Misunderstood

Suddenly, friends and family have discovered what I have been writing about daily for over a year and they are understandably confused. I would not have understood before about two years ago myself. Both of my parents were adopted and so adoption was the most natural thing in the world to me. Both of my sisters gave up children to adoption. What I can say is that ignorance is bliss.

But for adoption I would not exist and I never forget that. But for adoption my mother would have grown up in abject poverty instead of the privileges of wealth as the child of a banker and socialite. My husband has said that my story could be viewed as pro-adoption and that is the truth.

Even so, I cannot ignore the many voices of adoptees and the original mothers who have suffered because adoption carries with it inherent wounds and that is what I tend to try and explain in this blog.

Even so, today I read a heartwarming story. I am sympathetic to the pain of infertility. I do believe that couples who have struggled with that really DO need to seek counseling before adopting any child.

Back to that heartwarming story. A couple was traveling on an airplane with their 8 day old adopted daughter. The mother have given birth in Colorado. It had been nine long years of fertility treatments, miscarriages and adoption stress for this couple.

A flight attendant announced that he’d be passing out napkins and pens for anyone who wanted to jot down a message for the new parents. The cabin erupted into cheers and applause. A steady stream of people came by to coo and congratulate the couple.

One of the napkins read: “I was adopted 64 years ago. Thank you for giving this child a loving family to be part of. Us adopted kids need a little extra love. Congratulations.” YES, some adoptees are truly grateful and I do not doubt that but I pause on that thought “adopted kids need a little extra love.” Hmmmm.

The flight attendants explained to the couple that they are married, and a fellow flight attendant had done this for them while they were on their honeymoon. They wanted to pay it forward.

The new father shared, “Adoption is wild with uncertainty. You wonder, is this birth mother going to choose us? What happens if she changes her mind, if she backs out?” The overwhelming support the couple felt during that plane trip was also a time when they were worried that their daughter might somehow be stigmatized.

Southwest Airlines released a statement saying, in part, that the crew showed “kindness and heart” on that flight. Common kindness always matters. I actually do care about every part of the adoption triad. Just saying.

Stigma Isn’t The Issue

If I had never learned about the trauma of separating a mother from the baby she has carried in her womb, I would have more support for surrogacy. Because I have learned about this (as part of my own journey coming to terms with all of the adoptions that are part of my immediate family’s experiences) I cannot condone it.

A woman recently posted a very compelling op-ed to The Washington Post about why surrogacy became necessary for her. First of all, she does have a child. She writes that she is a genetic carrier of HY-restricting HLA class II alleles and goes on to explain that this means her son’s Y chromosome lingers and attacks all subsequent pregnancies. In essence, she had this small genetic component and she gave birth to a boy. From then on, her odds of successfully carrying another child became slim to none. Her husband and she found they could create an embryo, but her body could not carry it. So the couple started down the rabbit hole of surrogacy.

My own sister-in-law did eventually become a parent by surrogacy. I am happy for my brother-in-law that he has a son. I also know there is a deep subconscious issue that they are unlikely aware of. In our family, we were not supportive of this couple becoming parents because the woman always was a basketcase full of all kinds of psychotropic drugs. They also acted as though creating a child was simply creating another possession and intended to have a nanny after the baby was born. And they did but she didn’t last long and my brother-in-law has ended up the primary caregiver for this young boy.

A developing fetus is constantly bonding with the mother in who’s womb the infant is growing. That bonding process continues after birth for months/years into the young child’s life. The case described in this op-ed is of a surrogate who is carrying twins for this couple. There is a definite bond between twins and multiples. Maybe that will help but will not entirely remove the wounds of losing their gestational mother.

One can argue that genes matter and I know this. I assume the soon to be parents do have a genetic connection to these twins based on other details in the op-ed. However, there is more to this situation than genes alone.

I do not wish any child to be stigmatized because of the details of their conception. I have a lot of personal compassion for that issue. This woman admits that surrogacy is more political than she realized but I know she still doesn’t realize the full import of their choice. She admits to knowing that there is an array of advocates trying to end surrogacy on a national level. I understand why.

The Role of Midwives

I became interested in midwifery when I became pregnant with my oldest son. In the early 2000s, it was still illegal to practice midwifery in Missouri. After I had both of my sons by caeserean to avoid passing on a hepC virus to them, I lost touch with the movement. It was disappointing with the older boy to accept not birthing him at home using the Bradley method which my husband and I diligently studied.

I do believe that for simple common healthy births, a midwife is a wonderful addition to a family’s experiences. I did become convinced that midwifes are exceptional people.

In some cases, midwives become involved in births with a mother who is planning to relinquish her baby for adoption. A midwife may be more compassionate about the grief that separating a baby from its mother will undoubtedly cause.

Unresolved grief will have an impact on the life of any woman who relinquishes her baby. It appears that mothers involved in an ‘open adoption’ will not suffer as extremely the many adverse effects that mothers who have been involved in closed adoptions do.

A midwife needs to identify and develop the skills needed when caring for a mother planning to relinquish her baby. These include adopting a non-judgmental approach, being an effective listener, offering choices about every aspect of care and offering interventions known to help a bereaved mother.

A midwife should also see to it that prospective adoptive parents are not allowed to be with the mother as she is birthing her child. They should support a period of time for the mother and baby to bond after birth. Some women given a private amount of time to be with their baby will decide not to relinquish the baby. Women should never be coerced into doing so by agreements they made before birth.

These are some of the reforms that could be initiated to lessen the wounds suffered by both mother and child due to adoption.

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 . . .

Trying To Do Better

Though fraught with its own challenges, Open Adoption is an attempt to do the process better by considering the needs of the adoptee and their original parents with equal compassion to the needs of the adopting couple.

Generally speaking, there will be a higher level of personal interaction among the parties. This interaction may take the form of letters, e-mails, photos, telephone calls and visits.

Some of the pitfalls that may occur include an abuse of the trust that the original parents have placed on the assurances of the adopting couple. Interactions may lead to a variety of disappointments. When the adopting couple has invested in the unborn child, financially and emotionally, the original parents may feel obligated to go through with relinquishing the baby. If the adopting couple changes their mind shortly before or after the birth, it may place the child in a state of limbo and cause a referral to foster care.

In agreeing to an open adoption, the adopting couple may find the original family has greater expectations than they anticipated in agreeing to the situation. Within the extended birth family may be individuals who are not conventionally stable which may even be part of the reason the child was surrendered.

Some of the original justifications of closed adoptions have included fears that having duplicate mothers, fathers, grandparents and other extended family would make it more difficult for the child to assimilate into the new family unit. If contact between the original and adopting families ceases for whatever reason, the adoptee could be left feeling even more rejected than is commonly the experience for adopted children. There can be social complications for the child among their peers.

Identity and family history are the most important reason for open adoptions. Denying the child access to that information violates basic human rights. Adoption will never be the perfect circumstance for any child but trying to do it better does matter.

You Should Be Grateful

Of all the unreasonable expectations people tend to put upon an adoptee, the demand that they be grateful for having been adopted is perhaps one of the most painful.

Do you realize ?

The adoptee lost their complete family in one foul swoop. They lost their mother, perhaps as soon as the day they were born. They also lost their identity, background information, heritage, genealogy, birth certificate, familiarities, equal rights, similarities, health information and a knowledge of where their inherited traits came from.

Adoption is the only trauma for which the traumatized are told by society that they should be grateful for it’s occurrence. Compassion that it happened to a person is a better expectation.

Acceptance

My adoptee mom shared with me before she died that she had to stop working on the family tree at Ancestry that she had been creating from the lineage of the adoptive parents (my dad was also an adoptee). She said “It just wasn’t real to me. I am adopted.” Then she added, “Glad I was.” because she had reached a place of acceptance that she would never know her origins and whether having been adopted was actually a “good” thing or not.

Acceptance is a phase of grieving. My mom grieved that her original mother had died before her search began. Arriving at acceptance can feel lighter, more balanced and has the ability to realize what all of our experiences have brought to us.

Adoptees will likely struggle with what it means to belong to two families. Coming to terms with that, could also make comfortable – duality, complexity and ambiguity. An adoptee may be able to see both/and rather than either/or.

What will always be true is that an adoptee can never be not adopted. That’s a given.

Adoption can add an element of compassion. There is no getting around the reality that the adoptee was given up. Taken in by strangers. There are consequences to both.

Healing can happen when an adoptee can accept that what happened, happened. This was their fate. They were surrendered by one mother and raised by a different one. An adoptee can’t avoid the pain that is part of that experience.

Platitudes such as “everything happens for a reason” or “it’s all part of God’s plan” are not helpful. Nor are attitudes that an adult adoptee should simply “move on” or “get over it” or “stop dwelling in the past”. These are not helpful either. The past is an adoptee’s history, their identity, their connection to a concept of family.

Babies adopted shortly after birth experience a trauma so early in life that there is no “before” the trauma to return to. Consider that. Add to it the pain adoptees experience by being mostly invalidated by society.

So better words don’t include a non-adoptee’s judgement of what would have been better or worse. A simple acknowledgement of fact is enough. Adoption can’t be undone.

Even so, an adoptee can know that they are also a survivor with those kinds of strengths and gifts. The adoption system is deeply flawed. Seeking to reform it is a worthy outcome for having gone through the experience.