Comments on [Birth Mother,] First Mother Forum: Dealing with an adoptee's 'no contact' request

She could have written you a message saying it was...

2012-01-10T01:50:59.799-05:00

She could have written you a message saying it was too overwhelming and she needed to step back. Just being ignored leaves one with so many possible interpretations. Silence says so much and so little.

It's so unfair especially when you fought so hard for her not to be adopted.

Hopefully she will come back I very much hope that for you.

It's so hard being in reunion. I cannot imagine how it would be for your grandaughter. I'm so sorry I hope things will resolve. I'm so so sorry, it can only be painful for you.

Michele, Your story is heartbreaking. Being poor ...

2012-01-06T09:18:29.567-05:00

Michele,

Your story is heartbreaking. Being poor or the girl from the wrong side of town should have never deinied your mother her right to raise you.

So many of us had to go into that fog to try and survive what was happening to us and our babies. I still have segments of time that I can't grasp in my memories. It was a different time and women/girls didn't have much say. Even in something as crucial and forever as relinquishing your child. Trying to rationlize your decision to your child when you can't even understand yourself how it happened is next to impossible. It all sounds like lame excuses. I have to think that is because we were young and with age comes wisdom. We fell/ or were pushed very hard into the fantasy of adoption. We now know all to well the realities.

With all the pain that comes out on this blog and others everyday it is hard to believe that our side of adoption is still so unknown or not important or dismissed as the rambilings of "those girls".
What happened to us and still happens today is nothing short of one of the ugliest forms of abuse to women and children.

I have to agree with some of the identifying information being outright false or altered in an attempt to deter those intereseted in seeking their true identities. My daughters states that I attempted an abortion. It took her years to finally step up and try to find me because of that very false statement.

Michelle, thanks for telling your story. That had ...

2012-01-06T07:20:08.514-05:00

Michelle, thanks for telling your story. That had to be hard. Sounds like generations of problems. I am so sorry, nothing else I can say.

Mom was very poor, Dad's family was well off. ...

2012-01-05T21:25:01.217-05:00

Mom was very poor, Dad's family was well off. Mom suffered severe maternal neglect. Her mother would go out to the bars and stay gone for days, leaving her children to fend for themselves. Grandma had 7 children with 7 diff fathers, in the 40's and 50's. Dad's family owned the big house on the hill. Mom & dad met at age 14 & 17. Mom had an abortion at 16, from dad. He worked all summer to pay for it. They married when they learned I was on the way. The wedding was held in my paternal grandparents house. They lived on a large farm, called M******'s picnic grounds. They planned to raise me and live in an apt in the big house.

Mom says suddenly everything changed, and they moved to the other side of town. Dad started to work on her, telling her I would have a terrible life with them, worse then my mom had. She went to a church for counseling, and they told her about "the adoption option". She went home & told dad, and he loved the idea. That was the end of me being kept.

No one in the family knew I was born. I was with mom for 5 days in the hospital. Dad came to pick us up and drove us to SC. The rest you know.

One family member did know about me though, dad's brother's girlfriend called the hospital and was told, mother and baby are doing well. Then they heard the stillborn story. They decided to keep my father's secret.

I have a relationship with both of them, but it is "strained" at best. I have a hard time understanding their actions.

Wow, Michele, it's hard to imagine anything mo...

2012-01-05T21:20:15.892-05:00

Wow, Michele, it's hard to imagine anything more flippant than "he just didn't want me." I'm very sorry.

Robin said it best - there is no guarantee your child or parent will want to have anything to do with you. I know many more adoptees shunned by parents than the opposite but that may be coincidence. It is indeed a sad and painful reality, one which frequently causes spirited discussion, arguing, name-calling and eventual comment moderation wherever first parents and adoptees meet. It's gotta be an age-old argument - who hurts more?

It's sad. These reclusive parents and adoptees have their own demons to fight. Maybe they'll win and realize the folly of their ways, maybe they won't. Their battles cannot be helped from the outside, not from the subject(s) of their nightmares. We need to learn to let them know we care, will not intrude, are available if they want and leave it at that, forever maybe. You can't force any adult to be your friend.

Michele: Were they poor? Sometimes that can make ...

2012-01-05T20:41:12.876-05:00

Michele: Were they poor? Sometimes that can make people do desperate things.

Michele: Your story as you relate it, is one of ...

2012-01-05T20:39:57.504-05:00

Michele: Your story as you relate it, is one of the saddest. It sounds like your mother was truly in a fog, and your father the driving force in your relinquishment. Again, I am so sorry. No one deserves that.

Are you able to have any kind of relationship with your parents, if you want to?

Michelle, have you searched and found? If not, do ...

2012-01-05T19:37:24.627-05:00

Michelle, have you searched and found? If not, do not put too much stock in non-ID agency information. As Robin said, often this information is inaccurate or plain lies, especially when it is some worker's opinion of the birthparents. And as Lorraine said, there can be many different extenuating circumstances behind married parents surrendering.

Nobody knows what they will find until they actually meet their relatives. There is search help available, please take advantage of it. And know there are people here to support you.

I have met both my parents. They can give me no r...

2012-01-05T19:11:05.831-05:00

I have met both my parents. They can give me no reason why they gave me up. My Dad says he just didn't want me, and my mom says dad convinced her to do it. Mom also says she's blocked out a lot about what happened. Mom said it was the result of ignorance and stupidity. They also told their families that I was stillborn, my father said, so they could get away with it.

@Michele, I felt like someone stabbed me in the he...

2012-01-05T16:43:01.948-05:00

@Michele,
I felt like someone stabbed me in the heart when I read your comment. I am sooo sorry. Since you were born at the height of the BSE I'm sure you assumed that you were given up because your mother was unmarried. I can imagine how painful it would be to find out your parents were married. And, of course, you would think "They could have kept me!"

But PLEASE take what is written in that information with a grain of salt. Describing your n-parents as lovey-dovey may very well have not been the case. There was some hurtful information in my non-identifying file, too. It was written in such a way that I thought the person writing it was purposefully trying to be mean (or was at least trying to discourage me from searching). And after I found my n-mother it turned out the information wasn't even true.

Michele: There must have been a very good reason...

2012-01-05T15:40:51.078-05:00

Michele: There must have been a very good reason.

There is nothing to say except, I am sorry. That kind of relinquishment should have been prevented.

You were admitted to the care of Spence Chapin on ...

2012-01-05T14:47:22.685-05:00

You were admitted to the care of Spence Chapin on Nov 19, 1962. It was your birth parents who brought you to the agency. They took turns holding you while the procedures for your admission were completed. The worker noted that on this day your birth parents seemed very concerned about ONE ANOTHER AND WERE AFFECTIONATE WITH ONE ANOTHER. The following week your birth parents returned to the agency to sign the papers that were necessary for an adoption plan.

This is from the non-identification
info I got from the agency in 1999. This hurt me so bad, why did they have to do it? They were married, to each other.

The sad and painful reality of adoption is that if...

2012-01-04T17:16:08.478-05:00

The sad and painful reality of adoption is that if you give up a child for whatever reason, pressure, coercion, etc. there is no guarantee that that child willl ever want a relationship with you.

If you are a person who was relinquished as a child, even though you had no say, there is also no guarantee that you will ever be welcomed back into your original family.

Janet,
I tremendously admire how you are handling your reunion with your daughter. I can relate to so many of her feelings. And I am glad that you are both able to share the truth with one another.

Unfortunately, many people never even get that far. It seems to be the luck of the draw as to who wants to have a relationship with whom. From the story written about at AdoptionTalk of the birth parents (and I am using that term intentionally) who sued their son for finding them to adoptees who consider receiving a birthday card to be stalking, no one knows who or what they will find. We can only try to do our best with whatever hand we are dealt.

Janet, it is good to hear your reunion is going we...

2012-01-04T15:31:29.538-05:00

Janet, it is good to hear your reunion is going well. As someone who will never get to meet her first mother (though I am in contact with my lovely first family), I tend to take everyone's stories "to heart".

Just out of interest, how many people on here had counselling before reunitng with their children? In NZ, it is mandatory. By counselling, I just mean talking about expectations in reunion etc. Also, when I received my copy OBC, they sent a great little booklet along that outlined everything in there.

Btw despite my great reunion with first family, there are times I just feel like I could become a hermit and go live in a cave lol. I still have lots of feelings about my nmother that I don't feel I can talk about to many people because I don't feel I deserve to. After all, I never knew her so by rights, I shouldn't have any feelings (or so it is supposed to go). Still if I ever do decide to becomr a hermit, I do promise to tell relatives first lol.

I know my pain and guilt and sorrow from letting m...

2012-01-04T10:33:53.093-05:00

I know my pain and guilt and sorrow from letting my daughter go all too well. I think that one reason our relationship seems to work so well is because I have encouraged her to tell me her story. I let her feelings and concerns take center stage and listen carefully to what she is saying to me even though it may hurt sometimes.
It can be very hard to change a lifetime of beliefs. She stated that she always thought I was "relieved" to have let her go to a good family, that I was not capable of raising her, that I maybe didn't love her. After reunion, finding out that her lifetime of beliefs were false she has tried hard to rethink those beliefs as she now knows the truth.
For all of us, I wish we could have forseen the future. I am almost certain that most would have done things differently in the past.

Lorraine, I am keeping you and all of you in difficult reunions in my thoughts and hope things change to ease some of your pain.

My own natural son said I was stalking him. I let ...

2012-01-04T03:53:30.609-05:00

My own natural son said I was stalking him. I let him drift off for years, finally started to try to get back in contact. He went to a solicitor, he said contact was "harassment and stalking".
Whe people get like this, it could be they mean it or not, but playing mind games like "I went to a solictor" and previously, "I want damages", is not acceptable to me. I won't give up my entire life for him, tough: I just think it is too much to expect.

Lorraine, Thank you, thank you, thank you for the ...

2012-01-04T03:03:46.961-05:00

Lorraine,
Thank you, thank you, thank you for the courage and generosity it takes to share such a painful story.

I haven't heard from my daughter in over a year. I send her birthday cards, and Christmas cards and that's about it. No response. Next week, I'm heading into a vortex of potential hurt and stress. My mother is in a Rehab Centre with a hairline fracture in her hip, but there are so many other issues that my sister and I are freaked out with worry. My daughter lives near my mother and so I will let her know that I'm in the area and maybe even suggest we have coffee.

Yes, it is so absolutely strange to be treated by one's own daughter like a stalker and to feel, like you said, like a jilted lover.

Then there's her father who had told me that he wanted us to try and process the hurts of the past and be friends and has also pulled away, although not completely yet. He has a new girlfriend and I know that is a factor.

Sometimes (often) it is just so very, very hard to know what is the right thing to do or say when nothing seems like the right thing and especially when my daughter and her adoptive mother and sometimes even my ex-boyfriend all treat me as though I was radioactive. I do get angry, but in the end, I don't think it will help. Some things are just not acceptable. At least, I am still struggling with accepting the possible permanent loss of my daughter because of a choice I was forced to make when I was 17.

Thank you again for sharing Lorraine. Carlynne, I wish I could cry. Crying comes rarely but I did manage a really good cry this summer, not long after her birthday.

Lorriane, I am so very glad that you also removed ...

2012-01-03T23:26:50.216-05:00

Lorriane, I am so very glad that you also removed comments that tried to say what your granddaughter is thinking or feeling when you removed the other nasties. No excuse for that kind of speculation. The post was about you and what if felt like to experience yet another adoption-related loss. The focus should remain there.

COMMENT MODERATION IS TURNED ON AND WILL REMAIN SO...

2012-01-03T22:07:39.824-05:00

COMMENT MODERATION IS TURNED ON AND WILL REMAIN SO.

Comments that attempted to explain her behavior, or misinterpreted what was said, or that got snarky/nasty have been taken down. Yes, Jane and I make these decisions.

At this point, as my daughter doesn't appear t...

2012-01-03T17:07:54.567-05:00

At this point, as my daughter doesn't appear to have the slightest interest in finding me, and my other children have indicated that she means nothing to them, seems the best tact, is to just let it all go. Its a rotten situation, but that's closed adoptions are. Makes it easier on everybody I would guess. I can't take any more pain, and the forced relinquishment as nearly killed me as it was.Ugh! I'm doing my best to not think of it at all.

Wow. Yet again it looks like this is turning into ...

2012-01-03T16:22:12.261-05:00

Wow. Yet again it looks like this is turning into a big pissing contest of who's pain is worse than who's, that so many love reveling in on certain blogs. The cattiness never ends.

I am sorry, Lorraine, that you can't post how something in your life made you feel without it turning nasty and mean spirited.

"dpen said... Jenny, the comments are most as...

2012-01-03T07:54:57.066-05:00

"dpen said...
Jenny, the comments are most assuredly placing blame!

Those "angry" adoptees just don't get it right do they?

Comments read here alone..."My daughter pulled this"...what a nasty liitle girl(sarcasm intented)"

Let THESE comments be the reason I no longer post comments or thought about MY EXPERIENCE on these blogs. I thought this was a place for first mothers to speak of the pain of losing our children to adoption, not be chastised by the same group of people over and over again for being one step 'out of line'. If anyone dare go to an adoptee blog and pull this we are ripped to shreds.

No doubt you care and love her, I hope she sees th...

2012-01-02T22:50:23.658-05:00

No doubt you care and love her, I hope she sees that, and anyone would be hurt by her pulling back. No grandmother on earth would not be.............best wishes with it all.

Finally it is unfair to anyone to be left in the d...

2012-01-02T22:44:01.386-05:00

Finally it is unfair to anyone to be left in the dark, and she should have told you Lorraine about what was going on to me, and same with mothers that pull back as well - let the person know something, the silence is dreadful for anyone.

I hope she comes around.

My daughter died in 2007. She had not met her daug...

2012-01-02T22:43:13.406-05:00

My daughter died in 2007. She had not met her daughter.