I’ll Cry If I Want To

It is quite common for an adoptee to be sad on their birthday, even when they can’t understand why. It has been noted by therapists that adoptees often sabotage their own birthday parties, even when they were looking forward to them.

Each of my parents were with their original mothers for months before they were taken away and given to other people to raise through adoption.

Consider what a birthday means to an adoptee.

An adoptee often cannot help but think of the woman who gave birth to them on their birthday. Many hope that the mother is also thinking of them on that date.

A child who was adopted may have a hard time understanding why they are so inconsolably sad at a time when they should be happy. Tears, emptiness, fear and despair might seem a bit over the top to observers. Maybe they could consider the symbolic meaning of that day to an adoptee.

A pre-verbal child will experience bewilderment at the sudden absence of their original mother. They have become attuned to the sound of her voice, the smell of her body and the way she touches them (unless removed from her at birth, when only the sound of being in her womb is left in their deepest memories).

A child adopted as an infant may lack conscious memories of their loss and so can’t make sense of it. A reunion with the original mother can make the birthday triggered emotional wound worse.

If the original mother was unwed, there were no excited visitors or phone calls of congratulations. No one was there taking sweet or silly photos of those first days. All of these an adoptee has lost from their earliest days.

If healing is able to occur, then the hurt and anger that take over an adoptee’s emotions around the time of their birthday may lessen. If not, then it will only be the passing of time that changes the focus and makes possible the ability to move forward again.

Motherhood – Post Adoption

An infertile couple unable to conceive are generally focused on their own needs. Some have a rescue complex. They hide their own issues behind a desire to save some poor child from a fate worse than death.

What is rarely talked about are the long-term mental and physical effects upon the original mother from surrendering her baby to others for adoption.

It would only be natural to expect a woman who has carried a baby in her womb for nine whole months to experience some short-term grief.

The reality is that there is often a long-term lasting impact. How long you ask – 4 years, 25 years, forever ? Just as every person is different, every mother who loses a child will have differing abilities to put the loss behind her and go on with her life. Never does she ever truly forget.

So, a relinquishing mother may go on, will certainly have some kind of life but she is generally forced to live a code of silence that carries with it a toxic aftermath of effects upon her physical and mental health continuing throughout her life.

Some mothers feel compelled to search for their child. These women may be prone to a lowered self-esteem, anxiety and may worry about the well-being of their child. These women may require more doctor visits and most will attribute their physical and mental problems over the years to the loss of their child to adoption.

Many of these women had parental pressure to surrender their child to adoption. Certainly, one of my sisters did. One of my grandmothers may have. The indications are there – she was married but separated from her husband for some unknown reason. She was sent away from Tennessee to Virginia to have that baby. I doubt she was supposed to bring my mother back to Tennessee with her but she did.

I would say that ALWAYS, these women had little or no emotional support during the pregnancy and after the relinquishment. There would have been few, more likely no, opportunities to talk about their feelings related to the surrender. There is overall a lack of social support for their depression.

In letters written by natural mothers post-adoption, there is an intensity of feeling and a need to describe the emotional pain they continue to carry within them.

Even when comfortable with their decision to relinquish, as my youngest sister definitely was, very proactive, very concerned about the outcome for her baby – I do not doubt that she still felt a loss, some pain and mourning (even if not consciously aware it was that) and based upon a letter she sent to her son during his teen years, she did have a continuing sense of caring for that long vanished child.

Many wounded mothers live then for decades with shame and a societally enforced silence over their “secret” children because no one really wants to hear about it after a short period of time. For the mother, there is no end to it except her eventual death.

Cutting Ties

Ours is not a happy story. I didn’t fully realize that until I began to finally learn about who my original grandparents were.

I had described the situation though and I had intuitive senses about it before I began to read what others had written about it as well.

I put together everything I knew into book form – a limited edition only meant for direct family and not even all of it.

Knowing it wasn’t a happy story before I sent it off to its recipients, even so I was willing to risk the fallout that might blow back at me. And it has. Sadly.

What I regret most was that it appears it will impact several others who had nothing to do with my decision to come fully to face all of the less than happy truths about our family circumstances.

Yet with a heavy heart and deep sadness, I also know it isn’t something that only happened last night. It has been always at the edge and always unhappy. The wounds are deep, complicated and hurting.

I wish it wasn’t that way. I suppose that many families do have less than happy stories. I have cut off my youngest sister for the time being because she has traumatized me. My husband and his brother who were once very close are not now. It happens. That doesn’t mean I rejoice in it.