Are We Real?

Hello everyone, I am a adult adoptee and I don't think just because you adopted a child and gave them a roof over their head and food to eat makes you the real parent Although now I am 29yrs of age with my own family ( husband and children) I still consider the women who gave birth to me to be my real mother. I can not say that she is not a real mom because the law is keeping me from knowing the truth behind the adoption. Although most adoptees get adopted into fairly good homes, this does not apply to all of us. Speaking for myself growing up with the family that adopted me was not so good. I did not have a relationship with the woman who adopted me, and when I got to a certain age I started working and supporting myself. Not saying that they did not love me but just saying that they did the best that they could with me. Now that I am older and they are much older, ( already had five grown children, youngest in high school when they adopted me) I respect that they did the best that they could with me and I respect them for taking me in. But the woman and man who created me will always be my true mother and father and I am going to want to know who they are, it doesn't make my adoptive parents less. These are two individuals who my children call grandma and grandpa and go and hug and kiss. These are two individuals who I call to check up on and tell them I love them. These are two individuals who I respect and look at truly as parents, not because they put a roof over my head but because they say they want me to know who I really am and find out who my family is. That kind of self-less love is what makes my adoptive parents real parents. When two people can have enough respect for the people who brought you into this world and say " you should try to find them." It no longer is about them and their feeling but more about the child (children) they have raised. They know that I am grateful and that I love them, they know that they will always be my mom and dad, and my children will always be their grands. I feel when people start throwing around the word "real" its because they have some insecurity within themselves and they are afraid. Its often said all is done for the protection of the adoptive child but is it really? Maybe its for the security of the adoptive parents? If you have truly raised your adopitive children with love, security and with a passion then no threat can ever break that because deep down inside you know the truth, that you will always be their parents. As adoptive parents you should be able to respect and accept the fact that the one's who gave birth to them is their parents as well. That is just my opinion as a adoptive child, not intended to offend either side, so if I did I apoligize now. :flower:

((((Kathy)))) I'm so sorry. I agree with a lot of what you say, although I have to be honest and say my experience was different being that I had a semi-open adoption with my son and at least was able to get updates and know how he was doing over the years. I also got extensive counseling and was not forced by anyone to make the decision to place my child for adoption. My son's parents have been supportive of him getting to know me. We are not yet in reunion (I am hoping to work toward that), but his parents have addressed me in correspondence as his mom, too, which has been wonderful. Still, it was by no means easy, and I know exactly how you feel when you say that people expect us to be "over it" in short order! How is that possible?? My own mother, who was supportive in some ways, told me just 2 weeks post-partum "I thought you'd be over this by now" when I was grieving terribly. I hadn't even signed papers yet, but was still considering my decision. So many people have told me "well, it was your CHOICE to give up your baby!" as if just because I made the decision to give him a better life than I thought I could provide at the time means that somehow it wasn't supposed to hurt or I wasn't entitled to talk about it. Crazy, I know. I can't imagine having this monumental decision made for me by my mom or anyone else and then be expected to never speak of it as if it was something to be ashamed of. I will NEVER be ashamed of having my son! I think it's good to come here, read more of the posts and get your feelings out. There are others who have similar stories as yours who know exactly what you have endured. And then others, like me, whose stories are different, but still understand. :grouphug:

hi Kathy, My bdaughter is almost 20 and I still haven't "got over it" but I do have more good days that bad compared to 10 years ago. I only discuss her loss to adoption with other people on this forum because people just don't understand the weirdness of adoption. I have reunited with bdaughter but she has stopped contact with out giving a reason why...

Greenbottles, I don't think we ever "get over" it. It's one of those life experiences that changes us forever! Kathy, adoption was my choice but it definitely had life changing consequences for me and my son. Choosing to raise him would have had other life changing consequences. Ultimately, I chose adoption because I believed it was best in my circumstances. I still believe it was the best choice for him although I didn't wholly anticipate the effect it would have on me.

Hi Jane, No one can understands us like each other. I was 17 when my Mom gave my daughter away to strangers. We never talked about it and now both my parents have passed. I have more bad days than good. My heart just won't let the past go. I reunited with my daughter last November and she lives only and hour away. I did not get to hold my daugher or even see her after she was born. Now she is 38 and it hurts more than ever that I didn't get to be her Mom. I thought the pain would go away if I got to meet her, but it is worse for me. But I do have peace of mind. You said you lost contact with your daughter. That must be very hard not to know why. I can not imagine losing my daughter a second time. I pray your daughter will come around and whatever it is that's keeping her away will change as she gets older. It's hard on adoptee's as well, if they have their aparents making them feel guilty. I understand it to a point that they might feel threatened, however, if they really love their child like a real mother, then they would do anything to keep from making their child feel guilty for only wanting to know who they are and to meet us. Aparents should have had to go through counceling before thay adopted and there should have been an agreement they would have had to sign, stating that if the bmom ever comes back into the picture and the adopted child wants a relationship, they can't be opposed to it and must honor whatever reasons the child has for wanting to reunite. I wish you the best in getting back the relationship you both deserve. Kathy Lynn

Sorry for intruding on this thread (I'm an adoptee, not a birth mother) but I just wanted to remind people that adoptive parents aren't the only things that make reunion hard on adoptees. The feelings and emotions can be SO intense (or other aspects of reunion could come into play) that adoptees may want to back away and it could have absolutely NOTHING to do with their parents... You may not have meant it to sound as if ALL adoptees have unsupportive adoptive parents...but I just wanted to be sure.

I'm an adoptee...that sounds pretty good to me. My family supports me and have welcomed my birthfamily into our lives (even though some of the older generations of my family didn't "get it".)

Hi Green! I'm a birthmother successfully reunited with my daughter 20 years ago. It was a long journey. You said you haven't heard from your daughter in awhile and don't know why. It's difficult for all members of the "triad" to assimilate everything at once. Even when time would go by without contact from my daughter at first, I would still send birthday, Christmas, Easter, St. Paddy's cards, etc. just saying, "Thinking of you and hoping all is well". It worked for us. Hope things turn out well for you.

Kathy -- My name is Raven, and from judging by the age of your daughter, you relinquished about a year before I did. (I surrendered my son in the early part of 1972, shortly after I turned 17.) I identify with many of the things you've written, and I can hear your lifelong grief and pain. You ask how your own mother could insist that her daughter give up her child for adoption. I think that many of us mothers from that era (the '60s and '70s) wonder the same thing. I know I do... Have you ever read The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler? I believe you might be able to better understand your own mom if you read the book. It seems that many of our parents were caught in the same societal trap that we were at the time. Fessler does an outstanding job at explaining that time period in a sociological and historical perspective. She talks a lot about the rise of the middle class in America following World War II, and how that climb made so many people in our parents' generation cling to what they had, even if it meant that they turned their backs on their "daughters in trouble". Fessler also has many interviews in the book with mothers who surrendered their children during those times. It helped me a lot to find out that many of us had the same experiences and the same feelings. As far as your daughter's amom goes, I think you need to realize that back in the early 1970's, adoptive parents really didn't think that we'd ever be back in their lives. That was the rule of the day during the Closed Era. Some of us were actually told by the agencies or lawyers that we would never be allowed to search for our babies once the papers were signed, even after our babies grew up. The thing is, Kathy, the adoptive parents were being told the same thing back then. They were told that babies were "blank slates", that nurture reigned supreme over nature, and that once the paperwork was all signed, sealed, and delivered...well, they would be the only parents the child would ever know or love. So that generation of adoptive parents has had to readjust to the new times, too. You said, "I gave her a beautiful daughter, she has 2 wonderful grand daughters and her life is full of joy all because of me. I need her to thank me for what I gave up for her." I have to admit something here...I cringed when I read those words. Really, really think about this for a minute or two: did you really "give" up so much of yourself, including your daughter, for her (the amom)? Or did you do what so many of us did back in those years and surrender your daughter because you couldn't find a way to keep her and because you wanted her to have a better life? I know that I couldn't have cared less when I relinquished my son that his new parents were finally able to have a child they could call their own. I really didn't care at all about their infertility problems, and I didn't set great store in the fact that relinquishing my son was solving their problems. It all boiled down to the fact that I couldn't figure out how to keep my baby...and I wanted so much more for him than I could give him at the time. I think I would probably be very uncomfortable if either of his parents were ever to thank me...I would probably react in the same manner I did when his mother thanked me for not aborting him. I just about spit my iced tea all over the table when that sentence came out of her mouth. I literally sat there speechless... I guess what I'm trying to say is I did not give up my son so that his adoptive parents could have a child -- I gave my son up so that he could have two parents, a mother AND a father. One thing that came to mind when I read your post was the memory of what I went through in the early days of reunion (almost 20 years ago now). There was a tremendous amount of anger; it was totally unexpected, and it left me reeling. There was also an incredible amount of grief...it felt like someone was tearing open a deep wound. They were issues and emotions that I thought I had dealt with in triad support groups, therapy, and journaling. But they all came flooding back the instant I met my son face to face and held him in my arms for the very first time. (Like so many of us from those years, I was not allowed to see or hold my baby. They knocked me out right when he crowned, and removed him from the delivery room before they brought me out of anesthesia.) I've come to learn through the years since 1990 that many birth/first mothers experience the same flood of emotions and memories when they reunite with their grown children. It's like we reexperience all the trauma, grief, and loss that we went through when we surrendered them. It's normal, but there are things you can do to help heal that hurt. Your daughter is 38 years old now. I'm sure she's having her own emotions, thoughts, and ideas about your reunion...and where it goes from here. This stuff all takes time, a lot of time. It might not be so much that her amom is having difficulty dealing with your reunion. It could just be the dynamics of reunion, itself. In a lot of ways, reunion is like a dance. (There was a thread in the Adoptee Support forum several years ago about the dance -- I'll have to go look it up.) Welcome to the forums. There's a lot of great people from all three sides of the triad here. I've learned so much from everyone over the past few years. And I've made some great friends. If you stick around, I'm sure you will too! :loveyou:

Raven, My cousin adopted a baby and she has always been thankful to the bmom from the first day her daughter was placed in her arms. She did not know about my ordeal until 1 year ago, so her feelings have nothing to do with me. No one knew about my baby except for my Mom, Dad and Brother. That's how ashamed my Mom was of me. My cousin, Diane, lost her daughter, Amy, to epilepsy October 4, 2008. Today is Amy's birthday. Amy searched the internet and found her bmom. Diane was scared that if Amy met her bmom that she would lose a part of Amy and that Amy would not love her in the same way anymore. She knew that Amy wanted to meet her bmom, so she never showed her feeling of fear. She met Amy's bmom, Sandy, and they became the best of friends. She told Sandy how grateful she was to have Amy and thanked her for such a precious gift. Diane knew that she had suffered pain in not being able to concieve a baby and she knew that Amy's bmom would always carry the pain even though she was giving her baby a better life. Diane too, was told that the records were sealed. I don't think it matters why we had to give our babies up. You are right, I did not think of the amom at the time I surrendered my daughter. The point is aparents would not be parents today if it weren't for us and the way society viewed unwed mothers. Diane loved Amy as if she had given birth to her but she never lost sight of the fact that Amy had a bmom that was probably grieving her loss everyday. You can tell by this story that Diane is a very compassionate and loving person. Today, we will go the the gravesite, release baloons and have a celebration of Amy's short life. Diane suffers everyday the loss of her Beloved Amy. Sandy, Amy's bmom has suffered the loss of her daughter twice and Diane acknoledges that fact all on her own. She made Sandy a photo album of Amy's life from day one and this is before Amy passed away. I'm sorry if it made you cringe when you read my words that I think amom should thank me for a wonderful daughter and 2 beautiful grand daughters. My daughter and I have a good relationship, but she cannot be totaly happy due to the fact that her amom will not even let her talk about me. Her amom is putting her feelings before her daughters. I have made it clear from the first time I met my daugter that if her amom is not at peace with this she does not have to feel guilty to not see me or have contact with me again. I told her I would understand and that my only concern is that she be at peace with all of this and that maybe in time her amom would come around and I would wait, not matter how long it took. I told her I would not think that she was rejecting me and that her obligations to her amom was her first priority, not me. I am not a selfish person. I just think that amoms need to understand that adoptee's have many reasons for wanting to meet their bmoms and they have a right to know who they are. I put my daughter's feelings first and I think she should, too. Being parents is not always easy and sometimes we have to put our feelings aside and do what is best for our child. I have another daughter that is 32 years old and I told her about her sister 5 years ago. They have become very close. Her amom will not even meet her sister and does not even want to talk about her. The amom should realize that her only child,of course, wants to have a relationship with her sister, which is an only child too. They are the victims here, not me or her, but the the sisters. It's their birth right to be together if they choose to. Her daughter should not be made to feel guilty for having a sister. Maybe, I am wrong about her thanking me. I really don't know. But her daughter does have a sister and they both are only children, so she should be happy that they will have each other after we are gone. Sisters have a bond even if they didn't grow up together. I don't want to offend anyone and If I do I am very sorry. I know amoms and bmoms have different feelings. I only want the best for my daughter because she did not have a choice in who raised her. Adoptee's are the victim of circumstance. They should never be made to feel guilty. Thier feeling should always come first.

Ladies, I've been wondering around these bulletins for days, and this thread broke my heart. I want to share my story with you, so you can understand my gratitude. And... THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION, I'm not even sure if I'm going to adopt. My husband and I have been dealing with infertility for 4 years, and are currently considering adoption. All of the birthmothers out there who think adoptive parents are ungrateful for your sacrifice... well, I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself. And I know that if my husband and I ever do get to the point in our infertility sturggle where we are decided on adoption, I would be eternally grateful to the REAL mom, who allowed me the chance to be a mother, which I otherwise could not. Neither side of the coin is easy. Both processes are scary and frustrating for everyone involved. I think the all birthmothers out there are heroes. I know all of you have given up your child, maybe even against your will, but I want to thank each of you for allowing someone else the chance to be a mother, especially if the adoptive parents have seemed unsupportive. I can't make up for their hurtful decisions if they've excluded you from your baby's life, but I can say thank you, because people like me may never have that opportunity without selfless caring mother's like you. It takes a real woman to put her own child's needs above her own. And I am proud and thankful to each of you that have had the courage and the strength to have done so.

Flashgal, I do not think all adoptive parents are selfish and ungrateful. I just know a few that have been. You sound like you will be a wonderful Mother. I wish you all the luck in the world that you will one day concieve a child of your own. My daughter's amom won't have anything to do with me or her only daughter's sister. However I am very grateful to her that she gave my daughter a wonderful life. I feel blessed that she is the amom that received my baby. I did not want to give my baby away, but that's the way it was in the early 70's. If I can feel thankful for her, why can't she feel a little compassion for me? It really doesn't matter that much to me, but it does matter that she is making her daughter feel guilty for wanting a relationship with me and her only sister. God bless you and no matter how you become a Mom, I know you will be a loving, caring parent and your child will be very lucky to have you as their MOM. Thank you for caring how bmom's feel. Kathy Lynn

As others have said here, I don't think any us who surrendered and lost our beloved babies did it in any way to make an adoptive family's life happier and complete. We sacrificed our hearts and souls out of great love and wanting our children to have a better life than we could provide at the time. Saying that, many years after reuniting with my daughter, I met her a'father. It was not planned and happend by chance. Spontaneously, we both hugged and cried and thanked one another. My daughter stood by with tears rolling down her cheeks. I think it made her feel more whole, complete and loved than she ever had before. I appreciated his words of thanks because it was a recognition of the joy that came into his life because of the treasure that was bestowed upon him through me. It made me feel that he respected both me and "our" daughter and also made me know that he was always aware that his blessing came through someone else's love and pain. He even asked for me, my daughter's mother, on his death bed. (My daughter's a'mom and he had divorced many years ago. Her a'mom was furious that we reunited and only told my daughter, "Remember, I am the one who always loved you". She & I never met and now she has Alzheimer's.) Her words deeply hurt both my daughter and me. Her words intimated that she was never loved by her birthmother, me, and that she was simply thrown away and taken in. Not all adoptive parents are healthy, though those of us who surrenderd in closed adoptions (1963) were told that they would be. You sound like a wonderful and loving person who will be the best mom a child could ask for. Thank you for accepting and respecting us "first moms" and for being willing to embrace the totality of any child that may come to you through adoption. Blessings upon you and your husband and I pray that all of your dreams come true. (After adopting my daughter, her family had 2 biological children.) You just never know. Put it all in God's hands and do all you can do to make it happen. NanieB

Sparky, My firstborn daughter's a'mom lied always about my/her daughter being adopted. When she found out the we were reunited (20 years ago) she was furious and told my daughter, "Remember, I am the one who always loved you!" We both know that her words certainly do not convey REAL love. I understand her being threatened....but...as someone said, our babies didn't "fall out of the sky". If you adopt, you must accept the whole package and not be selfish. It should ALL be about the welfare of "our" children. My greatest pain is that after I surrendered my firstborn, I married and had a daughter and a son. My son and his family are very close to my firstborn. However, my other daughter, though they have met and liked one another so much, even after 20 years cannot not accept my firstborn and get over the fact that afterall she was not my firstborn. She will tolerate getting together at big family events, but otherwise it's never talked about and she just wishes her older sister didn't even exist. I feel like I found my lost daughter and lost the daughter that I also loved and raised in the process. Why can't people just get over all of this? There is pain and loss for everyone in the adoption triad, but why can't everyone understand that the human heart has an infinite capacity for love and that loving one doesn't diminish the love of another. ? Thanks for listening. Sorry to go on so.

Everthing you said here, Raven, is sooo totally right on! Hope all is well with you. Blessings, NanieB