Facilitating The Search

The more enlightened adoptive parents are prepared from the beginning for their child’s curiosity about their original parents and even a desire to know these people in person.

How does an adoptive parent lay the groundwork for this to occur?

In my own immediate family, each of my sisters gave up a child to adoption. Both of these children, a niece and a nephew, have had support from their adoptive parents to experience a reunion with their roots.

Many begin when the child is very young to admit to the adoption. Even a safe haven baby can someday use inexpensive DNA to locate related persons who might be able to lead them back to their original family. That has certainly worked for me with my own cousins and an aunt (both of my parents were adopted).

Whether this hurts the adoptive parent should not prevent any adoptee from knowing their true origins and as much of their birth story as is possible so that they understand what led to their relinquishment.

Let your adopted child know that you will do everything you can to help them if they want your assistance.

Never pretend you are the only family or parents. Accept the reality and know that family matters at lot and that adoption doesn’t magically make the other family disappear.

Your adopted child will appreciate your reassurance. You do not need to pressure them to reach out to their original family. The choice to do so must be their own.

Normalize these feelings by letting them know that you would want to know if you were an adopted child.

The Modern Foundling Wheel

Safe Haven Baby Box – Indiana

I first read about this concept in the book Mother Nature by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy while I lay in hospital having just delivered my oldest son. Mothers could abandon newborn babies anonymously in a safe place known as a Foundling Wheel. This kind of arrangement was common in the Middle Ages and in the 18th and 19th centuries.

A modern form, the baby hatch, began to be introduced again from 1952 and since 2000 has come into use in many countries, notably in Germany and Pakistan but exists in countries all over the world under various names.

Now in the United States, there is the Safe Haven Baby Box which is found in Indiana. Although every state in the US has a Safe Haven Law, anonymity is the benefit of the Baby Box. A Safe Haven Law requires the one relinquishing the baby to actually walk in to an authorized facility and physically hand the child off to a person. The one relinquishing is going to be asked some questions.

I am decidedly pro-Life because 9 months is a lot to ask of any woman who does not want to or cannot for whatever reason parent a child. However, if abortion is not accessible for whatever reason, an anonymous method of giving the child away safely is preferable to infanticide. And no, I do not think abortion is infanticide though there are plenty who would argue the point with me.

Although a baby left in a Baby Box is not going to know anything about their origins, inexpensive DNA tests and matching sites could still reveal some things about their origins in a future time once they reach adulthood. I know, it worked for me. No, I wasn’t relinquished but both of my parents were.

Betrayal

It may seem harsh but for a lot of adoptees, the giving up was a betrayal. The handover that can be felt by the adoptee, continually felt throughout their life. The rejection. The abandonment. The unanswerable questions.

It is a forever loss – permanent.

Even in the pre-verbal infant – adoption – is “remembered” on an emotional, cellular level. This in turn causes lots of behavioral and self-worth related issues. Often the adoptee can not explain why they feel as they do. Why they act out like they do. Their anger is in a very deep place that cannot be released because the adoptee is unable to express the emotional context of their feelings in language.

It is impossible to proclaim adoption good or bad in all circumstances. There are true orphans and then there is the exploited single mother. There is the profit motive to take her baby and sell it to a couple who has the means to meet the demanded price.

All children are priceless but the adoptee has been priced and that price paid, not only by the adoptive parents but by the original parents and their kin – and most especially, always, by the adoptee’s own self.

The Grandparent Factor

A topic not always discussed in adoption issue considerations is the lack of support from potential grandparents when a woman finds herself pregnant. They are often key to why an adoption is taking place.

Regardless of the age of the mother, the grandparents often play a huge role in a decision to surrender the child. My own mother, an adoptee herself, encouraged my sister to surrender her daughter.

Where is the family that could have stepped in ? Who else is giving up this child ? In reality, every one related to a child given up for adoption has lost an opportunity to have a relationship with that child. I lost the opportunity to have relationships with all 4 of my original grandparents and many aunts and uncles.

“I don’t want this child – get rid of it !!”, could be what my maternal grandmother’s own father said to her as he sent my married grandmother far away to have my mom. I doubt he intended for my grandmother to bring her back to Memphis Tennessee.

My paternal grandmother left the Door of Hope, a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers in Ocean Beach California to go to her cousin’s home for support. Obviously, that support was not forthcoming because my grandmother went back to the Salvation Army seeking employment, was accepted and transferred to El Paso Texas – which is how my dad ended up there and could be adopted. Being in El Paso was crucial to his meeting my mom and to my conception and birth.

In my family’s case, both of my original grandmothers had lost her own mothers at young ages. The lack of a nurturing, supportive older female probably played a huge role in their losing their first born children. It appears that they didn’t have support from their fathers either.

The Original Mother

There are a total of 4 women in my immediate family who have relinquished a child – both of my grandmothers and both of my sisters. I have a lot of compassion for every one of them.

The level of pain that such a mother may feel depends a lot on the time frame and reason for the relinquishment. I know for certain 2 of the mothers were coerced or forced. I know that 3 of the adoptions were “closed” and only one was “open”. That last one was my youngest sister who made the decision to relinquish from the moment she knew she was pregnant and vetted prospective adoptive parents and utilized private attorneys to facilitate the process.

Many such mothers have accepted some seriously false beliefs about themselves –
I would have been a terrible mother and my child is better off.
My child must hate me.
My child will never forgive me.
My child will never believe how much I wanted them.

These mothers also carry with them understandable fears –
Meeting their child and disappointing them.
Facing their child’s anger.
Never knowing what happened to the child.
If it was a secret, family members finding out.
Finding out the child was mistreated or needs help.
The child showing up one day at one’s workplace.
The child never trying to find them.

Within these mothers are many possible responses –
Feeling guilt and regret.
An inability to move on.
Breaking down and crying when thinking about one’s child.
Angry outbursts (caused by bottled up feelings).
Feeling guilty when others talk about their children.
Wondering what one’s child looks like.
Fantasizing about a reunion.
Anger at those who didn’t help them when they needed it most.
Jealous of the adoptive parents but wishing them well for the child’s sake.
Depression around the time of the child’s birthday, as well as the day they were given up.
A deep sense of loss that never abates.

Even so, such women have some admirable strengths – they are idealistic, private, protective, resourceful and unselfish

Sometimes, their deep pain is triggered, even after many years, if they happen to run into their child’s father. Certainly, birthdays and holidays will always be difficult reminders. TV commercials featuring babies may move them to tears and thoughts of their own child. And movies about adoption, depending on the emotional content, may be impossible to watch through to the end.

There is one important opportunity that such a mother should not neglect, regardless of the fears connected to it – that is, allowing contact by their relinquished child.

Lifelong Sorrow

It is clear in my mom’s adoption file that my maternal grandmother, shown above holding my mom for the very last time, never intended to surrender her. She was pressured and exploited by circumstances and the expert manipulation of that baby thief, Georgia Tann, in Memphis.

I read a statistic that said that more than 30% of women who have relinquished children never have another – either because they chose not to, or could not. There is an increased incidence of secondary infertility among natural mothers.

I know that my grandmother never had another child. I know that while her birth name was Elizabeth, my mom’s birth certificate had her name as Lizzie. I saw her sign Elizabeth to a note and a postcard she sent to Georgia Tann after losing my mom. Yet, when she died in her 60s after marrying a second husband, Lizzie is what is on her gravestone. I can’t help but believe she hoped my mom would find it someday. My mom died without fulfilling her desire to know about her original mother. I was the one to find the gravestone and sit beside it and talk with her soul.

There is no way to know why my maternal grandfather left my maternal grandmother in Memphis four months pregnant. It seems her widowed father sent her away to Virginia to have my mom and I doubt she was supposed to bring my mom back to Tennessee. It is clear my great-grandfather was unwilling to take the two of them into his home.

It appears that the only time my maternal grandmother had any communication directly with my maternal grandfather (after he left her alone and pregnant) was when he decided to go ahead and divorce her 3 years after they married and two years after my mom was born. The divorce papers also show her name formally as Elizabeth. I believe that having lost their child, my grandmother was so filled with shame, she could not face him. The divorce freed her up to remarry and not long after that he remarried. My heart is glad they didn’t die alone.

My mom’s adoption file is a constant reminder to me of what they had not done, of the courage they somehow lacked to fight back and of the child in the middle (my mom) they both lost. I come close to tears every time I revisit this story in my heart’s mind.