u/kag1991

I’m 55 female… Last year I started getting “ear infections” all the time… really it was just fullness but I didn’t know… the usual maneuvers to clear my ears didn’t work so I started “milking” my Eustachian tubes to help them drain. It was then I discovered a grain of rice feeling thing behind my jaw, just below my ear. I assumed it was a swollen lymph node due to the ear infection.

Finally, a doctor told me he thought my ear issues were due to a common side effect of some blood pressure medication. So I REALLY ignored the ear fullness at that point. I also started experiencing some other issues, especially constant nausea etc… since I am predisposed genetically to colon cancer etc… that kind of took over…

I was also hospitalized for some weird unexplained shortness of breath and general malaise.

The grain of rice was growing but I switched to just thinking it was a cyst and I usually go to the dermatologist in summer anyway so I held off again.

So summer rolls around and at this point, it’s been probably a year since I first felt that green rice. I go to the dermatologist for my annual skin cancer check and I have her check the cyst on the side of my neck.

I was a little freaked out because I look on her face when she said yeah that is not dermatological. You need to go back to your PCP and have that imaged sooner rather than later.

At this point, I had also started seeing ENT couldn’t stand the ear fullness and if I was gonna continue on the medication, I was sure causing it. Something had to be done. She treated it also like an initial ear infection, even though I had explained to her the past year, but that didn’t really matter on my follow up I explained to her about the bump on the side of my neck and the suggestion by the dermatologist it get imaged. At that point, though I had an audiology appointment and determined that I actually did have hearing loss so she didn’t wanna order imaging for the lump. She wanted to order imaging for the IAC hearing canals. But this point I was kind of beside myself because I knew the neck lump had to be examined, but she just kept kind of putting it off.

Well, so I finally got the IAC MRI done and what do you know it, comes back with a parotid tumor that is now the size of about a pea.

So of course, this ENT has to refer out again because they don’t handle this. They also still have never ordered specific imaging of just the powered gland still just depending on the IAC MRI. I have really good insurance so I’m not sure what the holdup is and ordering the imaging and that’s been a very frustrating part of this whole experience.

So the area has been growing it does ache a little bit and statistically that’s not great and leans more toward cancer. That said there is an 80% chance that it’s not so I’m not gonna freak out either way about the cancer part as even if it is, it’s usually a surgical cure anyway. I guess I’m more worried about the complications of the surgery itself, which would be true regardless of benign or cancer.

Right now, I’m just stuck in kind of a waiting hole trying to get in with a Doctor Who actually does handle these things and then finding a second opinion for another Doctor Who handles these things. I’m in the Dallas Fort Worth area and there doesn’t seem to be a super special specialist around here. It all seems like they take less than a dozen case cases a year which I don’t think is great.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at. If you have anything you wanna say advice you wanna give this very early on in the process I’m all ears.

AITH for even considering it? My sister says yes…

WIBTAH if I asked my son to come up with a code word to let me know when his wife is listening in on our conversation?

My son and DIL are low 20s, married 6 months. We love our DIL but she is very different from us. She takes things very personally, is very proper and still has a ton of maturing to do. This has caused some integration problems for her…

I love my DIL and support their marriage 100%. I think if I know she’s listening I can limit my topics or language and keep the convo short. I’m not talking about changing who I am or who she is, just in relieving some of the tension she has about how close I am with my kids, my f bombs and even my opinions.

I want their relationship and hers with us to flourish. I think for now we still need to tread lightly.

So a code word is the only solution I can think of… but then if she found out about that it could blow up badly…

WIBTAH if I asked for a code word?

AITH for even considering it?

Huge edit to add: they did do marriage therapy she chose to not continue but he has… therapist said her issues (others too) could be BPD, ptsd, personality or immaturity. His therapist is the one who suggested grace, work arounds and consider it immaturity for now…

Edit to add:

We do not talk or gossip about her, so it’s not a code word for secrecy. More so I can limit the topics to things that don’t piss her off but my son and I are perfectly entertained discussing… part of the problem is she thinks so much of our conversations are just stupid. 🤣

Also she gets angry at him if he announces her presence because she interprets that as sneaky.

I really do love her - she’s got amazing qualities but is still so young so she sees me as emotional competition. She is a daddy’s girl for sure. She hates her mom (who cheated on her dad and divorced but they remarried) so I think it’s also so “mom energy” she’s rebelling against.

There are also cultural issues. She’s from Latin America and her family still lives there. She video chats with her dad and sister everyday. She only talks to her mom when she’s there for those convos.

I’m just trying to not cause marriage tension while still maintaining the good casual adult relationship I have with my son…

She’s young - I’m not looking to trash her or change her. She’ll mature and a lot of this jealousy, control and insecurity will subside. I’m just looking for a way to bridge to that point.

For anyone interested in the thoughts of a birth mother 35 years after relinquishing an infant - and after a messy reunion…

Before you come at me, I’m not looking to be judged or scolded. I have a therapist. She can challenge my thinking, and I already know some of this may be selfish, unhealthy, or simply wrong. Right now, I’m just trying to be transparent - mostly for adoptees - so that maybe someone who is confused can better understand what their birth mother might be feeling. I’m hoping it helps. I’m not trying to hurt anyone or compete with anyone else’s experience. I’ve been spending a lot of time in self reflection with the intention of helping adoptees understand why their birthmom *might* have walked away or said no.

I think I finally found the one sentence that describes it for me:

The role I occupied was biologically indispensable and personally disposable.

I was a utility - a womb to carry someone else’s family - and once that role was fulfilled, my usefulness was over.

It’s so profoundly undignified.

Good God…

That burns in my soul like pouring vinegar on road rash.

It made me realize something I hadn’t fully understood before.

For years I thought the deepest wound was losing my son.

I don’t think that’s quite it.

The deeper wound is realizing that the role I played in his life was indispensable, while I, as a person, became entirely optional. That sense of disposability echoes through the entire experience - from pregnancy, to relinquishment, to reunion.

I carried him.

I gave birth to him.

I relinquished him because I truly believed it gave him the best chance at the life I wanted for him. At the time, I believed keeping him would have been the more harmful choice. Maybe I was weak for believing I couldn’t do it. Maybe I was manipulated into believing that. Either way, it is a truthful part of my story: I was looking to do good and put him first like any loving mother would.

I spent 18 years hoping.

Then another 17 years hoping differently.

Thirty-five years later, I’ve realized that gratitude, while kind, isn’t actually what my heart has been searching for. What I’ve longed for is the recognition that relinquishment can profoundly wound the woman who does it - and that those wounds deserve to be seen.

Too often, because the birth mother eventually becomes “optional,” her suffering becomes optional too.

If someone donated a kidney that saved my child’s life, I wouldn’t simply feel grateful for the organ. I would feel permanently connected to the person who made that sacrifice possible.

Not because I owed them my life.

But because I could never emotionally separate the gift from the giver.

That’s what I imagined adoption would eventually become.

Not co-parenting.

Not obligation.

Simply this: We know what this cost you, and we honor your humanity.

Instead…

I’ve come to believe that, in my own experience, the only role I was ever allowed to occupy was the one that benefited everyone else at my own expense. His birth father. My parents. His adoptive parents. Even my son.

To keep everyone else comfortable, I often feel that my role is to remain unseen, unheard, and managed.

That realization is profoundly undignified.

Not because I expected to become part of their family.

But because somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like a person and started feeling like a role and the reunion only highlighted that truth:

A womb.

A chapter removed.

A means to an end.

I don’t think people understand how many birth mothers begin this journey already carrying wounds from rejection, coercion, abuse, violence, or profound powerlessness.

Relinquishment doesn’t erase those wounds.

Sometimes it simply gives them another place to live.

People often ask what hurts most.

Today, my answer is simple.

It isn’t that reunion failed.

It’s that after 35 years, I still find myself asking whether anyone ever truly saw the woman who made the sacrifice - or only the sacrifice itself.

And if I ever were truly seen, would it be for who I actually am?

Or would that simply be too inconvenient?

Sometimes, it feels as though I will always remain the most disposable part of the adoption triad. And I don’t know my soul can continue to contain that pain. I have to give up on one of the few things I’ve ever wanted - my son back in my life - and choose to live instead for what is realistic for my life. I have to walk away for now…

Sigh.

FYI

The other day on this subreddit it had been mentioned the moderator at /birthparents had made some decisions to gatekeep conversation on that subreddit to birthparents only and to keep women considering the choice out of the subreddit.

I disagreed. I asked a very respectful question and was IMMEDIATELY banned and my question removed. She also IMMEDIATELY banned several other members who commented they were also flummoxed by the policy.

Would people be interested in a /birthfamilies sub that could include all the issues of birth families including half siblings and grandparents? Or is it ok to keep it here (my preference personally)? I don’t want to make it more difficult on adoptees so I’d be curious which y’all thought was better?

On the main adoption sub, it’s being alleged there a moderator from this sub has asked for them to no longer refer potential birthmothers to this subreddit?

If so I think that’s is problematic and wrong.

Your job is to moderate. Not gate keep.

No wonder this sub has so little going on. Maybe potentially saving another woman from the hell we’ve gone through would actually be therapeutic. Isn’t that actually the point of the sub?