Reunion: A Conclusion

I’ve been silent a long time. Maybe because I have been contemplating what reunion is and what it isn’t. I’ve have gone through many grieving periods of the many losses that adoption and reunion brings. I have finally come to a place where I’m okay and I truly want to strive for happiness in the remainder of my days. I will still have that feeling of sadness. I just choose not to focus on it anymore. 

When I found my daughter I went through many years of discovery. I regained memories that had been pushed out for a long time and was plunged deep into the grief that losing ones baby brings. I did my best at trying to build a friendship with her but was not successful. 

And that’s okay.

It is okay that one adult does not want to have a relationship with another adult. I could probably analyze my behavior, her behavior, her upbringing, etc until I draw my last breath. 

It won’t change that she doesn’t want to know me. 

So, over my silent period, I have chosen to stop the crazy making of the analysis. I send a birthday message and if she responds, she does. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t. 

I think that reunion, for me, was more of a reunion between who I should have been and who I had become. It was a reunion of myself. I have worked hard to crawl out of the depression and hopelessness.  I work every day to focus on what I do have and the love that I get from those who do want me in their life. I don’t want to waste the last half of my life dwelling on my trauma and what I don’t have. I want to feel and experience joy during my final years. We get one life and one shot at happiness. I’m going to grab what I can. 

Not What I Thought

I started this journey so long ago. Sometimes I wonder how I got here. The journey, as you all know, started when I lost my daughter to DIA (domestic infant adoption). The two of us were supposed to experience an open adoption which neither of us did. My thoughts and hopes then turned to reunion. I thought we would reunite once she was of age and that we would integrate into each others lives and families like extended family. Reunion was not what I thought. I found my daughter online and sent her a Facebook message to confirm that it was her. The first reaction to me from her should have been a warning shot but I left the door open. She and I enjoyed a pretty decent online reunion for the first 2 years and then it all fell apart. I found some online groups to join to give me some insight and I found myself in disbelief at this thing called “silent reunion” many mothers spoke of. I remember thinking to myself that things were a bit rocky but we surely would survive as my reunion couldn’t be anything like theirs. After all, I was supposed to have an open adoption and surely the adoptive mother had passed along all my letters and gifts for the first year. Funny how nothing has been “what I thought”. I think back to how many times I can say those words. I have been electronically reunited for 8 years this month. The first 2 were filled with relationship building, then the communication abruptly was shortened to quarterly and for the last few years it has been the words “thank you” sent to me on Facebook after my birthday greetings. Two words, once per year. That is what reunion is.

I never got to see my adult child face to face. I have never heard her voice or smelled her hair and I likely never will. Reunion is hard. It is frequently faced with rejection on both sides. Rarely is there ever a good or valid reason for the rejection which makes it all the more crazy making. Those of us who have been on the receiving end of this rejection often  we spend many restless hours wondering what we said or did that has caused this to happen. In reality, it is nothing we have done. Our family member just cannot see us as just a plain human being who wants to know them. Instead they seem to make up an evil fantasy about us in their mind and accuse us of things we have not said or done. This is the justification they use to reconcile their irrational behavior toward us. Sometimes there is no accusation, they just no longer respond to emails, phone calls or letters.

I used to wonder how a mother could reject her adult child wanting reunion. I no longer do. I think many of them are concerned about the very reality of reunion that I have just laid out. Some adult adoptees do reunite to get genetic/medical answers only which reduces us to nothing more than a bodily function and some want to inflict serious emotional pain on the mother whom they believe left/abandoned them. Others, it seems (as I am not an adoptee), do truly want a relationship but adoption has skewed the lines and damaged both parties so heavily, that they can’t seem to put the square peg in the round hole. Occasionally, you hear of a family that was able to put it together and become restored to each other. It is rare and I think it is what gives us hope that our family will be whole again. For me, hope was dangerous. It left me with fantasy instead of reality. Reality is a hard pill to swallow but for me it has been healing to find acceptance, to grieve tremendously and to focus on finding joy in the reality of what my life has become after adoption.

 

Wondering

How many do I need to save from adoption before my pain goes away?
When does my pain end?

SOS Alert: Family in Need; Critical and Time Sensitive

Click link, read and donate!

Musings of a Birthmom by Jennifer Wachowski

**Names have been changed to protect the identity of parties involved**

Sometimes it is not adoption agencies that we have to fight against. Sometimes our emergencies are because of people who are supposed to support, encourage, and protect us – family members. When Lindsey, who is 19, gave birth to her child 3 days ago, she never imagined she would have to fight her mother for her child. However, sadly, this is the case for this SOS emergency.

Lindsey is 19. She was discharged from the hospital yesterday with her baby. Lindsey’s mother, has since decided that she would like to have the baby removed from Lindsey’s care and has called CPS to assist her with this. While SOS does not typically get involved with anything CPS related, this situation is different. Mom and baby are healthy, mom has no drug or alcohol use, and no criminal record. We have…

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What I Want to Say

I will never speak these words to you and you will never “get” it.
Difference between you and I is that when you lost your baby everyone came to comfort you, even me. They expected you to mourn and were so sad for you. When I lost my baby (you) I had no sympathy. In fact, there were those who rejoiced in my loss (your adopters, my family and your father). You see, we both lost babies but I was treated with malice and you kindness. I’m surprised you still can’t see that we share more than just DNA.  And now you treat me with malice too.

Dear Dolce & Gabbana- a letter of support from children of gays and lesbians

askthe"Bigot"

I guess they got our letter. Ciao Gentlemen!

The translation of our letter that ran today in Tempi:

Dear Dolce and Gabbana,

Greetings from the United States. The six signers of this letter were all raised by gay and lesbian parents. Five of us are women and one is a queer man, though we all raised our children with their opposite-sex parents. We want to thank you for giving voice to something that we learned by experience: Every human being has a mother and a father, and to cut either from a child’s life is to rob the child of dignity, humanity, and equality.

We know that gay parents can be loving, since we loved our parents and they loved us. Nonetheless, we have all had firsthand experience with the harsh backlash that follows when the dominant view of “gay parenting” as universally positive is questioned. We know that you…

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DNA

I found my child 7 years ago. Silence has consumed most of the last 5 years, on her side not mine. A little over a year ago I was told not to contact her anymore but not deleted from FB. My first grandchild was born a couple months ago, I will never know her and she will never know me. Although I know where they are, I have ordered the FTDNA and have uploaded my family tree. I have done this in case my descendants lost to the one act of adoption go looking for thier genetic history. I cannot rely on my daughter to tell my grandchildren or thier children that she does not belong to her adoptive family’s family tree. I also cannot rely on her to expose who or where I am. I’ve done this so they can have the answers if they choose to look one day.

The Most Unethical Adoption Agency in the State of Ohio

When Adoption Takes A Life

Another post for Sean:

Suicide by Adoption

I lost a friend yesterday, well, he was found yesterday. A few years ago he had reached out to me for support services. We naturally became friends. You see Sean was an adoptee. He asked me to help him find his natural family. I had first found his mother, who refused to respond to me. I then found his father who lovingly folded Sean into his family immediately. They had a loving relationship. Sean’s dad had always wanted him and made sure he knew. Sadly the whole that adoption had created in Sean was too big that all the love from his father could not fill. A few years later, Sean reached out to his mother again. This time she responded. The heart wrenching, primal cry that came from this young man when he heard his mother’s voice was not enough to break open her motherhood. She sat silently while he cried “I have missed you my whole life”. I wonder if her love could have healed the wounds adoption had created, we will never know now.
There is no therapy and no pill to fix the pain adoption creates. Sean was unable to feel the love then rest of us gave. I will try to console myself that he knew his feelings were valid and just from the support of our little group. He was so kind and so sensitive. A very special young man. He gave me and others as much support and advice as what he received. I wished he could feel some sense of peace or happiness for some moment in time.