Why Me And Not Her ?

Hi my dearest sister. How are you? What’s new? How is everything? I miss you a lot.

A mother of loss asks for advice – It’s a closed adoption and the rules are strict about writing letters through the team I’m with to the adoptive parent. My daughter that was adopted is now 12 years old and my raised/kept daughter is 6. She’s seen all my stuff on her adoptive sister and has read the letters. She wants to join me in writing my next one.

There are things we can and can’t put in them but with that understanding, what ideas could I give her about writing to her sister’s adoptive parents from her? This is new for me with her wanting to join in. I’ve been writing mine for 10 years now. I know what I can write but I feel stuck with helping her write one. If this was you, what would you put in a letter like that. Even things I know I can’t write, may still us some ideas.

One adoptee writes – If I could have received letter from my birthmother’s kept children, I would have wanted to know more about them. Maybe what a typical day was like for her. Her interests and hobbies. Whether or not she had pets. I can assure you, at 12, I had questions I’m sure can’t be discussed like – why me and not her ?

Another adoptee seconds that – I would’ve wanted to know all about my sister. What’s her name, what color of hair does she have, does she like the same things as me ? I would want to know everything. Does she get these letters as a child or when she turns 18 ? This is really awesome, I wish I had letters or a natural mom who cared about me. In answer, the mom says – they get saved by the adoptive parents, if she’s not having them read to her. If it’s not suitable to read yet, I am still allowed to give it to the adoptive parent; then my daughter has to wait until she’s 18. It depends, really. It’s only letters back and forth. I’ve been doing these for 10 years and I’m thankful, though there’s a lot about that I hate too, especially the rules about writing them and what we’re allowed/can do and say. Otherwise, I appreciate being able to write and receiving the letters back as well.

A kept sibling responds – I was about 10, when my brother found our mom. He was in his early 30s. We wanted to know absolutely everything about each other. I’m 36, we both still have the letters we wrote back and forth in the mid-90s. My 10 year old self wanted to know favorite color, food, bday, siblings, all those trivial things. I couldn’t wrap my mind around him being my brother. Then I spent time in and out of foster care, and we lost contact for years. We got back in touch when I was mid-20s.

An adoptive parent responds – I know a little about what you are/aren’t allowed to say, usually it would be identifying information but I’m not sure if that’s just about minor children or if it’s about adults as well. For your daughter, I imagine she will have ideas of what she wants to write to her sister but do check that your adopted daughter knows she has a sister. My adopted children, who are biological siblings, ask about their other siblings, how old are they, what do they look like, what are their names (and they keep asking this, even though they know the answers, I think just for reassurance or to check that their memories are correct). These are the kinds of questions kids ask each other – do they have pets, where do they live, do they like the “XYZ” TV program, what kinds of food, what games do they play ?

Our Noche Buena

The Spanish phrase means a good night. Really, Christmas Eve is more important to me now than Christmas Day (though I will bake whole wheat Cinnamon rolls for the family tomorrow). We are preparing to move to New Mexico from Missouri after this property sells. Everything is disrupted here this year. It is sort of a Grinchy Christmas with no tree, stockings or gifts this year.

My mom had a really nice antique nativity. We didn’t put baby Jesus in the manger until Christmas Day. I continue to think of, and in my own way, honor my childhood family celebrations on Christmas Eve. I make Green Chili Enchiladas – not as my mom made them but a heathier version with leftover Thanksgiving Turkey and Kale, no cheese – like an ending to the holiday phase (though we still have New Year’s Eve to get through, before it really ends).

I grew up on the Mexican border in El Paso Texas. After our enchiladas, we would take a drive to look at the luminarias that would line many homes and sidewalks and even Rim Road overlooking the city and across the river Mexico.

Because the Catholic Church dominates the region, Midnight Mass was also common. After meeting my husband, he took me to Midnight Mass one year at the big cathedral in St Louis Missouri. I needed that reassurance because not long before that, I had a dream of stopping to ask someone for directions in downtown St Louis and they shot me with a gun to take my purse. I was so angry they would steal my life when I had so little in that purse and would have given it to them. Thankfully, that Christmas Eve downtown helped me get over it.

I realize this is not my typical “Missing Mom” blog but this year, I am missing my mom a lot. She passed away in late September 2015. We were supposed to visit my parents for Thanksgiving. She had been worrying me a lot with her health issues. I asked her if I needed to come home right away and she said, No, Thanksgiving will be soon enough – but it wasn’t. Then, came that New Year’s Eve when my dad had a stroke and had to be airlifted to a big hospital. He came out not believing he had one until he read the discharge papers. (my youngest sister saved him from rehab and I resisted a follow up with his primary care doctor who wanted to do that also). My dad died 4 months after my mom did. They were both adoptees and had been married for over 50 years, high school sweethearts. So, yeah. Christmas is when we think of family and I miss my dad too. Upon reflection, the holidays bring up some residual grief and sadness for me.

The Flying Baby Dream

A friend who is not an adoptee shared a LINK>Flying Baby Dream in her essay –

In the dream – which was intensely real – I was in a room with a friend, and a presumably married couple. The woman was very pregnant and about to give birth, but hey presto!, in the blink of an eye she had already given birth and was holding the swaddled newborn in her arms while the man gazed lovingly down at them…

…until ZOOOOOM! The baby ZIPPED out of the mother’s arms and hovered 2 feet off of the ground!

Whaaaaaaat? I looked at my friend…”Um…whoa…”, but wasn’t too surprised because I do – in real life – believe that anything is possible. However…a flying baby?

The baby was terrified for some reason. His eyes were large and frightened and he kept zipping back to its parents and then back away from them, like a giant hummingbird. It seemed like he wanted some kind of specific reassurance from them, but wasn’t finding it – some kind of information, or a word that would still his fear!

I sat on the side of the twin bed against the opposite wall watching this and wishing he would come to me. He suddenly saw me and zoomed through the air in my direction. He came very very close to my face – inches away – and I took hold of the sides of his little body. He looked searchingly and longingly into my eyes, wanting whatever he was wanting. And I knew what he wanted. So I said to him, smilingly and with a Zen-like calm and certainty, “Mother is with you here just as she was on the other side.”

He was drinking this in like a parched person drinks water. In a perfectly normal adult voice he said to me, “Really?” as in, “Do you promise?”, and my smile deepened as I said to him, “I do.” He threw his little arms around my neck and hugged me. When our hug ended, I held him away from me a little and I said, “I think I had better put you down on the ground. That seems the prudent thing to do,” because with the information he had, now he could feel grounded and probably could no longer fly.

I put him down on the floor to the left of me and he ran back to his parents.

~ End

I thought, wow, I could understand that an adoptee might have just such a dream for good reason. How a baby might feel having been taken away from his mother. How an eventual reunion in adulthood might bring them back together “on the other side”. How such a reassurance, when already adopted by strangers, might help deep in the subconscious heart.

When my adoptee mother died, I found a card among her belongings that read “I Am With You Always.” I would guess it had a religious meaning for her but I know without a doubt (because she shared this desire with me) that she also longed to reconnect with her birth mother, most of her adult life. I read her adoptive mother wrote to the Tennessee Children’s Home (that of the Georgia Tann scandal) that the train trip from Memphis to Nogales upset my baby mom but that the doctor had settled her down – hmmm, drugged her ?

My mom, 3 years before I was born.

Not Good Enough

Today’s story –

I am a adoptee. Here is the issue, My daughter just had my first granddaughter on Sunday and she is absolutely perfect. But the problem is this, I now am living in daily fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of something happening, fear my daughter won’t need me anymore, fear I won’t bond or connect with the baby. I feel like I’m going crazy . Like today she told me to come over and then a little while later she said I could go home.. not in a mean way.. just wanted time with the dad… well, I didn’t let it show in front of her but I literally got in the car and balled my eyes out and then had a panic attack, feeling like I wasn’t good enough, that I wouldn’t see her again, that she didn’t need me or want me around… I know all of that is completely crazy but my mind won’t let me accept that. Is this normal for adoptees?, is this even normal for non adoptees? What can I do to get through this??

The first comment was – I am donor-conceived and my mother is not, but her own parents were absent/abusive. My mother is like this but she doesn’t have the courage or self-awareness to say it out loud. You did great by not putting this on your daughter’s shoulders.

The next one was – I’m sorry for what you’re going through. I’m not an adoptee but I do have an adult daughter and sometimes it’s hard when it seems like they don’t need you. But they do and they reach out when they do. We raise them to be independent but it hurts when we did it too well. She’s definitely going to need you.

Here is the next one – I’m not an adoptee and I’m answering because you asked if it’s normal for non-adoptees. I have TOTALLY had these exact feelings with my oldest; however I’m from a trauma background and have zero relationship with my bio mother – I think it may be normal for anyone coming from a trauma background. What I did was just be honest with my daughter and told her that I’m sure it was from my background and that I didn’t want her to feel responsible for my feelings but I wanted to be sure it was me and not true – we talk a lot and have a fabulous relationship. I have these feelings SO MUCH LESS NOW because she reassured me I had nothing to worry about – she accepts my worries and I accept that she is a private person and just has me around less than I originally thought would happen – I hope that helps you. And congratulations grandma!

Then there was this – That’s a totally a trauma reaction. The level of emotional response is way out of balance with the request.. and you know it… which only makes you feel even crazier, right?

So I’m gonna say something major in you baby adoptee brain has been triggered by the birth (sooo normal! ) and you now have a wonderful opportunity to find that wound and heal it. And it sounds like very expected abandonment stuff.. not being worthy of what you now see in the mother-child bond. The baby in you is crying for that experience and mourning you didn’t have it. Let your baby self cry it out and at the same time, mother yourself and know that you are worthy and deserved what your grandchild has. An adoption competent trauma informed therapist can help!

Then she adds – I used to believe that I had done enough work that I was always going to be in control.. and then, I lost my mind one day in the middle of the SPCA over a kitten. Like I became this crying, hysterical, screaming Karen .. and that is not me! That’s the day I learned that no matter how much you think you have healed.. sometimes the weirdest thing worms it’s way in! And boom.. you’re a sniveling mess lying on the kitchen floor.

Yet another shares this – My mother spent several years in an orphanage as a child and she is like this—if I reschedule a coffee date or something like that she feels abandoned and devastated. It breaks my heart. I love her so much and never want to cause her pain. I know therapy has helped her some.

A second woman confirmed – It is a trauma based response. I experienced the same sort of thing when my daughter got pregnant with my grandson. I was terrified and an emotional wreck thinking I wouldn’t have a relationship with the baby when it was born. Everything triggered me and despite my daughter reassuring me she wanted me involved – internally I felt it would all dissolve because of course, as an adoptee how do we trust we will be loved, included, not rejected ? I now have a wonderful relationship with my grandson and he is the joy in my life. I still feel that fear sometimes but I have gotten more confident that we can get past the bumps and not every bump means the end a relationship and bond.

Another woman shared – I am not a adoptee, my biological dad left and my biological mom got me and my sisters out of foster care. (Just for back ground) I just had a baby 6 months ago and my mom felt the same way. She was raised by her grandparents because her parents didn’t want her and couldn’t provide for her or my uncle. I think it’s definitely a trauma based thing, but I can tell you from the other side, I would cry for my mom at night when things got hard. I never once thought I could do it without her but also telling her was hard. Your child needs you always, a baby doesn’t change that.

A woman who gave her baby up for adoption writes – I feel like that about my daughter and she’s 31. (Found her when she was 18.) I am in therapy and am working on it. I think the important thing to realize is that these are thought distortions. They are your mind’s way of protecting itself, but this time it went out of control…. Like emotional keloids.

An adoptee writes – This is trauma talking! Trauma lies. It’s the brain telling you your trauma will repeat itself. My therapist has me do several things to combat this. One is I talk back to myself, out loud, as if I’m defending young Andrea or sometimes a friend. It feels really silly but we’re so hard on ourselves, so defending a child or a friend is so much easier! Another activity is to write down all those worst case scenarios and plan them out. What would you actually do if it happened? Then it might not feel so realistic and you’ll feel some measure of being in-control again. Also, my brain demands proof that it’s lying or it won’t shut up.

Adding Insult To Injury

We are living through uncertain times. Many people feel un-moored from their usual sources of confidence that all will be well. Children who have been adopted or are in foster care find their worlds upended. Lacking consistency, routine, and an overall feeling of stability and security as their personal worlds are being shaken up again by the Coronavirus and the efforts to contain the spread of that infection.

Schools have closed and public community events through which diverse people usually bond are cancelled. Instead of joining together in common experience we are forced to isolate ourselves from one another. At least we have modern technology to keep us connected while maintaining a safe distance from one another but life is not routine or what we would conventionally expect as we wake up each day.

For those parents who still have jobs to go to while their children are alone at home, the struggle can be significant.

One of the responsibilities that foster parents face is transporting the children in their home to visitations with their birth parents and biological family members. Often times, visitations take place at child welfare offices, while other times, visitations may occur at public places, such as parks, restaurants, churches, and other public venues. Visitations are important as they help to maintain the relationship between both child and adult. Along with this, many foster parents have very strong relationships with the birth parents and during visitations, trust is built and children can grow and develop in a healthy fashion, as a result.

Yet, those public spaces are now closed to most of us in most locations throughout the United States. And coming out of the usual wintertime season of colds and flu can complicate things because many of us have all had one thing or another since Thanksgiving and our immunity is generally low. Essential services such as therapy sessions, drug counseling, and even court appearances have also been affected by Covid 19.

All families face difficulty at this time in our collective history and families with the additional challenges of trauma and regulations face an additional burden on top of the difficulties they face every day. All families are concerned, and confused, looking for answers and receiving little guidance. There is no school, foster care related visits are being cancelled, church services are cancelled, and generally all children are now isolated from the friends they depend upon in their everyday lives. The challenge in an era of social distancing is physical, and tangible, but can’t be solved by throwing dollars at it.

Stay safe, be well. Come together – though at a distance. Keep the efforts to slow the spread of this virus going until the assurance that it is once again safe to have greater contact with our fellow human beings becomes more certain. Patience is necessary and flexibility too.