Tag: Reunions

You Won’t Be Forgotten

Today’s story (not my own) – So my kids were put in foster care. April 29th, my daughter had surgery. Thankfully, we were able to get custody of my son back, only a couple weeks before that. He was doing fine – until he saw the foster parents. The foster mom referred to her husband as his daddy but corrected herself when she realized my mom was listening. We were all there standing waiting in my daughter’s room. We are on guard to certain nothing untrue is said. So are they exceeding legitimate boundaries, when they are refer to themselves as my kid’s mommy and daddy ? They were only fostering for reunification and not adoption. Or am I just being too sensitive about it all ? My son used to say Dada all the time. Since we’ve gotten him back, he hasn’t said it once. I spoke to his developmental therapist about it and she said that they shouldn’t be doing it and that it’s confusing him. I agree. Now, I’m scared for my daughter… I had her with me until she was 4 months old. She will be 1 in July…I need some help to keep all of this in perspective, because as her mother, I am terrified she won’t remember me.

One adoptee offered this reassurance – I met my mom at 40 years old and every cell of my being remembered her. Your daughter will not forget you mama.

Things You Wish You Had Asked

It often happens to many of us after our parents have passed away – I know I have experienced that. We just don’t always know what to ask, when it was possible to receive the answer that we wish we could have known before they are gone.

Now, some adoptive parents are trying to get those kinds of answers for their adoptive children, while there is still some contact with the biological parents.

One adoptive parent noted – My adopted daughter ALWAYS wants to know about her birth family and I really want her to know those details as well. I think it’s important for her identity to know about even the most mundane details, it gives her ways to relate.

One adoptive parent says – My adopted daughter has never said “I wish my mom knew x about me” but consistently asks about her mom’s story and wonders about her. She will want to know your favorite ice cream, color, song… in addition to personality traits and examples of your strengths and flaws. She will want to see herself in you. A hard part of adoption is having unanswered questions. I feel compassion for every adopted child who has to wonder about this ! I can’t even imagine how hard it must be to thirst for more and not have it.

One adoptee notes – the overwhelming emotions in reaction to what many of us always wished we’d known. As the reply above said “someday” she will want to know everything. You may not know or mark any notice of that day but it will come, even if it is just a whisper in her heart of hearts that she never expresses aloud. I, at 48 yo, 29 yrs reunion with bio father and 12 yrs reunion with bio mother still thirstily read/listen to every fact about them both, when they share. Though I admit I rarely openly express to them how deeply I love those moments of revelation of who they are and what made them into the person they are.

The adoptive parent who started this discussion realizes – it is so heartbreaking. I’ve been told many times that what I, as an adoptive parent try to do, is everything adoptees want and unfortunately many adoptive parents turn them down or only save some of the things birth parents share, it’s so sad. The birth parent needs to talk about life, likes, dislikes, hobbies, whatever it is that they do in their daily life .. all we can share, even if it seems mundane.

blogger’s note – I know when I finally connected with one of my adoptee mom’s biological girl cousins – it was the little stuff she shared with me that meant so much. Her “Aunt Lou” was my biological maternal grandmother. She tells me that my grandmother “loved to tease and laugh. I think she thought of herself as bit of a black sheep but she wasn’t. She was very generous with her love to us. She sold Avon and we always got some perfume in pretty bottles. I have really fond memories of her and my uncle. She had a collection of salt and pepper shakers in all kinds of shapes and she would let me play with them. And she always had butterscotch candies because she knew I like them.” None of it earth shattering but all of it precious to me as the granddaughter who never had a chance to know her.

Family Transmission

In my own family, with 2 adoptee parents, I have seen how awareness of their adoptions and acceptance of this a being one of the most natural things in this world (note – it is NOT), led to my 2 sisters giving up their babies to adoption. This is an effect that transmits itself down family lines or so I do believe.

Reading a story today in the Washington Post that I arrived at via Reddit (which my sons do but I have rarely visited) by LINK>Amber Ferguson about a woman who was denied an abortion in Texas and subsequently placed her daughter for adoption. She notes that “We know this story doesn’t reflect the experience of everyone who has been denied an abortion or experienced adoption.”

She linked the Washington Post story, LINK>After abortion attempts, two women now bound by child, which seems to have allowed me to read it. In that story, this caught my own attention – Evelyn, who gave up the baby, was adopted by her own parents at 3 weeks old. Her parents were in their mid-40s at the time and had not been able to conceive naturally. Although Evelyn had always felt close to them, she was petrified to tell them about the pregnancy. “My parents are in their early 70s. I didn’t have a job or any money. I didn’t want to put it on them to raise the baby,” Evelyn remembers thinking.

She had dated a guy she met on social media and they had casual sex. The relationship went downhill swiftly. When her pregnancy test revealed the truth, a single thought swirled through her head: I can’t have a child. I can’t have a child. I can’t have a child. The relationship with her baby’s father ended after she told him about the pregnancy. She immediately began making plans to have an abortion.

She was six weeks and four days pregnant, so the clinic’s staff advised her to go to Oklahoma before that state adopted an abortion ban, too. Evelyn has been reunited with her own birth mother, Tamela, who lived near the Oklahoma border. Her birth mother was a teenager when she became pregnant with Evelyn. With the encouragement of her adoptive mom, Evelyn had found her on Facebook in 2016. They stayed in touch. Evelyn hoped she would be able to understand her predicament. Tamela says she was surprised by Evelyn’s call but immediately understood her fear. “You don’t think it’s going to happen to you, that you’re going to get pregnant so young. And it’s scary. It’s very scary because it happened to me,” Tamela remembers thinking. Evelyn remembers Tamela telling her that she was making a good decision and that ending the pregnancy would be best for her future.

The clinic’s doctor estimated that she was nine, possibly 10 weeks along and handed her a prescription for mifepristone. She should dissolve the pills under her tongue to start a medication abortion, according to the prescription she received from the clinic. She was told to take the remaining four pills, misoprostol, “orally” at home within 48 hours. She didn’t take the second dose until she returned to her home in San Antonio, nearly two days later. She wanted to be at home where she would have more privacy, Evelyn says. Her stomach had started to cramp. Then she saw the blood clots in the toilet. She bled for hours and had spotting for a couple of weeks. Confident it had worked, she says she didn’t bother to make the follow-up doctor’s appointment the clinic had strongly recommended.

When she still hadn’t gotten her menstrual cycle, she took another pregnancy test and was stunned when it came back positive. At the hospital, Evelyn fainted when she saw that there was a heartbeat, and was in and out of consciousness for about five minutes. Perhaps it’s time to consider adoption, the midwife told her. “No, no, no, I can’t go through with the pregnancy,” Evelyn responded.

Evelyn says she didn’t know the pills sometimes didn’t work. It is a rare occurrence, but she later learned that 3 percent of medication abortions fail when gestation reaches 70 days, or 10 weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The odds of failure increase if the patient waits longer than prescribed to take the second dose of the medication, several medical experts said.

She hadn’t seriously considered adoption, despite being adopted herself, until it became too late to even have a surgical abortion. Having reached that point, she knew that was the only option. Evelyn says she knew adoption could be positive. Her parents had given her an ideal childhood. 

You can read the rest of the story at the Washington Post link above.

Should I Tell ?

Not saying my image is “the” necklace but it is a lovely tradition to share.

Today’s story (not my own) –

My cousin was adopted out during the Baby Scoop Era and my family is Catholic. She’s 15 yrs older than me and she found us when I was a tween (so like 30 yrs ago). She was very close to her adoptive dad, but not as much with her adoptive mother. They’ve both passed now, and she is close now with us, her birth family including her birth Mom.

So my question is… my Grandma got all her female grandchildren a necklace for our parents to give us at high school graduation. We have a “cousins chat group” which she is in, and I recently posted a pic of the necklace and included her saying that I found one online and I’d love to send her one too because Grandma would want her to have it. She seemed really thankful and said she loved it.

So here’s the thing – my Aunt (her birth Mom, who may have already told her this) told me not too long ago that my Grandma forbid my Aunt to hold her as a newborn and refused to hold her herself, as she knew if they did they’d never be able to let her go. Do I tell her this?? Or is this really overstepping, and just let her enjoy her “cousin necklace”? I just love her so much and want her to know how much her natural family loves her, especially now that her adoptive family is gone.

An adoptee answers – I would not tell her that, it can only bring hurt.

Another agrees but with exceptions – I wouldn’t voluntarily tell her that. But if she asks difficult questions or wants to have all info, even hard to hear info revealed to her, tell her the truth, every time.

An adult adoptee elaborates – I don’t think it’s necessary to say at all, personally, but also it seems completely unrelated to this specific context of giving her the necklace. Like, if the point is to bring her in and include her in a family tradition, why turn around and also tell her “btw granny said/did some awful things when you were born. but she’d want you to have this!” ? It just seems like it would negate the sentiment of the gift – you’d be including her and also othering her at the same time.

Then, there was this sad story – My grandma loves to bring up the fact that my mom dropped me off when I was 2 days old and that my father left the state because “he would’ve killed you, if he stuck around”. There really is no reason to share that information with me. I know about my trauma and have a lot of specific events and memories. Adding more just doesn’t….make sense. Seems like adding salt to the wound.

More from another adoptee – My siblings and cousins know a lot more about my family situation than I do as it’s their lived experience. My cousin and I, in particular, have an extremely close relationship and I believe her when she tells me stories about our family. That said, she does not tell me things that would be personally hurtful to me that she may have overheard. We had this discussion and she asked me, “Do you want to know EVERYTHING?” So I got the watered down version sans quotes. I do know it was my grandmother who insisted I be relinquished. I know how she treated my mother when she was pregnant with me and afterwards. I really don’t need to know more than that.

Personally, I would not share that with her UNLESS she were to ask you, “Do you know if my mother and grandmother ever held me?” And then I would HEAVILY stress that the reason they didn’t was because they loved her so much and knew they would never be able to let her go. Please let her enjoy the cousin necklace and THANK YOU for getting her her own cousin necklace and including her in the group chat.

So many have similar experiences, like this one – My grandparents refused to see me and my mother did not hold me, but she would come look at me. My grandparents couldn’t bring themselves to look at me because I would be real. If I was real then they couldn’t give me away. It is really a conversation that needs to be had between her and her mother. It’s not really a conversation that anyone else can accurately translate.

Love For Them Is Natural

Image from a reunion story at LINK>Cafe Mom

I read this from an adoptive parent today in my all things adoption group – “We as adoptive parents shouldn’t feel threatened when adoptees express their love for their biological parents.”

The comment above came in response to something she had read in a different group (that I am not a member of) – “How do you handle your kids saying they love their biological parents more than you ? My oldest son is 5 but I’ve had him since he was 9 months old. He was allowed overnights with biological mom until he was 2-1/2 years old. He’s only seen her 5 times since she lost custody. From my prospective, he doesn’t really know her because they have rarely been together. The overnights were for one night every month or two. It just hurts my feelings when he says he loves his birth mom and her husband (not his bio dad) and not me”.

One mother of loss noted a bit cynically – OMG did an adoptive parent just admit their own fragility and insecurity ?! Better put this one on the calendar. Someone get this lady a medal. Sorry you weren’t able to erase an unbreakable bond. And as how to “handle” it ? You ACCEPT it. You know what ? Your feelings are not what matters. You get a shrink and you just deal with it. Or you use a 5 year old’s true feelings to alienate the child for your own selfish gain by cutting contact and closing the adoption, like 89% of the rest of the vultures do. He hasn’t seen her but 5 times and they’re rarely together because you haven’t allowed it, because you’re jealous. From overnights to nothing, hmmm what do we think the outcome will be ?

One woman who works with young people wrote – Doing youth work, it’s been enlightening to see how the way the adoptive parents treat the whole subject and how the kid processes it all as they get to an age to understand this stuff with more detail. The ones who have been treated like belongings have had real internal struggles. There was quite a bit of kinship caring in the families we worked with and there’s been more than one “family visit” night where like 25 people have turned up. LOL I’m like, well the room isn’t that big so pick 3 people and I’ll go get the client. A lot of times when the kid was from a really remote location the whole family, like half the community, would come down and camp in the park across the road. Especially elders. I wish the people who had the attitudes like that woman could see that.

An adoptee notes – The adoptive parent expects a 5 year old to manage their feelings, with an adult-level understanding of how to do that, while denying any preferences of his own. Also in my opinion, describing it as hurting her feelings, after expressing disbelief that her son could love his biological mom more, is really her projecting her resentment about that onto the child. He’ll definitely learn not to express anything like that to her – eventually. That’s how it’s getting handled: by him.

An experienced foster/adoptive mom writes – it’s SO important that anyone getting getting involved, particularly in the foster care system, be free of the super common “looking to expand our family”. You can’t expect a child, let alone a traumatized child, to fulfill your emotional needs. That’s not what kids are for. If you’re truly interested in helping kids… Then you should be thrilled they have a great connection to their family. That’s to be celebrated. Like yay! You did a good job! Your kid has connections and is able to recognize those emotions and feels free to verbalize them! It’s just such a fundamental baked-in part of the problem that, when you pay for a child, you think you own it. You have expectations. It’s yours. It’s late stage capitalism in one of its worst forms. The inherent power structure and commodification of *children*.

It Is NOT The Easy Answer

I don’t know who Megan Devine is but her words seemed perfect for a Huffington Post personal essay I read today by Joanna Good – LINK>At 17, I Gave My Baby Up.

She was scrolling through her social media and came upon a mother asking for advice. She had just found out she was pregnant, and because she and her husband already had several children, he didn’t want any more. Though he was sure of his decision, she wasn’t, and wanted help figuring out what to do. She writes – “I was feeling so many emotions at once that I wasn’t sure I could even identify them all, but I definitely felt frustration, anger, and yearning swirling through my body.”

She goes on to note – “People who have never been touched by adoption always seem to think of it as easy, but as a mother who placed her child for adoption, struggled through the chaotic emotional aftermath of the separation, and then reconnected with my child later on, I know the truth. Even though it was the right choice for me at the time, adoption is anything but easy.”

She admits – “I had never stopped thinking about Hanna (blogger’s note – the adopted name of the baby girl she gave up to adoption) — never. But the adoption had forced me to grow up quickly, and I did. I had come out stronger. Sturdier. Wiser. I continued to feel so many emotions, but now I was able to handle most of them. The guilt was a different story.”

No one really talks about what follows you through life after adoption. There is no such thing as a clean break. She realized that “I knew my little girl might never know me, yet I saw her face everywhere — in the photographs her adoptive parents continued to send me, but also in other children’s faces at the grocery store, at library story time . . . I often wondered if Hanna ever thought she saw my face in a crowd.”

She saw her daughter again when the little girl turned 6. Joanna shares – that her daughter poked her in the stomach and said, “Mommy said God put me in your belly because she couldn’t have me in hers.” Then, when Hanna was 13, she got a message from Hanna that hit her like a train going full speed. They had begun chatting almost daily via Facebook messenger — something she always looked forward to — but she never expected to see these two words pop up on her screen – “I’m trans.” (A person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth.)

Typical of an Evangelical Christian response – “Hanna’s adoptive parents offered no support and referred to his brave coming out as ‘a phase’. They refused to use any other name but the one they bestowed upon him and would not allow him to seek counseling or see a doctor for potential hormone blockers. Instead they looked to religion and prayed this phase would end.”

Joanna shares that she – “decided to become the solution. I would be there for my birth son no matter what and I promised to be the parent I couldn’t be at 17. . . . I was there every step of the way as Hanna slowly transitioned to Aarron.”

She concludes her essay – “Adoption. It might seem easy — the perfect solution for an unexpected child and an unprepared mom. But too often we don’t talk about the messiness. The trauma. The endless questioning. Or that there really is no such thing as a truly severed connection.”

What response could she possibly offer this pregnant woman in need of support when there is no one true answer? “Then I realized the one thing I most needed to hear when I was in her place all of those years ago. I typed, Hey, I understand. I’m here if you need to talk, and hit post.”

Why It Is Worth It

Today’s story is close to home and much like family but it is NOT my story.

I’m in the process of being re-adopted by my real mom. I met with my attorney today and learned some additional details about the process that I didn’t previously know. Had I known, I would have done this years ago. The laws vary by state but I wanted to share what I’ve learned in case it helps anyone else. It’s also something Hopeful/Adoptive Parents should know is possible and to behave accordingly.

For context, I’m a 36 year old domestic infant adoptee. Born and originally adopted in New York, I now live in Missouri, and my real mom now lives in Tennessee. The adoption is happening in Missouri. I was reunited at 17. My adoptive father made mistakes but took accountability for them. I loved him. He passed away recently. My female adopter is likely a narcissist but she doesn’t see it that way. She adopted because she was infertile. My 15 year old mother was coerced by the adoption industry. Several years ago, my female adopter actually told me that she understands that adoption caused pain and trauma for my mother and I but she feels it was worth it because it allowed her to be a mother. All of her actions indicate that my adoption was about her, her desires, and ownership of a child being “hers”.

In my state, only the person adopting me (my actual mother) and I need to consent to the adoption. No one else can prevent this from happening. My female adopter won’t be notified at all unless I personally decide to tell her. My adoptive father can remain my legal father. I can change my name as part of the process and my children’s birth certificates can be updated to reflect this. I didn’t know this or I would have changed my name years ago. The entire process is going to cost under $2,000 for everything because adoption is cheap when you’re not purchasing the adoptee. My current female adopter will become a legal stranger. The same process that made her my legal mother will now un-make her my mother. She will no longer be a mother or grandmother to anyone except in her own deluded mind. It’s doesn’t matter what she thought adopting me would mean. It’s doesn’t matter what the agency told her about what I’d grow up to feel. I refuse to participate. Adoption didn’t win. I don’t need her consent to purchase my freedom.

Credible About Foster Care

I’ve read a book about a woman’s experiences in foster care and in my all things adoption group I’ve seen many stories about really horrific foster care placements – of course, not all foster parents are that bad – but sadly, some are. They don’t have the love of a genetic, biological parent. LINK>Antwone Fisher suffered twelve years of abuse in his foster care home placement.

Born to a teenage mother in prison only a couple of months after his father was shot to death at a mistress’ apartment, the movie Antwone Fisher with Derek Luke and Denzel Washington depicts the horrific childhood he survived while in foster care. In the movie, homeless and on the street in Cleveland, he reconnects with a childhood friend and witnesses the shooting of that friend in a robbery attempt. At the age of 14, the real Antwone Fisher spent time in a penal institution for teenaged boys in western Pennsylvania, leaving at the age of 17.

Antwone entered the United States Navy, where he served his country for eleven years; nine years at sea, two ashore, four deployments and one forward deployment duty, stationed aboard  the USS St. Louis LKA 116. Denzel Washington is the naval psychiatrist in the movie who assists him in the emotional journey to confront his painful past. Ultimately with his psychiatrist’s prodding, he finally finds his first family and experiences the kind of fraught reception that some experience when confronting their first mother for answers about their abandonment. There is also a wonderful reunion with the extended family of Antwone’s deceased father.

He wrote a poem –

Who will cry for the little boy?
Lost and all alone.
Who will cry for the little boy?
Abandoned without his own?

Who will cry for the little boy?
He cried himself to sleep.
Who will cry for the little boy?
He never had for keeps.

Who will cry for the little boy?
He walked the burning sand
Who will cry for the little boy?
The boy inside the man.

Who will cry for the little boy?
Who knows well hurt and pain
Who will cry for the little boy?
He died again and again.

Who will cry for the little boy?
A good boy he tried to be
Who will cry for the little boy?
Who cries inside of me

After his discharge from the navy, Antwone took a job with Sony Pictures Studios, working as a Security Officer for eight months, before he began writing the screenplay for his own story. On April 23, 2013. Antwone testified before the Senate Finance Committee for a hearing titled: The Antwone Fisher Story as a Case Study for Child Welfare.

Antwone has worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter for more than thirty years with an impressive fifteen film writing projects, script doctoring or script consultant assignments with the major studios. Antwone’s present screenwriting project is with Columbia Pictures. He is the screenwriter of his own story for the movie my family watched last night. I highly recommend it.

The Fear Never Goes Away

Not the source of today’s story.

(Not my own story either) I just really need to put this weight down somewhere where those who read it will understand. I also hope expectant moms who are considering relinquishing their child might see this and consider yet another way their choice can impact their child.

I was adopted as an infant. My mother willingly and intentionally relinquished me. My adoptive family was overall loving and kind. I am (finally) in reunion with my first family. I have never had Div of Children’s and Family Services involved in my personal life, though I’ve witnessed it firsthand with friends. I say all of this to show that there is no “logical” reason for how I feel, and that it is directly related to adoption trauma —

I am always, every single day, on edge and terrified of anything that could separate my son from me. My son is safe and healthy and loved, I am in my mid 30s and safe and secure, and yet… there is always the fear of having him taken from me and given to someone else nagging in the back of my brain. All day every day. I carried that fear through my pregnancy, and now still carry it at almost 18 months postpartum. The idea of him being taken from me makes me feel panic and sick inside. It’s its own kind of terror.

This is adoption trauma, 35+ years down the road. Even in a “happy” adoption story.

Blogger’s note – I was always worried that some do-gooder would misinterpret my family dynamics and my children would be taken away. It is not an unreasonable fear these days. Fortunately, my sons are now old enough that it is no longer a fear. Anyone who has witnessed the system in action has reason to be afraid. Even those of us without such a history worry about it. Adoptees carry such fears because they were separated from their birth family (regardless of the circumstances) and that is totally understandable.

3 Branch Tree

Symbolically, I like this tree showing 2 strong and closely linked branches with a 3rd one sort of off to one side. Donor Conceived Persons have a 3 Branch Family Tree. When a child is conceived via donor egg or in surrogacy, there is by reality some contributions made by the gestating mother, though difficult to pin down with any accuracy. I would not expect similar physical contributions when there is another father raising that child in the case of sperm donors. So, just my opinion on that situation.

I know that discovering my roots was an experience that has helped me understand how my ancestors, and myself as well, fit into American and world history. Some date their arrival in the United States to pre-Revolutionary War time. Others were immigrants not even naturalized yet. Feeling my Danish, Scottish, Irish and English roots, as well as wondering where that smidgeon of Ashkenazi Jew or Mali came from, these just add spice to my genetic mix.

So while pondering on such facts today, I tumbled on this man, LINK>John Vanek, who found out at the age of 28 that he had been conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor and what little documentation ever existed had been destroyed. He had been interested in genealogy and DNA since the 6th grade in public school.

Using all of his genealogical and historical skills to work, he reconstructed the blank half of his family tree from the trees of distant 3rd- and 4th-cousins and, by this method, managed to identify the anonymous donor. He has since met his biological father for the first time, that was in early 2016, and has subsequently developed a relaxed friendship with that man.

Because there are lots of people out there looking for unknown or anonymous parents, grandparents, or siblings, but very few with the skills and experience he possesses, he started LINK>GeneaLOGIC Family Research Services with the primary goal of helping such individuals. John regularly helps adoptees identify their genetic or biological parents and the children of sperm or egg donors identify their genetic parents (or other close relatives).

John describes 2 of the situations where he has assisted a client – One client was conceived in an adulterous relationship, in which the father never knew the affair had led to a child. (Blogger’s note – my dad was conceived in such a situation, when his young mother had an affair with a much older, married man – she handled the pregnancy without ever telling him.) Another was looking for information about her father, who had been abandoned at an orphanage as a newborn.

He reassures those seeking with this – “Whatever your circumstances, there is still hope.” (Blogger’s note – I agree from my own unusual experience of being the child of 2 adoptees that died knowing nothing about their origins. Within a year of their deaths, I knew what they never did, who all 4 of my original grandparents were.)

John notes his ethical core. He realizes that there are always possible risks and rewards of searching for one’s unknown past, through DNA testing or otherwise. You never know who or what you will find. Therefore, when appropriate, he is happy to refer clients to a family therapist or a law firm specializing in adoption, donation, and surrogacy.

He ends his “About” page with – I am here to help you.