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I'm hoping to share my story and to get some feedback. I feel desperate to feel some peace with my situation, although not sure this is possible. I will start by saying I was adopted immediately following birth, through an attorney specializing in adoptions. All my life I felt my adoption was a gift, there was never any negative thoughts or feelings about it. I always knew I was adopted, and my adoptive parents were always open and supportive.
Periodically I searched out information on my adoption, hoping for small details, a name, a face. When I was 33, and on maternity leave with extra time to sit on the internet my husband and I stumbled upon the info. that we needed. I learned of the names of my biological grandparents and aunts/uncles, which helped me find my bio mom. I talked with, and met, two sets of aunts and uncles, and learned that bio mom was sent to my birth state, to hide the adoption from her community. She grew up in a small town, Catholic family, and her father was in office as a state politician. Her pregnancy was a huge upset in the family. These family members were wonderful, and provided me with pictures of bio mom and other valuable information. One thing I loved to learn is that we are both Social Workers, however this also served to confuse me in regards to her rejection of me, rejection of diversity in family.
Bio mom refused all contact with me. She expressed this in a very cold manner via email and a letter. Her two children were unaware of my existance, and her husband is suspected to also be in the dark. I made several attempts in writing to have a contact that she may be comfortable with. I agreed to keep everything private from her children, and sent her photos of me, my kids, thanked her for my adoption, etc. Nothing worked. After two years of waiting I made contact with her adult children. This was also encouraged by the aunts and uncles. Based on her reaction to me there have been conflict between bio mom and her siblings. I felt I had nothing to lose here, and being that my half siblings were adults I felt the benefit may be worth the risk. I had a brief phone call with my bio brother, who said they needed to process this and would get back to me. He never did. I sent an email to bio sis, she also asked for time, nothing. This was about 2 years ago.
In regards to bio dad, bio mom won't provide any info. I'm not sure she knows who he is, but she certainly won't tell me, and never told her family.
At this point, I want to move on, forget about this, but I just can't seem to. Based on her behavior I really don't think she is someone who I would want to meet, but her rejection, and lack of any sort of caring emotion towards me has really been painful. For her kids to act the same way makes me wonder, could there be more to the story? Was I the product of some horrible act done towards her? I asked her this in an email, but she didn't address it.
I'm looking for something that someone may not be able to give. I think about this too much, I search out bio mom and bio siblings on FB, although we aren't friends, I look at their pics, try to see what they are like. I'm a good person, they sound like good people, just wish things made sense.
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Thank you for your replies! After I posted my thoughts I was worried that someone may think I was too hard on bio mom. The media shows us all these positive reunions, and I don't think we are prepared for the negative. Maybe I'm wrong to feel that I deserve an explanation, some understanding.
Trying to balance respect for her, what she went through, with understanding the situation. It's a struggle. I have questions, and she has the answers, seems so simple to solve the problem.... I do recognize the positives, that I've been able to meet other family members, and have many questions answered.
Good luck with your situation, thanks again!
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From what you have written, it sounds as though your mother may have gone to a maternity home. From the little research I have done, the maternity homes were a very hostile environment. The girls were given daily "counselling" that would be called "brainwashing" today. Any expressed desire to keep their babies was treated as a sign of mental illness, because how could they choose single motherhood over freedom. Imagine being a young girl. You're pregnant, scared, and your family, the people who supposedly love and support you, is treating you as a disgrace. They send you off for to handle your "little problem" and warn you that if you come home with a baby, you don't come home at all. Girls who went through this trauma had little choice but to pretend it never happened. After three decades, it's hard to tell the difference between pretending and reality.This website helped me understand a bit more about the maternity home experience. The stories are heartbreaking. [url=http://www.exiledmothers.com/]"birth-" Mothers Exploited By Adoption - Homepage[/url]I am very, very sorry that your birth mother is rejecting your attempts to reconnect with her. How sad! My heart goes out to you.
When I started reading your story I had to go back and look at the user name to make sure it wasn't me! I have experienced the EXACT same thing except- I have not contacted my siblings yet......I do plan on doing that but although they are both adults, they still live under the same roof with biomom. I wish I had some good advice for you but I have just been starting to realize that we (the adoptee) are not the issue- I really feel like they have so much shame and guilt that they can not deal with it....As a mother I can not think of ANY other reason you would not want to meet your child.
It somehow makes it a bit easier for me at least realizing I am not the only person who feels as thought the drawbridge is up.
What really hurts is when I got in contact I told my birthfather I am going to be really frank with you because I can't take being abandoned again.
I happened anyway. I found myself being the one to call and initiate any contact. She had said that if she had it to do all over again she probably wouldn't have gone down that road meaning getting in touch with me because of her health etc or some other issue. Man that stung.
I tried not contacting them and got a phone call from my birthmother after some months of no contact and heard my birthfather in the background saying "tell to her to come over".
My mother didn't say that she said something far less direct making it my choice not her invitation.
When I asked to talk to my father she said "just for a few minutes so he doesn't get too upset". I think he understands because he was trying to have her invite me and say "we want to see you" but she refused to do it.
That put in this weird position where I felt like I was creating drama and I felt bad.
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lkrd
I'm hoping to share my story and to get some feedback. I feel desperate to feel some peace with my situation, although not sure this is possible. I will start by saying I was adopted immediately following birth, through an attorney specializing in adoptions. All my life I felt my adoption was a gift, there was never any negative thoughts or feelings about it. I always knew I was adopted, and my adoptive parents were always open and supportive.
Periodically I searched out information on my adoption, hoping for small details, a name, a face. When I was 33, and on maternity leave with extra time to sit on the internet my husband and I stumbled upon the info. that we needed. I learned of the names of my biological grandparents and aunts/uncles, which helped me find my bio mom. I talked with, and met, two sets of aunts and uncles, and learned that bio mom was sent to my birth state, to hide the adoption from her community. She grew up in a small town, Catholic family, and her father was in office as a state politician. Her pregnancy was a huge upset in the family. These family members were wonderful, and provided me with pictures of bio mom and other valuable information. One thing I loved to learn is that we are both Social Workers, however this also served to confuse me in regards to her rejection of me, rejection of diversity in family.
Bio mom refused all contact with me. She expressed this in a very cold manner via email and a letter. Her two children were unaware of my existance, and her husband is suspected to also be in the dark. I made several attempts in writing to have a contact that she may be comfortable with. I agreed to keep everything private from her children, and sent her photos of me, my kids, thanked her for my adoption, etc. Nothing worked. After two years of waiting I made contact with her adult children. This was also encouraged by the aunts and uncles. Based on her reaction to me there have been conflict between bio mom and her siblings. I felt I had nothing to lose here, and being that my half siblings were adults I felt the benefit may be worth the risk. I had a brief phone call with my bio brother, who said they needed to process this and would get back to me. He never did. I sent an email to bio sis, she also asked for time, nothing. This was about 2 years ago.
In regards to bio dad, bio mom won't provide any info. I'm not sure she knows who he is, but she certainly won't tell me, and never told her family.
At this point, I want to move on, forget about this, but I just can't seem to. Based on her behavior I really don't think she is someone who I would want to meet, but her rejection, and lack of any sort of caring emotion towards me has really been painful. For her kids to act the same way makes me wonder, could there be more to the story? Was I the product of some horrible act done towards her? I asked her this in an email, but she didn't address it.
I'm looking for something that someone may not be able to give. I think about this too much, I search out bio mom and bio siblings on FB, although we aren't friends, I look at their pics, try to see what they are like. I'm a good person, they sound like good people, just wish things made sense.
I don't even know where to begin, I'm on the other side of the fence if you will... it's a big story that every family member knows about but refuses to talk about .. How can they treat it like its some shameful secret when the fact is everyone knows about it, so it isn't a secret??? it's all very confusing. I lost a sister.. I was 3.. she is in my memory. she was present when a married into the family Aunt pierced me and my sisters ears before she sent all four of us to a foster home.. My father ended up getting 3 of us girls out and my youngest sister was given up for adoption. so because everyone carries this "open secret" which is what I call it, I am left to look for her myself.. the few family members I can get to talk about it, know very little and the other couple won't talk about it.. I was physically abused by my mother while growing up all which she stated to me as an adult that the reason she was so mean and hateful to us was because of the actions taken with my youngest sister..She refuses to offer up any info, and claims that the rest of us should mind our own business about it because it happened to her?? I was upset at these statements that she made because it didn't just happen to her.. it happened to everyone who is related to her as well, and some of us choose to know her. I don't know where to go and I don't know who to talk to.. I'm lost, confused, stuck, and hurt.. and this post just caught my eye.. I just hope that some adoptees are well aware of the fact that aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and siblings want to know.. as a birth sibling I feel as if something is missing, and it is knowing I have a sister whom I remember her sitting in her carrying with crocodile tears streaming down her face as she sit in her little baby carrier while her 3 big sisters were crying from the ear piercings that we were receiving. I remember her before I remember my own mother who does not appear in my memories until years later after our departure from the foster home.. If my family has/had/have no intentions of helping me find her, it just makes me wish that my mother and them would have never told me and my other 3 sisters about her years ago.. That was a huge sting to her siblings. it's like a bully taunting you with something extremely painful. I'm sorry that you had to go through this. and I only told my story here because I want adoptees to know that just because a birth parent isn't searching, accepting, does not mean that the rest of the family feels the same way. I look at your post and others and then think of my situation and I have read many post that say: no two adoptions are the same.. and this is a true statement. I wish you and your family well in all your future journeys and hope that you can find peace.
Thanks for giving us all some hope regarding siblings who want to know us. I am sorry that you were put in that situation. You absolutely were affected. It's stunning to me that a mother wouldn't recognize her actions affect all her children.
I can't imagine the insecurity you must have felt knowing that your mother could insinuate or justify treating you poorly because of what happened to her....as if you are merely a piece of furniture who wouldn't feel the pain, loss and anxiety. That's bizarre to me.
I may be out of line but to me it's a very weak excuse for treating you that way.
I hope that one day you are able to find your sister and that you understand that at least one person hears you pain.
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I think it's very difficult for younger people who didn't come of age during the Baby Scoop Era (1945-1974) to really understand what our society was like back in those years. Talk about shame -- you have no idea how ashamed we were made to feel, not just by teachers or ministers...but by our own parents and grandparents. The "family name" used to be sancrosanct in those years. Sully it, and you were considered an extreme disgrace.
I remember only too well how my grandmother, whom I worshipped, told me how I had disgraced the family, how they were all ashamed of me. Those are pretty hard words to live with when you are 16 or 17 years old. Older women who had already left home often didn't even tell their parents because they knew what would happen. It was pretty heavy....
RavenSong
I think it's very difficult for younger people who didn't come of age during the Baby Scoop Era (1945-1974) to really understand what our society was like back in those years. Talk about shame -- you have no idea how ashamed we were made to feel, not just by teachers or ministers...but by our own parents and grandparents. The "family name" used to be sancrosanct in those years. Sully it, and you were considered an extreme disgrace.
I remember only too well how my grandmother, whom I worshipped, told me how I had disgraced the family, how they were all ashamed of me. Those are pretty hard words to live with when you are 16 or 17 years old. Older women who had already left home often didn't even tell their parents because they knew what would happen. It was pretty heavy....
I think "shame" is what keeps people in secrecy for a variety of reasons. There is shame in being rejected. There is shame in being pregnant and not married today for some people but back then it was different. It was all encompassing.
Neighbours, employers, friends as well as family were repulsed. Growing up in a small town in the 1950's and 60's; people were still hiding behind curtains to hiss and gossip. It still happens but there are people who are working very hard to instill a new level of awareness.
I think "shame" is like a hairstyle; some people hang on to and image of themselves in what used to be their glory days. There is nothing more pitiful than someone trying to be something they're not.
It's 2013 and it would be nice if people had changed fundamentally so that they could realize we are all human and we all screw up once in a while. Perceived judgement haunt us only because we let them.
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This is exactly why my mother refuses to meet her daughter who was given up for adoption in or around 1957-1960. She won't even tell us the year. I am in search of this half sister. I'm guessing she would have been born I. Minneapolis, MN. Can't say for sure. I do know that she was given up or adoption through Catholic Charities. Can anyone help with this or point me in the right direction?