week 9 - beginning 29th January 2001

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monday
Got an email card from Christopher asking how the secret diary of an adoptee was coming on. How did it get to be a secret diary, I've never called it that. How did adoption get to be such a big secret?

wednesday
Heard a radio programme about stress this morning. It reminded me of the monkey experiment. They were talking about how early trauma in a persons life is very stressful, how it can affect their health and also how they deal with stress in later life. When I get the slightest bit stressed the adrenalin pumps around my body. Perhaps the people who thrive on stress either like the feel of adrenalin or they don't have so much of it. It wears me out.

Una's back from seeing her mum. She found out that not only was she a forceps baby (pulled out by iron tongs gripping the side of her head) but she was put in an incubator for the first day of her life because she had trouble breathing. She's full of emotion as she considers the implications of these two things. She cried a lot as a baby, which is common after being delivered by forceps, it's a way of releasing the stress of the trauma. Her mum didn't know this and got very frustrated and angry with her. If she'd known why Una was crying perhaps she wouldn't have got so tense, she could have held her close while she cried and told her that she loved her.

I think about how so many of us are abandoned as babies by our parents who are desperately trying to do their best but don't really know what to do, abandoned as they were by their own mothers and fathers. I'm not talking about adopted babies here but the kept ones. I'd like to design an incubator that the mother can lie in as well so that her baby lies on her while it heals. There is plenty of evidence to show that premature babies thrive better if they are cuddled regularly. Why brutally separate babies from their mothers at such a vulnerable time, why not just lie them together. It can't be that difficult. If we can put people on the moon we can design mother and baby incubators surely!

friday
I thought a lot about dying today. I'm frightened that I'll be alone when I die. That everyone will abandon me. I wonder if I only think that because I was abandoned as a baby.

I think when the time comes I'll be more afraid of dying if I haven't reached my full potential. Like if I die before I've stopped being ruled by my fear. I give myself a really hard time for being afraid and an even harder time when I know it's just my fear stopping me getting on with doing something I want to do. I'm so ashamed of it. What if I just decided to be really gentle with myself about being afraid? What if I refused to feel bad about myself for it? What if I refused to feel bad about myself period?!!

To be continued next week.............