make peace with our world.

So yes, I believe you need to care about this issue, but more importantly you need to care about the issue that strikes at your heart.  If you follow the process of this project, the development of this book you may get an opportunity to witness healing at least that is what I am aiming for.  Join me!

May 26, 2014

photo by Gerard McGovern

What are your criteria for choosing subjects? Purely intuitive on your part?

This is not going to be easy.  I am limiting it to 15 stories because I want some depth and not just single page stories with a photo.  I want a lay out that allows people to understand why and how the process effected life choices from the time of relinquishment to now.   I want to be able to know about reunions, if there has been one.  These are complicated issues and other cultural issues come into play.  I want to cover as many domestic issues as I can.  I want a group that is diverse in many ways including race, ethnicity and class.   So I will interview 25 or 30 women and then choose the ones that placed together help to make as complete a story as I can.

May 27, 2014

I have been doing more research this week, reading more on line as well as reading peoples' stories and watching videos.  This issue of adoption is very complex.   The language used to describe it is controversial and it is all so highly emotional.  I have to take breaks.  Another challenge is focusing in on the original mothers.  The information about adoptees is much more available, whereas, mothers are quieter.
There are some really good sites out there for original mothers.

1. Musings of the Lame; Claudia Corrigan Darcy
2. (Birth Mother) First Mother Forum
3. A Girl Like Her; Ann Fessler

these are just a few, there are many more and there are a lot of interesting people doing really interesting work to help original mothers.   There are also really good collections of birthmother/original mother stories including The Girls Who Went Away, Ann Fessler and  The Other Mother, Carol Schaeffer. 

I have also spent sometime reading Lost Daughters (thelostdaughters.com).  Although written about adoptees it is very important and informative for moms, too. 

Please, if you have a book that you think others should read, list them in the comments of this blog. 

And please, if seeing more information out there on original mothers is important to you, back my Kickstarter.com project.  If you go to Kickstarter.com and type in Greenfield, Ma. you will find my project and video and a way to donate.   I would be very appreciative. 

For those of you who have already done so, thank you so much!

May 24, 2014

Why should people care about this issue?
What does the impact of relinquishing a baby on a woman have to do with the larger society and why do I believe it is something worth writing a book about?

2.7 babies born in the US were given up for adoption in the past twenty years.  That means that 2.7 percent of new mothers were effected by relinquishing a baby for one reason or another.   That is not a huge statistic, however, it does equal a lot of human beings impacted by adoption.  Unfortunately there has not been a lot of research done on either adoptees or biological mothers. Not because of lack of interest, but lack of resources.  But the research that is published implies that adoption is a risk factor when exploring such issues as depression in teens.  There is a significant increase in depression with adopted teens.  There are slightly higher incidents of suicide with adoptees, even a higher percentage of suicides with women who have relinquished a baby. 

I am most interested in the impact on the mother.  Little research has been done on the subject, some good qualitative studies have been published, but not enough.  Women's bodies physically prepare to care for a baby, so even though she might be ready to release her infant intellectually, physically she is not and endures a time of grief which is not supported by the policies.  In order for policies to change, myths do have to be changed, too.  The best way to change myths is to educate people of the realities.  Getting peoples' stories out into the public is a good way to do this. 

Philomena's success is an indication of the interest of the American public  in the subject.  It did help that Judy Densch starred in the role, but the story itself was poignant and relatable to others and disturbing.  Baby theft under the guise of sin is not ok.  Other books are available, The Adoption Reader, Edited by Susan Wadia-Ells, The Girls Who Went Away, by Ann Fessler, and several others collect stories of the Adoption Triad.  

My book will be different in its focus and its format.  Adding the photography should make women more real, more like your next door neighbor, for she is your next door neighbor.  I will focus on the impact of loss, how grief is addressed and if, when and how reunions effect the grief.  Grief is not well addressed in this culture, which is part of the problem.  We are asked to buck up, go back to school or work, put it in your past.  We are not taught how to embrace it and accept it and make it part of our fabric.  This book will help us understand the importance of embracing grief.   This book looks at a larger problem, the avoidance of loss and grief in our lives through the stories of women whose baby has been placed with someone else to raise a subset of women who deal with "complicated grief", on-going grief in our time.

Grief: A Color in the Blanket

 

You know that brown

like a heather brown,

color of the fields just before snow arrives.

There’s some morning light

washing over it. Beautiful, one

must lull in it, make it part of

the giant picture.

 

We don’t want to embrace grief.

We want to rub it off our skin

as fast as we can.

When we think she might be

driving near, we want to hide in our

neighbor’s house until she goes away,

laughing, joking and drinking,

pretending we don’t see her sitting

there waiting for us by the kitchen

window like the ghost that Daddy saw

nightly across the way in the Ryan’s house.

 

But we need to embrace her

We need to call her up

Ask her to come spend a night

Feel her veil as we listen to Mahler.

She is very important to us.

She is a major part of who we are

If we ignore her, we leave caverns in our own

selves to fall into,

get caught in the dark.

 

She is the grey of a July

foggy evening when you are

trying to see the sandpipers

hop along the tide line. 

She is gentle and can lull you

into silent tears, silent pain.

 

She is the dark blue black of 2 a.m.

in winter when the moon is new.

The temperature increasingly colder,

she grabs your ears

pushes through your pants,

tightening your thighs,

pinching your toes,

your nose and your belly.

 

Remember grief climbs up your trellis

uncontrollably when you ignore her.

 

May 22, 2014

Auspices day for me to begin this blog for it is Jason Whiton's birthday. Jason was born when I was twelve years old to my oldest brother and his wife. Things were not easy for the young couple and Jason soon came to live with my family and spent the rest of his life as the youngest member of the clan. He was seven when I delivered my daughter. He didn't understand why I didn't bring her home, "I thought I wouldn't be the youngest any more." he said to me when he realized I didn't have the baby in my arms. He would have been a great big brother to her, but it wasn't destined.

I am starting this blog because it was suggested to me by people in the know that a blog would help my Kickstarter.com project, Creating the Strength to Speak about the courage to say good-bye.  What I will do is answer questions that have been posed to me.  It will also have other pieces of information and photographs of interest.
stay tuned.  I'm on my way....