To First Mothers: When your adopted 'child' calls out of the blue

Lorraine

This is for the mothers (first, birth, natural, biological) who search on the web for how to react to a phone call they are either waiting for or fearful of--that from their child lost to adoption. Years ago I would have assumed that every mother on earth who gave up a child would be overwhelmed with joy and say something like: Oh my god, you found me! I have been waiting for you to find me! 

Today I know that is not true. Not only have I heard of so many birth mothers rejecting reunion that it makes my head spin in sorrow, but I also had a long-time neighbor and friend who did not admit that she had a child that her other children did not know about--until she was on her deathbed. For years we managed to maintain a friendship while we argued about what I fought for, mystifying me and her children. One of them figured out the truth before she came clean, only weeks before she slipped away. If such a mother was that close to me in real life, there are many others out here.

When adoptees' Right to Know becomes a philosophical debate, adoptees lose

Diane Rehm

Birth mother privacy has been in the news of late, beginning with a Diane Rehm on NPR show that ostensibly was about DNA analysis that leads to connecting adopted people to their families. And that show came after a New York Times front page story about DNA analysis two days earlier. Sometimes it is third cousins who can connect, because they have also had their DNA decoded, but third cousins lead to second cousins and they lead to first...and a body might be able to connect the dots back to one's original mother.

Holy Cow! Uncles are shocked, children faint, husbands leave! Horrors! goes the collective gasp from the people who see all rights as equal competing against other rights. (One wonders what they would have done during the era of slavery, but never mind.) Competing-but-equal rights regarding human identity was the opinion of the self-styled expert, Kimberly Leighton, there to discuss adopted people's right to search-and-connect after DNA matches. Leighton says near the end of the show that she is an adoptee who searched and found, something I missed on first reading of the transcript.

A Letter to (Birth) Mothers Who Reject Reunion

Lorraine

My birth mother doesn't respond/ why does my birth mother reject contact/ birth mother rejects contact... must be among the saddest words on earth to type into Google. And then the person finds First Mother Forum and we are all about wanting a solid, good, reasonable relationship with the children we relinquished, and we are torn apart when they reject us. Or put us through what seem like unreasonable paces.

Carrie, an adoptee who found FMF the other day, wanted to know why some mothers reject contact from the children they gave up for adoption, as her mother did. Carrie's not the only one to face this, as we've heard this many times before. Every time my friend who is a confidential intermediary in a partially "open" state is in the middle of a search-and-reunion, she expresses fear that one side or the other will reject contact, and she cannot pass on the contact information. Carrie asked if I would write a letter to all those first/birth mothers who reject contact and reunion. It's a hard assignment because I'm not in their mind set, but here goes: