Feeling Guilty As Mother's Day Approaches

I am feeling guilty as Mother's Day approaches. I know I will have a nice celebration, thanks to my family. I think about my relinquished daughter. I know I did not do anything wrong by falling prey to adoptive parents, and their lawyer when I was sick.

Still the repercussions of the adoption and reunion reverberate in my gut. I am not even going to say heart, soul, mind or whatever. Because I feel it in my gut.

I really thought I could let adoption pain go. And I can. I can let it go for me and even my family. Yes we were hurt. In fact almost destroyed, but we made it through and came out the other side, with scars and even some compassion for the exploited and weak. But letting it go means forgetting. The disloyalty of forgetting that my relinquished daughter is not doing as well as we are.

I know alot more then I did eight months ago. I know my relinquished daughter is really struggling and has been struggling with being adopted and her adoptive family for a long time. I get calls from the police wanting my help in locating her when she is missing. I do not get calls to tell me she is found.

Maybe everyone in the adoptive family will somehow get it all together and sorted out and have a nice life. I really hope so. Right now I feel guilty that my kids and I really get each other and love each other. I know my relinquished daughter is most likely conflicted as she approached Mother's Day and her feelings towards her amother and me. I feel guilty because the time she spent sneaking a relationship with us either impacted how the adoptive family interacts, or that they were always so angry and disconnected with each other. Either way, not the type of life this young lady should have.

On a side note, things are still going well with the extended family. I feel a huge weight lifted off me and the family since that healing began. I don't want to blow this second chance. I know we probably won't be close again, but that is still okay. If we do get closer it is a bonus.

Adoptive Mother Forced 14 Year Old Daughter To Inseminate Herself

It's all over the news. The wicked adoptive mother who forced her 14 year old adopted daughter to inseminate herself and give birth to provide her another child. Mommy dearest was a US citizen who had moved to the UK with her three adoptive children. She got the itch to add one more child to her little house of horrors but was denied another adoptive child. So she found a way to have one more child........

What the press has written about the facts of this case is shocking. A young girl used a a brood mare to provide an adoptor with another child. I can not call this woman a "mother" as her cruelty towards the young girl negates the use of that term. Her behavior at the hospital after the young girl gave birth to her son is very telling. She raised alarm among the nurses when she intervened to prevent the young girl from breastfeeding her son stating "We don't want any of that attachment thing".


"We don't want any of that attachment thing". I am extremely glad that there were caring nurses who recognized this statement as abnormal and an investigation was started. What should shock me, but sadly does not, is how people convince themselves the most depraved things are normal. Take this for example. The mother, described as "highly articulate", and who "loves the children and they undoubtedly love her", had isolated the family. The children were schooled at home, and the adoptive father of the eldest two was deliberately excluded, did not know where they lived and had not seen them for 10 years. Neighbours and social services were kept at bay. This was written in the news to describe the adoptor. What part of that statement describes love? Social isolation and control? Excluding the adoptive father from the children's lives? Keeping neighbours and social services away so that they could not witness the treatment of the children? Does being articulate and being thought of as a saviour for adopting children clothe a woman in a bullet proof cloak? If these children were not adopted would she have come under more scrutiny? Yes Virginia, there is an adoption savior myth. And it is getting in the way of seeing that the emperor has no clothes on.

How many people ignored what was happening to the adoptive children of this woman?

On four occasions social services were alerted over concerns about the children's welfare but on each found no immediate child protection concerns. On two of those occasions, a neighbour, worried about the children's isolation and the mother's shouting and swearing, had called. On another, the mother's GP raised concerns about who was looking after the children when the mother was admitted to hospital for a month.
The local authority was also alerted by an anonymous acquaintance who wrote to agencies and officials in the country from which the mother was seeking to adopt a fourth child, apparently raising concerns over her suitability. This ultimately resulted in her being denied approval. The court heard there were also questions over whether the third adoption had been legal, or if it had flouted international loopholes.
The mother had succeeded in keeping social services at arms' length so that their intervention was "essentially superficial", the judge said.

So an adoptive "mother" can keep social services at arm's length, and not be investigated for child abuse, or a possible illegal adoption? How and why does this happen? Could it be the "unwanted children" myth..........that most/all adoptees were unwanted by their original parents and how the heck to we re-home them now? This is where we need to get back to basics to stop this myth and to stop unnecessary adoption. Most children are wanted by their original families. Stop the coercion, and the exploitation and watch how the numbers of adoptable babies dwindle. Stop PAP's from swooping in to countries suffering poverty and natural disasters and give aid instead of adoptors. Stop trafficking humans for profit and watch a highly articulate, crazy woman not adopt helpless children.

So what happened to the children? The news has not reported on the status of the children, and if the young girl and her son are together. Does her baby call her mommy? I feel a sick sense of dread here. A young girl now 16 years old with no resources and family support.............. sounds like birthmom material.


















 

Defective Adopted Child and the Normal in our Lives

Last month I paid a man to do a service. I was out of state and not in my element. He liked me, he liked DH. He was very reserved at first, but during our time together we find we have things and places in common. He starts to open up. He keeps opening up, and soon we are treated as friends. He tells us his life story. He is an adoptive father. Many years ago he went out of the country with his wife and friend to adopt a baby girl.  The baby they set out to adopt was unavailable. Her mother kept her. So the man said "We went to another convent and got another one".

In my heart I feel this man loves his adopted daughter who now is in medical school. He did tell me that years later his friend tells him "you owe me" for his help in the adoption process. He laughed and told me "I tell him he owes me- I got a defective child". He then relates about how his adopted daughter had/has vision problems that were very expensive to treat through the years. A few years later after he adopted his daughter his wife wanted "another one" but he told her "it is too expensive" and that was that.

He then knocks off hundreds of dollars off the price (and I did the research so I know how much I should pay, and he is giving a big discount) and I thank him. I look at him and notice that he dyes his hair and he has nice teeth. He looks younger then he his, and he seems to really enjoy his life. And he seems to really enjoy our company. I feel the numbness creep in.

I spent the last month not thinking about it, but it creeped in my mind today. I think about defective. I think about defective and family. I think that my brother (adopted) is the nicest guy in the world but has some problems. I think it is nice that I can tell him he gets these traits from his mother, and I think his generous heart and spirit from his aunt.

Funny how defective is relative. When you have a family member that has some of the same defective traits then being defective is the norm. That is what it is like when you have biological relationships. I get my kindness from my father, and my mean streak from my mother. I have defective qualities that are expected. I hope my brother feels the same sense of "normality" in his defects that I do because we both know our biological traits. Maybe it is just easy to have the family predecessors to blame. I also think we share some really fucked up traits be growing up in the family that we did. I am the only person in the family who talks to my brother and can relate to all his experiences with our mother. And he calls me to bemoan "our" mother every couple of days. But she really never was our mother. Even he will tell me that I was the one who raised him. I am in some ways his mother because I was the female who loved and tried to protect him since he was a baby. So nurture is important. But I am a pale substitute for what he really needed in a mother. Yet still -if you tried to hurt him, I would kill you.

I think it would be nice if the adopted daughter of the man I met has that sense of normalcy in her defects. I don't know if she ever will, or if she ever even thinks about it at all. She may be the happiest woman in the world for all I know.

And now I look past the french doors and see my daughter writing a paper. Very ambitious that one. She is now in a doctorate program. I am so proud. And I am transported to an event years ago. My daughter is playing soccer and she is very small, yet very aggressive. She wants to do her very best, and her skills do not yet match her enthusiasm. It is an important game and she obtains a penalty. She is still in the game and she gets one more. It is very cold, and the fans and parents are cheering at a fever pitch. This is the game and the fervor is contagious. She is not pulled from the game, and she is focused to win.

I see the players and I watch my small girl who is the captain of the team, play amongst girls who are twice her size. I worry about concussions, I worry about her getting hurt, and I am so proud of her. Then for a moment time stands still. The Ref throws down the red flag! His body expressions and his face show his anger. This is a personal penalty and my daughter is now out of the game. The crowd goes completely quiet for a brief moment. And the eyes turn towards me. My soccer mom and dad friends look at me. The people I carpool with, the people who accept me in to this elite private school are all looking at me as my daughter has created a sin in obtaining a personal foul on this most important game. I take a deep breath, gather up my 5'3" stature and proclaim loudly - in hopes that she will hear and say "That's my girl!!!!"""

Defective? No. That is my girl. No matter what -I would never breathe a sound that would imply my daughter is or ever was defective. Never for all the money in the world, never to obtain the approval of others. Later that night we talked about the game and I offered support. I knew she was not trying to be mean or hurt another player. She just tried too hard. I remember that she told me "I get that from you".

I think we get a lot of things from the people who share our blood and share our lives. The only thing I take issue with is being called "defective" for things we cannot help. Yes- our decisions are our own and we need to be accountable for them. But we should never be blamed for our physical traits or our personality traits that we were born in to, or raised in to. If you love someone then you can only let them be as defective as you are.






 

Taking Back His Birth Name

I was all for this when my relinquished daughter told me at one time that this is what she wanted to do. Things change, relationships change, hearts and minds change. I have no idea if she will ever entertain this idea in the future.

I did not give this subject much thought after that until a few days ago. I was sitting on the couch with my brother, and with his eyes firmly planted on his smart phone he said "When mom dies I am changing my name to .........." His birth name.

My heart skipped a beat. He told me how he always hated "our" last name- the name we shared as kids. I made a joke about how I would need to learn how to pronounce it, and my DH chimed in with "why don't you change your name to our name (my married name) because it is way cooler. My brother laughed and then changed the subject.

I have some complex emotions about the whole situation. First off, I feel bad that he is waiting for my mom to die. I really get the sense from our conversations that he is truly waiting for this event so that he can take control of his life. Next, my heart kind of hurt at the thought of his last name being changed. Our father died young, and I have this unreasonable fear that when his name is gone, his memory will truly be gone as well. All the things we did with him, all his sacrifices, all the good times we shared with him. That common bond, at least in ink will be gone.

I know my brother's relationship with his birth mother has been disappointing to him. She doesn't reciprocate in his attempts to stay close. He finally stopped making attempts and told he she needed to start calling him. But she never has. So the relationship is stagnant. I know this hurts him, and I had hoped for better. He loves her, and he is on the outside. I wish she knew her son the way I know him. That he is sensitive, and it took so much to put himself out there. Yet, I know she has her inner demons, and I see them both sharing loss.

I feel a loss here. My brother is making this decision to change his name for his own personal reasons. It is not that he is leaving me, but in some small way it feels like this. I can feel this, but I can't act like I feel this. I just wish things had been different from the get go. I wish he has met his natural father before he died. I wish he had contact with his natural sister as children, and my parents fears did not create this whole taboo in even discussing that he was not biologically related to us. I wish my mother did not create scenarios in which I feared that my brother's mother was one day going to jump out of the bushes and steal him as I took him to the playground, or what not. The whole game plan was to protect my brother from his natural family, not picnic with them, or have my brother take back their name. It would have been nice to have been prepared for these events on some small level from childhood.

I really get that my brother is not changing his name to change families or family loyalties. I also get that both families have disappointed him, and not really given him everything he needs to feel comfortable in his own skin. This late in the game, all we can do is support him and I need to keep my mouth shut as I work out my feelings. But that is what blogs are for I guess.

Holding my Hand

A big part of my job is resolving conflict. Last month something changed. When dealing with people who are not in a full blown rage, I found myself gently reaching out and touching a hand while I spoke. In return I have found that many people will take hold of my hand and hold it while they speak. This makes me stay longer and listen longer because it is rude to remove your hand unless you can find a way to break that connection in a positive way. And they always seem to want to hold my hand for a time even after they are done speaking. Even people I thought were mean, will hold my hand.

I realize now that anger and complaints many times masks fear, and the need to feel connected to someone who cares. I used to believe the unfounded complaints I dealt with were control issues. I now have changed my mind, and think that many people just want to be understood by someone who cares. Even if they don't get their own way, they will settle down if I talk to them in a caring way, express regret that I can't get them what they want, and ask them to work with me. That is always the way I approached conflict, but now that people hold my hand, I realize that the mechanics of conflict resolution have always worked, but I did not have the basic understanding of why they worked.

People just want you to care on a deeper level. They want a meeting of the hearts. In adoption's aftermath I just wanted the people who hurt me to care about me. To understand they hurt me. After reunion I wanted my relinquished daughter to care about me. She most likely wanted the same thing. But we could not establish trust and hold hands. Holding hands is powerful. One person must reach out and the other person must grab on. Letting go of holding hands is equally powerful. Pull your hand away before the other person is ready and the broken connection leaves questions on intent. Why did you pull your hand back? What did I do wrong? Do you not want to hold my hand ever again? Did you ever want to accept my hand in the first place?

This begs the next question- Will I reach out my hand to you again if the opportunity arises? Some brave or foolish souls may ponder if they will create an opportunity to extend a hand. If someone takes your hand you may feel brave, but if not, then you may feel foolish, hurt and misunderstood.

I think my broken heart is being rebuilt. I am not saying it is becoming a kinder, or gentler heart. But it does seem to want to be a more understanding heart. A few months ago I would not have thought that possible. I think anger really wants you to believe that it always knows right, and that you must follow it lest you be wrong again. I have been wrong about so many things, and I guess I can be wrong about a few more.

And Now They Want the Story

Estrangement with the family has tentatively ended. Due to my trust issues I am going to say "for now", but my heart is in the right place. I am hoping this will work. The angry part of me wants to just walk away from this new, uncharted territory of trusting people who have crushed my heart, and factored in the relinquishment of my daughter.

And now they want the whole story from my view, on how we got to the place we are. How did this adoption happen, and perhaps their role in the decision. The answer is......that I am not ready to talk about it yet. That is the best I can do. Trust needs to be built so that my answers can be understood. The relationship needs to move from fragility to strength, because the answers they seek need to be heard with an understanding heart, and not a defensive one.  I do not believe this peace treaty is being sought without looking at past regrets. I feel an actual sincerity on their part to hear our hurt, and to tell us how we hurt them. It is the sincerity that matters. I would be very suspicious that this was a superficial effort, if not for what appears to be real tears in their apologies, and the fact that they are telling us what we did to hurt them, and saying it in a non-confrontational way. It takes effort to put that out there and hope that we will listen and take ownership of our blame. And I do.

This has all come about because of a life altering event in the family. Real change rarely comes about without one. People do not change unless they feel a need to change, and it is either extreme good fortune, or extreme tragedy that pushes us to look deep inside ourselves to judge our integrity, or live with our despair.

I am actually crying as I write this, and tears never come easy for me. They dried up for so many years after the relinquishment of my daughter, and I thought I would never cry again. But I have cried. Real tears, real sadness, real feelings that seem to wash over me. Anger was so much easier. If I did not love my husband, my son, my daughter so much I would choose anger. My anger just hurts them so I really am trying to let it go because nothing hurts more then watching your loved ones hurt. I can't live with that. I can't live with me being another source of hurt to them, when I can actually at least try to heal them. At least........  Yes, that is the least I can do. I could do more, but I am not ready for that yet.

The house feels different today. The dogs are all lying together in one room, in a buffalo stance. They don't know what is going on, but they sense change, and fragility. Funny how anger is so strong, but good intentions and hope are so weak. It was my good intentions and hope that led me to believe in people who only wanted to destroy my family to get what they wanted. I need to keep telling myself that this is a different situation, with different people. I never knew how adoption not only destroyed my original family but destroyed my faith in believing that people were basically good. My original family changed, and we became a different family. Now we become a different family again which means letting other people back in. The boundaries that were so rigid have opened for the first time in so many years.

I may regret my decision to choose hope and trust. I just hope I never regret trying to achieve this.






 

It Really Wasn't that Epic-But it was Good

Life happens- even with or after adoption.  I really thought my burning the past would be epic, but it wasn't.  In fact it turned out to be just a private moment in which I burned all the things that tugged on my heart strings. I chose to leave the rest of the family out of it.  I went out to the back yard and prepared the fire pit. I arranged the cherry wood into a pyramid and put kindle in the holes. I brought  lighter fluid, mementos, and a glass of wine. It was very cold, and I sat there until there was nothing but ashes.

I chose not to burn the open adoption agreement, the letters from the lawyer or the adoptive parents.  As much as I wanted to burn my connection with the past pain, I did not feel I had a right to burn the things that were my relinquished daughter's past.  So if she ever wants these items,  I will be happy to give them to her. It is a record of how lies, coercion, illness, and desperation carved out what became the lives that we now live. These items now reside in a file cabinet in the basement. They await a moment to be disclosed, or discarded. Only time will tell.

With that said, I need to tell you that my life has stopped revolving around adoption, my relinquished daughter, and all who have profited from separating my daughter from her family. This is no way diminishes her importance, or our importance for that matter.  It just is a realization that no matter what has happened in the past, life goes on.  Even if it is filled with painful memories, joyful memories, and all that lies in between.  Life if for the living, and we need to be the best, and strongest people we can be for all the people we love.

I am in a much more comfortable, and realistic place in my life now.  I realize that some mistakes were meant to last. These mistakes may last a lifetime. Good intentions do not always meet with good results. As painful as this may be, we need to forge ahead.

I think the most crucial moment in my decision to sever my relationship with my relinquished daughter was when I learned that she had set my husband up.  Her pleas for him to meet her and save her from her adoptive parents was really a ploy by all of them to put us in a position for prosecution.  This was a very sad moment for me. Later when the police called my house one morning at 3 a.m. to see if we were complacent in my daughter's misdeeds I was very alarmed.  I am truly grateful that the police officer looked at the our character, the facts, and decided not to involve us in this.  If a less rational policeman had been involved I fear we would have been in deep trouble for only wanting a relationship with my relinquished daughter. Perhaps a guardian angel was watching out for us.

Unnecessary adoption has created an unnecessary amputation for my relinquished daughter and all her family members.  It really doesn't matter that you can live without your toes, your fingers, your teeth, or you limbs.  You still feel the loss forever.  I absolutely know my daughter feels the loss, and her adoptive parents may be her prosthetic, but they still do not replace what was taken from her. And the same goes for her real mother, father, and siblings.  Would I cast aside a prosthetic and hope that somehow something else would take it's place? Of course not. I think my relinquished daughter feels the same way. When she says she does not feel her adoptive parents were ever her real parents, I think I understand in some weird way. But I do not think their presence in my absence has been unimportant. They may not have been the best prosthetic, but they allowed her to live and grow. So it is in no way insignificant that she feels she needs them.

I know this post will piss some people off. Because were have been conditioned to believe that adoptive parents, adoptove children, step-children and step-parents are all to be considered as good as the original application they replaced. In some cases they may be as good or better. But they still are not the original components. And because of this, we need to be able to grieve the loss. If only people would let us do this without pretending we are missing or grieving our original parts. We may go on to live wonderful lives, but we deserve the acknowledgement that we have been changed, and not pretend that we have not been.

I can and will live a life without my daughter just as she can and will without me. But it is significant, it is damaging, and it will impact our lives forever. Even if other people who profit from adoption pretend it will not. All those who lost from adoption can just smile for the cameras and say it's okay. That is what they expect from us.