Forgiveness With Boundaries

I have read so many stories about adoptees that were abused in some way (whether physical, mental or emotional) by their adoptive mothers. I know my own mother’s experience with her adoptive mother growing up and into adulthood was not easy. I had my own difficult experience with that woman as well. But she could also be very thoughtful and generous as well. People are simply complicated.

So, your struggles as adoptees are not my own life’s experience and I have no ready answers. I was reading a story this morning about one man’s struggle to forgive the abuse he suffered from his father and I liked the concept that is the title of this blog today.

Things have been intense and then upsetting. I have neglected this blog. I do intend to begin posting here again, if not tomorrow, hopefully by next week – after I process through some more of my own disappointment that the future (for the foreseeable next few years) is not what I had hoped. Take good care of yourselves. Temper your willingness to attempt to understand those who have hurt you as a kind of forgiveness that has good boundaries to protect you from future pain, whatever your own particular boundaries are.

Birthdays Trigger Grief

This is not uncommon among adoptees. This one discovered later in life that she had been adopted – that often causes feelings of betrayal and distrust.

I am COMPLETELY miserable on my birthday, and with each passing year, the sadness becomes more and more pronounced until it’s debilitating. It is nothing I can control; my mind and body practically go into shock all on their own without any conscious thought on my part. I’m down the entire day and can barely function. I try to put on a happy face, especially for our son because I know he doesn’t understand how one could not see a birthday as a celebratory occasion; however, I am strongly contemplating telling everyone next year to please stop recognizing my birthday, that the well wishes only bring me grief as opposed to gladness. (It’s exhausting thinking of how to deal with the confusion and—for lack of a better word—blowback.) Yes, I’ve seen therapists, and they have been no help. I stopped seeing two of them in 2024 alone, and quite frankly, at this point, I’ve lost count as to how many I’ve seen over the years.

Grief and Regrets

An adoptee shares – My 8 years older brother died a few months ago and I’ve been tasked with settling his affairs. Our adoptive parents got what info they could about us – they said he was French Canadian – he connected with his biological family later in life and learned in his 60’s that he is actually Indigenous and a victim of The 50’s Scoop – The Stolen Generation. That was huge for him and I was happy he shared that journey with me. Going through his documents after his death I learned that he was a year old when our parents adopted him. Shocked I didn’t know that… I’m haunted with wondering what happened to him in that year and sad he and i never talked about it and that it’s too late now.

Anyway, just musing on it. Thanks everyone.

Unexpected Regrets

Even in the reality of so much, unexpected regrets can hit due to grief and no good way to have made it all come out better. Today’s story – a kinship adoptee writes “my biological mother was always in and out of my life. My WHOLE life she struggled with addiction. I always took her in, always took care of her, always tried to help her stay sober. July of last year my biological brother un-alived himself and that same day my biological mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer.

I took my mom in to try to fight her battle with cancer but she kept testing positive for drug use, so they wouldn’t do her chemo. That lead me having to deny her staying with me because I couldn’t risk someone in active addiction in my house with my children. The last time she left the nursing home (because at this point the cancer was getting bad) to go be with her dealer, after me begging her to just stay clean and be my mom and a grandma, I had to cut off contact.

About a week and a half before she passed, she sent me a video telling me she was dying and she only had a few months left. She had signed a DNR and was going into hospice. I honestly didn’t really believe her as she was a compulsive liar and did things like this in the past for attention. However, I opened back up contact, just in case. She kept telling me her dying wish was to come be with me. live with me and my children, until she passed. I had just bought my first home a week before. I didn’t want the trauma connected to her passing in my home.

By the time I went to see her at the hospital, a few days later, she was delusional – thought I was a caseworker and my kids were actually her kids. She became so violent I had to take the kids home but did come back. She couldn’t have a real conversation but would randomly say my name or tell me she loved me. A few days later, she died two minutes before I got off work. This happened in April. My mother, who had a treatable cancer, died in less than a year due to not being strong enough to fight her addiction.

No matter how bad or crappy of a mother my mom was – I still want my mom to this day. The loss of her has destroyed me inside. On top of ALL of this because I WAS ADOPTED AND SHE WASNT ON MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE, I NO LONGER WAS THE NEXT OF KIN!!!!!’ This part KILLED me. I was the next of kin until someone told them “you know she was adopted and she isn’t her legal mom anymore”. This took any chance I had to grieve in the way I wanted. They had her cremated immediately.

I get shamed because I didn’t take her in during her dying days. I get shamed for missing her now because I wouldn’t let her live with me, when she was alive but addicted. Sometimes I feel guilty for not doing more.

Alone With No One There

A woman writes – Sitting in some unpleasant, sad, gross feelings lately. Both my mothers, biological and a non-bio/fictive kinship guardian, are deceased. Neither family is…there. I have one elderly family member from my biological mom’s side that I am -not- blood related to, due to my biological mom being adopted herself. The fictive kin family cut contact with me immediately after that second mom passed away (no explanation, nothing). I feel like I am drifting in a void, and untethered. I feel isolated from my peers and I can’t relate. Christmases, birthdays, going through hardships, even celebrating the big, joyous things, the milestones! It all feels quite lonely. And I don’t have it in me to find more eloquent words to describe how sad this makes me feel, but I can only hope someone out here gets it and we can sit in this together. Thanks for reading me.

One shared her own approach – I formed a family with my pets & then also with my best friend.

One person notes – It’s hard being alone with no connections.

Someone says – I wish I could hug you right now and be there for all your good moments to celebrate and moments like this, so you don’t feel alone.

An adoptee shares – I was there too. I’ve taken the last 24 years and built a new family for myself full of non-blood people who care deeply about me and I about them.

From another adoptee – orphaned at 10, I very much relate & sit in it every day, and so I am with you now in these feelings.

Her Biggest Mistake

From an all things adoption group I belong to – Everyday I hear natural mothers share how giving up their child was the biggest mistake they ever made. I see them share their heartache and pain that sometimes is spanning decades. Sometimes I just don’t understand how hopeful adoptive parents can continue going through the process of adopting, if they are listening to these women. I mean what do they tell themselves to make it ok to take someone’s child, knowing the pain it could cause. The hopeful adoptive parents in groups seeing this, do you feel guilt ? How do you reconcile another’s pain for your gain ?

Some random comments –

From someone adopted as an infant – What’s interesting is as an adopted child I was almost raised to believe it was my “responsibility” to also adopt. In reality, I longed for genetic mirroring and went on to have 2 wonderful children of my own (who luckily got to meet my genetic, biological mom, uncle, and half sister 3 weeks ago, for a weeklong visit of beautiful reunion)! I had my first child at 31, second at 33, and did not really start to come out of the fog until after they were born. I wonder if I had been unable to have children, if I would have still felt adoption was an option, or my “responsibility”, or if my nature would have known otherwise.

From a mother who “lost” her child to adoption – Family friends adopted my son, knowing that I longed to parent. They watched me receive pressure and coercion from my own family, offered me no practical help (although were very “kind” to me), and then told themselves that I made my own decision and that my son’s adoption was God’s will. They even kept the adoption open. So they saw my pain very openly until eventually I pulled all the pain inside. Obviously no one around me cared. Even IF no adoptee had ever expressed trauma, wouldn’t our own lifelong suffering be enough reason to end this practice? And then in fact, on top of our tremendous pain, sits the pain of our children. Wtf is wrong with our culture, that we would rather throw away the struggling than to help them?

From another mother of loss – I know that my daughter, who just turned 35 and is still very very much in the fog, was told that she couldn’t have any contact with me “for safety reasons”, which of course was a complete lie (It was a private adoption, not a Child Protective Services case or anything like that) and I think that idea that I was “dangerous”, even without saying specifically that I was, was incredibly scary, damaging and alienating to her.

The sister of an adoptee shares – a woman who had adopted a newborn was saying the baby’s actual mother was texting, saying she regretted giving her baby up for adoption. The adoptive mother was getting advice like “block and move on”, which is insanely cruel. I advised the adoptive parent to “do the right thing and return the baby to it’s mother who clearly misses her baby”. I was then dog piled on for even suggesting that because the actual mom had already signed away her rights, so the actual mom didn’t have a leg to stand on. The selfishness of many adoptive parents just drives me up a wall. I probably should have not been so blunt in my reply as I was blocked and didn’t get to see what happened but I couldn’t stand by without advocating for the reunification of this family. An adoptee replied – “I can’t imagine having someone else’s baby and not immediately taking steps to return the baby after receiving those texts. Do these people have hearts?” Even a foster/adoptive mother notes – “I don’t see how you can acknowledge someone’s deep suffering and when it is well within your ability to assuage that suffering… withhold the remedy. Even if it comes as a great cost to you… that’s what we are all here for. To love one another. Serve one another. I just can’t wrap my mind around that.”

Grief Needs Space

Today’s story – not my own – I adopted my nephew a few years ago. My sister has a crippling addiction and Child Protective Services got involved. It’s all devastating and we all know adoption is born of broken hearts.

Anyway… So we try to keep in contact with his mom but she is very unavailable and doesn’t have stable living at any given time. Currently she’s been gone for about 2 years with no phone contact but we have checked with people who know people to make sure she is still around and ‘okay’. Her son is 4 years old. (We have had him since he was 5 months old, after being in emergency care for 2 months.)

Tonight he was crying at bedtime and when my husband asked why he said he misses his mom. (He knows he is adopted.) My husband just held him close until he settled and then he went to sleep.

But I don’t know how to handle this. I have pictures and thought maybe we can look through them but then panic that maybe that will make it worse. He saw his biological half siblings all day today (also placed for adoption to kin on the father’s side) so I wonder if that was a trigger but the answer can’t be to not see his siblings. I just don’t know how to help him.

I did reach out to a friend of my sisters to see if maybe he can relay a message and haven’t heard back but even then I don’t know what will help. She has only seen him maybe 7 to 10 times since being placed with us, so I don’t know if it will help or hurt for him to see her?

Anyone. Help. Tell me what to do, please. (Other than not adopt him because I didn’t ask for this…) I never intended to “steal him” or anything… I just needed my nephew to be in a safe place surrounded by as much family as possible.

From someone involved in counseling – I think he’s grieving and it doesn’t necessarily need to be “fixed.” Grief needs space and to be witnessed. His heart hurts for good reason and he needs safety to feel what he feels. A therapist might help you too as you hold space for grief with him. I suggest seeing an adoption competent therapist.

An adoptee shares – Holding him while he misses his mom and loving on him is the right thing here and you’ve done that. Therapy with an adoption trauma informed therapist and just being there for him. Letting him talk about her. The pictures are a good idea. Addiction is so freaking hard. Don’t give up on them – someday they might be ready. I think you should be in therapy too, you’ve pretty much lost your sister to addiction at this point, that’s a lot and it’s okay to need a little lift of support.

Baby Name Mourning

I saw an interesting article this morning in The Huffington Post about LINK>Baby Name Mourning. It is not an unfamiliar issue with adoptees that the name their genetic biological parents wanted for them before they were born was rejected by the adoptive parents due to a preference for the name they wanted to give to their adopted child.

From the article – Deema Soufan, a psychotherapist who specializes in perinatal mental health, notes that “As we move through life, we discover meaning in experiences that have been important to us . . . Essentially what can end up happening is we can focus on this idea in our head of what we thought something would look like, what we thought something would represent. And if that idea is shattered or ruptures, a lot of grief can follow suit.”

Expectations and dreams, especially long-held ones, trend to bring up big feelings. The article notes that there are a variety of reasons why people can’t use a particular name that they love. Maybe they are unable to have a child or choose not to do so. The pregnant person may feel ‘silly’ for sharing that they are grieving that their journey to parenthood has become challenging. It can feel like a massive loss of control as well.

She notes a variety of reasons for sadness – “The grief of not listening to your internal guidance, the grief of not advocating for your needs and desires, the grief of people-pleasing, and the grief of ultimately not using the name you love can send parents into a spiral of deep, dark name regret.”

“The advice that I have for anyone who is coping with baby [name] mourning is to approach your stance with curiosity and without judgment,” Soufan said. “I implore you to dig deep and explore what is at the root of this distress for you. Normalize your grief and accept it! Two things can exist at once.” You can feel like you are “completely out of control, especially when one of the first parenting decisions that you get to make feels like it was taken away from you.” She recommended sitting with your thoughts and examining what is reality. “The more that we can develop compassion and curiosity for our feelings, the more that we can accept and move through them.” And this would be common among mothers who surrender their child to adoption.

“We imagine ourselves parenting and nurturing this little spirit, helping them navigate life’s inevitable twists and turns. When we rub up against the reality . . . it only feels right to grieve the loss of these people that we’ll never get to know in the flesh,“ Taylor Humphrey, the baby name consultant who coined the term: baby name mourning.

A Grandparent’s Lament

A woman writes that she is heartbroken because her twin grandbabies were recently adopted. I was surprised by how many other grandparents chimed in with similar sadness. They were only 3 days old and she didn’t know if they were still in the hospital. She said I’m so clueless – how could this be done ? Does it get finalized in court ? Does mom have to appear to finalize the adoption ? She has researched it and found the mom has to go to court within 72 hours and appear before the judge to confirm signing off her rights as they are in Tennessee. She notes that her son and the mother are both here at her house hiding in their room. She admits that she hasn’t spoken to them in almost 2 weeks, but also told them they had to find somewhere else to live. She feels that she will never want to speak to my son again and yet that saddens her.

Someone shares her own experience of how these things sometimes proceed – in her case, both were both discharged at the same time, according to the hospital’s typical protocols (48 hours after vaginal birth, 72 after c-section). She notes that the relinquishing parents may have a choice in whether the baby goes straight to the adopters or whether the baby goes to a foster home until the revocation period is over. She had that choice but every state has different laws. In her case, her son actually left the hospital with her (and the social worker was following them in her car). They went to a nearby chapel, where she had a ceremony with the adopters and handed him over to them. This happened 48 hours after birth and she had 7 days to change her mind, after the day she signed the paperwork (which happened 24 hours after birth). She says, “I think you are trying to make sense of what is happening, so I’m sharing my story to try to give you some mental pictures. But the truth is, with every state having different laws and with adoption being such a BUSINESS, the situation with your grand babies might be completely different than what I’ve described.”

Someone notes – Family should always be first. The grandmother admits there are times when children need to be adopted because they are in bad situations but our family is good, and we offered to help but were turned down. And then goes on to share – My son and girlfriend thought they would have a better chance with a family that could love and care for them. Someone that couldn’t have kids and wanted to adopt. Me and my husband told them we would help them care for them, but they wanted to do it! They have other children, I guess they didn’t want to start over again! I wanted them and now I’m so hurt, I didn’t have a granddaughter, now she’s gone.

Someone else shares – I think adoptees need to shout about their experiences. Everyone thinks adoption is the perfect solution but even the adopters are human beings, so they have problems: divorce, addiction, anger, depression, family secrets… it’s just that they don’t share them with social services when they are getting assessed. So everyone thinks they’re perfect and I know they aren’t. In the UK, social workers don’t want to get blamed for missing signs of abuse within the birth family, so they would rather just take babies – just in case. But then, that would mean they need to take everyone’s babies, just in case the woman is with a total idiot who in the future might be abusive. That’s why the system in the UK is overwhelmed and they are crying out for more and more foster carers because they have too many children in the system. I’ve been to 3 court cases now, I got custody of the first child (my granddaughter), the second child was a twin and was a boy (my first grandson) and he was adopted. Then the third and fourth children were both boys and they remain with my daughter with no involvement from the state. I don’t understand why they wanted my first grandson. Nobody was told the day of the adoption hearing. It was kept secret, so nobody could go in and try and revoke it. In the UK, it is impossible to get your babies back when they have been granted adoption, as they take the birth mother’s rights away, in court, immediately.

A grandparent shares – My twin grandbabies are in the system too. I have their older brother. The middle boy got adopted. So unfair. Another asks – Why on earth are all these babies being traumatised??? You would have to get my grandkids adopted over my dead body. Don’t you people realize adoption destroys babies well-being? Traumatizes them??

Someone notes – It is beyond me at this point to understand that people are still willing to destroy families and adopt a child like this. The social narrative about adoption MUST change. These parents were severely misinformed and will regret this the rest of their lives. Another says – Grandparents are left out of the equation. Another noted – Adoption affects the whole family. Yet another says, It happened to me. My 3 grandbabies were adopted. I have not hugged them for 9 years now. And this one is angry – My granddaughters were adopted out too. I hate Child Protective Services. They care more about money than the kids. The adoption agencies are evil too. It’s legalized human trafficking.

A Lifetime Of Wondering Why

It is not unusual to hear adoptees express this kind of feeling – Adoption damned me to a lifetime of wondering why ? Why didn’t you love me enough to stay ? Do I deserve love ? What is love ? Am I unlovable ?

When a mother breaks the bond the infant had with her, it’s tears away everything the infant knew. The child’s heart is like a broken record or a confused GPS constantly re-calculating and playing over and over again the trauma, trying to make sense of it.

We are given a connection at birth. The moment that a severing happens a new attachment is formed. Heartbeats heard for months comfort us as we lay skin to skin. A voice we fell asleep to in our water beds is clearer and easy to recognize. The hands that pressed against the womb like a window now cradle and caress us. They do so for years. Or as long as we let them. I was nothing to you and no one was that special someone to me again.

I used to look for you. Staring in the faces of strangers, trying to remember how you looked and praying my eyes would settle on the face my heart would remember. I used to sit in a fog, while other children played around me, with thoughts only for you. I used to lay awake at night in my bed and see the moon peeking through the window and despair that tomorrow was another day of looking. Another long night apart.

So yes, I do remember. Even now, decades later – my body, my soul, and my heart remembers. I have learned love and I have learned loss. I have learned to draw happy little stick families with a sticker heart border and “my family” scrawled at the top. I still remember being pressed against your chest with your hair and smoky breath swirling around me. Pressed against your chest until I couldn’t breathe and it was all warm and black and fuzzy – YOU.

I know where you are now. You are buried on the side of a mountain. I never found you again no matter how hard I looked and believe me I never stopped looking. I do plan to visit your grave someday. I want to stop my heart from looking. I want to say the goodbye I never got to say and I want to do it for the little girl who still remembers.

Blogger’s note – on my own “roots” journey to discover who my adoptee parents’ biological, genetic parents were, I have been able to visit the graves of my mom’s parents. And I did sit there next to their gravestones and pour my heart out with the good-bye’s I never had an opportunity to say, before then.