Sally said I should go on an Adoptive/Birth Mom retreat. I said sure, why not. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Until it got closer to the event.

I’m not either an adoptive or birth mom. So I started feeling SUPER awkward about going on the retreat. Super awkward. But it was done. No turning back. So I put on my “I’m not an introvert” pants and went.

On Thursday night I hosted some amazing women who I crammed into my girl room. They were good sports about it. And then Friday morning I drove to the airport to pick up some other awesome ladies.

I had five brave women who tolerated my total lack of navigation skills while I drove us all up to Prescott. I didn’t get too lost and mostly followed the GPS’ directions accurately. We got there and back okay so…
On Saturday we had a few workshops/presentations that were really great. Above are all the adoptive moms (and me) with our two birth moms who were leading the class. Sally and another adoptive mom were inside with all the birth moms leading that class.

I can’t even tell you how much I love these two amazing strong women. They are just so so so wonderful. Plus how cute are they?! Sally and I have been trying to plank every day. So this was just us being silly. Meeting FB people in real life was really great. Really really great.

We had an amazing presenter come and share his adoption story. He was adopted and adopted.Spending a weekend with these women was life changing. And so healing. I had been living in emotion denial since the siblings left. I mean, I knew I missed them but I was “fine.” Like right back to normal life, no tears fine. And I knew (hoped) I was in denial, but I was starting to think maybe I really was just fine and that maybe I was kinda emotionally broken…

This weekend and these women tore my emotional bandaid of denial right off. And I’ve been a hot mess of tears ever since. Which is hard, but so good. Because I’m not broken and now I can start to heal.

Someone took this picture of me getting loved on by some beautiful souls. This was right after I had pulled out my “old” family photo. I was taking a small copy of the last family photo of the seven of us to the burning and letting go ceremony. Sally asked me about it and I just melted. Stupid symbolism of letting them really go broke me. I can hardly type for crying. And breathing… it just hurts. If we wanted to say what we were letting go and share with the group we could, but we didn’t have to. Which was good because I couldn’t even. Breathing was hard. Everything hurt.

And it still does. But this is good, because healing and crap right?! I was their Mom for almost 13 months. Monkey girl was only 4 weeks old! They were my kids. I love them and I miss them so much that sometimes it’s hard to breath. I don’t now if I’ll ever get to see them in person again and that really really sucks.

So for the last week I’ve been a hot weepy mess. I’m crying over every little thing. Things that wouldn’t normally phase me have me in a puddle of tears. And occasionally the pain is breathtaking. Real life is hard and messy.

I will FOREVER be grateful for the beautiful women who were warm and welcoming and sharing of their pain, joy, and strength. They were just what I needed when I didn’t know what I needed.

Also sometimes putting your introvert self in a box is the best thing you can do for yourself.