Chosen ? Special ? Really ?

In my adoption group, one woman wrote –

How are adoptees “chosen” and “special” and “soooo wanted” when hopeful adoptive parents would literally pick ANY baby under the sun?

Partially prompted by A Million Little Things when their adoption agency offers a replacement baby the *same day* they learn the natural mom they had bought decided to parent.

I only watched one episode. The natural mom decides to keep her baby, hopeful adoptive parents are upset, next thing the adoption agency calls saying another woman is in labor and they got “bumped to the front of the line” which sounds like a McDonald’s drive-through lane that dispenses babies. Thankfully, the woman says no… for that episode…

This same woman goes on to explain –

I’m French and was relinquished at birth. I went to an orphanage, for 2 months the birth mom has the right to come back for her baby, and nothing can happen, then legal initiates. I was legally free around 6 months by then they put me in a family that had paid $0 (adoption is always free) and vetted by social services for months.

Now they provide even more help for birth moms to parent, so the number of babies like me is only 700 per year, which discourages adoption as a way around fertility. That would be around 3,500 babies for the whole US, 50 per state.

And instead of foster homes we have a paid social worker taking kids in his home with a stipend on top of salary going to the kid’s needs. It doesn’t prevent hopeful adoptive parents from shopping for a kid abroad and is far from perfect but there is no commercialization of domestic babies, and even surrogacy is illegal.

An adoptive parent shared her perspective –

I am an adoptive parent that is still constantly learning and working through my own insecurities, I believe it all stems from the “meant to be” or “God’s plan” narrative that many/most adoptive parents feed into.

Like any disrupted match (in the eyes of the adoptive parent) is just not the child God has waiting for you. The one that worked out was the one all along. When one really thinks about it, it’s like the adoptee stated – any baby will do and becomes “chosen”. This group has helped me see the issues and concerns with this way of thinking. I am still always reading and learning though.

Another adoptee added –

As an adoptee I never felt chosen or special I felt sadness and confusion. When we were forced to adopt our foster baby we didn’t do any celebration and we didn’t announce it on Facebook etc. we didn’t start a Go Fund Me or beg for money on TikTok or share his journey. Only immediate family know.

Thank god it’s an open adoption and for the first year it was much like a divorced couple but the last year since his mom got married and has a new baby, visits and time with her have been less and less – at her request. My hope is once she settles into a new normal, she will spend more time with him. But I’ve never used those words with him.

And this came from South Africa –

I totally agree an adopted child should never be burdened with the “chosen”, “special” etc narrative. I had a domestic infant adoption with a private social worker. At the time I adopted, I tried to make sure I did NOT “choose” a specific child. The first child I was matched with luckily went home with his aunt. I was so happy for that child.

I was then matched with a different child, and again I tried to keep my heart from attaching to this specific child, in case his parents were able to parent. I was trying to keep in mind that what is best for the child is their family. I felt I was trying to offer a home for a child who needed it, and not attach and try to hold on to a child that could go to their family.

So many hopeful adoptive parents mourn the parents changing their mind – but surely that is the ideal situation.

Finally, this question – what birth mother actually doesn’t “want” her baby?

And this response – they exist but they are FEW and FAR between. The narrative of the droves and droves of unwanted babies in the US that are languishing away for help really burns me. (And I was one of those few, actual unwanted babies).

So what do adoptees actually feel ? We are not chosen. Quite the opposite. We’re discarded.

Not A Blank Slate

One of the most enduring myths is that a baby is born as a blank slate that the parents get to write upon. The baby thief, Georgia Tann, used that concept as a marketing ploy for 30 years with adoptive parents but guess what ? The blank slate idea is alive and well.

Today, prospective adoptive couples are advertising on social media and adoptees find it very hard to take that without making comments from their own personal experience. One adoptee commented on one of these social media posts of a couple seeking a baby to adopt and got this response from another person there –

Babies actually are a blank slate. They are meant to be shaped, formed and nurtured by those that surround them. This family could be the second chance for a mother struggling with a difficult decision. I’m saddened to see your hate filled comments directed at a family who is struggling. Show some compassion.

The adoptee replied – I’m sorry you can’t have a child of your own. Adoption is not what you think. Babies are not blank slates and will forever yearn for their family. Please educate yourself prior to posting this stuff on Facebook and preying on a woman who is in need of support, she does not need strangers ripping away her child for their own self serving rights. Educate yourselves first. It’s preying on children. There is something bigger going on inside of your heart that you need to address. Get some support to help you heal and in the meantime, stop preying on humans.

Hopeful and already Adoptive Parents –

If you could look into the future and know that the child you will adopt will resent you for adopting them, for the actions you took to acquire them, for paying for them, would you continue the process? Does hearing what adoptees say in private, but keep from their adopters, give you a glimpse into what that future might be? (I share such stories here all the time.) If you knew for a fact that their thoughts and feelings would be in the same vein as what you hear from grown adoptees, would you still keep trying to adopt? If you knew the child you are seeking to adopt would commit suicide from the pain their adoption brought them, would you still keep trying?

But of course, hopeful and already adoptive parents live in la-la land for the most part and such warnings simply fall on deaf ears.

Becoming Whole

This is what it is like to relinquish a child and then one day find them again and realize you are coming full circle and putting your pieces back together to become whole again. One birth mother’s story for today.

Summer 2018:

While working with my husband (repo agent) doing research on debtors, I stumble across a Facebook profile pic that makes my heart stop. After years of searching with very limited info, I finally saw a picture of the man my son grew to become. (He happened to be FB friends with a debtor we were looking for). My own eyes were staring back at me.

I chew nervously for days on what to do. Do I reach out? What if he doesn’t want to meet me? My heart is racing almost non-stop, and I’m functioning barely in a constant state of fight or flight.

I bite the bullet and send a message. Crickets for a few days, and then a very guarded/nervous response. I back off because I can’t even imagine what he’s thinking/feeling. And then, I receive a friend request.

I can see his life in posts, pics, and a piece of who he is. It’s such a gift…one I had long ago conceded I’d never receive. We tread carefully back and forth on social media for some time. I immediately put myself into intensive therapy to deal with the unresolved trauma and PTSD issues I had ignored forever. I search for and join multiple groups both for support and adoptee perspective. I, for the first time in my life, focus on self-improvement instead of self-destruction.

February 2019:

We meet face to face for the first time in a neutral location. He hugs me, and I’m shaking externally from all the emotions I’m feeling. I’m trying to absorb everything because I’m so scared this is going to be it. I have gifts for him in the car (a hand written letter, framed pic of me holding him as a newborn, and a watch engraved with

Always loved… Never forgotten…

I wait until our lunch is over and ask if he’d be ok with a couple of gifts. He readily accepts them, and we part ways. I’m terrified that I’ve done too much, but only 30 mins later I receive a message thanking me for everything. He goes on to say that the picture and letter would have been more than enough, but absolutely loves the watch.

Today:

I honestly could write a book on our journey so far. There are so many things that have occurred that aren’t included in this small recap – but I’ll save that for another day.

This is what I want to share –

Less than 2 years after reuniting, he joined us on our annual family vacation. He left his car at my house and endured a 10 hour drive with myself, hubby, his half brother and our dog.

He loves hiking and the outdoors!!! I’ve spent many family vacations dragging my husband and other 2 kiddos hiking only to hear complaints. This year, I had an Ally!!! I listened for hours to my husband and him talk cars, my youngest son and him talk video games, and my daughter and him talk science and politics.

I don’t ever want to forget these moments.

My son asked me during our first meeting…”Does your husband know about me?”… My response was “Of course! I told him about you only 2 weeks after meeting him. I hoped I would find you one day, and I could only be with someone who could accept and support that.”

My husband has done more than just support me….he’s accepted my son, included him and embraced him. I’m still a broken woman, but my pieces are coming together. And my family is finally whole.

Intentionally Creating an Adoptee

So the topic came up about how a birth mother loses her baby – intentionally surrendering the baby at the hospital to pre-selected adoptive parents who are hovering there through labor, delivery and immediately after the birth – or because the baby has been taken away by child protective services.

The topic first came up from a woman who falls in the latter category and feels despised by just about everyone as a despicable failure.

In this adoption group I belong to, I’ve come to know that the predominant opinion is that adoption in general is a bad thing. That young mothers are convinced by parents, religious authorities and society in general that they are incapable of parenting a baby they have conceived and carried to term. This has created a hugely profitable industry supporting the separating of a baby from its original mother and handing it over to a couple that can afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of calling the original mother’s baby her own.

So the first response, to the sad feelings of the mom who lost her baby due to the intervention of child protective services, comes from an adoptee thus –

I’m way more judgmental of women that carry children to full term knowing that they have no intention of parenting. Like the minute they have the baby it goes to the adoptive parents without a blink. In my mind…they are purposefully creating an Adoptee. I find that despicable. (This is of course a very broad statement that does not apply to every single one.) Mother’s that lose their children to the system did not plan on creating an Adoptee. They had every intention of raising their children. Then something happened between the time of birth and the time of separation. Regardless of the reason for removal…it was never their intention for their children to be parented by strangers. (Again…a very broad statement that does not apply to every case).

Another woman, a mom who lost her child writes –

There’s a stigma that if your rights have been terminated through the system then as a mom, it puts a red X on us. Here’s just a few examples of things that have been said to me – “You obviously didn’t try hard enough.” “If it was my kid, I’d fight til the death.” “You must have done something just really terrible.” A lot of people in society, especially adoptive parents only see a different side of the system. They don’t see how people get there or the months of fighting for your child just to be fought at every turn. It seems as though everything is weaponized against you, not just during, but for years afterwards.

Yet another mother who lost her child adds –

Watching somebody else raise our kids is always hard. Watching somebody who was deemed “better than us” do it is harder. And when that person is abusing them while the child you were PERMITTED to raise is thriving (for the most part) is harder. As mothers of welfare loss, we have to live with the fact our children are in a system known for its abuses. I’m lucky to have contact with mine.

The problem is that society is conditioned to believe that Child Protective Services is infallible and only takes kids when something is severely wrong and their parents give up, correcting that narrative is very hard. Realize just how broken the system is. Most of the time these women forcefully lose their children only due to poverty.

And finally, this perspective from a woman who once wanted to adopt –

Society as a whole has to make these first moms villains to feel better about the systems. Infant adoption is justified by calling birth moms brave, selfless, any other positive attribute you can think of. But since mother’s who lose their children to welfare didn’t just willingly hand over their kids to some family who wanted their kid so badly they are neither of those things. A narrative that these mothers have done horrible things to their children is pushed to continue to justify removal. Until you meet them, join Facebook groups, or otherwise learn the truth you are often under the impression that they simply aren’t safe. In short, they’re “bad” because they “didn’t want the best for their children,” whereas mothers who place are saints.

So, it is true that there’s a huge stigma if a parent lost their child to the foster care system. That parent is judged as having been terrible. People think they didn’t deserve their own kids. That the parent must have harmed them. Termination of Parental Rights and Adoption is justified by demonizing people. Society as a whole doesn’t see anything they don’t want to see. They aren’t willing to see the poverty, lack of resources or that these parents are pushing mightily against a system that’s determined to take their children, often supplying strangers with financial stipends, rather than trying to help the parent achieve their potential with financial support, therapy and basic living resources.

DNA and Facebook – Hope for Adoptees

For the last 24 hours, I’ve been absorbed in an adoptee search story going viral on Facebook. My friend in The Netherlands alerted me, knowing it would be of interest. I can’t keep up – at the time I am writing this – there have been 3,000 comments and 60,000 shares.

It is the story of a coach and a cheerleader, never married. She went out of state to her aunt’s when she learned she was pregnant. As an adoptee, she was comfortable surrendering her child to adoption and the father was not ready to take on raising a child himself. I joined the thread when it was still early enough to connect with the adoptee doing the search.

Like my mom and my self, Ancestry isn’t always helpful, at least not quickly and not until one has more complete information (names and locations) than the minimal information the agency in California was willing to give this woman. Also, Ancestry does not have a lot of records newer than the 1940s. This woman was born in 1977. We are becoming friends because, though our stories are different, we have a lot in common.

Already, there seems to be strong evidence that the father has been identified and may have lived out his life in Eldon, MO. This is particularly interesting to me because my adoptive maternal grandmother’s family originated in that geographical area, so I do have some sense of the place. My grandmother’s father founded the town of Eugene, which is located nearby. My adoptive maternal grandmother was a double cousin to Maudie, who lived in Eldon at the time I met her. Their parents were brothers and sisters who married brothers and sisters and they grew up on farms walking distance apart.

If this man (who seems quite likely to be the father) is indeed the father, the sad news is that he has died. However, he did have another daughter during his life. A good friend of mine got a big surprise when her mother died and she found out that the man she had been told was her father – wasn’t. She has since located and reunited with a half sister and they are so much alike. This is a joy that softens the shock of her own discovery.

Like the adoptee doing this search, my mom wanted to find her own mother. By the time she made the effort with the state of Tennessee, her mother had died. That devastated my mom. Tennessee denied her the adoption file but the law had changed by the time I tried and I now have that treasure trove of information. After my mom and dad (both adoptees) died, I went on my own journey of reunion because my family still knew next to nothing about our origins. Ancestry helped me with some background information about my mom’s dad. By then, I had learned from exploring Ancestry about his children by his first wife. I visited his grave in Pine Bluff, Arkansas only to discover my mom’s youngest half-sister buried nearby. I had only missed meeting my aunt alive by 2 months.

This led me to an Ancestry page for my aunt. I sent a private message and the surprise was that it was answered by the best friend of this woman’s daughter. She put me in touch with my cousin. I did spend an entire afternoon with her. She had all of her mom’s photo albums and by the time the afternoon had ended, I felt like I had lived decades within the family.

23 and Me eventually led me to discover who my dad’s father was. His mother was unwed, he was given her surname at birth. I thought it would be impossible to ever know who he was. A cousin did 23 and Me, which put me in touch with another cousin who had my paternal grandmother’s photo albums. She had left breadcrumbs as to my grandfather’s identity there that did end up being the lucky break that revealed him.

Never think it is impossible to re-connect the threads of your identity, even when states seal adoption files and the agencies involved refuse to give you identifying information. Not all searches are successful or happy, however, reading through some of the entries on this woman’s now viral search thread on Facebook, I have been heartened to see so many adoptees have shared their own stories of how DNA brought them success with their own searches.

I Am Adopted

Hi, my name is Meggan, and I’m a transracial adoptee. I picture myself seated in a circle with other adoptees as I type that.

“Hi Meggan,” they’d respond, and then I would share my story of heartache and sorrow to the only group of people who will ever truly understand. The truth is, though, that kind of support doesn’t exist for adoptees yet, and it should.

I am half white and half black, and back in 1982 that made me undesirable in most prospective adoptive parents’ eyes, so it took a few months until I was adopted. My adoptive family is white, so I never grew up understanding or connecting with my black heritage.

My mom kept in touch with my birth mother through letters, and I was grateful to have at least half of a connection to my roots.

Growing up, I was never around people who looked like me. I was constantly asked questions like “what are you?” or “what’s your background?” I was a mystery that people felt they needed to solve and as an adoptee, I trod carefully and simply agreed with their guesses. Kind of like this…

“What are you? What’s your background?”

“I was adopted, so I’m not sure what my background is.”

“You look Lebanese/Italian/Aboriginal/etc. That’s probably what you are.”

“Sure, maybe that’s it.”

It’s kind of silly, but I’ve had that conversation thousands of times throughout my life. I know people mean well, but this is often the plight of a transracial adoptee who is in the dark about his or her background.

I’m asked about familial history at every doctor’s appointment, and I only ever had half of it.

“Does cancer run in your family?”

“I have no idea.”

The look of confusion used to get to me, but I eventually got accustomed to it.

Adoptees don’t have a right to their history the way everyone else on the planet does.

I used to struggle with my identity feeling like I had none and floating through life like a chameleon. How could I have a voice if I didn’t know who I was or where I came from?

How could I speak my truth when people in my biological family told me not to?

No wonder adoptees have some of the highest mental health issues and suicide rates. We’re told to be grateful that we were chosen when deep down, we feel like we were abandoned.

We’re told we have no right to complain because we could’ve been killed instead.

We’ve been silenced for far too long, and out of respect for everyone around us, we’ve walked on eggshells trying not to disrupt the waters.

It’s only recently that I’ve been able to step into who I was created to be truly. We were never meant to live life without boundaries, without a backbone, or without a voice.

It’s time to change all that, step into who we were meant to be, and live our lives as authentically as possible.

Are you coming?

Meggan Larson has a Facebook group for trauma overcomers: www.facebook.com/groups/weareconquerorsnow

Connect with Meggan on IG: www.instagram.com/sheinspiresfreedom

Website: https://megganlarson.com

Please take a moment and leave Meggan a few words of support, encouragement, and love in the comments.

Join me in raising awareness of adoptee mental health by sharing this post.

#adopteementalhealthstories #nationaladoptionawarenessmonth #naam

The Quiet Work Behind The Scenes

Not long ago, I posted that my favorite “everything adoption” Facebook group had closed down. Thankfully, it was very brief and re-opened with new administrators. I think the long time ones had simply grown weary because it is a very active group and it can seem like the same issues over and over but in truth, everyone’s story is unique. Today, I would like to share the testimonial of a woman for whom joining the group made a difference in her choices and decisions. Like her, I didn’t see anything wrong with adoption when I first joined the group because it was so much a part of my life since birth. Not that I was adopted but both of my parents were. And each of my sisters gave up a baby for adoption (both of whom I am very happy to say I “know” at least somewhat in person today).

Here’s what the woman had to say of this amazing group of passionate, dedicated and loving people –

Hi there,

Just wanted to say that this group does matter. My husband and I naively thought that adoption was our answer to “completing our family.”

I grew up in a community where foster kids were adopted into families and everyone would cheer about the parents completing their families. It was normal to watch growing up. I honestly had never heard of anything negative when it came to adoption.

We have 2 boys. I was always told I couldn’t have children. It’s still shocking to think that I have 2 children now. We are incredibly blessed.

My pregnancies were both extremely high risk and my husband didn’t want us to try to go for our final, 3rd baby since he was worried about mine and the baby’s safety. We were going to adopt from India and even got as far as a home study. I’m happy to say we will now be trying for #3 with approval from our OB in a year instead of going through with the adoption.

I joined this group, sat and read, and really listened. I showed him posts speaking against adoption. About the trauma people have endured from adoption. How children adopted from other countries lost their entire culture and identity, and we both have agreed because of this group, how morally we would not be able to sleep at night if we went through with the adoption.

I’m not going to lie, at first I got defensive reading things. Like oh, I’m a good mom that wouldn’t happen, or that would never be us though. We would be different. I am a great mom to my boys, but taking a child away from their birth parents, guardian, or the only people they know would not make me a good example for my children.

This is me not looking for praise, but admitting that I was wrong. This is me owning my mistakes and looking deeply at myself, and what was my own selfish wants. This is me saying thank you to this group and that your voices do matter. They did for our family. I now know better, can do better, and be a better example for my boys. Thank you.

Some Wounds Don’t Heal

Knowing what I know about adoption, I’m now against this whole thing and because of what happened, it would just be way too personal. And what happened ?, you ask. I’ll share the story of selfish points of view.

A somewhat distant cousin had wanted to adopt my oldest child when I found out I was pregnant in high school though I did not take her up on her offer. Fast forward to 2 years ago, I was again pregnant with my third child. At that time, I was highly considering adoption. I asked this cousin – knowing shes always wanted to adopt – what would happen if she adopted my baby. I was simply exploring my options. I explained to her that the only reason I was considering giving him up was because I felt like mentally and financially I couldn’t take care of 3 kids. Which was a correct assessment on my part at the time.

Allow me to explain my conditions related to a surrender –

I want to be a part of his life. I would still consider myself his mom. My motivation is for him to have a better chance. And here was her reply –

If she did adopt him – I would not be his mom. He wouldn’t know anything about me other than I was related family. I wouldn’t get visitations or special calls and pictures. I’d only see him at family reunions (get real, in my 24 years in this family, we’ve only had 1 reunion on that side and I was a kid when it happened). She said that other than that, my contact would be seeing her Facebook posts, and occasional text updates, but he would be her child and I would (in her words) “in fact no longer be his mother”. I politely said thank you but that doesn’t work for me.

She messaged me a few more times telling me to let her know if I changed my mind and how badly she “wanted this opportunity.” I kept my baby.

Since then there have been moments in spending time with my aunt (my cousin’s mom), that this has been brought up and I’m told about how much it hurt my cousin that I didn’t let her adopt my son. That “it hurt her deeply and was wrong.” Blah blah blah.

I answer, “How do you think I would have felt having to get rid of my baby? I would have been suicidal.”

Fast forward again –

My cousin has finally adopted the baby she always wanted. She is now having a baby shower, inviting everyone in my family (my aunt, cousins and step-grandma). They are all mad at me that I’m refusing to go and “celebrate this with her and her new baby.”

Back to the beginning, she says, “Knowing what I know about adoption, I’m now against this whole thing and because of what happened, it would just be way too personal.”

When one really begins to read what grown adoptees say for themselves about their experience of having been adopted and when one reads deeply some of the therapists that work with adoptees to heal their trauma, one understands why this young mother feels the way she feels. I belong to an adoption group with all aspects of the practice represented – adoptees, former foster youth, original mothers, adoptive parents and hopeful adoptive parents. This group works actively to encourage young pregnant women to keep and parent their child. Often they even supply resources for her to do so. Society should be actively trying to keep families together instead of tearing them apart. And there are reforms being promoted for dealing with the circumstances of the tragic few that have no family to go to.

Motherless Child

I was listening to an African-American group called Sweet Honey in the Rock sing acapella the old spiritual Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child and read it dates back to the days of slavery when children were often sold off away from their parents and siblings. My heart ached listening.

These lyrics caught my attention –

I’m a motherless child,
I can hear my mother calling me,
I can hear my mother’s voice calling me home.
Across the waters, come on home across the waters.

Of course, my thoughts immediately went to adoption and I guess not surprisingly to my own mother. She yearned to find and connect with her mother. She had a complicated relationship with the woman who adopted her. Never felt like she quite measured up to the expectations.

She felt the loss keenly. Especially when she learned the Georgia Tann story. She never could reconcile the fact that she was born near Richmond Virginia but had been adopted in Memphis Tennessee as an infant. She always believed that her adoption was somehow “inappropriate” as she politely worded it in a letter she wrote to the State of Tennessee trying to get her own adoption file. She was denied on more than one technicality and although some years later a law was passed to allow her to receive that file, that information never reached her.

After her death, I did receive that file from Tennessee. My mom’s belief that a nurse in cahoots with Georgia Tann had stolen her in Virginia and transported her to Tennessee wasn’t quite the true story. But that kind of story did happen all too frequently with Tann’s baby stealing and selling scandal.

The real story is sad and my grandmother was definitely exploited in the midst of an impossible situation. Her widowed father still raising some of his children as a poor sharecropper refused my grandmother support with her baby when she returned to Memphis. She was a married woman. Why she was estranged from her husband I’ll never know. I have some theories.

He was WPA and the large hospital project that brought him to Memphis had ended. He was widowed too and his mother had his children in her care in Arkansas. His first wife had died 8 months pregnant on a cold and rainy December morning and her baby in the womb died with her. The image shared with me by my cousin haunts me still. A Phil Collins song The Roof Is Leaking makes me think of my grandfather. These lyrics caught my attention –

The roof is leaking and the wind is howling,
The kids are crying cause the sheets are so cold.
I woke this morning and my hands were frozen

My wife’s expecting but I hope she can wait
Cause there’s been signs it will be another bad one
But Spring will soon be here.

Too many sad maternal deaths. My grandmother lost her own mother at the age of 11 with four other younger siblings, including the baby one, in the household at that time.

His employment ended, my grandmother was already 4 months pregnant and due in January. My heart believes my grandfather feared for her and the baby’s well-being as he had no certain shelter to offer her come winter. It may be that his own mother wasn’t happy he had married such a young woman, as young as his oldest sons. She may not have been welcoming either. Then came the Superflood on the Mississippi River in 1937 (at the same time my mom was born) and he was out shoring up the levees in Arkansas, when my grandmother arrived back in Memphis.

Whatever the real story is, that I can never know, my grandmother went to the Juvenile Court in Memphis trying to reach him. No response. Desperate, she took my mom to the storied Porter Leath Orphanage for temporary care. The superintendent there alerted Georgia Tann to my mom’s presence. My mom was the blond, blue eyed kind of baby girl that Tann most coveted for her clients. And so began the pressure on my grandmother to separate her from my mom.

Four days after signing the surrender papers, my grandmother called Georgia Tann’s office trying to get my mother back. “I have friends in New Orleans who will take us in,” she told them. It was to no avail because Tann’s paying customer was already on her way by train from Nogales Arizona to pick up my mom.

My image today comes from a Facebook page titled Memoirs of a Motherless Child. She relates a story about Brooklyn and it’s connection to her own mother there. After her mother’s death, she writes –

I later blamed myself for never being able to meet her, know her, experience her because I didn’t go look for her, as if that would have done any good. She didn’t want to be found not because she didn’t love me (took me years to realize that but my inner child still can’t accept it wholeheartedly) but because she loved me so much she didn’t want to hurt or disappoint me. My inner child could very well be making that up too in order to spare me more hurt and trauma. What still hurts the most is I’ll never know what part of me was/is that part of you. So I’ll continue to travel this endless journey of uncertainty until our energies meet somehow.

I believe that is how my mom felt too because by the time she tried to find her mother, her mother was only somewhat recently deceased. That devastated my mom. Now that my own mom has also died, I believe she was reunited with the mother who never gave up hoping she would see her precious daughter again as well. So much sadness when a mother and her child are separated.

A Grief Deeper Than Death

For adoptees and their original families, mourning can be deeper than simply grieving the death of a loved one. When our familial bonds are withheld from us so long, precious time is lost and never recovered. In my mom’s case, when she sought and was denied her adoption file, the state of Tennessee told her that her original mother had died a few years earlier. This devastated my mom and dashed all her hopes of a reunion.

With my dad, he never showed the desire that my mom had but when he died a half-sister was living only 90 miles away and could have shared with him real impressions of the woman who gave birth to him. When I discovered who his unwed mother’s participating lover was that conceived my dad, my dad was so much like him – sharing interests and appearance – I just knew they would have been great fishing buddies. That was a sadness for me as well.

Today, I read the story of a man who was adopted. His adoptive parents only admitted to his adoption when a sibling outed the fact. They never would give him more than the tiniest bits and pieces of information to his incessant questions. A letter his original mother wrote to him explaining her circumstances that was to be given to him upon his 18th birthday was not delivered to him until he had done an Ancestry DNA kit at the age of 30 and it was likely he was going to come into contact with his genetic relatives.

He was able to find and connect with his genetic sister through Facebook and through her be reunited with and visit with his original mother. She died just last week after too brief of a time of acquaintance with her. This has left him bereft for more reasons than her dying, which for anyone, regardless of the relationship they have with their parents, is admittedly a life-changing event.

His emotions are intense. He says –

I’m angry for lack of a better word that my adoptive parents withheld this information for so long that it wound up costing me time. Time I could’ve used to get to know my biological mom better and form deeper bonds with her. I may not have known her well but I love her and I’m having a hard time navigating the complexity of everything that I’m feeling right now. My genetic sister and I have made a pact to talk often and visit with relative frequency. I simply don’t have this kind of relationship with my brother through adoption.

If you are an adoptive parent, it is beyond cruel if you behave in this manner.