Adoption Search and Birth/First Parent blogger, Jan Baker, and I have spent the past few months annoying the bejeezus out of each other. We come to adoption from different directions ... she's a birth mom / I'm an adoptive mom ... and we're both just a bit opinionated and a lot passionate about most things in life, so arrived at the blogging table here at Adoptionblogs.Com with hefty agendas.

Early on, we both took a couple of swipes via the comments sections of our blogs and others', then I wrote her off while she wrote me off, and we proceeded to ignore each other for the sake of blood pressure and mental serenity.

There was a problem with that, however ... I wanted to understand. I needed to read about the process of birthing, then grieving. I needed to hear a birth mom explain her pain. How else am I to internalize that very significant part of my kids, the part that is their loss ... their first mother?

Birth mom angst ... that's the term I used at the time ... can come like a barrage, with loaded shells dropping from every direction, each meant to draw blood. Some are well-defined with one sharp point. Some are like cluster bombs and can be seen as attempts to annihilate adoption, to wipe the option from the face of the world.

As an adoptive mom and an ardent advocate for adoption, strident voices clamoring for drastic changes make me nervous. Having heard adult adoptees insist that any child would be better off dead than adopted, my reactions are not always well thought out.

For some reason, a very pleasant comment from Jan on one of my blogs had me flying off the handle, and itching for a brouhaha once and for all.

See my next post for excerpts from my rather nasty email to Jan ...

To see how the bridge-building looks from the other bank, see the first in the series of Jan's posts.