Thinking back over the past 14 years I am constantly reminded how hurtful people can be. There have been so many people that have said so many positive things when hearing about the adoption, but the negative ones are the ones that haunt me daily. At first a lot of people had no idea and when something about adoption came up comments would invariably arise to tune of "how can someone just give away their baby to a complete stranger?", or "why would someone just throw away their baby?".
Over time, after people learned about the adoption, they usually wouldn't say anything at first, but eventually their true feelings would come out. "Why do you keep pictures of him, it just makes you feel worse? You should just forget about him, you would feel better." "I just don't know how you could do that.", and every variation of that you could imagine, but the worst one came from my step-daughter. She lived with her mother and when she was 16 we found out that she was pregnant. When I suggested adoption, she said "I could never give my baby away, I love my baby."
Luckily, we were talking on the phone. I just handed the phone to my husband and went and cried. That hurt so much. That child lived with us for 2 years, I loved her and that really just tore out my heart. To this day, our relationship is not the same.
I guess people don't really understand how words can just tear you up. That is why it took nearly 14 years for me to start talking about Ryan. It took that long for the words to not hurt so much.
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