for all the birth mums out there, and to my own birth mum, who i know watches over me

An incredible story, I am sorry for how you found out but very glad you searched right away and that your mother at least had peace before she passed about you, that would have been very meaningful to her - probably more than you or I could ever understand being on the flip side. I am sorry you never got to meet her and get to know her, I was too late too. Welcome to the forums...stick around and get to know us. Kind regards,Dickons

Hi Azurwolf I just wanted to say how moved I was by your story. I am so pleased that your mother was able to get your letter before she passed away and, as you said, your letter would have set her free and allowed her to rest. I know what you mean about the confusing but deep and tangible grief. Sometimes I feel that the very reason I feel I shouldn't be so upset is the same reason I am so upset (i.e. the not getting to ever know my bmother before she passed away) (I'm not sure if that makes too much sense LOL). Do you feel like there is noone in the "real world" you can tell about how you feel? That is why these forums are so great because there is usually someone who understands at least some of how you feel. Everybody on these forums has their own interesting stories and it opens your eyes to how complex the adoption situation really is from all angles. Anyway, as Dickons says, welcome to the forums. Catherine

thanks for both of you for your replies and yes it is good to talk here i guess, people who can really understand the issues. My adoptive parents really just don't talk about the whole thing. They don't even acknowledge the subject. It took a lot for them to even get round to telling me the document i needed was an adoption certificate and that they could send me a copy.. since then they have never broached the subject and i guess after all these years of silence it is a subject they just don't want to discuss. So, I have gone through all of this on my own, and ironically in finding myself i have grown more distant to my adoptive parents, not cos of any negative feelings towards them, but because the shock of finding i am adopted spurred me into a whole identity crisis which has actually opened me up, liberated me, but the changes are ones i can't talk to my adoptive parents about... so my life has moved forwards, and their ability to relate to me has been lost, which i feel very sad about. If only they could talk, we could cover a lot of issues that would broach the increasing gap. The brother I grew up with, i found out, is also adopted. he knew twenty years ago but never told me, cos he thought he was the only adopted child of the family! I have tried to talk to him, but he would rather that the adoption thing is just not talked about. He has no wish to find his birthmother because he feels it would upset our adoptive parents too much. I talk to my half brother, the other child of my birthmum, and through him i have a link to my birthmum that is trully important. But, they had quite a traumatic life, so it is painful for him to talk about. occasionally we have deep conversations that are really amazing, the two perspectives... him wondering why his mum cried on the 12th may, him wondering why she was so sad and troubled, him trying to work through his feelings when he found out about my existance when he was 13 and eventually me getting in touch nearly 20 years after that... the reality of a half sister he had thought would never actually get in touch. it is a complex thing, and few people I think can trully understand the depth and complexity of the situation. I am sad, in many ways, because the whole thing represents a lot of negative feelings... the relationship between my birthmum and her family, the life of my birthmul after she was forced to give me up, the life of my birthmum and my half brother, the things i know mt adoptive parents can't talk about, the result of that 36 year secret being i never got to meet the mother who greived for me every day... the positives are more difficult to find, but they are there, deep, real... but few people have the experience to be able to really understand it all. I don't understand it all yet, and i have been through therapy and have had four years to think about it.. so, yes, it is good to be here and to talk a

Hi A, There are definitely a lot of complicated feelings in regards to adoption, especially in our situation of having a birthmother who is no longer with us. I personally have the added complication of my bmother keeping me a total secret (I was born overseas, she extended her holiday and presumably worked as a nanny so she could arrange my adoption) so I don't even have any real idea what she thought about me (or even whether she thought about me) through the years. Unfortunately, she died at the age of 39 (heart attack) when I would only have been 16 (too early to even start looking for each other). I have met my uncles and cousins who are all lovely so that is one of the positives for me. It sounds like your bbrother is a positive in your life and it sounds like you are helping each other cope with things. By the way, if you ever want to talk to someone about things that you don't want to say on the public forum, I am more than happy if you want to pm me (if you click on the name of the poster you wish to send a pm to, it will come up with that option). Hope things get easier for you and I hope there were some good times yesterday during your birthday. Catherine

thanks Cath, i will keep that in mind a

It is one year since my last post. It is my birthday again on Thursday. My birthmum is again very prominant in my thoughts. It is now just over six years since i found out i am adopted, and four years since i missed meeting my brithmum by a few days. I know she watches over me, and my kids. Sometimes in my dreams she visits and stands in the edge of my vision watching me, watching my kids playing, and she smiles before she fades. Sometimes she is sitting on a garden swing-chair reading a book, but as i walk closer she fades. She remembered every birthday of mine for all those years, now I am nearly 42, and I will be lighting a candle for her on my birthday. meanwhile, the adoption drama continues. My half brother is suddenly very ill, and looking at the age my birthmum died, her father before her, and her grandfather, they suspect something genetic - so now I am off for tests, new medication, more tests... I don't know who my father is. So I guess it is all a bit of a lottery... who knows what I will be reporting this time next year! az xxx

I really enjoyed reading your story and am so very sorry you were so close to finding your bmom and then she passed away.You truly have an angel watching over you, as a bmom myself, I know how she felt all those years grieving over her baby. I wish you many more birthdays and hope that you have nothing serious wrong so that you can be here for your kids!!! Good Luck with your tests!!!

well, i don't have emphysema, but i do have pretty serious asthma, inherited of course from my mother, 70% the lung capacity of what I should have, new medication... but that is not why i am posting, this is the next part of my story. when i first found my birth-family they were in grief, my birthmother had just died, they had just found me, I had just found them. It was a very emotionally intense reunion. They showed me photos. I saw more relatives in one afternoon than i can remember, photo after photo. They told me the story of my birthmum, not a happy story, but yet heroic, and ultimately she pulled it all together, and then was diagnosed with emphysema, uncureable, and she hung on five years, i guess waiting for my letter. Well, I'm not going to go through every detail of the past five years, but i read a diary of hers, written the day she was diagnosed, it was written to me. That short paragraph changed my life... So, a divorce, complete life change, I am happier, I followed her advice, simply to get my glow on, to live with no regrets, to know that, they day I realise this is the end, i can say, yes, ok, i have no regrets, i lived my life true to myself, i lived true to my values. My uncle, her brother, is an alcoholic, won't talk to me. My half brother is so traumatised by it all he can't talk to me. A friend of hers, a good friend, i try to contact her, and she seems unable to reply. All i have of my mother is a photo, and yet everything I am is because of her. My adoptive mother and I, we never had the best relationship. I am 42 and most of my life i have lived in fear of her, i have felt the worst of emotions, haunted, traumatised. I have been in therapy, well, it is more a series of self-development sessions, getting to the core of me, quite a journey. Recently, i started having nightmares, a child, a baby crying, crying in a way you never want to hear, a baby petrified, scared, unable to move, she is aware of only her eyes, looking out into the darkness, and she is crying, crying, screaming, petrified... my therapist advised me to read "the primal wound"... so, i read it, and through my copy in the margin is written YES! YES! YES! It is spooky, to see one's inner self written into a book by someone who never knew me, and yet knows me better than i knw myself. Something unblocked in my mind, I talked a lot with my therapist, the separation at birth, the trauma, the way it hard-wires a child's essential instincts and shapes their whole development. I feel sorry for my adoptive mother. She was part of the 1960-1970s phase of "take a child from a teenage mother, give it to a middle class family and all will be well" generation. They never knew about the primal wound, but she dealt with the screaming baby, and i can't imagine her sense of frustration and disappointment and even perhaps fear and rejection when that baby kept crying even when she tried to comfort me... Well, I went back home recently, after a long history of a really bad relationshop between me and my adoptive mother... my mum, after working through a lot of stuff, things were really good. My only sadness, deep, eternal, engraved in my soul, is my grief for my mother. I read the book over and over. I go back to my therapist. There is a grief inside me without words. It is engraved in the instinctive, intrinsic, basic memory of a 6 day old baby taken from its mother. This is where I am in my journey. I am defining myself, understanding things, my relationship with myself, and my Mum is better than ever, but, even writing this makes me cry for my birthmother... is there a way to heal the primal wound?

Hi I just answered on another of your threads and thought your story sounded familiar! Wow, it must have been interesting to read her diary and it sounds like it has really helped. I'm sorry that your relatives don't feel able to talk though I suppose it is all still so new. Hopefully, in years to come, that situation will change. Living true to yourself is the most important thing. One thing I have found is that even though I do feel a deep sadness about the situation, I have never regretted making contact - I feel I have discovered more about myself in the last year than ever before. Knowing my bfamily has added an extra dimension to my life. It is still a rollercoaster but wouldn't ever go back to how it was before.

I can so relate to your feelings. At times I just long so much to be physically close to someone like a mother, but I am very uncomfortable with intimacy, and when I finally am able to be close with someone, I usually feel a crash afterward, like that terrifying feeling must have been when my mother was gone and I couldn't move or run after her or tell her to come back. I was just stuck there alone and scared. I know that is true. It's before I can remember, but somehow I know it. The sad thing is that I didn't know it when I gave birth to my son and gave him up for adoption thinking he would be fine and I was giving him a better life through my sacrifice. Sometimes I just hold onto a pillow because that's all I have, and just feel myself fall and let it happen.I think that through all the pain things have gotten a little better for me. At times I've wondered if maybe they never would... it's confusing to be a ghost. I try to hold onto myself and my feelings, but it's hard, and someday I will have to let go of all this searching and just live and I hope that when I do that I don't go into denial and feel lost again. Anyway, I don't know if any of this makes sense, but your thoughts and feelings are so honest and sad and I just feel I understand you.Though you are alone, I know your birthmom longed for you as you long for her. Blessings.