My Thoughts About Adoption

I began searching for my birthfamily in August of 1998. This has been (and continues to be) an interesting, exciting, frustrating journey. I found incredible support and assistance in my search efforts from wonderful, caring friends. Through the miracle of the Internet, I found a supportive and caring community of others who have traveled or are traveling the same road. Searching for my history and origins (i.e. my birthfamily) gave me time to reflect on my reasons for searching in the first place. During my search I received a note from an adoptive mother asking me why I felt compelled to search. Following is my response to her. I share it with the hope that it might help someone else who wanders in here to begin to understand adoption and the far reaching effects it has. Feel free to write to me if you have other questions.

I grew up in a family of 6 adopted children all from different parents. The fact that we were adopted was always just a fact. I am the second oldest so at the time when I might have needed to be told about being adopted my adoptive parents were still adopting kids so it was just a part of growing up. Therefore, I never "had to be told" that I was adopted.

Since I began searching, however, I have uncovered a lot of feelings and emotions I have around being adopted that were never addressed or acknowledged.

I am searching for my birthfamily because I have realized that I have never felt like I have a real connection to any other human being. I don't know what it is like to have people that I look like. I have never been able to relate to the phrase "blood is thicker than water." What the heck is blood? I don't know what it is like to be related to anyone by blood. Throughout my life I have had instances where I found myself thinking, "I don't belong to anyone." Sure, I have people that I grew up with and there are two people who adopted me and raised me and gave me a home to live in, but that doesn't make me "related" to them.

I personally feel that most, if not all adoptees, at some point in their lives, have a need to search for their biological roots. I ignored my need for 38 years. When asked by people if I had ever thought of finding my birthfamily I had always said it would be "nice" to know the story of why I was adopted, etc. but that it was nothing more than a mild curiosity. Certainly not enough to make the effort.

Since I began searching it has become a "need." I believe the change has come because I have finally allowed myself to feel at least some of those emotions that I had kept buried. Adoption and all the feelings of loss and abandonment that accompany being separated from your birthfamily were never acknowledged or discussed in my adoptive family. I have come to realize that this created an underlying feeling that we children were not to ask questions.

I am searching for my birthfamily because I have a real need to know my origins. I need to know where I came from. I'm trying not to have any expectations as to what type of, if any, relationship that may come from my searching and hopefully someday finding. That is too much of an unknown for me to worry about at this point.

I look at my life as if I have been putting together a puzzle. It is a rather involved and complex puzzle. Many times I have had difficulty finding where the pieces fit. The picture that is appearing in this puzzle I've been putting together is very beautiful. As I get close to finishing this puzzle, I've realized that I'm missing a piece. It is up toward a corner and in no way diminishes from the beauty of the picture but without it the puzzle will not be complete. That is why I am searching.

If you are an adoptive parent, I need to tell you I believe that someday your child will feel a need to search and to know their biological origins. This is no reflection on you as a parent. I believe it is a basic human need. Also, don't feel that you will lose your child when they find their birthfamily. Human beings do not have a limit on the number of people that they can love. Just as a parent can love more than one child. That child is also capable of loving more than one mother or father.

Some of my feelings concerning being adopted have come to me as I have searched the Internet and tried to imagine all the scenarios of what it will/would be like to find my birthfamily. Other feelings and emotions I have uncovered through some of my reading. Many have come to me as I have begun to give myself permission to wonder what my birthmother or birthfather were and are like. To wonder what my life would have been like had I been with them. To even acknowledge that I "have" a birthmother. Not to wish I had been with them, just to wonder how things would be different. I'm realistic enough to know that my life may have been worse. Adoptees cannot help but "wonder" about all the "what ifs." Another thing adoptees wonder about is the "whys."

As I said, I was raised in a family of 6 adopted children and that I never had to "be told" since my adoptive parents were adopting children as I grew up. We always knew that we were adopted and knew that it meant that someone else had given birth to us.

However, nothing further was ever discussed. No one ever talked to us about our birth families. It was as if our birth families didn't exist. The feeling seemed to be "why be concerned about what didn't really exist?"

Throughout my life I have had many, many times when I have felt lost and all alone in the world. I have rarely ever felt like I fit in or ever felt like I truly "belong." I don't know what it's like to look "like" someone. It's hard to truly understand this unless you've experienced it yourself. Growing up, kids need that security of knowing they belong and fit in. So many times their feelings are overlooked because their adoptive parents are looking to satisfy their own needs and not the needs of the child.

In my adoptive family our birth families were never discussed. I feel like this completely discounted the fact that someone gave birth to us. The general feeling is that the child "belongs" to the family that they are "placed" in and not to who gave them birth. In most cases this really harms the child subconsciously.

Growing up, my adoptive mom would say that we were "meant" to be hers, we just had to be recycled. I don't think this was said in a hurtful way. I always interpreted it to mean that she truly loved us as if she had given birth to us. However, it totally discounted our birthmoms and the fact that we had been taken from them, whether by their hope for us to have a better life or because they were forced into it by parents or other circumstances.

All members of the adoption triad (adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents) experience losses. There are many reasons why people choose to adopt. In many cases, people adopt because they are unable to have children of their own. In those cases, those people experience the loss of having that dream child of their own. The birthparents experience the loss of their child. The adoptee experiences the loss of the people that brought them into the world. In most closed adoptions, the losses by all parties and the grief that accompanies them is never acknowledged or addressed.

No one ever told me it was okay to be sad that my birthmother was unable to keep me for whatever reason. "SHE" was never ever mentioned or discussed. Many adoptees grow up with the feeling (whether it's implied or just assumed) that they are betraying their adoptive family if they want to know anything about their birthfamily. The question of "Why don't you love me anymore?" is one of the most common ones that adoptive parents ask the child when approached about wanting to find birthparents. The main reason this occurs is because of insecurity on the part of the adoptive parent. The adoptive parent feels threatened because they feel that the child is betraying them and the love they have given over the years.

It is my belief that no matter how a person is raised, there is a basic human need to know your origins.

As my friend Sandra said, "The most natural need for a person is to know their heritage. Without that knowledge there is an emptiness that one can push down and try to bury, but can never fill without knowing where they come from."

I know that many adoptive parents fear the day their child might decide to search. There is the fear that they might find their birthfamily and "like them better" and the adoptive parents will lose their child. There is the fear that the child may love the birthmother more than the adoptive mother. There are many, many fears that adoptive parents have. I feel that these fears are unfounded. That does not make them any less real. I heard one adoptee put it this way: "Just as a parent is capable of loving more than one child, the adoptee is capable of loving more than one parent or parents." Love has no limits.

Sandra further explained it this way: "I have found that in my search there are so many twists and turns, it is like a mystery novel -- a lot of false trails and lies - the quest is to find out what everyone has the right to know - where did they come from."

By searching, an adoptee is not saying they don't love their adoptive parents. They are just expressing the basic human need to know their heritage and origins.

The time surrounding "the Holidays" is very difficult for me. It has been for as long as I can remember. However, it was only a few years ago that I made the connection with the time of year and my change in mood. I used to refer to it as a depression, but it is more than that. I have had bouts of depression off and on most of my life and this is somehow different than that. It is more like a dark "cloud" that begins to envelop me until I am completely enshrouded by it. This is the first time I have made a conscious effort to try and identify what happens to me and that's the best way I can think of to describe it.

This begins usually about the end of October to mid November. It starts very gradually until it reaches its most intense grip on me, usually coinciding with the week of Christmas. Sometime around the beginning of January it begins to loosen it's grip and is usually gone by mid January.

This year (1998) it has been particularly intense. The month of December I mostly just go through the motions of life, just trying to get through each day and prepare to face another one. Christmas shopping, decorating, any type of celebrating is just too overwhelming for me.

Because this "cloud" becomes its worst around Christmas I have always just played it off as an "I hate Christmas" attitude. This year, however, I have begun to think that Christmas has nothing to do with it.

Since I began my search for my birthfamily I have read many times of how the unborn baby experiences everything the mother experiences; i.e. emotions, fear, pain, etc. I am beginning to wonder if these "episodes" that I experience are related to what my birthmother experienced just prior to my birth.

I was born (according to my non-identifying information) on January 23rd. (Isn't it sad that we adoptees have to question the validity of our birth date?) My info. includes a note from the social worker dated January 7th. It reads as follows: "1-7-60 - The birthmother contacted the LDS Social SServices department of the Church about a week before she was to deliver. The birthmother already had one child who was primarily raised by her mother."

The only other note from the social worker reads as follows: "1-25-60 - A baby boy was born to the birthmother on January 23, 1960. On 1-25-60 the worker visited the birthmother in the hospital. She was anxious to sign the papers for the release of the child to get away from the hospital as she felt very lonesome there. She was very talkative during the time that she read the release papers and during the time that they were being signed and notarized."

My non-id also states that my birthmother was divorced due to her husband deserting her. I had to be placed in foster care until they could attempt to locate my father. It also says that they could not locate my father when the divorce decree was issued. I have since learned that the divorce was happening right up until the month before I was born. My parents divorce was final on Dec. 4, 1959.

According to my non-id my birthmother was going through a great deal of trauma during her pregnancy and especially at the end. She already had another child that she apparently was not able to raise. Her husband had deserted her. He could not be located when I was born, making it necessary for me to be placed in foster care for approx. 2 months. Because she waited until just a week before I was supposed to be born to contact the agency makes me wonder if she struggled until the very end with the decision of relinquishment.

It was not until I began to search that I finally began to get in touch with my feelings and emotions concerning my adoption and all its ramifications. That could explain why this year has been so difficult for me. If it is true that the unborn baby experiences the feelings and emotions of the birthmother in utero this might explain what happens to me the last few months of the year.

Now that I have found my family and learned some of the things that took place during the time my mother carried me this has all begun to make a lot more sense.

My parents were married April 28, 1959. That was, almost to the day, 9 months before I was born. My mother filed for divorce on June 15, 1959; just six weeks after they were married. My mother was apparently under a great deal of stress the entire time she carried me.

Subj: adoption
Date: 99-01-15 22:32:27 EST
From:
To: Cdavetype

Dave,
Have you ever thought that maybe your birthmother doesn't want to be found. I gave up a baby girl for adoption years ago because I was young, stupid, and had gotten myself into trouble. It was a very hard decision for me to do but it is one that I have never regretted. I always have felt that because of me, some couple that couldn't have children, was able to have a child to love and care for. I had adopted brothers and sisters in my family and I have always been very grateful to whom ever the girls were that they gave up their babies so I could have brothers and sisters. I love my brothers and sisters, very much, you see I was an only child. If I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing. I went through the LDS Social Services also. I made a list of the type of people I wanted my baby to go to and of the types of things I wanted them to do. I wanted them to be active in the church, be outdoors type of people, be fun people, and things like that. I was able to approve the people my baby went to. I made sure that a full history, medical and who her descendants were, was given to the adoptive parents so she would know all about where she came from. what her ancestors did, and her medical history. I know that she went to a very good home.

I know that if she came looking for me now in my life, it would destroy the life and family I have now. My husband knows about her and was willing to overlook the fact that I have a child out in the world somewhere. It was hard when I had our first child to think that I had another child but she was not my child to have. It was through my body that someone else was able to have the joy like I had when I had my "first child." Just leave things alone and go on with your life and make the best of it that you possibly can. Let sleeping dogs lie. I hope that my "birth child" does not use your web sight to try to find me, I would be very unhappy.
Sincerely,
a concerned birthmother

HERE IS MY RESPONSE TO HER:

I am sorry you feel the way you do and I'm sorry that you have not allowed yourself to heal from the pain and loss of relinquishing your daughter. I fully realize that my birthmother may not want to be found. When the day comes that I do find her she will have the opportunity to say whether or not she wants to know me. If she should choose not to know me, she will have lost a second opportunity and that will be a great loss for her. If that should happen I will have lost out on the opportunity to know the woman who brought me into this world, but at least I will know my origins and where I came from. I hope one day that you can let go of the pain that you still feel and allow yourself to heal.
Dave Caldwell

HOME

Email