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Hi Everyone!
My name is Sarah and I am 18 years old and I am going to share with you my adoption reunion story! My whole life I knew I was adopted. My first memory of my adoptive mother telling me I was adopted was when I was maybe seven years old. My adoptive mom and I were on our way to my dance class when she brought up the subject of my adoption. I remember her telling me that my birthmother loved me very much and was just too young to take care of me at the time. She also told me that my birthmother was a beautiful young girl who was very athletic and picked her because she played basketball. After the converstation about my birthmother was over, my adoptive mom asked me if i wanted to meet her and I said no.
A few years later I started middle school. My middle school years were some of the hardest and emotional years of my life. I got bullied for basically everything. Kids would bully me because of the clothes I wore, they told me I had a big forehead and called me "Five Head." They also told me I had man hands. But the thing that really made my middle school years extremely emotional was the fact that kids would bully me for being adopted. I clearly remember this one girl who I thought was my friend going around to everyone at lunch and telling them that my birthmother was a whore and a slut and didn't want me. She told everyone that my birthmother was a whore and a slut because she had me when she was a teenager, but this wasn't the only bullying towards my adoption that she did.
On my 13th birthday the girl sent me numerous texts telling me that my birthmother didn't love me or want me and that I was a waste of space. She told me that my birthmother probably had other kids to worry about and a job and a family and that I shouldn't even care or worry about her. She told me my birthmother could never love the baby she gave up for adoption thirteen years ago. She might have loved me then, but not now. I was so torn up about this that I would cry myself to sleep every night. My adoptive mom tried to comfort me but nothing would work. I became depressed and emotionally unstable. I developed anxiety and had to go to a therapist once a week. This started the search for my birthmother.
My first two years of high school I was pretty much fine. I still had bad anxiety and sometimes depression and still searched constantly online for my birthmother but I was doing a lot better. When I got to my junior year of high school my anxiety started to get really bad. I could never sit in class and without having an anxiety attack for no reason. Everything I did caused anxiety and I had no idea why. I started to fall back into my depression. I distanced myself from everyone. I started not eating, I didn't care about anything anymore.
My adoptive mother became concerned about me and brought me to my neighbor's house. My neighbor has some special talent where she can look at you and know everything about you! It's like she is reading a book. When I got to my neighbors house I sat down infront of her and she told me that the reason I was feeling so much anxiety was because I was feeling what my birthmother was feeling. I was feeling her anxiety and how much she wanted to find me and meet me. She also told me that when the palm of my right hand hurts that means she is thinking, worrying, or searching for me. I was very hesitant to believe all this but a year later when I found my birthmother I believed every single word that my neighbor had told me.
It was the night of June 17th 2012. I was just getting home from my best friends sweet 16. We had taken a party bus into New York City! It was a lot of fun! On the way home from New York a song came on that had always reminded me of my birth mother. I remember sitting there while everyone was dancing and having a good time, and just thinking about giving up and finding her later on in life. I remember wishing on 11:11 that night that I would find her someday soon. When we got back to the house my friend was having an after party. I remember sitting on her couch and waiting for the party to start. Something told me to check my email. As soon as I opened my emailed I was in shock about what I saw. Tears started flowing from my eyes immedietly and I couldn't breathe. The email was from my birthmother! apparently she was searching for me too! She found a post that I had posted awhile back and responded to it! She even left her phone number for me to call! That was the best night of my life! I stayed up the whole night texting and talking to her! we learned that we had so much in common! we instantly clicked and there hasn't been a day that has gone by since that me and her don't talk. After about two months of texting, skyping, and talking on the phone, it was time to meet!
I met my birthmother on August 3rd 2012 and that was the best day of my life. I was down in Maryland visiting colleges and we had arranged to meet. Originally we both thought that we weren't going to get to see eachother and we were both really upset and sad, but on August 3rd 2012 we were reunited! I remember being so nervous and scared! As I walked up to her appartment building I could barley breathe! It felt as if my lungs were not expanding! As I opened up the apartment complex door and looked up the stairs, there she was! It was like looking at a mirror image of myself! I had never seen anyone in person that looked like me before! As soon as I saw her a thought I was going to pass out. Tears Immedietly came to my eyes! Once I walked into the apartment and gave her the flowers and the desert we had brought her, we hugged. When we hugged it was like all my anxiety and fear and emotions and feelings that I had expierenced over the past few years left my body. I was finally at peace with myself and finally happy. When she put her arms around me I finally felt at home. We were both crying. It was the most amazing expierence of my life.
While I was at her house we didn't really talk much, we just hugged and hugged. She said all the hugs were making up for all the ones she had missed over the years. When we did talk she did tell me that she had been searching for me all my life and that she never wanted to put me up for adoption. She said she had no choice, it was for my safety because my father was involved with the wrong group of people. She also told me that she had felt anxiety at the same time I felt it, and we both believe my reason for the anxiety attacks was because at the same time I started getting my anxiety was around the same time she was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer. I always felt anxiety because I knew that something was wrong. She told me that she would tell herself that she would not leave this earth without finding me first. My mother is a fighter and a very strong women and I look up to her so much. She is my role model and my inspiration. Her strongness and willingness to not give up helped her beat her ovarian cancer. I am so happy to be reunited with her and my family. After meeting her for the first time, her and I still talked every day and met up a lot, at least once a month. I am not living with her and her family and finishing high school online because of personal problems at home. My birthmother has always been supportive of everything I have decided to do in my life even if it was the stupidest idea ever. I love her so much. She is truly my inspiration. I have six brothers and sisters who I love to death and her husband is amazing. I could not be happier at where I am in my life right now.
If you are searching for your birthfamily please don't ever give up! Miracles do happen and I can prove that to you! You just have to believe!
To follow my reunion and adoption story please read my blog!
[url=http://sarahannesstory.blogspot.com/]My Reunion Story[/url]
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latinosunshine
Im an adoptive mom. Abit different because my children came from foster care but I will say this.
My kids cannot get to meet their mom until they are 18 due to a court order. Her parents aren't exactly safe people. Not all first families are jewels waiting to be discovered. (Again, this is foster care and not private adoption).
But I will say my children and I openly talk about their first family and we openly talk to them (6 and 5). Its not a shameful thing at all. We are not the "wicked" adoptive family who is holding back our children from knowing their first families. We are keeping them safe.
My daughter has very bad memories of her first family and most the time does not want to pray for her mom or discuss it. We leave it up to the children when they want to talk about it. We never bad mouth them.
We assume when they are 18, they will want to know more. We expect it. But I would hope my children would not run away to the "greener grass" without at least telling me Im going away to find my birthmother. That is not an adoption problem. That is the child not being mature problem.
Its sad to me how many on this board see their adoptive families in a negative light. But their birth families are obviously so great for them. No family is perfect and I pray that my children see both families love them and both families have been good for them.
My daughter is the one that reminds me everyday that she is glad she is adopted. I know she doesn't know the extent of what that means. But she knows she is safe now and we love her. She never felt that before she came to us.
I think the original poster is going through her tough teen/young adult years where her parents are evil and she knows everything. I think in time when she grows up, she will discover her family was not so evil after all. And I think she will learn to appreciate her adoptive family and all they have done for her. And she will learn to know her birth family and appreciate what they bring to the table. Right now, everything in this new world looks perfect but time will show her no family is perfect whether adoptive or not.
God Bless YOU, latinosunshine! Can you imagine how wonderful life could be for all of those children in foster care, WAITING for adoptive homes, if those on waiting lists with the adoption agencies for babies, having to sell themselves to birth moms and the agencies in hopes that they are chosen, would consider those other children like yours in need?
There is absolutely NO comparison to people like you, who willing adopt hard to place, children in need and those that are ONLY open to adopting high dollar, clean slateӔ, easy to love, newborns because they cannot have their own Those people really turn to adoption as a 2nd CHOICE to fill their own needs, not the needs of the child and unfortunately because they got them as newborns, most are not capable of even recognizing that 1st families are important.
Please donŒt get me wrong. I am GRATEFUL to GOD that MY parents could not have children of their own when they got married 60 yrs ago. I was loved and never treated like a 2nd choice by them but the fact remains that I was a 2nd choice. My parents supported me as much as they were capable of in my search for birth family when in my mid 30s, I finally admitted to myself and them, that I needed to know. They never really understood the need and had never thought it important to tell me the truth before. that my 1st mom wasnŒt a young unmarried girl as I had been allowed to fantasize about my whole life but was instead an older woman, in the middle of a divorce with other children. In all fairness, I will never know how they would have reacted had I been. say a teen instead insisting on search and reunionŅ As a teen, I never considered it an option.
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latinosunshine
Its sad to me how many on this board see their adoptive families in a negative light. But their birth families are obviously so great for them. No family is perfect and I pray that my children see both families love them and both families have been good for them.
Latinosunshine,
"How many on this board see their adoptive families in a negative light"
Please explain and/or qualify this statement and who these people are. Is it because adoptees search, and talk about their reunions with other adoptees? Should we make sure we always spend equal time speaking about our parents, while talking about a completely different topic? Would you rather all posts were about our childhood memories, and if yes, do you do that? What exactly should adoptees speak about?
Kind regards,
Dickons
Dickons
Latinosunshine,
"How many on this board see their adoptive families in a negative light"
Please explain and/or qualify this statement and who these people are. Is it because adoptees search, and talk about their reunions with other adoptees? Should we make sure we always spend equal time speaking about our parents, while talking about a completely different topic? Would you rather all posts were about our childhood memories, and if yes, do you do that? What exactly should adoptees speak about?
Kind regards,
Dickons
I hate that I have to preface everything I post with a "I love my mom and dad and my feelings regarding reunion and my other family have nothing to with disliking them."
Gets old and I feel like it makes me a perpetual child. We do need to have our lives dictated to us because lordy lordy we can't make growed up decisions on our own.
Dickons
Latinosunshine,
"How many on this board see their adoptive families in a negative light"
Please explain and/or qualify this statement and who these people are. Is it because adoptees search, and talk about their reunions with other adoptees? Should we make sure we always spend equal time speaking about our parents, while talking about a completely different topic? Would you rather all posts were about our childhood memories, and if yes, do you do that? What exactly should adoptees speak about?
Kind regards,
Dickons
I would also like Latino Sunshine to show proof of this:
Its sad to me how many on this board see their adoptive families in a negative light.
I've found that the majority of people on here have come on her to talk about reunion or the possibility of making contact with bfamily and want advice and support in that area; Most either don't mention their adoptive family at all (because it isn't relevant to the actual topic in hand) or, if they do, they talk about them like other humans talk about their parents - i.e. if they have a good relationship with them, they will say so, if they don't have a good relationship with them they will say so.
In the vast majority of cases, the afamily relationship is irrelevant to why the adoptee is seeking reunion. Most adoptees do so for their OWN personal reasons, eg curiosity, wanting to know more about origins etc and sometimes, hey, wanting to know their bfamily.
This does seem to be a misconception by many people - i.e. many people do seem to think that someone seeking reunion is doing so due to them having some issue with their afamily. Newsflash people - not everything is about the afamily.
I agree with Belle that it does get really irritating that one has to constantly use the disclaimer "I love my afamily" when one is talking about one's reunion/contact with bfamily.
One thing that really annoys me also is that often many questions are "loaded" and thus often one can't answer them without being on a hiding to nothing.
For example, if someone asks "Do you wish your bmom had been able to keep you" or "would you have preferred to have been raised by your aparents or your bparents". How can one answer those questions? The truth is that I don't know my bmom although I do know my bfamily. My bfamily are lovely kind people and by all accounts my bmom was a lovely kind person. (With the usual disclaimer that my afamily are also lovely kind people (do I always have to do this? Sigh) So I would assume that my life would have been DIFFERENT - I can't say if it would have been better or worse. So, I'd rather just "take the fifth" lol.
It just seems to me sometimes that reunion is an OK thing for an adoptee to do as long as they then proclaim "I"m so glad I was adopted" . However if one feels that things are more complicated than that, then one is considered and angry, bitter adoptee.
Btw I was on another forum where I was talking about my love for my afamily and also talking about reuniting with bfamily and a couple of the other members (2 APs and one PAP) constantly tried to tell me that because I liked my bfamily and wanted contact with them, then I must have some issues with my afamily, despite my telling them that I didn't - they just wouldnt believe that any adoptee who didn't have "issues" would ever have any interest in seeking out bfamily.
I never will talk about either family in a negative way, especially on most adoption sites. I've seen other people be honest about family situations and they have learnt from experience that anything can and will be used against them later on.
Even talking about bfamily in a positive light can cause issues. Note that I said that my bfamily are lovely and kind people and that by all accounts, my bmom was a lovely kind person. When I say that on an adoption forum, some, people often do feel the need to tell me that "the grass isn't always greener on the other side", that when one gets to know one's bfamily better, the "rose coloured glasses" will come off or they think that my saying such things about bfamily means that I am putting down my afamily (see above disclaimer (Sigh)). Hey, has anyone though that it might actually be possible that Ihave a kind loving bfamily? Btw I don't see them or my bmom with "rose coloured glasses" - they have their faults like all humans. I have my faults like all humans. My afamily has their faults like all humans. I love them all - faults and all :). Also, I am aware that having not met my bmom due to her dying at a fairly young age, it will always be hard to see the "real" person and I have told my bfamily to tell me both good and bad about her (eg she could be moody in the mornings).
With the OP, it sounds like she has a nice bmom - is that so hard to believe? It sounds like she has ongoing issues with her afamily - is that so hard to believe? It may also be that years down the track, she still has a good relationship with bmom and still has ongoing issues with afamily - is that so hard to believe?
murphymalone
It sounds like the adopted family decided to get some "vengeance" and put pressure on the birthmother at the OP's graduation.
Not a smart thing to do at all. In the original post I didn't hear any slams or insults about the adopted family.
It sounds like there was a back lash insinuating things that I can't quite see happened. We don't know too much about the background in her relationship with her adopted family so jumping to conclusions about "why" she chose to seek out her birthmother is a quick fix.
The bottom line is it's up to the adoptee. If they choose at whatever point to seek out their original family no one is going to stop the inevitable. A piece of paper is not going to stop a person driven to know court ordered or not. All that will do is cause resentment. Just because a person is driven to know what everyone else who isn't adopted can take for granted doesn't mean they don't respect and care for the people who adopted them.
It's not a win/lose situation on less you choose to look at it that way. People need to think outside the box. If the issue is based on fear that the child a family adopts will turn their back on them in favour of the original family then no amount of reassurance will solve their insecurity.
Children are not chattel. No one owns anyone on this planet and the tighter people hang on the more the person needs to pull away.
Well said, Murphy.
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Just a quck thing about "fantasising adoptees". There seems to be an assumption that we all have/had fantasies of our bparents as being wondrous angels. However, when reading the OPs blog, I got the impression that, like many other adoptees, she was rather apprehensive about what the reality would be. I did get the impression (although hopeful) that she was prepared for any outcome and that is important. I also got the impression that the fact that finding out that her bmom is a nice lady has been a real bonus to her and it also sounds to me like that she wants to get to know her as a human being. She probably is going through a "honeymoon" period but hopefully that will develop into something ever better, i.e. a good open relationship. I hope also that she is able to improve things with her afamily as well and also have a good open relationship with them as well.
I too am someone whose expectations were exceeded in many ways although I'll never know the actualy reality re bmom.
However, knowing the REALITY is so much better than knowing the ABSTRACT and I think I would have felt this way WHATEVER the reality.
A yearr and half ago I contacted my birthmom in a letter form, I didn't receive a response so I thought. She did indeed respond to me but it got lost in the mail so I thought that she did not want to have contact with me. She did, & she thought I didn't want to have contact with from her letter. This whole year we were both wondering why. She made our first phone contact on my birthday this year. We physically met for the first time during Mother's day weekend. It was great we had lots of happy tears and hugs the whole weekend. So what I am telling others who are looking for someone, be patient and persistant. If you have questions of my reuion you can contact me at JP112968@yahoo.com
New blog post! Check it out please!
[url=http://sarahannesstory.blogspot.com/2013/07/4th-of-july-post.html]My Reunion Story: 4th of July Post![/url]
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murphymalone
It's not a win/lose situation on less you choose to look at it that way. .
I like this. We have a choice in how we look at things.
Hey guys, I just posted a video a made for my birthmother last year on my youtube. Please check it out :)
My youtube is : SimplySaruhh I will post the link on my blog.
Hi Everyone,
heres the link to my adoption video that I made for my birthmother!
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiG3htV4ms8[/url]
annkiser1954
I hate that the bulling happen to you. I had a lot of that to happen to me to. But what they do not realize is that yes it hurts but it also makes you stronger person. Therefore, you are a winner in the end. :cheer:
I would like to ask a question on searching for a loved one. If you feel you may not have enough information on the adoptee what do you do? Do you have any pointers for me?
Good luck and many blessings.
I PMed you with information specific to your state. I hope it is helpful.
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AprilMae, I'm so glad you had such a wonderful reunion! I hope you have many happy times ahead.
And I'm so sorry you got bullied - I can't imagine how painful that was.
'She told me my birthmother could never love the baby she gave up for adoption thirteen years ago.'
Unbeliveably cruel, and so inaccurate.
I've loved my beautiful son since before he was born, and thirty years later, following our reunion, I get the chance to tell him as often as I can. As do the rest of his first family.
I'm aware of many, many other first mothers who feel exactly the same.
Enjoy being loved to bits!
(btw - you aren't being selfish - you have every right to enjoy your mother's love)
Dear Aril Mae,
When I read your story I cried. That was the reunion I had always wanted with my son. I am so happy for you and your mom and for all of your family. God bless you all:)