Adoption – A Mother’s Sorrow

I can relate, though I didn’t give up a child to adoption, financially I lost the ability to raise my first born precious daughter.  There are no words for the lifetime of regret and sense of loss that never ends.  I remember looking through commercial greeting cards for something to send my daughter on her birthday and nothing related to the kind of relationship I have with her.  Eventually, I simply started making them my self where I could modify the text to be more accurate.

At least I knew where she was and who was raising her.  Not so for a mother who relinquishes her child to a closed adoption.  Open adoptions are more frequent now but adoptive parents can and often do close the door to contact.

It is difficult to generalize about the feelings or experiences of all of the parents who surrender a child.  Many may feel that their child will have a better life in an adoptive home and often that may be true if the mother is homeless or financially destitute.  Money and love and biological connection are not one and the same.  Even so, some parents who surrender a child do so believing that they are putting the child’s best interests ahead of their own, when they make the decision to place the child for adoption.

Grief and guilt are often the outcome for such a mother.  I know, I suffered both and still do.  Even though my daughter is now 46 years old and we have what I would consider to be a pretty good relationship with each other, I still struggle with the reality that I was not there for her growing up.  There is no changing that no matter how I feel about it.

Shock and denial, sorrow and depression, anger, guilt, and acceptance are the various feelings that a parent who has surrendered their child may experience at any given time, very dependent on the overall circumstances.

When the loss of a parent’s child is viewed as a “choice” that parent voluntarily made, there may be little sympathy or compassion and indeed, a strong inclination to ignore the pain and encourage the parent to go on with their life.  If only it were that simple . . .