Desperation Revealed ?

I did not know this kind of public revelation was a thing until this morning. At least they are honest that it is an adoption. Still, this method of sharing the reality reveals some desperation underneath the celebratory joy. I have dealt with infertility myself. I have tried and tried to get pregnant naturally only to face the truth that my body had become too old to do that anymore (I did give birth to a daughter when I was 19 years old).

This phrase, “No Bump, Still Pumped”, seems to be the response of someone who has not fully faced their infertility. The problem with this is in making a pregnancy reference, when you’re not doing anything like pregnancy. It could be that the grief involved with not being able to conceive hasn’t been fully dealt with. From a kinder perspective, maybe it is an attempt to honestly alert friends and family that the baby they will see soon came from someone else, and not this couple’s own parentage. Really, it all depends on the couple’s true perspective on the matter. Some couples that are adopting may make an announcement that says something like “Paper Pregnant”.

In publicly saying such things, a prospective adoptive couple is celebrating someone else’s trauma, though they may not be willing to fully acknowledge that reality. And it also indicates that they only want babies, not older children at risk of aging out of foster care without any further supports. Such concepts are celebrating the tearing apart of a family. Celebrating without any awareness, the trauma the children will experience.

Such public pronouncements make the adopted child sound like a second choice. They were not the first choice for the couple, which would have been to conceive naturally. I understand this and it is the truth. So, the couple only wants to adopt because they couldn’t have children out of their own natural biological processes. Many adoptees struggle with the knowledge that they were the runner up choice.

Most adopted children will crave their biological families and their mothers generally regret not keeping and raising their children. It took some time and exposure to honest adoptees and their original mothers for me to join the “non-rainbows/unicorns non-rah rah version” of the adoptive narrative. Yet, I have become convinced that no matter how hard it is to accept, adoption is a painful reality for most of those directly affected by its promotion and acceptance.

In The Fog

When I first started learning about all of the impacts and issues surrounding the practice of adoption, I didn’t know what this concept really was like. Both of my parents were adopted and both of my sisters gave up babies to adoption, adoption was the most natural thing in my life. I really didn’t see a problem with it and while this concept more commonly refers to the adoptee who discovers the reality and “wakes up”, what I didn’t expect was that as the child of adoptees, I too was in the fog. And I have woken up as well and that is the purpose of this blog, to share these new understandings with whoever is moved to come and read these little daily observations.

Learning about adoption trauma can be a big surprise for someone like me. For the adoptee, this can prove to be a nagging feeling that you didn’t know how to name. This concept answered your question as to what it was. For some, their love and/or gratitude for their adoptive parents can make them not want to learn about adoption trauma, even though generally speaking, it affects every adoptee to some degree, whether consciously or unconsciously.

“Happy” may not be the right word to describe coming out of the fog. It’s more accurately about being able to authentically traverse and articulate the variety of effects that adoption had on your life, good or bad, but the bad often does far outweigh the good. In my case, it is a sorrow that for over 60 years I did not know about my own biological/genetic relatives. Now I do have some contact but it is like being slightly removed and an outsider no matter how kind they are to me directly.

It can be easy to be judgmental. Rationally, you may know your original mother was struggling and yet still find it impossible to understand that she could ever give up her children. In my own life, I lost physical custody of my daughter, even though that was not my intention but that I was struggling financially was the reality. Seeking to find a way to support us, I left her with her paternal grandmother temporarily. That decision with the expectation that it was temporary became permanent and I can never get back the years I lost. My mom told me of her perspective on my situation – she would have just toughed it out. Maybe true but then she coerced one of my sisters to give up her own child. I guess my mom’s fog was quite thick.

In the end, I lost my daughter to my ex-husband and a step-mother. He had refused to pay child support but ended up paying to support our daughter. I ended up paying a steep price to gain that support. I have never stopped grieving and have tried to come to terms with it, through accepting that it is simply our reality. So much damage is done when a mother is separated from her child, no matter why or how.

Socially Acceptable Sin ?

It seems that it is socially acceptable to covet in this situation . . . You can’t have children and so you’re looking to take someone else’s child and make them your “own”. That is the definition of adoption.

Not only coveting, but working to thwart God’s will ? If God made you infertile…that is like saying “no babies for you”. However, among prospective adoptive parents one often sees them interpreting their circumstances to read “God led us to adopt”.

If you believe in the Bible as the absolute definitive source of God’s perspective, then there are so many things so very wrong and not biblical about that perspective of yours.

How about this one ? “The sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons.”

You cannot “adopt away” God’s curses or vengeance. Your infertility is a direct result of God’s will, and is a result of sin from way back in your blood line. Blood lines matter. Adopting is thwarting God’s will.

NOT that I personally believe in all that but you can’t have it YOUR way, if you are going to hold to religion as your excuse for everything.

Does your intention to convert this child to your religion make it all right with God ? I couldn’t say. I doubt it though.

Unfortunately, the history of humanity proves to me that religion is often an excuse to do whatever nasty deed one wants to do and know they have “God’s blessing” because you know, they got saved and are right with God now.

So let me guess and take this to it’s logical (or illogical actually) conclusion –

God causes fertile women have messed up lives so that they will chose to surrender their baby to adoption. The sole reason is so these “special chosen few” can take that baby for themselves because they are more favored by God ?

Just a reality check today on our lesson about coveting something that is someone else’s because you know, it was God’s will that they conceive and give birth to that child. God does not make mistakes about who he gives children to. Just saying – you can’t have it anyway you want it or can you ? Maybe so.

Love Is Staying Home

This blog is really NOT as frivolous as it may appear. It really is a matter of life and death. I will admit that this is easier for my family than it is for most people living in this modern world. We live in rural isolation and have always worked from home and our children have been educated at home. In this scary new reality we have been thrust into globally, I see the blessing of what has always been our reality.

True, there have been some changes for us too. My yoga class has been cancelled indefinitely. Some non-essential medical appointments must be cancelled as they come up and re-scheduled though those future dates may have to be yet again postponed and re-scheduled. New rules at the grocery store that limit the number of customers allowed inside at any given time will make the weekly trip to replenish supplies take longer. And of course, there is the mask, googles and gloves needed to protect not only me but the other people I will have some INDIRECT contact with who could become infected if I am asymptomatic.

There are families unlike my own that are not used to so much togetherness time. This is a worry. Stressed parents could become abusive towards their children or married couples separate because they discover they had less in common than they believed when they first married. There are financial difficulties with the sudden cessation of business activities. There is a need to prepare one’s meals at home and some people have lost that skill.

The common good. It may be that this virus has come to unite us. We had become so polarized and divided and terribly tribal. Not that being threatened with death is going to change all of that quickly. Even so, we will come to see that overcoming the current circumstances will require a new perspective going forward. This won’t happen quickly but there are some of us who are beginning the process of holding a vision of a better and brighter tomorrow in our heart’s minds for a trajectory going forward to guide us all.

Help Rather Than Hinder

So you are preparing to adopt a child. You may feel uncomfortable, protective, or defensive about the reality of your child’s pre-adoption loss of the first family.

“The moment the subject of the adoptee’s woundedness and loss comes up, it’s like a shield goes up and they can’t hear a word you say,” Jayne Schooler, adoption professional and author.

It’s painful to enter into your child’s suffering. It’s so much easier to assume that all is well inside your child, especially if she hasn’t manifested any obvious problems.

The first thing your child wants you to know is this: I am a grieving child. I came to you because of loss—one that was not your fault and that you can’t erase.

Present circumstances can trigger unresolved loss for an adopted child. They can and do mourn the mother who carried them for nine months in her womb, whose face they never saw, and whose heartbeat was their original source of security.

Most adoptive parents, instead of helping their child to grieve the loss and find closure, deny his past losses and romanticize his adoption. Denying loss and failing to grieve can keep parents and children at arms’ length instead of in a healthy, invested relationship.

Webster’s defines romanticism as “imbued with or dominated by idealism; fanciful; impractical; unrealistic; starry-eyed, dreamy; head-in-the-clouds; out of touch with reality.”

Could it be that you have unknowingly been an adoption romanticist all these years ?

The best thing you can do to help your child is to grieve your own losses which may have occurred prior to adoption—losses such as infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, or death—and to let yourself feel sad for your child’s losses and your inability to protect him from whatever happened to him prior to joining your family.

Thanks to Sherrie Eldridge for expressing these thoughts that I have excerpted for today’s blog. You can find her thoughts here – https://sherrieeldridgeadoption.blog/.

Hmmmm, Cutting Through The Noise

What is so great about children being surrendered and raised without their identity ? Did I get your attention ?

I can’t imagine losing my mom – can you ? Both of my parents did.

You don’t have to take my word for it (just listen to enough adult adoptees and you will become a believer) – adoption is trauma. Bringing a child into a stable, loving home does NOT erase their trauma.

Why would you glorify abandonment ?

You know, you’re basically waiting for a woman and her baby to have the worst day of their lives so that you can have the best day of yours….

Adoptive parents literally act like the stork delivers these children.

One person’s intense joy is a result of another person’s desperate sorrow. I certainly saw the truth of this as I read my mom’s adoption file from the Tennessee Children’s Home Society.

Tell people who are not familiar with conventional adoption about the fake birth certificates your parents were given. That is one some people have trouble believing (yes, it is done all the time). Then tell them your parents’ REAL names were taken away from them and that they were both given a name that the adoptive couple preferred.

Imagine creating your family tree and having to list two names for each of your parents and then show their spouse with the adopted name so that someone might with difficulty sort it all out. Yes, my parents were not allowed to use the names they were born with. Are you incredulous yet ? Most people have no idea that adoptees are forced to live fake identities. My dad’s name was changed TWICE when his adoptive mother remarried. He was already 8 years old at that time.

If that baby had lost his mother to cancer, you would be mourning with him right now.

If adoption is so wonderful, which one of your children would you give up to someone else for a “better life” ? Note – it should be the child you love the most that you give up, since you would obviously want that child to have the best life. Crazy, huh ?

Ask an adoptee what it means to be adopted – adoption means you’re never going home. Let that sink in.

Most adoptees would get an abortion before they would give up their own child for adoption.

As the child of two adoptees, I try to be balanced (after all, I would not exist but for) and not be too harsh. Many people are well-intentioned but ill-informed about the realities surrounding adoption. I want my readers to walk away having learned something real, maybe opening up further conversation on the topic. Adoption is more complicated than you might imagine.

Many people believe that every adoptee was unwanted or they view the original mom as less than human because they can’t relate to someone who has given up a child. Both perceptions are quite likely UNTRUE.

It’s Complicated

I find myself in conversation with a diversity of people about a diversity of issues related to adoption and mother/child separations. I am always amazed at how many people have some such issue in their family and friend’s lives.

Even though I have had a radical change of heart about adoption due to learning about the wounds that causes, I also acknowledge that the issue is not simple but very complicated. There are times when children definitely need a safe and loving space to exist in. There are times, when knowing the circumstances, we can admit that adoption was better than the alternative.

But there always are alternatives and some are less damaging than others. Harder to arrive at is why people become wounded and messed up. Why they don’t do better. Why the children are often the ones to suffer the most.

Learning about all of the circumstances at play in my own family’s lives has given me an appreciation for the big picture and how things progress over time. I am in the midst of editing a new manuscript that I actually wrote the rough draft for six years ago and then events delayed my return to it.

At this point in the story, I am in heaven. And the topic of predestination and free will comes up between me and a trusted friend of the heart there. I think this perspective may be close to the truth of the matter and so, I share –

“Are you telling me that everything is preordained and that I had no choice in how my life unfolded?”

“Absolutely not. The nature of reality in this realm is that everything is adjusting instantaneously to every choice and circumstance that happens.”

What happens if different choices are made ?

“It would have all morphed and changed to suit new circumstances. In fact, there are layers upon layers of redundancies. There are trajectories and unfoldings that are the natural outcomes of current events and like your own micro circumstances it is all morphing and adjusting continuously. There are situations that, if they don’t occur, could delay your next lifetime. Other situations could speed up your return to Earth in another incarnation. We really don’t know the hour of our birth, just as we really don’t know the hour of our death; and yet, it is all completely natural.”

Though Life is so very complicated that any action we may take could be beneficial or detrimental regardless of the best of intentions, even knowing all that could possibly happen that we never considered, we act anyway – for not to act might bring some irreversible harm that could have been prevented.

Reunion Disappointments

Search on “adoptee reunion disappointments” and you will come up with a lot of links. Many adoptees, while they are children, fantasize about what their original parents were like and how they would have treated them differently than the adoptive parents raising them. The reality cannot live up to the fantasy.

First there is the joy in discovery and finally, finally, knowing the truth of where one came from and perhaps how they came to be conceived (which may or may not actually be a very happy story). Then there is the old “nature vs nurture” story. How much of who we become is due to genetics and how much is due to the culture we are raised within.

Finally, there is the issue of gratitude. Adoptees often feel like they need to be grateful to the parents that raised them for saving them from ? That is the problem. There is no way of knowing what would have been better. Reality is whatever it was. There are always issues of abandonment and rejection and fears of causing more of those wounds if the adoptee betrays the affections of those who raised them.

Here is one adoptee’s story –

Paul had spent his whole life dreaming about his mother. He imagined what it would be like to meet someone who looked like him, who offered unconditional love and who took away the empty feeling he had always carried in the pit of his stomach.

“I thought meeting her would make me whole. I had had a happy childhood but somewhere deep in my gut, I have always been hollow,” said Paul, now 42 years old and living in Kent.

But Paul’s meeting with his mother was a disaster. “I now believe you can never recreate that mother-child relationship,” he said. “Away from the dreams, the initial rejection an adopted child has suffered makes unconditional love impossible to recreate in the cold light of reality.”

“I understand why my mother gave me up but I still find it impossible to forgive,” he said. “Now I have to come to terms with the fact that I have spent my life looking for something that was never there.”

One study revealed that, eight years after first making contact, almost 60 per cent of adopted children have ceased contact with, been rejected by or rejected further contact with their birth parent. It is rare that a birth relative rejects the adoptee. Even so, the birth parent may have higher expectations of a renewed relationship than the adopted child, who may only want to answer questions about their own identity.

According to one survey, over 70 per cent of searchers and 89 per cent of non-searchers fail to feel an instant bond with their birth parent. One in six new relationships break down within one year after initial contact and almost 43 per cent of relationships are abandoned within eight years.

From my own experience of discovering my genetic relations (I am not an adoptee but both of my parents were), one cannot recover lost time nor opportunities to forge closer relations. One can only begin where they find themselves to slowly, over time, develop whatever relationship is possible.

Sibling Separation

One of the impacts of adoption can be a separation of siblings. The struggles of a mother to keep and raise her child are temporary in nature – though it may not seem that way at the time.

I believe my dad’s mom did her best to keep him but in the end, The Salvation Army’s approach did not support her intention. She gave birth to my dad in one of their homes for unwed mothers having discovered herself pregnant due to an affair with a married man much older than her. Therefore, she did not even seek his assistance but in her very self-sufficient way dealt with her circumstances alone.

After a period of time bonding with her son, she was released with him with the expectation that she would be able to live with a cousin geographically nearby. I think she found little patience there. She applied for a job with The Salvation Army and was accepted and transferred, still with my dad in tow, from San Diego California to El Paso Texas.

By the time he was 8 months old, my dad was legally the ward of The Salvation Army. My granny went there for a child to raise (after my dad was adopted, she went there for another child to be his brother). I don’t know what it cost her but maybe less than some of the other options.

My dad never seemed much interested in his original family. He was actually adopted twice when my granny had to throw the abusive alcoholic she had been married to out for the well being of her sons and then met and married a different man. My dad was devoted to them and supported them genuinely as they aged.

Unknown to my dad at the time he died, a half-sister was living 90 miles away that could have told him a lot about his mother, his other older sister and a brother. I find it sad but that was the reality.

It Is Odd Now

Twenty years ago Genealogy was not a consideration in my own mind. After 10 years of marriage, my childless husband decided he wanted to have children after all. For those first ten years, he was glad I had been there and done that and there was no pressure on him to become a father. We had seen a short news piece that said that woman who conceive at an older age live longer.

Over Margaritas in a Mexican restaurant he boldly told me that he wanted to become a father. My mouth fell open in amazement and then I said “okay”. So began our adventure together. We used ovulation kits and did it faithfully as much as possible at the appropriate times. Nothing resulted.

One day at my general practitioners office in consultation about my cholesterol with the nurse practitioner, I told her about our efforts to become parents. She said to me, “I’m not saying you are infertile but at your age you don’t have time to waste.” Then recommended her gynecologist to me.

I made an appointment and just before that we saw another news piece that informed us of our low odds of success at my age. I was devastated and went to the place where I often poured my heart out to my God, the place where I had stood to marry my husband, and lamented that he married such an old woman.

At the gynecologist’s office, we saw on ultrasound that I had an egg developing, so the doctor prescribed a shot to jump start my chances. It was the very last egg I ever produced. When the doctor’s effort failed, he said there is a way and we rejoiced.

Thanks to advances in medical science we have two wonderful sons. When they were conceived I knew nothing about my own genetic roots and so it was not an issue to me. Fast forward twenty years and inexpensive DNA tests are available. My whole family has had our DNA tested at 23 and Me.

On my page there, I see my daughter, my nephew and a whole slew of cousins. I have also been able to discover who all 4 of my original grandparents were (both of my parents were adopted and died knowing next to nothing about their own origins – my mom did have her DNA tested at Ancestry, as did I, but it didn’t help her during her lifetime).

I carried my sons in my womb and they nursed at my breast. No one could be more their mother than I am. I’ve been with them almost every day of their lives, though I have had to be away from them occasionally. My husband has never been away from them. He is genetically related to them.

It is odd to wrap my own mind around the truth. They are not related to me genetically nor to anyone else I am related to genetically. There have been times, when in an argument with my husband, I have felt keenly he has more right to them than I do. Even so, I love them with all of my heart. My youngest son did lament to me that he has none of my genes but he would not exist otherwise. The reality has to be absorbed by each of us. In fundamental ways, nothing has changed.