Adoption reunion

This site seems to have some good advice on reunions[url=http://www.adoptionbirthmothers.com/adoptee-adoption-reunion-does-donts/]Ways to Ruin an Adoption Reunion; The Adoptee Do's and Don'ts Edition | Musings of the Lame[/url]

I just want to encourage you. As an Amom to an amazing 3 year old, I want to do this right. I will step out on a limb and say MOST aparents don't "get" the emotions of adoptees (we try, but we aren't capable sometimes). If you want to share anything, maybe it can help open eyes for us so that we can help prevent or soften the blow to future generations. I think many Aparents work so hard to make their kids feel "normal, loved, wanted", etc, that we lose sight of the first family. Sad but true. I'm so sorry for what you are experiencing.

Whom are you addressing this to?Since the OP doesn’t elaborate on their experience and you bring up your adoptive parent perspective and admit that there is a disconnect between adoptees and the adopted I can only think that you are questioning in general.You said” MOST aparents don't "get" the emotions of adoptees (we try, but we aren't capable sometimes).”I don’t want to be adopted. No matter how wonderful you are as a person, I don’t want you; I want my mom and dad. If my mom is strung out on drugs, I want someone to help her so that she and I can be together. If my dad is in prison, I want someone to help him so that he and I can be together. If my mom or dad is young, I want someone to help them so that they can feel confident in their ability to parent and to see that there life has not ended and that there are still good times ahead etc…. A lot of children from divorce want their parents back together because we want our natural family intact. We don’t want to be adopted. We don’t want substitutes. Nobody asks the adoptee what they want. We want normal, healthy, sane parents. I think many Aparents work so hard to make their kids feel "normal, loved, wanted", etc, that we lose sight of the first family.Don’t ever lose sight of the first family. We never do. No matter how charming a life it looks like we are living from the outside, us adoptees hold tight to our families even if it is with hate and not love. Aparents can try as hard as they want to make the adoptee feel normal, loved, and wanted, but that must come from us. We want that too, but from our first family as well. I am not so sure that we adoptees as children care if you feel normal, loved, or wanted as an Aparent.I am not saying that adoptees don't love their parents at all. but that darn primal wound is hard to overcome in reuions. Does that help with the disconnect? This can be why reunions are so hard.

AlabamaMommy ). Your response is very kind and compassionate. It's strange because for whatever odd reason I have three very, very close friends who have adopted children. In two cases the adopted child is an "only" and one is the almost classic story. They adopted two full blood brothers as infants (private adoptions 13 months apart). This was after years of trying to get pregnant. Then when my friend turned 40 she became pregnant. Same husband, almost 20 years of marriage by then, go figure. Anyway. all three couples are wonderful, loving paents. I have always considered the children lucky. I never even considered the other side of adoption. Then, at 58 years old-almost 59, I found out was adopted. I was blown away and it took me awhile to get my head back on. The woman I had always thought was a much older 1/2 sister, a woman I really barely knew, was, in fact, by birth mother. My "mother" was my grandmother and my father was not even related to me (grandmothers second husband). For the first time I saw it from the other side. No matter how much you love your A parents, no matter how your life has gone, it is devastating. My mother didn't want me. Yes, it was 1954, yes she was single, yes she probably did the right thing for both of us. No, I was never abused, I adored my "dad" had a normal if somewhat rocky relationship with my "mom", and my life is fine. But my mother didn't want me. She went on to have 7 more kids. She kept them. They think she was mom of the century. But she didn't want me. My adoptive parents loved me, of that I am 100% certain. But my mother didn't want me. I am almost 59 years old for heavens sake what does it matter now? But my mother didn't want me. It is a whole new perspective. I have to say. t

Yeah, I think, Tanker, that my response was to the OP and then to others. I love this forum because I do get all possible sides/opinions of adoption. I don't want you to think I don't hear what you are saying, because I do. But I pray that not all adult adoptees feel like you do. My heart would break if my son ever called me a "substitute." I get that this isn't about me at all, but that is just the truth. In our situation (and every one is so unique) I believe that my son's birth mom saved his life by placing him. Not me and my hubby, not the judge, but her. A young 21 year old kid with a 14 month old, a 4 year old, an abusive husband and a severe drug problem. She reached out to us. When she died, she was 22 and pregnant with #4. Her husband is MIA. My son's sibs are with random extended family. It's not a good situation. I guess I asked the question earlier because I want to do all I can to nurture the relationship he has with his siblings and extended family, but to give him a sense of security and stability that his brother and sister will never have. My desire is for him to be whole. To be satisfied with the life he has been given. And to appreciate what his first mom did for him. I am a follower of Jesus Christ and I will always remind my son that although God's plan (I'm certain) never included the struggles his first mom lived (dang free will), I believe God put us where we needed to be there to support her and help her.

" But I pray that not all adult adoptees feel like you do"Do you think that people who have a normal healthy, sane family that wanted them wants to be adopted? Why would ANYONE want to be adopted if their family was suitible?Necessay adoption is just that. Necessary.

I respect your feelings but at the same time all adopted people feel the same. Some have no desire to search, some do, of those who do never find their natural family, others do and have a bad experience, others have good experience. I am sorry it was bad for you and wouldn't wish it on anybody. I am glad my son and I reunited despite it going bad as it has given us both closure and there have been so many positives to come out of it. I know he is alive, loved and has a family of his own now. He has medical information and has met family members.

For what it's worth, I think it's very possible for your son to be satisfied with the life he has been given. What I am not so sure is possible is the "appreciate what his first mom did for him" part. As an adoptee you can know on every conceivable rational level that your birth mom had her reasons for throwing you away. You can certainly love your adoptive parents deeply and be satisfied with the life you have lived and all that they gave to you. But the abandonment issue isn't always rational. His birth mom could have cared enough to get her act together. She didn't. She made a choice, hers was to throw away her child, a decision all of us adoptees have experienced. I wouldn't expect that he will appreciate that.

chlban, thanks. I guess as long as he can be satisfied and happy, I am good. I do know adult adoptees that say they don't feel that way - especially after meeting their bio parents. I just hope he can be one of those. For his sake. :)

AlabamaMommy, Adoptees are not a homogenous group. There are similarities in the core challenges we face because we are adopted. I do believe we all have to work through those challenges - but some will perhaps only think about a challenge once - to the other extreme of being haunted by it, and, everything in between those two poles. We also come from a wide variety of families of birth - I came from a very functional middle class family that is very similar to my adoptive family. No scariness at all- vs the original poster on this thread who obviously had a horrendous reunion. Again - two extremes with everything in between. The same happens with who we get as adoptive parents from great to those like Carri Williams, and, everything in between. Your son will feel what he feels - you may know everything he feels - to only what he is comfortable sharing with you - to never knowing his true feelings. It is what it is. Do the best you can do to be aware when he may need you to say it is okay to feel that way, and, can I do anything to make it better. All of that is to say we can't be compared to any other adoptee - saying you know other adoptees that don't feel that way or feel another way is just that - we are all unique. Imagine if I was talking to someone who was having a really hard time dealing with an infertility diagnosis, and, I compared her to my friend who just accepted it, moved on as if it was no big deal. That would suck for the person who was really grieving the fact they could never have a biological child. Kind regards,Dickons

That would entirely depend on the family you were adopted by and the adoptee's choice and how the adoptee/bparents/etc. feel about the situation. It also depends on your definition of "family". Also, just because an adoptee chooses to search, that doesn't mean they're expecting a rosy pretty picture of this "family member". I've always said I'd like to at least meet my bmother. I don't expect anything from it. If we end up being in a cordial relationship, that's fine. If we don't, that's fine, too. Just because you had a terrible experience doesn't mean you should discourage others.

You were born in the middle of the Baby Scoop Era - a distinct period of time in the 20th century when unmarried women were scapegoated and coerced to relinquish their children for adoption, based on moralistic ideas of the society of the time. Many women desperately wanted their babies but couldn't keep them because society was so hostile to the state of unmarried motherhood. Great pressure was applied to ensure the babies were adopted, and many mothers experienced lifelong grief for their missing child as a result. You can find out more about the Baby Scoop Era here: [url=http://babyscoopera.com/]Baby Scoop Era Research Initiative[/url] Please don't assume you were unwanted. It very well may not be true.

Adoption often involves a child being moved from a family with less social power to one with more. So a child goes from a young mother to an older one. Or from a single mother to a married couple. Or from a poor family to a wealthier one. Or from a developing country to a globally powerful one. It rarely goes the other way. With this more powerful position comes more priveliges, opportunities and often formal education. Not always but often. In my own experience, I was 16 when I had my son, still at school and from a struggling family in a poor area. I thought that, although I had made a mess of my life by getting pregnant, he didn't deserve to pay for that. As a result, I thought I was making a good choice to give him up for adoption. After all, everyone said he would have a great life if I did. He was adopted by a married couple. That, and the fact that was going to have a far better life than I could possibly give him, was all I was told. It was in the era of closed adoptions (surely the one of the cruellest inventions of humankind). When we reunited 30 years later, I had become highly educated (done with no heart, just jumping through any hoop held up). I had also developed my mind and heart through experience. My dearest son was adopted into an unstable married home, where alcoholism and divorce soon appeared. The family home was almost lost through non-payment of the mortgage. My poor son was kicked out as a minor and had to live elsewhere. His life then and now has been led in a tiny, tiny circumscribed way as a result of the kind of family he was adopted into. They showed him nothing to help him grow as a person, and physically he was malnourished as a child. He would've been far better off with me, and his first family, and I would have loved so much to have brought him up myself. I will regret that I couldn't all my life. I just needed a little help but none was there or offered and what was available was withheld. So in my case, the kinds of choices first and second families make don't quite follow your quote.

Sylvieboots, thank you for sharing. As a male adoptee, it provided the ability to have a window to see all sides of adoption in the same post.In talking with many b-moms. all agreed that once they gave up their children there were feelings of regret. Even after re-uniting, it did not wash away the adoption, nor could they make up for the time lost when their children were adopted.It is possible to love your child and try to make up for the poor upbringing with the adopted parents, but the adoption feelings and time lost will lurk in the background.So many times I have wished that I could get b-moms secure in the feelings that giving up their child was based on the information they had at the time, and the other circumstances surrounding the disposition of the child. The loss of the child could have been due to young age, financial, coercive motivation, public opinion or a combination of many of those factors. There had to be some decision made and the b-mom would remember.I wish you the best.

Thank you for your kind wishes, Drywall, and I send you the same.When I think of what my dear son has been through, and what he lives with as an adopted person (feelings of rejection and abandonment) I would do anything, anything at all, to turn back time.The image of Superman, so distraught and anguished by the loss of his love, flying up into space and zooming round and round the globe, just to reverse the rotation of the Earth so as to undo what has happened is something I can really relate to.But I can't turn back time.What is so painful is that I was told that giving him up was the only way I could be sure he'd have a good life. That if I kept him, I would wreck his life by me being so young.Then we reunite, and I find that he had such a painful time, and that he lives with feelings about being adopted that I never guessed he would feel. No-one mentioned that.This is why the voice of adopted people really need to be heard. People who live with the consequences of being adopted. And the experience of relinquishing mothers. That they miss their children on such a deep level. That they always will. I did.My son and I are close. It's unbearable that an action by me, no matter how well-meaning, caused him deep pain.