Birthmother’s Day – Letting Go with Love and Remembering Rhea

The Saturday before Mother’s day is a day of recognition in its own right, but perhaps one that few mark. The day before Mother’s Day, is for the mothers without their child, the ‘first mothers’, ‘life mother’, ‘natural mothers’, ‘biological mother’, Birth moms like me. Adoption can be bittersweet on all sides but the stories told about adoption are mostly from the new family created through adoption. This is my 11th Birthmother’s Day, and the past decade has been filled with amazing experiences with my daughter and her adoptive Dads. I am incredibly blessed to have an open adoption where I am welcomed into her life and always treated with respect, love, and appreciation. It has also had heartache and uncountable times when I didn’t know what to say or where to turn for guidance. One goddess in particular has offered me comfort and strength through it all.

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I have dreamed many dreams for my future and the children I would one day raise. Hopes and aspirations for the people they would become and the type of mother I would be. Getting married and having children was a given not a question for my future. Whatever else I would do, or become, I would be a Mom. In a way that is true, but not at all the way I had dreamed.

In March of 2011 I was shocked to find out. My pregnancy came as I was struggling out of a low point with my mental health. I was physically, emotionally, and financially unprepared to be a mother. More over my stunned partner was adamant that he was not ready and didn’t want to parent in the near future. We had discussed children before our relationship even began. But THIS wasn’t what we had planned. He gently suggested that I terminate the pregnancy. The choice was all mine and he would do his best to support what I chose. In the end, for me, there only seemed to be one answer. A scant few hours after discovering my pregnancy I was looking at profiles for potential adoptive parents

Guiding Goddess

My choice was made but my internal battle waged on. I struggled with preparing to let go of the growing child I loved more moment. At night I dreamed of watching her play and grow from the other side of a garden fence. Catching glimpses of the daughter I had dreamed of but always being apart. These painful dreams are where Rhea came to me. With compassion she acknowledge the loss I was facing, and helped me see joy in watching her grow even from afar. Rhea gave offered me guidance and support. I saw the choice I was faced within her story. It comforted to see myself, and find joy in the future that I hadn’t planned.

Even years after the adoption and almost as many since I moved to a different pantheon Rhea holds a special place in my heart. She is a fierce goddess of motherhood, childbirth, and adoption. Before my pregnancy I had never given her much thought. Rhea is a goddess that falls by the wayside, everyone recognizes her children, and her mother Gaia (I even went as Gaia for Halloween that year). Like so many birthmothers she is often forgotten, so today I remember Her.

Happy Birthmother’s Day

to the mothers who made the sacrifice to let go of their child because they loved them enough to want more. For the nights of heartbreak and the days of hope. The hope that one day we won’t watch from afar but be able to share their lives.