Attending your daughter's wedding when you are the First/Birth Mother

Dear Birth Mother/First Mother Forum:

The daughter I gave up for adoption and I were reunited a year ago. She is getting married and wants me to attend. I'd like to, and am pleased she wants me there, but I'm freaking out over what to wear, the correct protocol, where I'm going to sit, and with whom, how I'm going to be introduced, will there be a receiving line and where do I fit into that--you name it, I'm freaking out. Some members of her family know I'll be there, but I'm sure some won't know who I am. How can I put on my best behavior and not feel horrible at the same time?
--Adrift in Adoption Land

Dear Adrift:

Oh, this day is probably going to be hard. Acknowledge that, grit your teeth, and move forward, and focus on not adding to the drama of the bride, and being an "issue" of your own. We at FMF dealt with this exact same cause for high anxiety some years ago, and the situation itself was clouded by the fact that my daughter's adoptive mother, aka Other Mother, at that very moment, and I, first/birth mother, were having an argument that I admit, was festered by our daughter. I told my daughter something she wanted to hear, she repeated it to Other Mother as a way of expressing that opinion herself, but said, Lorraine thinks...and it was NOT what Other Mother wanted to hear, and that resulted in my receiving a very angry letter, an upset bride-to-be who was now freaking out herself, and phone conversations with me that went on and on and on.... This was mere days before the wedding. More about this contretemps later.

I assume, dear Adrift, that the wedding is in the home territory of the adoptive family, and that they are picking up the check. Cavil all you might want to about details, that means you are their guest and need to act like a guest. Focus on the fact that your child wants you to be present. However, do control your freak outs, or have them at home privately, with your own friends and family, before the rehearsal dinner, which you may be asked to attend. Or not.

UNLESS ASKED, DO NOT TRY TO HARD 
Unless asked, you do not buy a dress that looks as if you are part of the wedding party; unless asked, you are not part of the receiving line (yes, I know, ouch); and you do not complain about where you are sitting. And I am hoping that your daughter/son will be sensitive and not seat you at the same table with Uncle Horace and Aunt Beatrice who think you should not be there at all!

The best of all possible worlds is that your daughter/son has met other members of your family and they were also invited and are present to a) offer moral support simply by being there; and b) will make up your table. That way, when everyone who knows Who You Are looks you over to see what you look like, they will see that not only does the bride/groom--your offspring--resemble you, but also your other children, or siblings, who are First-Aunt Sally, or First-Uncle Tom. Look, she has the same kind of hair as her mother. Look, they really do look like...mother and daughter. Trust me, that will be going through more than a few minds, and that will give the guests something to put in their personal portmanteau to ponder anon, as well as the people present who are, at that very moment, considering adopting.

So, yes, dear Adrift, just as you imagine, you will be on view. Other Mother will also know that and be none too happy, try as she might be to ignore you. She is quite likely dealing with a certain frisson over the fact that you are there at all. She is likely going to be privately upset over how much you do resemble "her" daughter--whom she has taken care of when you were not there for every scraped knee, every emergency ride to the hospital, every glass of split milk and dental bill. She is likely to be dealing with her own personal demons that day, and the more you resemble the bride/groom, the steeper her mountain of hard lumps to climb. Your very presence forces the adoptive family to confront that indeed, there was life before adoption. "Their" daughter has another family. Who looks a lot like "their" daughter.

NO NEED TO BE TREATED LIKE A NOBODY
But that does not mean you have to be treated like No One, a Nobody. You are the reason the bride/groom is having a wedding, after all! But we can imagine various scenarios: that you are asked to pretend you are simply a friend, and not her mother. You may be seated as far away from the wedding party. You may be not acknowledged during the event. You will probably not be dancing when they ask for the parents of the bride to take the floor. And given all that, attending may be more than you feel like putting yourself through. If that is your choice, explain to the bride that although you love her and wish her every happiness, you will feel more comfortable having a private celebration with her and her intended. You might take them out to dinner with whomever you wish, or no one else.

As for my own daughter's wedding, yes, the Other Mother and I were in a terrible state because Other Mother was sooooo very angry at me. Understand, I had been a part of their lives since I reunited with my daughter when she was fifteen, and now it was 18 years later. To even the tables somewhat, I sent my daughter $500 days before the wedding to pay part of the expenses (it was a simple country wedding at a VFW hall in a small town in Wisconsin farm country). My two brothers, their wives, and two of their children, aged 8 and 10, would be attending. And after Other Mother declined--as Jane knew she would--daughter Jane had asked me to read a part of the ceremony from a lectern. Talk about being on view! Talk about freaking out over what to wear!

I live in a resort community, and all the local stores were full of late summer resorty casual clothes, and nothing was right. At a trendy vintage clothing store in town, I toyed with buying a striking lime green Norma Kamali number that would have announced in spades: New York City Career Woman. Fortunately, I got a hold of myself and shopped on. I considered going into Manhattan, but I was not up to it. Finally, one Sunday about two weeks before the wedding, my dear husband took me in hand, drove us to a mall about 50 miles away (Manhattan is a hundred), and so I shopped. Macy's, etc., but still I came up with nothing. This one was too dressy, this one too blah, this one, I dunno, but it was not right. Finally, as we were leaving, I noticed a huge building with a Lord & Taylor sign. Let's try that, I said.

I FIND THE PERFECT OUTFIT--AT LAST 
It was there, right inside the door, in this enormous warehouse under weak fluorescent lights: a pale yellow cotton sateen suit with short sleeves, pearl buttons and simple tailoring. It seemed a little boring at first (considering the Kamali number dancing in my head) but I tried it on, told the woman managing the communal dressing room what this was for--the wedding of the daughter I gave up for adoption, imagine her surprise!--and dear reader, it was perfect. Original price, $379; here at the last-resort mall outlet: $79. Sold.

Handy style guide 

As everyone had arrived a day early for the festivities (my brothers came from Michigan, me and my husband from Long Island, New York), I had arranged to take my daughter, her fiance, my brothers and their kids out to lunch the day before, and that went fine. We all went bowling afterward. My husband, Tony, is not Jane's biological father, but has been in her life as a father-figure since she and I reunited. At the church rehearsal the night before, the Other Mother and I did not speak. She would not even look at me and walked away quickly. There was no rehearsal dinner, a huge boon. I treated my daughter, and her daughter from a first wedding, to the beauty parlor (not something Other Mother would have done, just different styles) the morning of the wedding. At the church, Jane had matching corsages for both of us. Other Mother and I sat next to each other during the ceremony, and she had softened by then, and we spoke in friendly tones. There was no receiving line at the wedding reception--very casual does have many blessings for first/birth mothers.

The day went by without incident. We shared a dance with her adoptive parents. Without assigned seating, my family made up its own table of eight on the side. We did not try to be "near" anybody. In this situation, a lot can be said for the casualness of the affair. Some of Jane's family knew me, and said Hello, a cousin came up and introduced herself, said she had read Birthmark, most of the other guests and family just went on about their business. In truth, I was glad our table was off to the side. I introduced myself to the groom's mother in the ladies room; she was cool, very. I think she's always: cool.

And the day was over. It was just one weekend. I recognize that my situation is unusual, and I was indeed fortunate at how it turned out. I would not have missed the wedding for anything. But everyone, every first mother and daughter, and every situation, every wedding, is different. If you truly feel attending will be more than you can bear, say so and stay home. We owe our children love, but we do not need to demean ourselves to show that love.
________________

PS: One occasion that I did avoid was my daughter's high school graduation. It was a few years after we met, I would have been at the graduation and party afterward alone, amidst all her other relatives, and I could not deal with being the "other" woman, alone. Though my daughter wanted me to attend, and her Other Mother did too because Jane wanted it, I knew I could not handle that kind of situation and after totally freaking out for weeks, told my daughter I simply could not come. She understood.--lorraine
_____________________

What to Wear, Where: The How-to Handbook for Any Style Situation  

"Life is stressful; your outfit shouldn't be. That's the philosophy behind What to Wear, Where the second book from the authors of the popular style guide What Wear. This time Hillary Kerr and Katherine Power give readers exactly what they've asked for: specific advice on how to put together the perfect look for any social occasion. What to Wear, Where addresses more than 50 major social situations, explains what you should wear and what you shouldn't wear, and shows you exactly what the authors would wear. Loaded with practical tips and style suggestions, it is the perfect resource for anyone who wants to feel more confident about her outfit choices." --Amazon

Thank you for ordering anything through FMF. Click on book jacket or title to go to Amazon. 

After The Wedding is a story about a mother and daughter reunion; Catch it On Demand

Lorraine

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world...is a line from Casablanca of course, but the other night I had a similar experience watching a film from On Demand that I knew nothing about....

After scrolling through what seemed like hundreds of movies to find something that wasn't a horror, action, comic book-themed movie, I came upon a drama called, After the Wedding. Info said it was about memories stirred up by attending a wedding. Hell, I'm about memories, right? Weddings, right? It starred Julienne Moore and Michelle Williams, both actors I like. I hit Play. 

Isabel, (Williams) works at an orphanage in India and is summed back to the US to secure a $2M donation for the orphanage. The rich lady (Moore as Theresa) considering the donation is insisting Isabel show up in person to make the pitch. Reluctantly, Isabel flies to New York City.

And So It Goes...Wedding Woes

I’ve been trying to turn off all things adoption, but it’s impossible. I’ve noticed that I can go for weeks without thinking about my estranged daughter, and then, wham! She’s living in my head rent-free and I can’t evict her.

My husband and I attended a family event over the weekend. We rarely see his family so naturally everyone was catching up on events. An in-law I’m close to asked if I had heard from my daughter and I replied no, but did I tell her I now have two “imaginary” grandchildren? I hadn’t. And this woman said what she says every time, “That’s not right. She came to you.”

It’s not right, but that’s how it is, as readers of this blog know all too well. The last time I saw or heard from my daughter was her wedding day, Memorial Day weekend three years ago. I didn’t want to go, but my inner circle of advisors said I must. The wedding was in North Carolina (her mother and I are in NJ). I met my daughter’s mother for the first time the evening before the wedding (we had been in reunion for over five years); it was a very awkward, very public introduction. My daughter made sure I kept my distance; I had less than fifteen minutes face time with her, as I expected. I wasn’t invited to the rehearsal dinner, she wouldn’t allow me to do a reading during the ceremony. I wasn’t included in any of the professional photographer’s family photos. I was just another guest. My husband, my sister, niece and I were seated at a table of the groom’s mother’s friends; I was on the other side of the room away from my daughter’s relatives, of which there were very few.

From what my sister has told me, my daughter was outraged that I stole her thunder on the most important day of her life. My status as the fairytale birthmother was the focus of the day, not the bride. My sister tried to tell her niece that I was on my best behavior, people came to us, I didn’t flit about the room bragging if I wasn’t for me, there’d be no wedding, as she insisted I did. People—her uncle, elderly second cousins--came to me; they shook my hand warmly and told me how glad they were that I was there.

I took away two things from that long afternoon and evening. The first was a brief but surreal conversation I had with an adoptive mother, a dear friend of my daughter’s mother, and the following encounter. My niece and I were in the ladies’ room and an attractive young woman turned to me and said, “I just wanted to tell you how great it is that you’re here. I’m an adoptee, and my mother wants nothing to do with me.” Of course, my heart sank. I knew, I KNEW, that I was just hours away from being cut out of my daughter’s life, and yet I had on my shiny happy birthmother face. I told this woman what we all know too well—reality is messy, reunions are complicated. I told her to give her mother time, try to be patient…the same things people have told me. She also mentioned her husband was also an adoptee but after seeing what she went through, had no desire to search for his birthmother. I told her that was fine, that was his right.

Later in the evening I found myself on the terrace with this young woman and her husband. He immediately started to tell me all the reasons he didn’t need to search for his first mother, and I listened and assured him his feelings were valid and allowed. As his speech wound down, I noticed he was in tears. I wonder if he’s changed his mind about searching.

When I arrived safely home two days later, I turned to my husband and said I felt as though I deserved an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy for my performance, and he agreed.

And so it goes.

this Birth Mother Is Uncomfortably Numb

Since I joined the virtual world nine years ago I’ve referred to some of the citizens as walking wounded, i.e., most people are in chat rooms, blogging, etc. because they’re striving, seeking, finding. Honestly, all is well in my world and I’m considered a happy, upbeat person, except when it comes to my life as a firstmother. Last week while I marked my daughter’s birthday I was thinking about this passage from The Giver, a futuristic young adult book by Lois Lawry that I read in the aftermath of 9/11:

Lily sighed. I hope to get assigned to be a Birthmother.”
“Lily!” Her mother spoke very sharply. “Don’t say that. There’s very little honor in that Assignment. The birthmothers never even get to see the new children.”

Very little honor indeed. And a simple phone call to my sister this morning was a grim reminder that in the world of adoption, we birthmothers are merely, to borrow a phrase from Lorraine’s July blog entry, “reproductive agents.”

I phoned my sister, Judasina (the name Lorraine and I call her, you’ll see why in a moment), to ask her if she wanted to join me for a Sunday drive to a craft show, and we caught up on the past week’s events. She knew from her daughter, my beloved niece, that I had sent myself a bouquet on my daughter’s birthday. She knows that’s always a difficult day for me and she leaves me alone until she’s given the all clear sign. I told her I had discovered my daughter’s address but that I wouldn’t use it because I didn’t want to upset or anger my daughter any more than I have, but that it was a comfort to me to have the information.

And then my sister confessed what I knew all along, she’s been in touch with my daughter over the past several months. This soap opera began over three years ago, up to and during my daughter’s wedding. My sister basically usurped my role…she met my daughter’s adoptive mother before I had the chance, despite knowing what a huge moment that was for me. She’s visited my daughter, who lives several states away, and bounced my grandson on her knee, yet I’ve never seen a photo of either of my grandsons, let alone told about their births (like everything else over the past three and one-half years, I discovered that information on the Internet) While my daughter has cut off all contact with me, she sends my sister photos of her two young boys (whom I jokingly refer to as my sister’s grandchildren), they e-mail occasionally, and apparently they tried to have a clandestine get together this past summer while my daughter had a month-long stay at the family home at the Jersey shore. My sister’s back stabbing and secrecy over the past several years has earned her the moniker Judasina. Suffice to say her ongoing relationship with my daughter (she’s not the firstmother so it’s OK to connect) has caused me a lot of heartache and long estrangements from my sister, and my sister ceased being my confidante long ago.

So, while I calmly let my sister share all the details of my daughter’s life, she saved the best for last: my daughter was recently diagnosed with cervical cancer. There’s absolutely no history of cancer on either side of her birthfamily, so I suspect it may be stress-induced. When I heard the words “cervical cancer,” all I said was, “that’s a shame,” as though my sister was talking about a work colleague, or an acquaintance.

I went to my craft show, did some errands, and by mid-afternoon I was just dumbfounded. If my daughter is so angry, so hurt, so overwhelmed that she can’t share serious health news with me, then I’m screwed. She really, really doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. I know and understand adoptees' struggle, but this—not being able to tell me she has a serious, life threatening illness, is just more than I can bear. One of the comments in my previous post told me to keep fighting, but I have no fight left in me.

I was going to send my grandson a first birthday gift this week, but decided against it. Jane commented in the previous post, perhaps we’re being spiteful. NO! This is self-preservation; I need to protect what’s left of my heart.

When my daughter’s first son was born, I--crazed, stalker birthmother than I am--phoned hospitals in my daughter’s city, and I found her on the second attempt. My sister, unable to keep the news to herself, told me she was having a Caesarian and the scheduled date. I just wanted to know that mother and child were well, and was it a boy or girl. Before I had a chance to react, the receptionist connected me to her room. My daughter answered the phone, and all I could say after not hearing her voice for nine months was..."Congratulations. And what did we have?”
It took her several moments to recognize my voice, and all she said was “Thanks for calling,” and hung up. I immediately sent an-email to Lorraine that I felt as though my heart was cryogenically frozen and it shattered into thousands of shards. Thankfully, I don’t feel anywhere near that at the moment, actually, I don’t feel much at all, and that hurts even more. I’m not angry, I’m not sad, I’m not wistful. I’m just numb.

Can Two Mothers Really Share a Child?

By Linda

FMF recently received a request to discuss our relationships with our children’s adoptive mothers and my hand shot in the air to volunteer for this slam dunk assignment. The simple answer is I have no relationship with my daughter’s adoptive mother. Period. Zip. Nada. Niente. Rien.

I tried. Oh, how I tried. My daughter was raised 40 minutes from me; her mother, divorced since my daughter was in high school, now lives in a desirable empty nesters/suddenly single complex just six miles from me. As I commented in a recent post, I strongly encouraged my daughter to tell her parents that she had found me. I was in the black hole of adoption for 23 years; I didn’t want anyone to be left out. Supposedly her mother’s response to the news was “I always knew you would search. I just wish you had asked me for help.” No help was needed--I left my daughter a trail of neon-colored breadcrumbs; I was just a phone call away.

I was eager to meet the woman who raised my daughter. I naively, foolishly believed I’d be welcomed into the fold; my daughter’s mother would see where those chubby chipmunk cheeks came from, how she earned her title of class flirt (like mother, like daughter). That was the case with her easy going father, but no, she had no interest. She seemed to forget that her daughter had a mother before her, and preferred to believe she was a gift from Santa (the paraphrased text in the formal announcement of my daughter’s arrival). And she was terrified of me.

Several months ago an adoptive father posted a comment for advice about his teenage daughter’s desire to search, and Jane explained the reunion was between his daughter and her mother, not her adoptive parents. I didn’t see it that way when I reunited, but it’s sound advice. In my attempt to create one big happy family, I ended up being the one left out.

When my daughter announced her engagement she said she wanted me to attend her wedding, but she needed to discuss it with her mother. Supposedly the woman’s response was something along the line of “Well, of course, I wouldn’t have you if it weren’t for her.” But I doubt Kay said anything of the sort; I think my daughter was being diplomatic. I suggested that my husband and I meet her mother before the wedding--coffee at Starbucks, anything--there would be enough stress that day, and again my request was denied. Apparently her mother hosted a shower for her here (my daughter lives in the South) and I wasn’t invited; another missed opportunity.

On the eve of the wedding my husband, niece, and I drove ten hours to the hotel where the reception was being held. We were sitting in the vast lobby when the wedding party trickled in from the rehearsal dinner. I walked up to my daughter; she gave me a big showy hug, and immediately walked me over to her mother. “Kay, this is Linda. Linda, this is Kay.” I was David; she was Goliath. Kay is a tall, slender, attractive, classically elegant woman. I’m an artsy, in-your-face, 5’2” free-spirited pear. We limply shook hands and in her soft, breathy voice she discussed her very elderly father’s solo flight from Florida. The wide smile never left her face; I realized the woman was on autopilot. I stood there thinking, “Oh my God, she’s channeling Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and her children are Caroline and John-John!” And then, out of nowhere, my daughter said, “Why don’t you two hug?” I looked to my husband; his face read, “Don’t look at me.” I looked at my daughter with eyes that said, “You’ve got to be @#$%^&* kidding me!” And I looked at Kay, who was as surprised and uncomfortable as I was. There were twenty, thirty people around us…she bent down and we gave one another an air hug that lasted all of one second, and then my husband and I went straight to the bar.

The only other contact we had that weekend was when my husband shared an elevator with Kay and they didn’t speak except for hello. During the reception cocktail hour, the mother of the bride was walking out to the terrace; I was walking in. I instinctively grabbed her and squeezed her tight and told her congratulations.

About a year later I was shopping at my supermarket on a weekday afternoon, which was unusual for me. For some unexplained reason I was drawn to a tall woman wearing flat shoes, a khaki skirt, and a homespun blazer; she reminded me of Miss Hathaway on the Beverly Hillbillies. I walked up to her and said, “Kay?” She looked at me blankly for a few seconds, gave me a fake hug, and we exchanged pleasantries. According to my estranged sister, who had analyzed the event with my daughter (who at the time hadn’t spoken to me in over a year), Kay thought I was a former classmate; she didn’t realize it was me until I inquired about her grandson. Again, according to my estranged sister (who was surprised I didn’t tell her about the encounter; I explained she had ceased being my confidante long ago and besides, it was a non-event) my daughter claimed her mother had “a right to privacy when she shopped.” I just laughed it off, what else could I do? My reunion failed for several reasons, and I admit I made my share of mistakes, but protecting and remaining loyal to the mother who raised my daughter was near the top of the list.

It’s now more than nine years since that long-awaited phone call, and I’ve spent less than 15 minutes with my daughter’s adoptive mother. I know that’s the rule rather than the exception for triad relationships. The only truly successful birthmother-adoptive mother relationship I can think of is Carol Schaefer; who wrote candidly about her relationship with her son’s mother in The Other Mother. Soon after my reunion Carol and I were attending the same meeting and I asked her for guidance. She took a deep breath, placed her hands on the table, and said, “It takes years.”

I’m still optimistic that the meeting and sustainability of the My Two Moms dynamic will continue to improve in contemporary adoptions. I’ve read a few blogs where adoptive mothers sincerely consider their children’s birthmothers members of the family, the ultimate Lifetime movie plot. Several years ago I knew a Christian couple who were adoptive parents of toddler twins. The birthmother had frequent personal contact with her daughters’ parents, but only received photos of her daughters. It was an open adoption, but complicated, at least to me. I’ve wondered if they’ve maintained their warm relationship, or if it became too much to bear.

I’m not complaining or seeking pity. I’m simply sharing my experience, which is just one of thousands of similar stories, some better, and some far worse. My daughter’s mother wasn't/isn't a horror story and by all accounts is an A+ mom. But I can’t help but wonder: why can’t we all just get along?

After the adoptee/birth mother reunion: Is Secrecy Necessary?

What I've learned from all the comments on the last post, When the adoptee keeps the reunion secret, is that openness is often undesirable and best to keep the reunion a secret...because there are too many problems if the adoptee/birth mother reunion is out in the open. And that everybody--first mother and adoptee, need to find his or her own way.

Amen.

We first mothers need to learn to trust that the adopted person is doing all that he or she can to handle two mothers (yes, one is enough trouble), and maybe, two fathers, or a combination of them. But what this discussion has reminded me of is something that I read elsewhere: how we birth mothers are "thanked," but when we come back, are then often feared, denigrated, and dishonored. And really, there is nothing we can do about that. That is out of our hands.

We are feared because adoptive parents fear our children will somehow prefer us. We are feared because they find it upsetting to see how alike--physically and psychologically--we may be to the "children" in question, who are now teens, young people, or fully formed adults. We are feared because the biological link by its very nature can not be broken; and the adoptive link, because it is based on proper conduct and associations, can be.

I can hear the chorus of people disagreeing with this statement, that the bond of love and relationship between adoptive parents and their children can never be broken, but we have seen indeed that it can. I know of too many situations where the adopted person has moved away, and rarely, if ever, maintains contact with the adoptive parents. And over at Cedar's Blog, On a Little Island in the Pacific, she has just written about how she adopted her grown son back; screen writer Joe Esterhaz spoke at the last American Adoption Conference with his daughter, about how he did the same thing.

If that is the sum of the relationship with the adoptive parents, is it any wonder that such individuals do not feel the need for a close relationship and frequent contact with their natural parents? And while you may cut off contact with one's biological child, or mother, the link is still there and will always be. Disinheritance does not break the biological connection.

But back I'm rambling here, and to go the topic of how adoptive parents deal with us:
We are denigrated because they fear us. So the way to deal with that is to put us down. And we are dishonored because they fear us. Most adoptive parents are now, after reunion, after years of raising the adoptee, not going to be willing to save a chair for us at the dance recital, as adoptive father Brooks Hansen wrote in The Brotherhood of Joseph talking about why he chose to adopt from Siberia.

But now we are talking weddings, christening, graduations. After years of "thanking us" for our child (but being glad we were no where in sight), they are not going to say, Hey, here's a spot up front at the wedding!" And we need to be mindful not to put extra pressure on the adopted person to make sure it happens.

In my own case, I was amazingly fortunate, and indeed, not only did I attend my daughter's wedding, I was asked to read a psalm during the ceremony. Since Jane was my only daughter, I got to freak out over what to wear to the wedding. There is no "birth mother of the bride" protocol. I sat right next to her other mother in the front row. We even had matching corsages. When the parents of the bride danced, there were three parents on the dance floor. I danced with my husband (whom Jane saw as a kind of step-father), and nobody threw eggs at me. My brothers and their wives and some of their kids were also there, and we sat with them at our own table--fortunately we filled the table.

Yeah, I know, amazing.

But there were some hairy moments. The bridegroom's mother was cool (very); I wouldn't say most of the adoptive family relatives were friendly (curious, but not friendly) and two days--hell, at the rehearsal the night before--the wedding, the bride's other mother was not speaking to me over a side issue. I've gotten off here on a tangent, but I just wanted to say there are a million ways to have a reunion.

Let's all just try not to further hurt each other.

Letters Lead to an Alternative Universe Daughter

Lorraine

By Lorraine Dusky
Coyright (c) 2009

Life has been good, fulfilling beyond any reason I could have imagined, dots connected that I did not know were still on the page, waiting for the right moment to be aligned. A few weeks before Christmas I got a call from a woman, Jennifer, who started out by telling me her name, but the second she got to her maiden name, my heart went KABOOM, I had a small panic attack, I'm flushed and pink--because her name was that of my first love, the one I did not marry, the one who if I had my life would have been--well, I would not be writing a blog called Birth Mother, First Mother Forum.

I would be an ordinary married lady, I presume, with a child who had not been given up for adoption. I might live in Michigan or Chicago or California. On one level, we were destined to be the kind of marriage that families might have arranged: both solidly middle class Polish Catholics. (To my mother's dismay, I did not even date another Polish Catholic in my entire life.) But there Tom was, and Tom was smart, attentive, charming, funny, loving--okay, he was also handsome, tall, slim. I was a journalism major; he, English. We were gears meant to mesh. In my mind, George Clooney would play him in the movie.

But so much intervened, including his mother. Lillian, his mother, was worried, I suspect, that since we were young--both of us college freshmen--and in love, I would get pregnant, her son would have to drop out of school, his life would be ruined. Wouldn't she have been surprised to know that we never went all the way? I think so. Tom indeed proposed marriage four or five dates after we met at my cousin's wedding on Thanksgiving Day, 1960. I said, Yes! Gladly, warmly, wholeheartedly. We were very sub rosa about the plans, knowing both our parents would have exploded.

My first love as I remember him. 

This and that and his mother and distance kept us apart--we went to school in different cities (Detroit and Cleveland) and lived in different cities (Dearborn, Michigan and Jackson, seventy miles away), and so getting together was always difficult, fraught, all too infrequent. Long distance phone calls were expensive; one had to rely on letters; he did not write often enough and his mother was always putting up speed bumps, making it impossible for us to see each other. I wanted more letters, more constancy, even though when we were together it was a glass all full. But still, back in Dearborn I had begun seeing someone else, and by the spring of our sophomore year, I broke up with Tom.

Bad idea. Really bad idea.

I let myself confuse constancy with the depth of my passion, soon realized I cared for him and him alone, but it seemed too late, our separation a done deal. Living far apart as we did, we did not run into one another, we had no mutual friends. More than a year passed; I'm now getting ready to graduate from college; Tom, not quite. My mother would tell me about hangups on some Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons--I think it's Tom, her eyes told me, as I was wondering the same. But who knew? No caller ID then. No email, no texting, no free calls on nights and weekends. Why wouldn't he leave his name if indeed the caller were him? I could not call him.

Then fate stepped in. My aunt, at whose daughter's wedding I had met Tom, was in the ladies room at another wedding in Jackson nearly two years later at the same moment that Lillian was there. "I shouldn't have broken up Tom and Lorraine," Lillian says to my aunt. Eventually, my aunt tells my mother, who relates the message to me, and when I think he will be home from school--Thanksgiving weekend--I send him a funny "thinking-about-you" card to be there when he arrives. He phoned as soon as he got it.

It was he who called, yes, he said, I used to drive to Dearborn on a whim, but you were never home, or you never answered the phone. I didn't have the nerve to leave my name, I was too embarrassed, you had to pick up, he said. We were back together immediately, almost as if we had not been apart, all passion intact. Now we even talked about what kind of furniture we would have when we married, what kind of car, how I would keep my name. We debated where we might live--not Dearborn, not Jackson, but--well, it's hard to know who was the main cause of our not marrying, in looking back we both were the reason, but marry we did not. Less than a year after graduation I left Michigan for a better job on a bigger newspaper out East, Rochester, New York. There I fell in love with my daughter's father, a married man; Tom married someone else back in Michigan. Five months before my daughter was born in 1966, Tom and his wife had a daughter. My daughter was relinquished; my life was inexorably altered. Here I am today.

But I did not forget. Who ever forgets one's first fierce love, when hormones run high and the wind blows strong and happiness seems to be yours for the taking?

In 1975, at the time I was divorced from my first husband, I heard through the family-and-friends grapevine (including of course, my aunt, the hairdresser who heard all) that Tom's marriage was on the skids, divorce was probable. Her best friend was the mother of Tom's best friend, so she was a very good conduit. In fact, as soon as I heard he was actually divorced, I was planning to call him. However, a week before the divorce was final, Tom died unexpectedly of an aortic aneurysm. And now it's more than four decades later and his daughter is on the phone, calling from Michigan...and I'm flushed with excitement and remembering that a couple of weeks before she called I had a dream about Tom, and woke up surprised because I had not thought about him for years. Years.

It's about five-thirty on a Friday evening, I am actually making a very Polish dish--stuffed cabbage, or golumpki, to serve to very non-Polish dinner guests the following evening, great comfort food for winter nights, it's semi-dark in the living room where I take the call, the dim light is coming from the kitchen, and I am hearing a voice tell me that she found a stack of my love letters to him--about a three-inch stack of letters--along with cards and a few drawings--he saved them all, I'm thinking--and she had Googled me, and now was wondering/hoping if the daughter I had given up for adoption was her sister, she never had a sibling and she's somewhat distanced from her mother, they were alienated for an entire decade after she turned seventeen, she lets the sentence trail off.....

She did not know my daughter had died.

I tell her the news, that a) my daughter was not her sister, and that b) she is dead. But I want to talk to Jennifer more, I want to know about those letters, I want to tell her how much I did indeed love her father, what a fine smart sweet gentleman he was. I turn off the cabbage steaming on the stove and we talk. And talk until I must get off, my husband is standing there with a quizzical look on his face, Who can that be? it's time for dinner. Jennifer and I email. She sends the letters. The love letters she's read. The marriage plans. The secret names we had for one another. My father's heart attack, days before I was to go to Cleveland to a dance at John Carroll, where he was going to school. Why we can't get together one New Year's Eve, will I see you next time, next week, will my family go to Jackson for Easter? And if we do, will you be there? A photograph of me wearing seemingly nothing but a sweat shirt from John Carroll. A few drawings. Silly cards.

Jennifer and I talk some more, we email daily. I cry, and cry some more, for lost love, for my daughter who was surrendered to adoption, for my daughter who is no more, for what might have been, and somehow it's all good crying, a vein gushing feelings that needed to be released though I did not know it. This is all happening around the anniversary of my daughter's death, Christmas, the death of a neighbor I liked very much. Jennifer wants to hear about her father, she was eleven when he died and her mother does not have many good things to say about him, of course, the divorce, and I tell her that after we were both married he and I did see each other--not once, twice--but we were not free, we lived a thousand miles apart now, and that was that. As I write, I'm still crying a lot, because it feels like somehow, some way, she and I are connected, ever so connected, an alternative universe mother and daughter. Amazingly enough, my husband is understanding. Don't you know why you are crying? he says. I shake my head, No. She needs a mother, you need a daughter, and you can be whatever you will be, he says. He believes in synchronicity; so do I; this is way more than mere chance.

The coincidences in our lives pile up--Jennifer does adoption searches in Michigan, a career begun after one of her friends relinquished a child and later sought him; Jennifer is married to one of my adopted Facebook friends, can you believe, we had actually emailed each other when I noticed the Michigan connection; his law office is a half mile down Michigan Avenue from my high school in Dearborn, and for a while Jennifer lived in Dearborn and worked as a reporter on a newspaper and that is exactly what I did when I was in college, work on a newspaper in Dearborn. In fact, she lived a few blocks from where I grew up. Her mother's mother was adopted; her mother's father is from--Wisconsin, which is where my daughter, whom I gave up for adoption, grew up. My middle name, Blanche, was her other grandmother's name. I want to send Jennifer something for Christmas, but I am not sure what, yet I keep fingering a green enamel dragon pin, purchased a year ago from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, but wonder if she will think it odd if I send her a dragon brooch. What is the proper present for someone you feel unusually close to through a weird coincidence of time and heart? A few days later she emails me a photograph of her collection of--dragons. That's just a start.

She is hungry for good news of her father, I tell her everything I can, muse I admit about what-might-have-been, it can't be helped, thank god my husband is so understanding, because I am still weeping a lot. I tell her how much her father wanted a child, we agreed to have One, how much I am sure that he loved her very much. She tells me her father was the cuddly parent, the hugger, the one who got down on the floor with her and played, the one who drove her and her girlfriends around, the one who taught her how to play chess. I tell her that is the man I knew. Things with her mother are not good, and frequently disappointing, she says. I tell her about my daughter, her epilepsy, her torments,the ups and downs of our quarter-of-a-century relationship. Life is hard, but this is easy. Pure and simple, this feels good.

Jennifer had no knowledge of me until she came upon these letters, which she grabbed  from her grandparent's house before it was sold, and they went off to a nursing home. She's had the packet for two years, but did not really look at what she had until recently. My daughter, Jane, died two years ago; had Jennifer called sooner it would have been too soon. Most of the letters only have a return address, no last name; only two have a last name--if those envelopes had been missing she would never have found me.

She's not my daughter, I am not her mother, but there we are, two women connected nonetheless, and everything feels right, warm and comforting, a blanket of love floating down that lifts us both up, together, as if our DNA was meant to come together and rejoice. I tell her something my mother told me only years before she died, and kept back when Lillian seemed hell bent on ruining our love: that she, my mother, briefly dated Tom's father, Walter, when Lillian and Walter broke up for a while. Aha! I said, so that was at least a part of why she seemed to hate me so much without every having met me. No way was Lillian going to have my mother for as part of her extended family--no way!

I still find myself crying sometimes, but that is all right. Her son, who is twelve, looks so much like my first love I internally still gasp when I see his picture on Facebook. I'll get through this and out on the other side, and I can not wait to meet her the next time I go visit my family in Michigan. I have met a friend for life; we send each other love. Life is full and good.--lorraine

Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose

– Gertrude Stein, Sacred Emily, 1913

Ah, the power of words. In her December 8 post, Lorraine noted, “By the way, I've seen some new list of acceptable language [to adoptive parents, one assumes], and reunion is now verboten.)” And I had commented that I was curious enough to do a little homework. I located the list, a reprint of an OURS Magazine May/June 1992 feature in Adoptive Families magazine, which indicated that “reunion” was negative language, while “making contact with” was considered positive language, and it was one of several spirited threads on this post. Those who commented agreed that reunion accurately described the dynamic, i.e., brought together again. One commenter wondered if “forever family” would be added to the list; I certainly hope not. Five years ago, Building Blocks Adoption Service, Inc. of Medina, Ohio, a Christian agency specializing in international adoption, placed the following ad in my local paper:

Did you know there are thousands of children residing in orphanages and foster homes overseas in need of homes? These children are in need of forever families. You can make a difference in the life of a child. Children from newborn to school age are immediately available for referral. Call and learn how you can make a difference in the life of a child through Adoption.

As soon as I saw “‘forever families” I went ballistic and sent an e-mail to the agency that the term was offensive and disrespectful to me and all biological families. While these children might need safe, stable, permanent homes, they already had families who grieved for their lost children. Surprisingly, I received a response and apology. Several months later this same agency had a new ad announcing an adoption seminar in my area:

Adoption is an Option…Millions of people have completed their families through adoption. The joy found in making a difference in the life of a child is great—and the joy that child will bring you is even greater.

Much better, don’t you think? I don’t know how much influence I had, but I felt as though they heard me, and listened. At the same time they adopted a new slogan as well, “Creating Families Through Adoption, and Making the Impossible Possible.” Wellll, I dunno. Discuss amongst yourselves.

But back to adoption language. Take a look at the list. Why is biological parent more positive than natural parent? What’s the difference? I’m not crazy about birth mother; as I said in one of my first blogs, it makes me feel like a character in a science fiction novel, it’s just so clinical and cold.

During the first days and weeks of our reunion, my daughter and I wrestled with vocabulary. She’d refer to her adoptive mother by name; she was almost uncomfortable saying “my mother,” and I was always Linda. Once when I didn’t recognize her voice on the phone she exclaimed, “It’s your daughter!” followed by a sense of shock that she referred to herself as my daughter. Eventually, quickly, she simply gave up and her mother was “Mom” or “my mother.”

A mother is a woman who conceives, gives birth to, or raises and nurtures a child. I may not be my daughter’s mother, but she was, is, and always will be my daughter. I conceived and gave birth to her; there’s no other euphemism to describe our connection. While being fitted for the dress I wore to my daughter’s wedding almost four years ago, I explained to the Italian dressmaker that I was the mother of the bride but we were separated by adoption, so I wasn’t her “real” mother. One of her immigrant assistants, a seasoned woman, was sitting at her sewing machine, carefully eavesdropping on the conversation. As I was leaving the shop, this woman smiled at me, nodded her head, and in her heavily accented English said firmly, “You’re her mother.” And of course I thanked her and started to cry, just as I’m tearing up right now at the memory of being acknowledged as a mother.

Somewhere along the line I began using the phrase “childless mother," a takeoff of the old spiritual “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” I lost my child to adoption; ergo, I’m a mother without a child. Looking over the list, I suspect everyone will have one or two terms that will rub them the wrong way. I think my favorites are substituting “terminate parental rights” for “give up” and “make an adoption plan” for give away. Though I know she feels differently, I didn’t give my daughter away. But hell yes, I gave up! Every time I wrote my list of pros and cons whether to parent my baby as a single 19-year-old without resources or surrender her to a couple who could provide the financial security that I couldn’t at the time, it was clear which side would be the victor, so yes, I gave in, and gave up.

How much of a difference, if any, does positive adoption language make to triad members? Is it kinder and gentler for adoptees to be referred to as “born to unmarried parents” rather than “illegitimate," the term widely used during the dark ages of adoption? Does it relieve single mothers of decades--even a lifetime--of guilt? Who distinguishes between adoptive parent and parent? Oh, wait! I just looked up the definition of parent, “One who begets, gives birth to, or nurtures and raises a child; a father or mother.” Ah, I see.

I wish I had answers; I only have more questions. If it’s any consolation, remember a rose by any other name would still be as sweet.

Telling a Stranger What It's Like to be a Birth Mother

Education, education, education is the motto today. Do I talk to strangers about adoption reform? We were visited overnight by one of my husband's college roommates and his wife, who is originally from Long Island, where we live. My husband and his friend had not seen each other for decades. We had no idea what to expect--liberals like us? Do we have anything in common? Are they adoptive grandparents? Trust me, I do not bring up adoption with unknowns like this. After lunch my husband took the initiative when I was asked "What are you working on?" He quickly answered: Lorraine is working on something she is not talking about. I turned to him and mouthed, thank you. Okay, it's a conversation killer, and now they are really curious.

But we have avoided, temporarily, the long discussion about adoption. I personally can not think of another topic that would invariably lead to what is so likely a personal and possibly passionate discussion, except maybe if I were having a sex change operation and writing about that. After nearly 30 years of marriage. To a man.

By dinnertime, when it was clear all was copacetic, and they had talked about their own children and their own ups and downs (no grandchildren, they would like some, neither of their grown children is complying), I took the initiative and fessed up. What became clear over the next twelve hours is how the woman saw me as possibly--maybe probably--unusual in how I had so negatively reacted to having relinquished a child. She did know of a sister of a college friend who "got in trouble" back in the Sixties, but that was the closest connection she had to a birth mother. This is an intelligent women with a PhD whose husband is a retired professor, who have lots of friends in various parts of the country. This is a woman I would be friends with if she did not live a thousand miles away. This is someone I will be glad to see again.

But because she had never met a birth mother who talked freely about what it was like to relinquish a child, she asked, in different ways and a couple of times: 

• Was I the only woman who gave up a child and "felt like this?" 
• If my daughter's relationship with her parents had been better--ie, if she had been totally accepted and happy in her family, better adjusted--would it have been easier on me?
• Might then I have accepted what happened and not been so...hmmm, what to say here..."upset" about having relinquished her? 
• How did I think the depression after adoption compared with what I might have felt after an abortion? 
• How had relinquishing my daughter affected my life?
• But I saw this couple once and they were going to adopt and they were so happy....
• And there are other women who feel the same way? You're not...unusual? 

Understand, she was not being negative or condemning, she was simply curious, and she did not confront or deny my feelings. She was obviously somewhat surprised, because I was refuting commonly held beliefs about women who give up their children for adoption, ie, that while they are probably sorrowful for a while, they go on and "make new lives" for themselves, the child put away like a vintage hat at the top of the closet of their memory.

I said in no uncertain terms, my life had been irreparably damaged ("fucked up" is what I actually said) after I gave up my child; that some people have compared what happens to us to post-traumatic stress disorder (and let's not go into that discussion all over again, please), that my life was never the same, that buckets of tears over the years followed this decision, that I never forgot and that giving up a child is a continuing source of sorrow, it is not like burying a child (which as some of you know, I have also done), and I explained why. The sorrow is great, but there is an ending to it; adoption grief continues like a song fragment in your mind that plays over and over again.

I explained about sealed records--how they are sealed not upon relinquishment but upon adoption, so there is no pretense of doing this for the "protection and anonymity" of the first/birth mother; about how getting this message across to legislators is like climbing Mount Everest without a sherpa or extra oxygen; about how adoption today has become a cold business and no, it is not the Catholic Church or the abortion foes who are the greatest enemy of ending adoption, but the adoption industry itself; about how the pressure for "product" (that is, infants) for the agencies has produced all kinds of corruption, kidnapping and murder in counties such as India and Guatemala; that despite how happy adoption makes childless couples adoption is not made to make childless people happy, but to give homes to children who need them. If I'd had the UN quote at my lips I would have added that:  

“Regrettably, in many cases, the emphasis has changed from the desire to provide a needy child with a home, to that of providing a needy parent with a child. As a result, a whole industry has grown, generating millions of dollars of revenues each year . . .” United Nations, Commission on Human Rights, 2003.

When they were leaving in the morning, she talked about getting together her outfit for her high school reunion that night, and showed me one of the choices; I told her about the nightmare of finding something to wear as the "birth mother" to my daughter's wedding. It was a nice moment.

And I couldn't help think, after they left, how much educating we mothers must do. I was reminded of Jane's blog recently about trying to convince a relative to not encourage her daughter to give up a child, and how the woman Jane spoke to seemed convinced that Jane was unusual and the only one who felt that way. I don't know how simply talking to my new acquaintance over part of the evening and again at breakfast will change the course of adoption reform in this country. Or how much the demonstration in Louisville on Sunday at the summit meeting of state legislators accomplished. Or if the the many many blogs about the pain of adoption from the viewpoints of the adopted themselves, and their birth/first mothers reach the right eyes.

But they are something, and they do add up. We are no longer silent. Every single person you educate about adoption today is one more than yesterday. Call it climbing a mountain. You do it one step at a time. So the next time the opportunity comes up, don't let it pass by unacknowledged, don't let the person walk away uninformed. --lorraine
---------------------
"Mother & Child" has finally come to eastern Long Island, and I'm planning to see it soon, if not tonight. (The link will take you to Jane's review.) I did catch "The Kids Are All Right," (about kids contacting their sperm-donor dad) and will write about that in a day or two. And by the way, Birth Mother/First Mother Forum is now available on Kindle. How about that?

Yep, that's my memoir there. If you are going to order it, please do so through FirstMotherForum. I am trying to find a way to run ads other than those from amazon.com here, but every time I try, ads for adoption agencies appear along with the search firms. I can handle the search firms, but NOT ADS soliciting product for their businesses.

No Drama (so far, but the year is still new)

Happy New Year. I’m still recovering from a holiday hangover, with activities ranging from three trips to NY (South Pacific, a visit to the Intrepid Museum with my nephew who’s proudly serving in the Air Force, and two wonderful exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art) to Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg to catching up on this year’s crop of award nominated films.

My sole resolution this year is “no drama,” from anyone, about anything, including myself. In a first-day-of-the-year e-mail to Lorraine I wrote, “I just want to turn it [adoption and everything connected with it] all off. My situation [my daughter’s almost four-year silence] isn't going to change; I just need to imagine it was all a figment of my imagination, every bit of it. Really, I've had enough...the heartache, the guilt, the wrecked relationships, the woulda/coulda/shouldas. The whole legal fight for open records, people outside the triad telling us how we should be (get on with our lives)...

For me, probably for most of us, trying to avoid all things adoption is like trying to not breathe, as evidenced in the following examples.

• My niece and nephew, now 25 and 22, respectively, indulged their offbeat aunt by joining me for a visit to the recently refurbished Intrepid Sea-Air Space Museum; my nephew’s currently stationed in Germany and his insider’s view added to the experience. Now I can say I’ve been on the Concorde. Afterwards I treated them to brunch at a chic, new midtown restaurant/lounge designed to resemble an Aspen ski lodge. As we ate our tapas my nephew was discussing his five year plan—his upcoming wedding to his high school sweetheart, perhaps reenlisting, two children, and perhaps a third by adoption. He was sitting directly across the table from me, and I must have had a stricken look on my face. He explained that even though I have a horror story (his words, not mine) there are still plenty of kids who need loving, stable homes. And oh, he wouldn’t adopt a kid from Russia. As long as he was financially and emotionally able to provide a home for a child in need, why shouldn’t he? I couldn’t argue with that, and told him so. When I shared the conversation with his mother she was just as surprised as I.

• One of my holiday traditions is to read all my cards from past Christmases—I note the people who are no longer here, friends with whom I’ve lost touch, the relationships I still manage to retain. I found a 2002 card from a former coworker, a man in his thirties at the time, who found his birthmother when he was 19. The card is something a child would give to an adult, a mama bear helping a little bear put on his coat before heading out into the snow. It reads, "You're just like a MOM to me...'Cause you're sure good at doing mom stuff! Merry Christmas! Love You!”

Michael and I bonded when I asked about a photo of a very handsome young man in his football uniform that was hanging on his cubicle wall. It was his biological father, who was killed in a car accident shortly after Michael was relinquished. I believe his mother was a cheerleader who eventually married, had three daughters, and divorced. At the time I knew him the relationship was very shaky; he wasn’t speaking with his mother. He so desperately wanted to be a part of his mother’s “other family” but he was treated like an outsider; for instance, the girls had a professional family portrait taken for Mother's Day and didn't include him. Somehow he learned that his original birth certificate reads "Baby Boy whatever-the-last name-was" and it hurt him deeply that his mother didn't even give him a name.

My relationship with my daughter was almost three years old then and we weren’t in a good place. Michael and I were one another’s support group...he wished for a birthmother like me, I wished for a reunited child who cared as much as he did. Sadly, but understandably, we lost touch.

• Next was the Op-Ed piece in Friday’s New York Times that Lorraine discussed in the previous blog. I was on my way to catch the train to New York so I just scanned it, but on my first read I thought it was brilliantly written, and made a mental note to read her new novel. But then I discussed it with Lorraine and…well, the previous blog comments say enough on the topic.

• Did you catch 20/20 Friday night? The program was devoted to Extreme Motherhood—women experiencing orgasms rather than pain during labor, mothers nursing their children till age six or seven, two women who have been surrogates multiple times for $25,000-$30,000 a pregnancy, and my personal favorite, women who covet “Reborns,” lifelike baby dolls that they treat like real infants and cost anywhere from a few hundred to $1400 dollars. And oh, you can get them made to order. Linda, a married but childless 49-year-old woman, took her doll for walks in a stroller, had a fully furnished nursery, would shop at baby boutiques for clothes, and even changed the doll’s diaper. When asked if she considered adopting a child, Linda responded, “It’s very expensive…you have to fly to Russia.” Um, no Linda, you don’t need to travel all the way to Russia to adopt a child. I’ll refrain from further comment except to say that I thought I’d heard it all until I watched this show.


• My husband couldn’t understand why I wanted to watch this program, but I couldn’t tear myself away from it. It actually dove-tailed perfectly with the collection I explored that afternoon at the Met, Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Now, why couldn't I have been a descendent of a wealthy Venetian or Florentine merchant rather than humble Neapolitan peasant stock? The exhibit depicted romantic relationships from courtship and engagement to the magnificently furnished marriage chamber to the celebration of childbirth--gifts to the betrothed, the dowry (which of course still exists today, especially in Third World countries as well as our own culture) the elaborate wedding gifts, all very symbolic and beautiful. And I was thinking how I missed all that...no engagement, no diamond ring, no hope chest. My "dowry" from my father was a set of Farberware pots and pans. He didn't finance any of his daughter's weddings, never offered, and he certainly didn’t have the means. And I was thinking there's a rhyme and reason to all of this ritual; it keeps us...on track? In tune? It signifies the importance of friends and family, of connection and belonging. The ornate, finely detailed commemorative birth plates were simply breathtaking. My standard gifts to new babies are plate sets and pewter porridgers, they’re something the kid will use and perhaps save as a keepsake, but most modern mothers who’ve received them don’t seem to share my sentiment. Coming of age in the feminist movement, I admit I wasn't fond of the modern tradition of engagement party followed by bridal shower and wedding gifts chosen from a registry; if couples didn't set up housekeeping until after marriage, then I could see it.

There were other moments, but I’ve blogged enough already. My latest adoption-is-everywhere moment occurred this morning while reading The Times Magazine and comes from Joan Rivers, of all people. In an interview, Joan is asked, “And how is your daughter, Melissa?” She replies, “For a mother and daughter we’re amazing. The only time she really cried is when I sat her down and told her that she was not adopted.”

Now I know Joan didn’t mean it, and I know it’s just a joke. But I didn’t laugh. There’s nothing funny about it. If you disagree, please do share.

So much for being able to turn it off, eh?

Late afternoon postscript: My sister, who has occasional contact with my daughter, phoned this afternoon. I gave her an inch and as usual she took a mile, i.e., she provided an unsolicited daughter update. Yes, my daughter received my Christmas card, followed by a chuckle that wasn’t explained. I was simultaneously preparing dinner and cleaning out my closet so I was only half-listening, but I did catch “She doesn’t think of us as her family” and repeated the mantra my daughter has often shared with my sister, “Linda didn’t give me to [her adoptive parents], United Family [the adoption agency] did.” Then I heard, “And if you only made a phone call that time all of this would be behind you,” again a comment from my daughter via my sister. I really have no idea why I was supposed to call or when, but more importantly, I didn’t let it—or them—get to me.

Actually, not being considered family felt liberating; I’m free of guilt; my penance is complete—for now. Best of all, my No Drama resolution was tested and I stood firm, at least on this fourth day of what is sure to be an interesting, surprising year.

The enduring pain of adoption loss

Jane

"Does the pain ever end?" asked a newly reunited natural mother.

"It's always there somewhere," I answered, "but it moves into the background as your relationship evolves."

I thought of this as I was having lunch with Anne, a natural mother friend, the other day. I had known Anne since the early 70's through Oregon politics and the feminist movement. It was only after my reunion 18 years ago that I learned we had something else in common.
Both of us had given up a daughter in San Francisco in the 60's. We went on to marry and have three more daughters. We celebrated our 47th wedding anniversaries in December.

Can mothers who lose their children to adoption be thankful?

Jane in 1968

Thanksgiving has always been intertwined with the birth of my surrendered daughter Rebecca* and our reunion. She was born exactly a week before Thanksgiving in San Francisco 1966 and we re-united a few days before Thanksgiving 31 years later. As we tend to do with five-year anniversary dates, I am looking back and reflecting. What has my life been for the past 20 years? What have I learned?

When I left the hospital on that bleak November day, I began living two lives, one life in real time, law school, marriage, three more daughters, a career; the second life in my imagination. What was Rebecca was doing at each of life's landmarks? Did she graduate from high school, go to college, marry? I tried to mentally add her to family pictures. Still, if asked how many children I had, I redacted her, answering disingenuously "my husband and I have three daughters."

Over the years, I thought about looking for Rebecca but the time never seemed right. I knew finding her would not restore her as my daughter and it could derail my life, damaging my relationship with my raised daughters, upsetting my career. On November 18, 1997 a relative, an aunt by marriage, called telling me that Rebecca had called her and sent a letter. I was stunned, frightened.

When the Reunited Child Pulls Back

Photo by Ken Robbins

What happens in reunion that causes the adopted person to pull back? For some the reunion goes well, the catching up between adopted person and you, birth/first mother, clicks along lickety split, you have the sense that this is the continuation of a great relationship--for you did have one with your child in utero--but then, Wham! just when you lease expect it, your child--your adult child--pulls back and away.

Weeks go by without a word. Weeks turn into months. Months turn into years. And nothing. You wait, you wonder, you go over every word you said because surely--it was something you said, something you did. It is all over again: your fault.

At the Heart to Heart retreat last weekend in Boston, "pull back" were words that I heard with greater frequency than any of us first mothers/birth mothers would like, but "pull back" is so often a fact of reunion. Pull back. I found my daughter when she was fifteen and was reunited with her face to face a thousand miles and a few days later, and for many years we had what seemed to be a good relationship. Her adoptive family was also a part of the picture. I was never a secret.

But then, out of seemingly nowhere, she would be gone. Not return my phone calls. One time, when I went to Wisconsin and she still basically ignored me, saying only the minimum number of words to not seem more rude than she actually was. The first time we saw each other that weekend was in church at Sunday Mass. She of course knew I was in town. I was at the end of the pew. She came in and said hello to every possible person she could find to say hello to, though she knew I was there, waiting. When she slid in next to me, she looked away to say hello to one more casual acquaintance. I wanted to be swallowed up by the floor, for everyone who knew her in the small town, in the parish, knew exactly who I was, and her casual rejection of me hurt like hell. I waited. Finally she turned to look at me and say, nod Hello, Oh, it's you. You count less than all these other people and I've done my best to show you and everyone how little you matter. Oh, it's you.

Another mother whose seventeen-year-old daughter was living with her and the mother's other younger son, got up one day and simply walked out. Went to a girlfriend's before she went back to Georgia. Letters were ignored for years. Finally, one day a decade later, the mother heard from her daughter asking for health information and letting her know that she was now a grandmother. My friend went out and bought baby clothes and sent them along with all the medical history. Again, nothing. Again, years passed. And then one day she called, saying she and her husband and child would be in the vicinity, did they want to meet? Yes, of course. The visit went well, and then again...nothing.

Linda has written about attending her daughter's wedding, only to have her pull back afterward and maintain a relationship with Linda's Judas of a sister. Fellow blogger Jane's relinquished daughter is in pull-back mode. Some of the birth mothers who write here frequently talk about their fractured relationships, or no relationship at all following reunion.

It hurts. When you want to have a relationship with your child, and they do not, it hurts.

What can we do? Often times, nothing. The reasons for the pull back probably have nothing to do with anything you said or did, but happen simply because the adopted person wants to have control over the relationship--a control that was denied them when they were placed for adoption in this most crucial fact of their existence. Or the adoptee may feel guilty for having a relationship with the birth mother because it feels as if it diminishes the one with their adoptive parents, and they are extremely protective of them.

Over the course of my decades-long relationship with my daughter Jane, until she died in 2007, I often prized and held close the honesty I felt she brought to the table on occasion about our relationship because I felt she was telling me things that she would never share with her adoptive parents. But that also meant that I was privy to her assumption that always the adoptive family's feelings were tantamount, that it was okay to ignore my feelings in some ways because, well, because I would understand the need not to offend their feelings. In a way, it put me in the power position, the way the person who lets the other person out of an elevator first is in charge of the situation. But still. I never pointed out this disparity to Jane. I simply understood. She knew this dynamic was at work; I knew it was my job to be understanding.

Her relationship with her adoptive parents was in some ways more fragile than hers with mine. The Chinese have a belief that a thin red line connects people who are meant to be together, and though miles and circumstance may separate them, they will find each other again because they are connected by this thin red line. I'm not saying that I was a bastion of tranquility when Jane was gone, for months, for more than a year one time, not at all, but I believed that she was not gone forever. And then, out of the blue, she would call and begin the conversation as if nothing unusual had occurred, as if we had just spoken a week ago. The last time this happened was in the last year before she died. She ignored my emails, and even had her phone changed to an unlisted number. A letter was returned with the word: REFUSED stamped in red on it.

I could not help being reminded by that months earlier she had called sobbing and when I picked up the phone, she simply said: Tell me that you love me. I did. Repeatedly. Apparently her adoptive mother in the heat of an argument had told her that she did not love her.

But within days, her other mother apologized and they were back on track. That was the clearest example of how vastly different my relationship with Jane was. Jane could walk away from me at any moment, for any reason. And I'd better watch it because it could happen again. Her other mother could be forgiven; I might not be. Jane's reasoning must have gone like this: Lorraine walked away from me, she gave me up. I'll show her I can do the same.

So months again, with no contact. And then one day she called mid-morning, I answered, and we both said in tandem: How are you? And we picked up where we had been months before. I knew better than to berate her, or even ask her why. This time we seemed closer than ever, and all I said, after several normal, every-day kinds of conversations, that if she wanted me to be close and trust her, she should not ever simply walk away from me again. Right, she said, right.

So, what did I learn? That pull backs happen when you least expect it. They might even be considered the norm in a post-reunion between adoptee and first mother. That a birth/first mother's relationship with her reunited child is not ever going to be the same as the one with children who have not been relinquished. That no matter how much some of their actions hurt us, we have to be the adult, the mother, and realize that the adopted person is going through as much emotional turmoil and pain as we are, only that it is different from ours.

Some have posited that the adoptee's pain is always greater than the first mother's. I don't buy that. Because in thinking through one's relationship with one's parents, the child always has the upper hand emotionally. As much as I loved my mother, I was the one who moved away--far away--and didn't really miss not living closer. As much as I loved my mother, and we had a powerful and strong bond, I was the one who could hurt her more than she could ever have hurt me. As a male friend once said to me after he had a son: Your kids have you by the balls. Graphic, but he made the point.

From what I could discern during the Heart to Heart weekend, birth mothers who have ongoing relationships with other children were less bothered by the pullback of their only child, the relinquished child. Linda and I are in that group,and fellow blogger Jane has other daughters, and now grandchildren who live nearby and take up her time and energy. That the women who have other children are less stricken by an adoptee's rejection after reunion is simply an observation, not claiming to be scientific, but it makes sense to me.

We first mothers are called upon to be patient, and loving and understanding of the adoptee's need to control the relationship, to keep us secret and separate perhaps even from the adoptive parents' awareness. Though we have heard from many adoptees who have been rejected by the first mother, or who are too critical (see comments), I hope adoptees can find it in their hearts to understand how much power they have to hurt those of us who so desperately want a relationship when they reject us.--lorraine

Telling my family about my first child--and then going public

Telling the Family
When my first daughter, Rebecca, whom I relinquished for adoption contacted me through an aunt, I had to deal with telling my three other daughters about her. My husband knew about her – I had told him the night before we got married—but I was concerned, and a bit terrified, I admit, of telling my younger daughters who were 25, 23, and 20 at the time.

None of them were living at home, and the oldest was getting married in a month. It was late November, and I did not want to distract from my daughter’s wedding or the Christmas festivities by announcing a new family member, so I decided to wait until after Christmas to tell them. This also gave me some breathing time to digest everything.

Even though Rebecca and I emailed everyday and spoke frequently on the phone, I waited ten days before I told my husband. It is hard to bring up the matter of child who has been relinquished. As I wrote in an earlier post, it felt as if my world was shifting. And of course, it was.

Although Rebecca and I discovered we had major differences in religious and political views – she was a Mormon and a Republican; I am not religious and a solid Democrat -- we were alike in many ways, having the same sense of humor, enjoying the same movies, making the same spelling errors. We shared details of our lives; we were soul mates. As time went on, Rebecca pressed me to tell my daughters about her. My oldest raised daughter was working in Washington DC, the youngest was attending college in New York, and my middle daughter lived in Salem, Oregon where my husband and I lived.

Rebecca and I arranged to meet in Chicago where she lived in January. I had come to a place with Rebecca where I trusted her and decided to tell my other daughters about her before I left. I believed that the shared pain of our separation had forged an unbreakable bond between us. I wanted her to be part of my life, and I knew this could not be if I kept her a secret.

A week or so before I was to leave for Chicago, I asked my two youngest daughters who happened to be at home to come into the kitchen and talk to me. I began haltingly – “There’s this girl, woman….” (The girls told me later that they expected me to say that I was a lesbian and had a lover.) “She is a daughter I placed for adoption before I met your Dad.” I’ve always been political and my middle daughter blurted out “Oh, so that’s why you never ran for public office.”

I told them I regretted giving Rebecca up. The girls questioned whether their Dad would have married me if I had kept Rebecca. I pointed out that their Dad took in stray cats so that a stray kid would not have been a stretch. After a few more minutes, I left for a walk allowing them to talk among themselves. I forbade them from calling my oldest daughter, telling them I would do it when I returned.

When I came back, they both shouted at me to call their older sister—the one who had just gotten married. She had called from the china counter at Macy’s in the Pentagon City Shopping Mall outside Washington with some questions about her china. The girls told her she had a “new” sister. I can only imagine her expression when she heard the news. I called her immediately and we had a tense conversation. It certainly wasn’t the best way to hear about this new family member.

The girls, especially the oldest and youngest were particularly upset that I wanted to have a relationship with Rebecca, that I could possibly care for this daughter -- whom I did not know, they insisted --as much as much as I cared for them. Their response was much like the lament of an adoptive mother who learns her adopted child is having a relationship with her birthmother: “How can she care for this woman who gave her away? I was the one who changed her diapers, stayed up with her when she was sick, paid for her braces," and so on.

My oldest daughter felt displaced; she was no longer the primo daughter. My youngest daughter, my fourth child, felt that I was excising her. In the twisted thinking we experience when we are stressed, she reasoned that since I apparently wanted to have three children, that, if I had kept Rebecca, she never would have been born. Since I regretted giving up Rebecca, I clearly preferred Rebecca to her.

My middle daughter had less difficulty than the other girls perhaps because as the middle daughter, she did not lose her place in the family. She put together family photographs for me to take along to Chicago.

I gave them copies of B. J. Lifton’s Journey of the Adopted Self to help them understand why Megan searched for me and why I wanted to have a relationship with her. My youngest daughter asked sadly, “Where is the book for sisters?” Fortunately I came across an excellent pamphlet Sibling Reunion: A Letter to Those Who Have Been Contacted by Randolph Severson (1991). I gave my middle daughter a copy and sent the other girls a copy with a letter assuring them that my relationship with Rebecca would not diminish my love for them. (Unfortunately the book seems to be out of print. Amazon is asking $162.65 for its one copy. The only other book I know of that deals with sibling reunions is The Other Sister, by S. T. Underdahl, a fictionalized account of a sibling reunion written by an adoptee in the persona of the raised sister.)

My visit with Rebecca and her family seemed to go well. When I returned home, she began to email less frequently. She came to visit in April and June, though, and met all three girls. They got along well enough and visited each over the next several years. In 1999 and 2002, Rebecca came to our family reunions and met her aunts and uncle and most of her cousins.

Going Public

Soon after Rebecca and I connected, I learned about the struggles going on across the country for open records. In March of 1998--only a few months after our reunion--I saw a news clip about Ballot Measure 58 that would amend Oregon law to allow adult adoptees to have their original birth certificates. I drove 50 miles to Portland and attended an outdoor rally for the Measure. I knew no one else and felt lost. One of the speakers was a birthmother. No way could I tell a group of strangers about my daughter.

In the fall of 1998, a birthmother friend hosted a fund raiser for Measure 58. I suggested to Helen Hill, the chief petitioner of the measure, that she run an ad in the Portland Oregonian with names of birthmothers who supported the measure to counter the false statements by the adoption industry that mothers wanted confidentiality.

Several days later, Delores Teller, a birthmother working for the Measure, asked if I would appear in the ad along with several other mothers. While I was not yet comfortable with my status as an “out” birthmother, I agreed. This full-page ad appeared two days before the election and was a huge success. I was in a picture along with four other mothers surrounded by the names of close to a thousand birthmothers. Lorraine’s was one of those names. Measure 58 won with 57 percent of the vote.

As for being pictured in the ad, I found that it was a good way to tell co-workers and acquaintances about Rebecca, a whole lot easier than telling them in person. A few mentioned that they had seen it but mostly I didn’t get any response. (Most of my closest friends had met Rebecca when she visited in June.)

Rebecca had tried to get her original birth certificate shortly after we connected, but the State of California, where she was born, turned down her application, as per its law. I had hoped Rebecca would appreciate what I had done, perhaps increasing her esteem for me. I sent her a copy of the ad, but she did not respond.

Once Rebecca met me and I had answered her questions, she began to pull away. She made it clear that I was second best, a bastard mother. The only “compliment” she ever gave me was telling me that “you made the right decision in giving me away,” which was painful to hear. While our relationship continued -- she was responsive to my suggestions that I visit, or that she visit, and we got along when we were together -- I had increasing doubts about her commitment to a continuing relationship. Far from being a soul-mate, she did not even feel like a friend.

We went on in this vein with less and less communication and more and more disagreements through emails, primarily over adoption. Rebecca, a true-believer in Mormonism, insists that all children born “out of wedlock” should be placed for adoption with married heterosexual couples. I believe that adoption often does more harm than good and as a society we should support keeping mothers and babies together. This is the substance of our quarrels, but I think there is a deeper issue. Rebecca believes that God had a hand in her adoption. If she were to question the institution of adoption, she would have to question whether she should have been adopted; thus questioning God, and, more personally, questioning who she would have been if she had not been adopted.

To keep up our connection and to help out their stretched finances, I sent Rebecca and her four children birthday and Christmas presents each year. A year ago she emailed me and asked me not to continue. She said it made her uncomfortable. I think, though, that part of her reason was a desire to deny the bond between us. I could not be her children’s grandmother since God had made her someone else’s daughter, and thus I could not act like a grandmother by sending presents.

In January her oldest child, Rachael, a college student in Utah, asked to come and visit and did come this past February. Rebecca was aware of the visit and apparently did not try to prevent it. I’ve written about these events here. Her next child tells me she wants to come this fall.

I have met adoptees whose birthmothers met them once and said, “I’ll answer all your questions now but I do not want to see you again. I haven’t told my family about you and I don’t intend to.” I have thought this to be incredibly cruel; these mothers were rejecting their children a second time. Now that things have not gone well with Rebecca, I sometimes think I should have done this and spared my daughters the stress of learning about their biological sister. On balance though, I think it was best to tell them.

Next I’ll blog about how my daughters’ reacted to Rebecca and how she reacted to them.