I have just been re-reading the responses to my previous post. There are so many times that I start thinking that I am imagining things and it is just me. Even my husband who has been wonderfully supportive during the ups and downs of reunion doesn't understand that adoption is harmful. He understands how my daughter and I feel about each other and is very fond of her and my grandson. He doesn't understand about the the the painful parts. I was on Phil's blog and was completely blown away when I saw what he had written about mothers believing they were doing whats best. Reading what everyone said really made me understand that this is not just a me thing. I am not crazy when I say that I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't believed the lie. Part of me just kept wondering if that was just an excuse and all I cared about at the time was getting past a problem. Its not how I remember feeling but can I trust my memories? Was I trying to re-write the past in order to justify the unjustifiable? Thanks to all of the responses I know that it isn't me being delusional.
Speaking of thanks, you guys are helping me through another difficut time with my daughter. For the past week she han't been communicating at all. I send her e-mails and no response. I think I know what is going on but of course can't be sure. I just try to keep reminding her that I am here for her and love her. Yes it is all about adoption "issues". I am angry, sad, hurt and about every other emotion you can imagine. It helps to know this isn't just my daughter and I going through the difficulties of reunion. There is nothing wrong with us. There is everything wrong with separation. There is everything wrong with believing the lie. Canuck, I hope the contact results in reunion for you. It is hard to face the fact that by believing the lie we have harmed our children. It is impossible to understand what is going on in a reunion if we don't.
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Hi there
I have just discovered your blog and your latest post struck a bit of a chord with me. I'm an adoptee who has been in reunion for nearly eight years. It worries me a little bit that you as a natural mother would use the term adoption "issues", something I have only ever heard from my adoptive mother, and I wonder if you realise how that would make your daughter feel. Granted, adoptees have many shared "issues", but I would like to think that our natural mums of all people would understand that and would know enough to give us what we need when we have already been through so much, rather than labeling what we are feeling. I know that our natural mothers have been through hell, but so have we, and understanding and time is what we need. When you said that your daughter hasn't communicated with you for a week, alarm bells went off for me. I know that I, and many adoptees I know, needed time to consolidate our feelings after our reunion, and that constant contact was just not something we all felt comfortable with. This did not mean that we didn't want contact at all, just that we couldn't suddenly have a mother-child relationship with our natural mums because we don't have that shared history, and we don't really know each other. My natural sister wanted me to be the sister who she spoke to every night about everything but I just couldn't do that. We had just met and it felt like an acquaintance I had just made was telling me everything about her life which is just weird. I hope I am making some kind of sense here. I guess I really just want to say that if your daughter needs time and space, it's best to respect that, or she might feel smothered which could damage your relationship. I apologise if I have given unwanted advice but as I said, that post struck a chord.
Thank you anonymous. This does help. I apologize for the word ;issues'. I really didn't know that it was one of those words. There are a lot of them for both of us and I haven;t been on the boards enough to rellay understand. It is a nasty word in a lot of ways. It sounds like YOU have a problem. Adoption is the problem. I just didn't know what other word to use without getting specific. I try for the nutral and don't always hit the right note. For me it is hyphenated mother anything. Reunion is a liguistic nightmare. Maybe I will write about that sometime. Now that you have brought it up. I can see your point. It does sound rather like you (that would be the plural y'all/vosotros) have some kind of a problem of your own making. That is the problem. It is not of your making it is ours. We are the ones who believed the lie. The problems follow. Is there a better word that doesn't involve really emotion charged words that can make me sound like a raving, pissed off, lunatic who shouldn't be taken seriously? Then again I feel like one more often than I would like.
Like all reunions, ours is complex. I have tried to avoid the mother/child relationship because my daughter is an adult. She is very smart and talented and charming and so many other things. I respect her ability to make choices that are right for her. I am not the parent who often believes they have the right to dictate the choices. That doesn't mean that sometimes her choices don't hurt. I can understand the need to just have the time to process everything that is going on. There is a lot of baggage on both sides. The last time I talked to her there was so much resignation about things she feels she can;t change. There was way too much belief that somehow she had to earn love by doing what everyone else wanted and nothing about what she wanted and needs. I am trying very hard to not ask anything from her while letting her know that I care and that I am there for her. If she needs time I will give it to her. If she just needs to know that she is loved I will give that to her. If she needs to just be a child who feels protected and loved, I will be there for her. Since she can't or won't tell me I am guessing. I understand why it is difficult. I am trying
It was very wanted advice you gave me. Trying to understand each other can be a real mine field.
Your not crazy. That was one of the best peices I have read yet. Rachael and I dont' seem to have the problems in reunion that plague others but I still could relate to the lie that keeps on working. I am sorry you are having such difficulties but knowing that you can't change something is a good start to learning to live with it. I don't want to discredit anyones feelings but on a completely different level I can relate.
There is nothing I can do to change my past. I can't forget it, I can't make it go away. But I can choose to accept the fact that it is the past not the here and now. I am no longer many things I once was and I take great pride in that. I may still be lots of things but they are not the things I once was. I still have tons of remorse, Rachael still has abandonment issues, but we still have each other and that in itself is better than it was before. If I could take her issues away from her I would, but I can't. She tries to lessen my guilt and can't. We dont' have the mother daughter bond and that's okay too. Neither of us is hung up on labels or titles, we are just content to be in each others lives. For us being together again seems to be more important than any of the junk that gets in the way. We have each had hurdles to get over individually and see anything that comes from here on out as small potatoes in comparison.
I hope you two can find a common ground that fuels your reunion and doesn't allow obstacles to be anything more than small potatoes.
Hello,
Are you involved with any other mothers who lost their children to adoption?
You can read the multitude of memoirs written by mothers. You could also read "The Girls Who Went Away" by Ann Fessler.
But nothing will be as comforting and assuring as being among other mothers and sharing your pain with others who have walked a mile or more in your shoes.
I invite you to check out Origins-USA.org. Check out the book list and our newsletter...and most of all our newest project The Mothers Stories project! Read other mothers' stories and share yours!
Your husband will NEVER "get it." He can't. He hasn't lived it.
Mirah Riben, author, THE STORK MARKET: America's Multi-Billion Dollar Unregulated Adoption Indistry
Fuzzy Rat,
I'm confused about the previous commentor who opposed using the term "adoption issues". Don't all of us in the adoption traid have issues that we wouldn't have, had it not been for adoption? I know I have plenty of adoption issues. I'd really like to know what's so offensive in saying so...???
I have a few comments meant in the mildest way to suggest some possibilities for improved relations among we people who are adoption involved. First, if one person uses "issues" and another person doesn't like it, at least these two can discuss it as kindly and civilly as they did. So, Jen, is there really a problem unless they're fussing about it? I really think it's fine to have preferences.
Which brings up my next point, directed to Mirah. Plenty of people who are not personally adoption involved "get" adoption; you know this is true, as some of the most luminous names in adoption reform never were birth parents, adoptive parents, or adopted people. I think a spouse or non-adopted person can "get" it because people like Annette Baran, Rueben Pannor, and Randy Severson "got" it and they aren't in the adoption triad. Maybe you momentarily forgot that? ;o)
Finally, to make my own point, I just want to point out (to Fuzzy Rat mom) that adoption is not always bad, evil, or wrong. Plenty of abandoned, abused, or truly orphaned kids and adults who had families due to adoption will agree with that. So many that I shouldn't have to make that point. Adoption doesn't suck for everyone; but it does suck for people who were pushed into the situation, were not able to give informed consent, and were otherwise victims. Is there any kind of agreement on that, and I'm missing it? I always assume good will and that most people in the triad see that some kids actually need to be adopted, but I thought I'd ask just to double check.
Eve, you are so not helping.
Yes, some kids need to be adopted, but that still does not negate the fact that THEY LOST THEIR MOTHERS AND FAMILIES.
Try to get that crammed into the empty space between your ears.
Once again...THEY STILL LOST THEIR MOTHERS AND FAMILIES.
Adoption=LOSS. It does NOT equal rainbows and butterflies.
I assume you are an adopter, which is why you seem to refuse to believe that adoption hurts people. Which is also why you choose to come to an adoptee/n-mom blog and try to dismiss their very REAL and VALID feelings. It is really quite rude and not helpful at all. Jesus would certainly not go around telling people to just get over it, as you are saying in a roundabout way.
I will pray that God gives you more compassion in your cold and unfeeling heart.
Who said kids need to be adopted? They don't. Just because children need adult care doesn't mean they need adopting! A guardianship solves their need without having to be claimed or owned by yet another family. Adoption is for the adults, not the kids. Kids need care and love, not to be trophy prizes for the infertile or for the righteous godbags.
And either way, for the child it's ALL ABOUT LOSS. The child may swallow that loss to please the new owners, the adoptive parents, so as not to be abandoned again, but do not confuse that with actual love. Newsflash: fear is not love!
Yeesh!
Kat
"some kids need to be adopted, but that still does not negate the fact that THEY LOST THEIR MOTHERS AND FAMILIES."
Love it, love it, love it.
Yes Lily...you are right. There are adoption professionals who work with this issue rather than have it as a personal part of their life. That does not mean that someone who neither lives it or works with it will "get it" - and never in the sense as one who has walked a mile...
No one knows me like my friends who have experienced the same loss I have....not even my dear beloved friend and colleague Annette Baran.
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