Adoption Is A Loss

You Don’t Just Lose Someone Once

You lose them over and over,

sometimes many times a day.

When the loss, momentarily forgotten,

creeps up, and attacks you from behind.

Fresh waves of grief as the realisation hits home,

they are gone.

Again.

You don’t just lose someone once,

you lose them every time you open your eyes to a new dawn,

and as you awaken,

so does your memory,

so does the jolting bolt of lightning that rips into your heart,

they are gone.

Again.

Losing someone is a journey,

not a one-off.

There is no end to the loss,

there is only a learned skill on how to stay afloat,

when it washes over.

Be kind to those who are sailing this stormy sea,

they have a journey ahead of them,

and a daily shock to the system each time they realise,

they are gone,

Again.

You don’t just lose someone once,

you lose them every day,

for a lifetime.

~ Thanks to Donna Ashworth and The Family Preservation Project

Adoption Or Foster Care

I’ve been reading a book about one girl’s experiences in foster care to better inform myself about a system I have no experience with. Adoption ? Though not adopted myself nor have I given up a child to adoption, I have LOTS of experience – both parents were adoptees and both sisters gave up a child to adoption. I also spend significant time each day within a private Facebook group that includes original parents, adoptees and former foster youth, and adoptive (or hopeful) parents. I learn a lot there that broadens my perspectives.

Some of the major differences I am understanding – foster care does not alter the child’s identity (doesn’t change their name or birth certificate). Foster care is less permanent or certain. The goal in a lot of foster care is eventual reunification of the family unit. The quality of foster care varies but a bad placement can be gotten out of. Not all foster parents treat the foster child well nor do they really care about what is happening to the child. Some actually do it for the money (NOT saying most or all do it for that reason).

Adoption is a PERMANENT solution to what is a temporary problem when talking about an unwed mother or a poverty situation. Adoption does provide a more certain home environment than foster care does but the double edge sword is that if it is an awful placement, most of the time the child is simply trapped there (I’ve read enough nightmare stories to believe this). That said, there are also “second chance” adoptions where the adoptive parents want to be rid of a troublesome child. This is very sad for the child as it sends a debilitating message about the worth of that child.

Most of the time, adoptive parents change the child’s name and to some extent their cultural identity if it is a transracial adoption. Some adoptive parents hide the date and/or location of the child’s birth to place an obstacle in the way of the parent/child unit reuniting. Genetic family bonds are broken or permanently lost. Even when such direct family is recovered later in life, so much life experience and inter-relationship is lost that it is nearly impossible to rebuild. I understand this as I have been able to learn what my own parents could not – who my original grandparents were. Along with learning that, I have acquired new family relationships with genetically related aunts and cousins.

I acknowledge that not all children are going to be parented by the people who gave birth to them. This is a reality. I would also argue that as a society we do NOT do enough to keep families intact and could do much better. I would further add that MONEY plays a HUGE role in perpetuating the separation of mothers from their children. That money could be better spent with less traumatic outcomes on the natural family and its supports.

Why Adoptees Wish They Had Been Aborted

This is not the first time and it probably will not be the last time. For those of us who are grateful we have a life (and I am one of those), it can be hard to read that adoptees way too often wish they had been aborted and not given up for adoption. It flies against every happily ever after story you may have ever heard about how wonderful it is to finally create your family thanks to a woman losing her child. It is not wonderful for that woman nor is it wonderful for that child.

Today, I read one such comment – “I literally would have rather been aborted than adopted. Fuck adoption. It did nothing good for me and only led to years of self hate.”

Another said to a mom who just gave a newborn up for adoption – “Your kept children will be 50 and still talking about the one you gave away.” This is probably true. When I found my dad’s genetic family, they said as much. They knew about him. Wanted to know him and said his mother NEVER got over giving him up.

One woman gave her daughter up for adoption 14 yrs ago. She admits it was the hardest thing that she had to ever had to do in her life. The story gets worse. Back then the agencies only offered a 5 year open adoption, not an 18 year one. Guess what ? the adoptive parents vanished without a trace after 8 years. This mother has’t seen or heard anything from them. She asserts – “I will find her one day.” Then admits that she has other offspring who are already “looking” for their lost sibling.

Fact is – whether they were family friends before your pregnancy or not, once they have your child, you are pretty much disposable. Sadly.

And the fact is, most friendships, or even family relationships, aren’t strong enough to stand up to the power imbalance of adoption. It’s like the sword of Damocles hanging over your head.

Yes, there is a decided power imbalance between a desperate pregnant soon to be mother with no access to resources and the people with the money (the adoptive parents, the adoption agencies, the lawyers, the social workers). The deck is stacked against you and you will need to face this directly, before you take that permanent step.

If you are lucky, someday your child will find you and like my own mom wanted to do, let you know that she survived and is okay. Worst case, your child will hate you for how her life turned out and wish she had been aborted instead.

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.