Adoption Knowledge Affiliates

I stumbled on this organization, LINK>Adoption Knowledge Affiliates AKA, today and am just passing along some information about them in case it is useful to anyone who reads these blogs.

AKA recognizes that adoption is a lifelong journey. If you have listened to adult adoptees at all you know this. They realize that only only people with a direct connection to adoption can really understand how wide reaching being adopted is. They are inclusive of the foster care and donor conceived community as well. They are a community of people who understand that the feelings connected to separation, identity, and loss can come up again and again for any member of our community.

Their site includes a blog. I found the most recent addition there useful – LINK>The Big Empty (But Don’t Talk About It). It was written in support of the theme – “Disenfranchised Grief and Ambiguous Loss.” She goes on to define what those two terms mean when she encounters them. The term “disenfranchised grief” refers to not being socially entitled to grieve. Ambiguous loss refers to those left without answers, without closure.

She mentions that “I heard those terms bundled up like a two-fer and applied to members of the adoption constellation. Loss is the foundation upon which adoption is built, sometimes forged atop unresolved infertility grief. Birth/first parents are told to move past what little grief they’re permitted. Adoptive parents are told to act “as if” this new child had always been theirs.”

“And adoptees… Well, we’re left to live in that house constructed by everyone but us and, for the most part, don’t question what it’s made of. And we darn sure don’t peel back the wallpaper. Okay, enough with the house metaphor. You get it, right?”

3 Branch Tree

Symbolically, I like this tree showing 2 strong and closely linked branches with a 3rd one sort of off to one side. Donor Conceived Persons have a 3 Branch Family Tree. When a child is conceived via donor egg or in surrogacy, there is by reality some contributions made by the gestating mother, though difficult to pin down with any accuracy. I would not expect similar physical contributions when there is another father raising that child in the case of sperm donors. So, just my opinion on that situation.

I know that discovering my roots was an experience that has helped me understand how my ancestors, and myself as well, fit into American and world history. Some date their arrival in the United States to pre-Revolutionary War time. Others were immigrants not even naturalized yet. Feeling my Danish, Scottish, Irish and English roots, as well as wondering where that smidgeon of Ashkenazi Jew or Mali came from, these just add spice to my genetic mix.

So while pondering on such facts today, I tumbled on this man, LINK>John Vanek, who found out at the age of 28 that he had been conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor and what little documentation ever existed had been destroyed. He had been interested in genealogy and DNA since the 6th grade in public school.

Using all of his genealogical and historical skills to work, he reconstructed the blank half of his family tree from the trees of distant 3rd- and 4th-cousins and, by this method, managed to identify the anonymous donor. He has since met his biological father for the first time, that was in early 2016, and has subsequently developed a relaxed friendship with that man.

Because there are lots of people out there looking for unknown or anonymous parents, grandparents, or siblings, but very few with the skills and experience he possesses, he started LINK>GeneaLOGIC Family Research Services with the primary goal of helping such individuals. John regularly helps adoptees identify their genetic or biological parents and the children of sperm or egg donors identify their genetic parents (or other close relatives).

John describes 2 of the situations where he has assisted a client – One client was conceived in an adulterous relationship, in which the father never knew the affair had led to a child. (Blogger’s note – my dad was conceived in such a situation, when his young mother had an affair with a much older, married man – she handled the pregnancy without ever telling him.) Another was looking for information about her father, who had been abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn.

He reassures those seeking with this – “Whatever your circumstances, there is still hope.” (Blogger’s note – I agree from my own unusual experience of being the child of 2 adoptees that died knowing nothing about their origins. Within a year of their deaths, I knew what they never did, who all 4 of my original grandparents were.)

John notes his ethical core. He realizes that there are always possible risks and rewards of searching for one’s unknown past, through DNA testing or otherwise. You never know who or what you will find. Therefore, when appropriate, he is happy to refer clients to a family therapist or a law firm specializing in adoption, donation, and surrogacy.

He ends his “About” page with – I am here to help you.

Unpacking The Trauma

It feels like a kind of critical mass when I go looking for an image to fit a theme for my blog here and many of them are identified as coming from this blog. Therefore, it was a bit difficult to find something else but I did find the one for today at a site I was not previously familiar with called – Forbidden Family. The site’s author is Doris Michol Sippel who was adopted as Joan Mary Wheeler and writes as LEGITIMATEBASTARD. She is also an American civil rights activist fighting for the freedom of 7 to 10 million domestic-and-foreign-born adopted and donor-conceived people. Doris promotes family preservation, kinship care, and custodial guardianship as better alternatives to adoption. blogger’s note – I agree with Doris’ preferred alternatives.

In my all things adoption group I read this morning, about that group – We understand that “NOT ALL” people should be with their biological family. We understand that there are times where adoption has to happen. However, what a lot of people fail to understand is the WHOLE point of that group is about UNPACKING the TRAUMA of adoption. It’s NOT about the unicorn, rainbow & butterflies aspect of adoption. There are TONS of groups where anyone can brag about how amazing your adoption is and why you love it, but that’s not what the group I belong to is for.

Sometimes the lines get blurred.

In that group, we don’t need post after post telling us why adoption is needed or why it can be a good thing. We aren’t ignorant. We understand there are bad people in the world who don’t need children nor want them. This doesn’t need to be said, because it’s known, it’s common sense. That’s not what we are in the group to discuss. When a commenter switches the narrative to the one they want it to be, it takes away from the focus that is the group’s purpose.

One adoptee notes – *Sometimes* adoption genuinely is the best option. And it will STILL come with trauma, because trauma is inherent to adoption EVEN if, or BECAUSE, it is necessary. I’ve never understood why adoptive parents get so defensive, when this is brought up. It’s not even a personal attack or criticism. You could be the best adoptive parent in the world. Your child’s adoption could have been 100% necessary. You can have a strong bond and a great life together. And trauma can and will live alongside that.

blogger’s note – I am the first to admit that I would absolutely not even exist but for the adoption of both of my parents. It wasn’t until I learned the truth of their early life stories and then, found the group I lean so heavily on to write a blog every day, that I understood that I too was “in the fog” of believing that adoption was the most normal thing in the world. It is NOT. This has been quite to paradox for me to unpack late in life.

SAY SoMeThInG!

Artwork by late discovery adoptee, Ande Scott.

Ande says, Like poetry, I think images like these are impossible to understand without the backstory: the painting looks pretty! Look at the pretty colors! Now look more closely! Notice the pointy shards of colored glass!

Notice the bullshit excuses! The teeny words say, it’s not my place to say anything; the mantra of everyone who knew I was adopted and conspired to keep the secret.

Someone there commented – I see the jumbled shards of glass and see the pain from adoption and an abusive childhood that there is never an escape from – ever. A non-adoptee sees the pretty colorful pattern of glass not knowing the pain it took to display this – let alone what it would take to make those shards into something that could help heal.

I know a few moms in my mom’s group (related to my youngest son’s age) who took a “don’t tell” strategy regarding the conception of their children. Generally speaking, most secrets don’t succeed over the long run. With the advent of inexpensive DNA testing and matching (Ancestry.com and 23 and Me), I am forever grateful my family didn’t choose to hide important truths from our sons. I don’t know how things will turn out over the long run for the others.

No Man In Sight

At least one mom in my own mom’s group decided to have a child with no man in sight. For same sex female couples who want children but want to be ethical about doing the right thing, what are the options ? One offers her experience.

I’m a queer parent to a donor-conceived child and also have adopted kids through foster care.

The topic has come up before but is always interesting to me and just inherently homophobic—that women who have conceived a child by having sex are encouraged to keep and raise the child – no matter what: mental health issues, extreme poverty, abusive partners—but then, queer people are told there’s no ethical way to have a child. So somehow sex with a man makes it ethical and idealized?? So having sex gives you a right to parent – no matter what, and if you can’t get pregnant by having sex, you have no right to have children and should go mentor kids….there’s just no way to view this stance as anything but homophobia.

The ethics of sperm donation, in my opinion, based on learning from donor conceived people and also my experience as someone abandoned by my father, is that anonymous sperm donation is not ethical. I chose to conceive with a known donor who has no interest in parenting/co-parenting but is a known and present figure in our lives. [blogger’s note – I agree that any reproductive donors ought to be known. Every person should have access to their genetic background.]

Fostering is a different story. When we went into it, we were open to adopting (if things went that way) but really tried to approach it as us supporting a family in crisis by being that safe healthy person who could watch the kid(s) until the parents got back on their feet. We fostered 8 children and have adopted 4, which statistically is in line with our state’s averages that 50% of placements reunify. Our first adoptee has 3 siblings in two different families, neither of which was willing to take her. Our second adoption is a sibling set of three, with few healthy family members, a lot of criminal involvement and in incarceration, and years of trying to find a way for parents or family to be a resource. There were only a couple of healthy family members but they were unwilling to take on 3 young children. Unlike the usual assumptions, we had zero plans to adopt them and would have gladly welcomed family for them. Yet if we didn’t adopt them, they would have been moved again to non-relatives, which would have increased their trauma, so we did the right thing for them. I don’t say this for any accolades—I say it because the reality for these kids is that at this moment in time, we’re their best option.

So yes, in my opinion, there are ways to ethically raise children, even if you can’t have sex with a man.

Guilty For Being Honest

I had to google the meaning when I came across this today. It is easy enough to find so I won’t repeat it.

The adoptee story today is about a transracial adoptee who has the unique physical characteristic of having blue eyes which is unexpected given her nationality. Her adoptive mother also has blue eyes and this causes some understandable misconceptions but she will always offer the explanation if it seems relevant.

It is amazing how often people see into other people what they want to see. My sons do not have my DNA and they know the whole story about how and why they don’t. We’ve often had strangers remark that one of my sons favors my husband and the other favors me but the truth is that they genuinely can and do favor their dad in some way or other but neither is a carbon copy of him. The funniest one I get when I am with my sons is about being their grandmother. Since I am ALSO a grandmother, that is what I answer, while correcting the misconception, saying that I AM their mother. I carried them in my womb, I nursed them at my breast and I have been here for them 24/7 all of their lives (they are now 18 and 21).

So this adoptee’s very young cousin said he wished he had his mom’s eye color like this adoptee got her adoptive mother’s eye color. She told him honestly that the woman who gave birth to her didn’t have that color of eyes either. That it was just a coincidence. Her cousin asked further questions and she answered honestly. That she had come from a different country and that is why she looks different from him and from her adoptive family. She explained that their DNA was different. He was young enough that after her explanation, he just went back to playing with his Legos because he was satisfied.

Later, her aunt (this cousin’s mother) expressed her disapproval to the adoptee. She said that the adoptee didn’t have to tell the boy that she was not her mother’s “real” daughter. The adoptee affirmed that she didn’t say it that way. The aunt was unhappy that the adoptee would admit to other people that her unusual eye color (blue) didn’t come from her adoptive mother. That separating herself that way from the rest of the family was hurtful to all of them.

This story reminds me of the Toni Morrison novel – The Bluest Eye – that I read (it is a very sad and disturbing story). This adoptee says that her adoptive father used to sing Elton John’s song Blue Eyes to her. The adoptee said AITA for saying I’m adopted ? I didn’t know this song until today.

Short And To The Point

I wanted to make a point that I did not in yesterday’s blog – Conveying Personhood to Embryos. Who is motivated to adopt babies in the United States ? Infertile couples. Due to the overturning of Roe v Wade, there is now much more uncertainty now upon the best path to parenthood for such couples – that is – using IVF and having children with one or both of the parental inputs donated. If this avenue becomes inaccessible (as abortion already had in much of these United States, even though federally protected), more of these infertile couples will be seeking to adopt any available baby.

My husband and I considered adoption to build our family but decided against the uncertainties of taking on someone else’s baby. That was even before I knew my own adoptee parents’ origin stories. In the 5 years since I started uncovering that story and along the way learning so much more about the trauma associated with separating a child from its biological parents, I have turned against adoption for the most part, even though I owe my very existence to that method of creating a family on the parts of my adoptive grandparents.

We know that increasing the supply of domestic infants available for adoption factored into several of the Supreme Court Justices thinking, I have to wonder if they considered further pressure on that supply if assisted reproduction becomes more expensive and/or inaccessible.

Who Even Am I Anymore

A journal for processing various experiences for adoptees including late discovery, to donor conceived, and for those who discover a non-parental event and misattributed paternal event.

Between 6 and 10 percent of people who order mail-in DNA kits are shocked to discover Misattributed Parentage. Others may learn the truth without saliva; their lives are turned upside down by unexpected phone calls, social media messages, or files left behind by an older generation.

The effects of a DNA-Discovery can be life altering and identity shattering. Without a precedent for this brand new global phenomenon, the world is scrambling to catch up, finding itself short on resources to address this kind of trauma.

Who Even Am I Anymore is the first process journal of its kind, specifically designed for a community of people that grows larger each year. Eve Sturges used her experience as an NPE, a licensed psychotherapist, and host of the podcast Everything’s Relative to craft thoughtful questions for this uniquely existential journey. Designed to be used by individuals or in groups, with a therapist or without, this resource offers itself as a compass to those who find themselves unexpectedly lost at sea.

One reviewer writes –
I am a Late Discovery Adoptee and experienced years later via DNA test that my biological dad was not my biological dad. Eve asks just the right questions. I loved these writing prompts. They give me the opportunity to reflect, write it all out and heal from the act of writing.

Another one writes –
As an NPE (non-parental event) it truly helped me to get through and process the feelings from the trauma of finding out my dad isn’t my dad.

You can learn more about Eve Sturges at her website.

Reversal

Sadie & Jarvis, with Godparents, Kennedy & Brandon and kids

I have written before about the special challenges that adoptees of a different race face when placed with a different race of adoptive parents. In the past, this has usually meant Black and Asian children placed with white adoptive parents. In a somewhat recent development, Black couples are adopting white children as shown in my photo above. I was made aware of this couple today.

For most of my life, I really did not have much of a racial identity. True, my skin was unmistakably white. I grew up on the border with Mexico and so my environmental was predominantly Hispanic. My parents were both adoptees with no more than a minimal knowledge of who they might have been before adoption. I used to say I was an Albino African because really I couldn’t prove otherwise and neither could anyone else. I honestly suspected 25% Black, 25% Hispanic and the rest White for much of my adulthood. Now that I know something that my parents never knew – something about the people who conceived my parents and gave their genetic heritage to us all – I know that I have 25% Danish, a lot of Scottish and Irish, quite a bit English. These are the real realities and it is a gift I never expected for over 60 years of my life to receive. Yeah, it matters.

This story has an interesting twist. After agreeing to foster a newborn, actually premature, baby boy they named Ezra. After agreeing to foster, the birth parents deciding to surrender their son to this couple for adoption. Next, the Sampsons chose a new and somewhat surprising path that I am also familiar with – embryo donation. This allowed Sadie to experience pregnancy. Their twin daughters were named Journee and Destinee and they are also white. Their family motto has become, “Families don’t have to match.”

Because I am familiar with reproductive medicine, I know the difficult next stage – what to do with leftover embryos ? We allowed ours to be adopted. It was all arranged online independently but the couple did hire a lawyer. I never questioned their race nor did the thought cross my mind. Clearly, it was not a predominant concern of my own at the time. Sadly for that couple, the process did not result in a pregnancy and live birth.

White supremacists worry a lot about the dilution of the white race. It is a fact of modern life that the races are mixing. Interracial marriage, the children born to such unions and adoption are all – let us hope – leading to a better understanding that human beings are more alike than different. That peace and harmony on this planet may be the eventual result. The only real question remaining is the issue of adoptee trauma and that many donor conceived persons also have issues with how they were conceived. It is a tricky path to walk but some brave souls are stepping out ahead of the rest of society. With a better understanding of psychological impacts, it may be possible to avoid some of the worst of the worst outcomes. I do hope over time that proves true.

What Biology Prefers

In my all things adoption group – the post acknowledges what I also believe is a fact –

Biology programs us to prefer the children we gave birth to. You can try to be “fair” but I firmly believe biology and the subconscious takes over. This is how it’s supposed to be. It’s natural instincts. What does it say about biological connection when one says they love a stranger’s natural child the same or just as much? How do biological children in the home feel about this? Is it really possible? What are your thoughts?

I remember reading once that children often physically resemble their fathers so that the man will accept responsibility and care for the family. Of course, it doesn’t universally turn out that way. Yesterday, I was looking at an old picture of my husband’s father’s parents and marveled at how much he looked like both of them in a photo nearby. My sons each have some resemblance and some of the best qualities of their father. I carried my sons during pregnancy and nursed them at my breast for over a year. While they know the truth of their egg donor conceptions, which we have never hidden from them and even facilitated their ability to contact this woman by connecting them to the donor on 23 and Me, they would seem, to my own heart, to be as bonded to me as they ever could be. I am “Mom” to them and no one could be more their mom. I may not have been able to pass my genes on to them (though my grown daughter and grandchildren do that for me) but I am their mother biologically and I do believe that makes a difference. Honesty helps as well.

One commenter posted an article at science.org titled “Do parents favor their biological children over their adopted ones?” subtitled – Study tests the “wicked stepmother” hypothesis. My daughter remains quite fond of her deceased step-mother and yet, I also know that my paternal grandmother, who’s own mother died when she was only 3 mos old, did suffer an absolutely wicked stepmother. The article notes that “Wicked stepmothers would seem to be favored by evolutionary theory. The best way to ensure the propagation of our own genes, after all, is to take care of children who are genetically related to us—not those born to other parents.”

Even so their study found that parents did not favor a biological child over an adopted one in all instances. Researchers compared data on 135 pairs of “virtual twins”—siblings about the same age consisting of either one adopted child and one biological child or two adopted children.

What does support adoptees who feel their adoptive parents did not treat them well is this detail – adoptive parents did rate their adoptive children higher in negative traits and behaviors like arrogance and stealing. Yet, it is interesting that when it came to positive traits like conscientiousness and persistence, they scored both adopted and biological children similarly.

This study came to the conclusion that the strong desire to be a parent—no matter the source of a child’s genes—can override evolved, kin selection behaviors that might otherwise lead parents to invest more time and resources in their own offspring.