Adoptee in Reunion: What I REALLY Want

Nearly seven months have passed since I found my birthmother and, after four decades suppressing thoughts about her, it's still difficult to grasp that she's a real person.

To tell you the truth, I rushed into finding her. There was no time to waste. Once I admitted adoption was a really big deal, I hired a professional searcher. For all I knew, my mother was now so old she could be on her death bed.

But what did I really want?

What do I want now?

Because thoughts about my birth family - and adoption in general - were so taboo, thinking clearly and realistically about such an off-limit subject is still difficult. Repression and denial are old habits and good friends when your adoptive parents were horrified by the mere mention of the "A" word.

Sometimes it takes a fresh pair of eyes to open one's own. Thanks to social worker/blogger Leroy Dissing (www.ldissing.blogspot.com), whose comment on a previous post managed to pierce the armor. Here's what he said:

I would struggle, as you are Nina because it would be hard to fathom a mom not wanting to know the details of a child she gave up rights to 40+ years ago. And to hear the words from her/him that she thought/prayed for you often; that she/he regretted the choice of giving you up and wept many times over it; that before he/she died, they would want your forgiveness for a wrong that cannot be righted in this lifetime. To me that would be a natural, human and parental response - and one more; to say how proud they are to know you, what you have become and that you will always and forever be loved and cherished as a daughter should be - unconditionally and inseparably.

That, folks, is what I want and what I'm not getting and what I may never get. Point by point:

1) My b.m. says she sometimes wondered what happened to me but makes it sound casual and sporadic, like she's describing an old friend from high school;

2) She repeatedly says she had no other choice; she made the best decision she could under terrible circumstances;

3) She admits that family members who did know of her pregnancy begged her not to relinquish and called her "heartless" for doing so, but she was determined to give me a mother and a father and an education (we know how THAT turned out);

4) In our second conversation, I NEEDED and allowed myself to tell her about my domineering/controlling adoptive mother and my narcisstic child-like father, but it's as if she didn't hear me and talks as if I went to a home of the highest quality that she'd imagined would be mine (white/affluent/education oriented)

In essence, I get no sense of regret. Instead, it's like she's finally satisfied that she made the right choice.

What's done is done. It's the choice she made and there's no turning back the clock. But a relinquished daughter - even a middle aged one - would like to detect some sign of inner conflict and turmoil. Resolve to relinquish in the face of family opposition may be the truth, but it's NOT welcome news.

Ann Fessler's excellent book, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe vs. Wade, did much to enlighten us on the pain, suffering and coercion young pregnant women faced back then. These stories are both truth and, for me, a sort of fantasy. For that's how I'd like to picture my story. Not voluntarily relinquished by a rational 37-year old mother, but a younger and more vulnerable girl forced to surrender her baby, tears streaming.

Still, that's not my story and it's never going to be and this is just another piece of (grim) information that I will eventually process and incorporate and get over.

Special note to adoptees thinking about reunion, don't let my little tale of temporary woe deter you. I STILL think searching and finding is one of the best gifts I've ever given myself and I'm STILL here, just more fully grounded with a real backstory instead of a fake one.