A fellow Mom Blogger and Glorious Birth Mother, Jenna Hatfield who writes at Stop, Drop, and Blog as well as The Chronicles of Munchkin Land, has been a top birth parent blogger for Adoption.com since 2006. She has recently stopped writing there, but her work is still on the site for anyone to read and educate themselves and to heal the wounds of what life is like as a woman who has chosen to relinquish her child into the arms of another to raise. The following is an excerpt from Birth Parents and Fear, where Jenna relates what other birth mothers, all from various stages in their journey and from different eras of adoption, have shared with her regarding our most personal fears:
- Something awful will happen to our child
As birth parents, we either decide or are told that our child will be in better care with another family. We trust that or force ourselves to trust that idea. The truth is that sometimes bad things happen even in adoptive families. Abuse and death don’t skip over a household just because they have adopted. Many of the mothers I talked to held this fear closely.
- Their child will be irreparably angry
This is not just a fear from closed adoption birth mothers who fear that the secrecy and length of silence will create angry feelings on behalf of their relinquished child. Mothers in open adoptions also fear the potential for anger. Most of the birth mothers I spoke with said that they understood the reasons for the anger and would be accepting but the fear still sat in the pit of their stomachs.
- Their child will want nothing to do with them
Not even for angry reasons, a majority of the birth mothers held the fear that their adult child would want nothing to do with them. This was a universal fear, encompassing both birth mothers from closed and open adoptions.
- Their adoption would be closed
This was obviously a fear of mothers from the open adoption era. Over half of the mothers I spoke with were concerned that their adoptions would be closed and that they would have no way to contact their child. The other fear embedded with this one was that the adoptive parents wouldn’t be truthful about who closed the adoption and that the child would become angry with the birth parent for “walking away.”
- Their child would never be told he was adopted
This was mainly a fear with mothers from the closed adoption era, though mothers with less open adoptions (letters only) also held this fear.
http://birthparents.adoptionblogs.com/weblogs/birth-parents-and-fear
******************************************
Every - Single - One
of these fears have been wrenching my soul for the past 19 years!
The adoption of my first born began as an open adoption, or what I thought an "open" adoption was in 1992. Then, a year later the adoptive family had their attorney contact mine to tell me that "if I had any further contact they would seek further legal action." That phone call will forever ring in my mind like the zing of a samurai sword after it plunged into my heart that day. I remember sitting in my dorm room doorway with the phone in my hand, staring at the chord and listening to the dead air on the line. I couldn't hang up, I couldn't move, and there was no oxygen left to breath. I felt like I had just been told she had died. I felt like they had stolen a piece of me and now the only way I could cope was to prepare myself for the possibility that I may never see her again! I thought I had so carefully orchestrated the adoption so that I did not have to face never seeing her again, so that I could know where she was and that she was safe, so that I could ensure my sanity.
I had only sent a Christmas Card and then a Birthday card a month later. I hadn't had any contact with them for quite a few months prior to Christmas, even though they said they would keep in touch and send pictures, updates, and whatnot. They then moved because my next Christmas letter was returned to sender. I had no idea where and when I might run into her, but I knew she was in the general area as I saw an article in the paper about her Adoptive Dad who still lived here. I have lived petrified for nearly two decades...
At the time I comforted myself with the knowledge that they promised to tell her about me. They promised to share with her the photos and the stories of the short time we spent together between July and January while they got to know me and I got to know them. Her Adoptive Mom was my Lamaze/birthing class coach and had planned to be there at the birth. They let me stay with them when I drove in from several hours away (the summer before I started college) for a Dr.'s apt. and they took me to dinner. I even got to see where she would sleep. That image would comfort me in the weeks after she was gone. I didn't have a car at the time so the adoptive mom would sometimes come get me for appointments and we'd have lunch. I documented all that I was feeling and going through in a journal and gave it to them to give to her when she was ready. They both seemed to take it with a great deal of respect and reverence. I REALLLLY felt like I got to know them. *sigh* Little did I know.
As the years past, I began to accept the fact that if they didn't keep their promise to stay in touch with me at the very least, then they likely wouldn't keep their promise to tell her about me either. This was never more real than when I "found" her this past February. I was absolutely OVERJOYED! She responded that she wants to meet me! Unfortunately, I was not cognizant of the fact that I was just an abstract concept until she received a friend request message on facebook to say, "I'm looking for ADK, born c/d/lm, would this happen to be you?" I returned her response with some information about me ie. contact stuff, then I shared with her that she has 3 other blood siblings that know about her and can't wait to meet her. I encouraged her to look at the pictures on facebook and sent her a note at home (she's in the phone book, duh) as well as one to her adoptive Mom. Welllll, my over exuberance was just too much. Although I long to see her and to get to know her, she is not ready to meet me. I have to give her time.....
It is interesting though, I feel more at peace now than I have felt in twenty years!
I know she is alive, I know she is well, and I know eventually she wants to meet me (if I haven't scared her away with all my blathering about stuff, lol). The waiting seems easier now. I haven't been able to talk about the adoption all this time for fear that I might run into someone who knows her family or her. Yes, that actually happened to me once and we were ALL freaked out! I was taking classes for lifeguard certification just a few months after she was born and there were friends of the family there talking about the adoptive mom and her new baby. Of course I had to say Hello and introduce myself, I wished that the Mom had come so I could hug her; I couldn't just sit there and listen to them talk about my little baby dove and her NEW Mommy with such pain in my heart! God, just remembering that moment now makes me fired up and panicky. By the time I got home and was able to call her, she had already spoke to her friends of course and she was freaking out! Maybe that was the ridiculous seed of doubt that fueled their desire to flee from me.
I have longed to know where she was for the soul purpose of protecting myself and her from any unexpected encounters. In my mind, if I knew where she was living I could avoid that neck of the woods. As a teacher, since I didn't want to have her as a student, or run into her in the halls, I chose to remain a teacher in the city schools. As a homeowner and eventual parent, I also chose to live in the city because I remember her Mother saying that she would always live in the suburbs. I didn't want to run into her in the mall, restaurants, or local parks because I did not want to impact their family dynamics in any way, as obviously that is the way they wanted it to be. I knew, I had no legal rights to my own flesh and blood despite the promises that were made. I was always on my guard, I was terrified of what I would do if I ever ran into her unexpectedly (I never wanted to look like an immature, emotional, and terrified little girl to them) even though I practiced scenarios in my head many times it just wouldn't compare to the real thing I'm sure. Therefore, I monitored my entire life to avoid impacting hers and creating chaos. Man, talk about sacrifice!...
I pray that soon she will want to meet me
and get to know me.
We will never have this time back
EVER
once it is gone....
Want to make a comment or read what others have said about this post?
Click on the Comments (#) in small letters under my name and you'll be led directly there.
Don't worry, I'll still be here waiting in the wing when you come back ;). THANKS!
(This is what blogger has to offer, so until I find a better way... Happy debating!)
