Forever Grateful or Forever Lost? Adopted Without Having the Chance to Build my Own Family

Part one and Part two are a must read if you want to get the bigger picture.

"I'm holding my baby, talking to her softly, letting her know everything is going to be alright. I'm fourteen, feeling instinctively, motherhood is everything I want in life. I want to be young, a trendy mum, going out with her teenage daughter. Dinner is ready, I drop my baby doll on the floor, run downstairs and smell my favorite food. We're having French fries!"

My adoptive mother asked me if I was sure. A baby doll for your birthday? Aren't you a bit old for that? I didn't care. I was turning fourteen and the only thing I wanted was a baby doll, with a soft plastic head, pink dresses and fake diapers.

I guess none of us saw it coming. Family life ruined for years by some complicated illness. Fights, misunderstandings, several admissions to a mental hospital. We all got soaked up by it, each family member in his own way.

Forever lost I seemed to be, living the life of a desperate, weak and lonely young woman. Year after year I seemed to get worse, choosing any guy to be my boyfriend, for I didn't want to be alone.

Looking for a future father, whatever he did and where ever he came from. Alcoholics, drug addicts or even former criminals. As long as I didn't have to come back to an empty flat.

But empty I felt anyway, cut off from the outside world, struggling with Bipolar Disorder, wondering how on earth I was supposed to have children one day. In the middle of a relationship with a worthless son of a B...! my thoughts were all consumed by the image of my baby doll. Mother love I felt for her. Now I just felt hollow, 28 I was, feeling nothing, going nowhere.

On my way to 30, little by little I started giving in to a thought, I could barely hold in mind, though I knew deep down inside this was the only reasonable choice. I remember my gynecologist, telling me I was very young. Why not wait until I was 35?

My psychiatrist tried his very best in providing me of all the information about pregnancy, motherhood and Bipolar Disorder, leaving it up to me, whatever I thought was best. My psychologist guided my through one of the most significant years of my life, teaching me how to say goodbye one step at a time.

Are you sure you want to go through with this? My adoptive mother asked. How could she ever understand, giving up that one dream voluntarily, whereas she, couldn't have children of her own, leaving adoption as the only choice left.

I'm 30 years old, the date has been set and I tell my adoptive mother, that I'm sure, though never ready. Life doesn't teach you to be ready and to tell your adoptive mother, grandchildren are never going to be in the picture. In my picture, the old image of that fourteen year old girl, everything changed to 'my own cruel reality'. Within a few days I was going to leave the hospital after a painful operation. I had chosen for sterilization. One that couldn't be reversed.

Now that I'm 42, writing about the most difficult decision I once made, it seems as though I am back in the operating room. Green sheets, my lousy boyfriend beside me, my gynecologist's voice in the background. A lovely nurse holding my hand, I almost crush her fingers, trying to squeeze away the pain I feel inside.

"Maybe you'll find yourself a great guy with nice kids. Divorced dads. Or what about adoption? Wouldn't that be awesome?"

Yeah, why not? Having to deal with daily life as it as, next to worrying about those feelings of the ex-wife and mother. Or putting myself through a procedure of years and years, knowing I will never qualify as an adoptive mother, let alone find myself a respectable boyfriend slash father.

"Maybe life teaches us, some dreams are better left aside, saving possible children from a horrible childhood? Maybe life teaches us, to find new dreams, to have some cats, using freedom and resources, to travel the world and discover what beauty lays ahead?"

So there you have it. A circle is round. Once I got adopted as a little baby girl, a long life ahead, everything still unknown. The image of my baby doll, now carefully saved in my mind. In my heart I feel relieved and exceptionally lucky, for not having to fight the typical battles of the adoptive child.

No, I don't feel left behind and yes I had my own demons to fight. Bipolar Disorder is a lifetime obligation, making it sometimes impossible to see the good, just as children of my own, would be a life time responsibility, making it impossible to turn the clock, once you've put them on this world.

I'm forever grateful to be part, of a world so big, leaving me endless opportunities, to find happiness in its own true way. Confident of finding only beauty, always looking for that bit of adventure, now happily in love with that one guy, I so deeply longed for.