She found me

When I gave my daughter up for adoption I did so because I thought I couldn't give her what I didn't have, I felt hopeless and had very little information/hope about anything including the future and what it would be like. I believe with all my heart that most birthparents who give their children up must feel this hopeless. There is so little information offered to birthparents who are in such a situation of desperation. I don't mean to sound cynical but I feel such over-neediness from perspective adoptive parents and it kind of makes my stomach turn these days. I believe that just as some women are cooerced into having abortions or not having them, that many women are cooerced into surrendering their children because they feel there really is no other alternative. I was at a very bad time in my life when adoption seemed like the only alternative. I didn't understand that there were agencies to help me or assistance or anything that could possibly turn my situation around. I wasn't on drugs, I didn't have an abusive boyfriend.. I just simply didn't have any confidense or know how. I was young and couldn't figure things out for myself. I loved and do still love my child. As I have grown.. I have come to realize that most things are temporary.. even bad things..hopeless situations. Anything can turn around except for regret. Adoption is very final. The adoption agency even told me to think of this as a death to be mourned when it occured. Anything can happen as horrible as that is to tell a mother who believes she's doing the right thing. I was surprised recently to hear from the birthparents of my child and then to hear the voice of my child..a teenager( I am still only in my early 30's). Needless to say it threw me into some other kind of drama all over again. The birthparents as wonderful as they have been to my child fail to understand how emotonal I am and actually have left it up to my daughter to decide our meeting and our relation. I was told that my role in her life should be as a "close aunt".. never to judge or give advice.. to let them be the heavies..etc. I really didn't plan to do any of those things I was told not to do because I mourned the loss of my child long ago. I was just elated to hear her voice and to hear things about her life in her e-mails and to answer her questions she had and to share. The birthparents didn't call me beforehand to tell me this was coming.. it just came. All my emotions came flooding back.. all the what ifs. In reality though I can see that my child is a very healthy, normal, everyday kind of kid. She has the same kind of problems she would have had regardless of adoption. I can see now that if I would have kept her she'd be the same person she is today nomatter what I thought I couldn't give her then. I still and always will mourn the loss of my baby because I missed the middle. I feel that there is a big lack of sensitivity to birthparents from adoptive parents. That little baby that I loved and actually did have a bond with is gone forever. My bond with that baby died and was born to someone else.. that will always be the way it is. I can never do anything to change it. To be more exact.. something in me died and even that child grown cannot bring it back to me. It is very hard. Can anyone understand this? I wonder who could because most people tell me to feel grateful and usually I don't where this is concerned now. It is hard to imagine meeting a family of strangers who I am somehow related to but not quite. My feelings are very raw and not thought out but I am learning more each day. I want to meet my child in person but I really feel that she is too young at 15 to understand her feelings let alone mine. I was 15 not too long ago and I remember. I have done my best to be cooperative and to listen but feel that nobody is listening to me.. as this wasn't planned by me.. but years of planning went into it I'm told. I'm not sure it's a good idea to meet with her because she is really still just a child. Does anyone out there have any advice for me?