Dear Mom do you still feel me inside of you because I never left---from an Abandoned Child trying to create another world.

Inspired by Stacyann Chin writing " A Single Lesbian Quest for Motherhood", I share with you my story of the need to find my mother in order for me to own being a single lesbian mom and the lessons i have learned along  the journey!  

My Respone to Stacyann.....and other single lesbian moms. 

I parented both with men and women and my children got to see that no matter the gender what is important is the commitment that any person makes when they are in a childs life and how important it is to keep their word. I dont think people get that when they date or are in a relationship with someone who has children they cant just see you , you are a whole package and if they leave you they are leaving your children's lives too.  

At 36 I havent found the gender that wants that level of commitment or responsibility. As an abandoned, adopted child myself , i understand the need to promise our children that we will never do the same and yet i have found myself  abandoning my children in order to heal my own loss, find love and  find myself. For those of us who have been abandoned by one or more of our parents the primal wound is deep, we search and search for them in all the wrong and right places but there is nothing like the universe sending you children to finally find yourself and heal the wounds. 

Below you will find a re-edited letter to my mom that  I wrote her NOV 2010. A letter she will never read but i needed to write. 

Dear MOM,

I renamed myself tainadelsol, thats a big name for a little girl born on May 6th, 1975. I wonder where you are right now. Do you think of me the way i think of you?. Do you wonder like me what life would be like if I was in your life? Do you wonder where I am? , what I look like?, how I am doing? Do you want to reach out but don't know how to find me? Do you lay in bed at night, guilt consuming you, wishing you could take it all back or do you cry yourself to sleep like I do? Do you feel me running aimlessly in your blood, not ever finding peace or un- settled?

I find myself constantly searching for you in the face of the women I love. Does you have bruises that will never heal? Do you have one bruise for every child you gave away-like me?. I followed you, your every move, you paved the way on my body leaving footprints for me to follow and I have. Step by Step i fit perfectly in your shoes. I wonder, do you feel me inside of you still becuase I have never left!

35 years, 101 questions and a letter to my mom later.... I went to find her!

During the year 2008, I went to find my real mother in the Dominican Republic. Finding my mother at such a late age was very important to me as I was witnessing how my relationship with my children and my partner was being affected by my issues of abandonment. You would be surprised that instead of feeling like I gained something, got clarity or gained sanity when i found her,  instead i had one hundred and one more questions about who I am , my existence, what I’ve learned, parenting  and loving. I felt as if my head was going to burst and i had just opened the Pandora's box to my life and the secrets I was keeping from my children.


You see my children had  been living the same lie I lived for so many years because they didn't  know that  I was  adopted. Finding my mother got me to think, about what  if something was to ever happen to one of  my children(if they ever get sick) and they would have to find someone that has their blood type, they would be fucked because they don't know who that would be if I wasn't here. They would  have no access to my birth moms family, my brothers and sisters. They don’t know their family health history because mine has been a lie up to now. I remember every time I go to the hospital and they ask me my family history, its a lie, I am not susceptible to breast cancer, or ovarian cancer, alcoholism, blood pressure etc, those are illnesses that belong to the family that raised me and I don't know my birth moms family history. My biological dad is dead and so who is left?

Damn this adoption thing is crazy, it has so many impacts on so many levels. But being a lesbian adds to the challenges in my life as well, it complicates this even further.

Now that my dad is dead, I look around New York and I’m like oh shit besides my adoptive mother, its me and my kids. My family tree according to my birth certificate is real little, just us three. If and when I decide to take my partnership with a women to the next level it would have to be faster than heterosexual marriages because there is no time to waste in a world that does not recognize same sex partnership and children are involved.

If I was to die my children would only have me. No real relative that is" blood" related to take them in by law. Since they have not been recognized or adopted by my partner and since I am not married, my partners would have little to no access to my children.

If I die then my partner has no right to inherit anything that I leave, unless I write it in a living will right now.
If I I get sick , she cannot make decisions for me and would probably have a hard time accessing my chart since she is not my wife or recognized partner.

The more I analyze this, the dimmer the light shines on my situation and same sex relationships overall. .

Its especially hard us as we work so hard for everything we have and then when you die or something happens you have no right to any of it. If your partners family has no love or compassion for you and is homophobic at that—your partner is left in the dark, as if they never exsisted. And the children suffer more. Because the state will send them to their biological fathers if they can find them and not care that your partner raised them, if not they become wards of the state.

So where does being an adopted lesbian leave me, well, It feels like there is only three people in my family, me makes four. My dad passed and my mom is getting old. If I happen to pass before her or even after her, who will my children have?  Who do I trust that could take them and make sure they are okay? Who will make decisions for them if they get into an accident? How will anyone contact my birth mom if they need blood for any reason?

P.S mom..... I am a  single lesbian mother trying to create another world , another family for my children.