Linky Links Part II
Make sure you read through this completely!
Edited - please read my update "Linky List Part III" for information on changing your code!
One adoptees' attempt to explore the conflicting feelings of having been adopted, and the impact this has had on her life, her choices and her experiences. Welcome to "The Adoption Void."
I am a female adoptee born in May of 1971. I initially began this journey to explore my feelings about my adoption and to decide if I wanted to seek out my birth family. I have since been happily reunited with my birth siblings! I do have more than one blog on blogger.com - one for adoption, one for everything else. Unless adoption has touched your life, you'll probably find the "everything else" much more fun to read!
I would love to get the code for the adoption related links. I am just discovering some adoptee's blogs and I'd love to read more.
Here's mine:
http://cookiespeaks.blogspot.com/
I am going to work this weekend on trying to get my links up. If I get stuck, I may call on you or Wraith to help though! I am wondering if they can be divided into categories - think I've seen that done. May need the code too, I'll tell you later.
Claud has a great group of links at her blog - Musings of the Lame.
Cookie, let me know if you need help. With most templates it is easy to create catagories for links. I can walk you through it, no problem.
Kateri & Sue (and anyone else)- once I've got them compiled, I'll put up the code and instructions as a post you can just copy and paste from.
I'll just say hi and let you know I'm a relatively recent reader who appreciates your writing. I'm also an adoptive mother; listening and reading (rarely commenting on) some blogs by adoptees and mothers who have placed children for adoption is an important part of helping me think about being a mother.
Keep them coming, everyone. As you can see, I'm building them up on the left by catagory. Once I've got a few more collected (I'm farming links from some of your sites as well!) I'll put up a regular page on my personal site and link to it from here. You'll be able to visit the page, copy the code and put it right in your templates. I'll include some very basic instructions for doing this.
I should have that up by Monday or Tuesday.
Once I've got the basic list of code & instructions up, I'll go through each of the templates blogger.com offers and customize the code to each one, broken down by catagory like mine is - that will be useful for those of you who maybe don't know much about customizing the templates.
For everyone else, feel free to alter as needed. :)
Unfortunately, because of the template I use, my catagory headers are image files, not just text, so copying my list from the source code on this site won't do you much good unless you're also using the Scribe template. However - anyone who wants to "steal" the image files for the catagory names is welcome to!
Hi there... you already have me linked over there... and I just wanted to say, thanks!
I really appreciate becoming a part of this amazing network of people affected by adoption... it was something I stumbled into strictly by accident. My blog started out being strictly about infertility and has now become so much more than that...
I'll be back!!
I just started my adoption blog. Please feel free to link to it if you want.
I agree, he sounds like a really valuable support person. One of the best thoughts I had in early reunion was that I needed lots of support - from people who had been there and could understand. Made life so much easier!
I'm with you - adoption can be way better than it is now - for these rare situations where it is necessary. We can force reform if we all unite!
I agree, there has to be a middle ground somewhere. I think all of us sharing our thoughts is making some kind of progress. At least we're not keeping it bottled up anymore.
i was thinking this exact same thing this morning when i heard the story!
the birth mother's age is given as 29 and the birth father's age is given as 31 at the time of the birth, the date and place of birth are May 17,1971 at Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.And no, there wasn't a match in the registry.
How exciting for you to know where you were born! And how funny that you've actually been to the hospital.
Congrats!
I'm so happy for you! I can't imagine what it must be like to have all this new information cycling through your head!
I will be wishing and hoping that she has registered, but, if she hasn't please don't attach much significance to it. All it means if she hasn't is that she may still be in the closet as I was - and not told anyone, or many people at least.
Birth mothers are cautioned and warned not to search, register or take any action to find their children. I did nothing - no registering or searching. Not become I don't love my son dearly, cause I do, but frankly, I just didn't know any better. Did not know I had the right or that he would want to know me.
I know quite a few birth moms like myself who were found. Were we shocked?? Heck yes! Did we want to know our children? Absolutely! Getting to know my son and having a relation with him has been one of the best experiences of my lifetime (and I am not young).
I hope that she is able to welcome you with open arms soon!
I've read your posts on the adoption forums and followed your link to read your blog. I'm the mother of a son; he was born when I was 17 and I was unable to raise him because my parents wouldn't let me bring him home with me.
I found his listing on a website and contacted him a year and a half ago. I've had some problems in trying to figure out why he was like he was. LOL Now I just let him be whatever... I'll get to know the man he is eventually as long as we stay in touch.
I want you to know that I have a deeper understanding of how he might be feeling - or not - from reading your blog and want to thank you for your writings.
Good luck in your search. I hope your family appreciates their good fortune. It's not a journey for the weak-willed on either side.
This book was amazing! I read it just before Christmas, and it reallly made me think a LOT about adoption and the impact it has had on who I am. I hope you will find it as enlightening as I did.
A wave back to you!
I think that you and my son have many commonalities. He and I have spoken about trying to "protect one's heart". In early reunion, he mostly tried hard to have a really casual attitude about me - as though I didn't really matter that much to him. And I think that is part of "protecting your heart" to not allow yourself to care too much about something or somebody.
However, I think extending your heart enough to someone to risk a loving relationship is a risk worth taking. Not indiscriminately, but...
As he's learned to trust me though, I believe he has allowed himself to care about me more. It's like he knows now than I am "worthy", safe and that my love for him is unconditional. Hmm, unconditional love, is that an offer many can refuse?
Hugs,
Cookie
I think that you are handling this whole deal in a really smart way.
It's kind of a weird feelings, huh? Wanting to allow yourself to feel all the excitement, but almost afraid to for fear that you'll be dissappointed? At least that's how I imagine it.
Wow...thanks for putting into words the way that I am feeling right now. I have already sent out some paperwork, but I agree that it is really hard to let yourself be hopeful. When I talk about it, I always follow up with "I doubt anything will come from it" because I don't want to set myself up for disappointment. I'll just start out disappointed, and maybe it won't be so bad when it actually happens.
I also think that you will be glad you let your friends know about what you're thinking. I know how hard that is, I did it last week and it was the most humbling thing I've ever done. But everyone has been supportive, and that helps, especially if your parents aren't. Your friends might not be able to relate to what you are going through, but they can still offer their support and encouragement.
I am so thankful for your blog - it is really therapeudic to read the words of someone who is feeling the same way that I am, so thank you for being so willing to share!
As an adoptee who is not in reunion, and not even sure I want to BE in reunion, I don't think you are doing anything 'wrong.'
As I've read over adoption discussion forums, I've noticed that many other adoptees share certain behavioral traits with me. One of which is a tendency to go months without talking to people we care about, both family and friends.
When there is something big or fun or exciting going on in my life, I tend to draw people close to me and have them be involved. But the minute my life slows down, or the minute anything in my life starts going 'bad,' I withdraw.
I believe part of this lies with an unconscious belief that I have to 'have something special' happening in order for people to want to be with me. Who would want to be with me when my life is 'normal' or hitting the skids? Of course, realistically I know that those who love me don't only love me when my life is 'perfect,' but those abandonment/rejection issues say otherwise.
Even though you are in reunion with your daughter, I promise you, she has not worked through that unconscious 'first rejection' that's floating around in her psyche. Being in reunion doesn't undo a lifetime of unconscious thought. It doesn't matter that you didn't want to reject or abandon her, it doesn't matter that you don't think you did reject or abandon her. There's nothing 'rational' about these feelings, they simply are what they are. And they don't go away overnight.
Logic doesn't work with a young child, and some part of her is still that young child.
Don't reject or abandon her again. That may not be your intention, but in this instance, it's all about how she is going to perceive your actions on an unconscious level. If she has not asked for 'no contact,' I would continue to send supportive emails or text messages from time to time. Send a Christmas card. Birthday, anniversary, etc. Resist the urge to send presents unless you have mutually agreed to exchange them for the holidays. You can't 'buy' her love. Not that you're trying to, but again, perception is everything.
And know that it's likely she is not conscious of any of this.
I'm glad my birth family have not found me yet. I need the time to process through all these emotions and behaviors that I am only now identifying well into my 30's. I think if we had established contact before now, it would not have been particularly fulfilling to any of us. When I've healed a bit more, then I'll be in an emotional position to allow someone into my life like that.
Give her time. She has a lifetime of emotional baggage to work through.
I think that it is key for birth mothers and fathers to remember something. The one person in this process who was never given a choice on any level is the adoptee. The state, the birth parents, the adoptive parents, the social workers, the agency, the lawyers, the judges - they made a determination based on what they said was my best interest. No one asked me.
So do not be surprised if the adoptee (consciously or unsconsciously) engages in behaviors that demonstrate a need to control something.
I'm only now recognizing how many ways in which I am trying desperately to maintain control over how I proceed in moving forward with finding my birth parents or not. I will probably want to call the shots if and when they are found as well. I don't do this consciously, I recognize it after the fact. But there is something to be said for finally having control with the very people who took all control away from us so long ago.
This isn't a 'blame' thing, nor should you interpret it as if you did a 'bad thing' by relinquishing us. I believe that in most cases, the parents, judges, agencies, etc. really were doing what they believed at the time to be in our best interest. I don't think anyone was sitting there thinking, "Woo woo, I can mess up this kid's life!"
But for some of us, that may be how it feels.
Be patient with us, just as you would want us to be patient with you.
I'm reading through this thread and many others and finding this feeling welling up inside of me. "Thank God I'm not the only one who..."
This is my very first post here. I guess it says something that it would be in response to a thread about the void.
That void has haunted me for years. It only seems to get worse the older I get. I'm almost 35 years old now. Yet my 'issues' around being adopted seem to grow.
I'm not quite ready to begin searching yet. The idea of finding my birth family stirs up a whole lot of fear. But I think I will try to find them soon.
I have another friend who is adopted who keeps trying to convince me that just because he doesn't feel a void, I shouldn't either. Of course, he has also met part of his birth family. He claims his lack of void has nothing to do with that but I have my doubts. It doesn't really matter what he feels, what matters is that I feel a void and I'm the one who has to deal with it.
My husband tries to understand. I think he comes as close as a non-adoptee possibly can. I've tried explaining to him what it's like to not have a single person you can look at and say, "Hey, that's where I got my (eyes, nose, mouth, chin,) from!"
How do you explain to someone that you have this 'disconnect' from whatever cultural influence you were raised under? It's all well and good to have recipes and such handed down from grandparents, but there just isn't that sense of "this is who I am" associated with it. My mother-in-law is very into geneology. I can't quite figure out how to explain to her that the geneology of my adoptive parents is NOT what I want in our family tree. I feel more connected to my husband's family than my own, maybe because I chose to emmesh myself in their familial identity. I did not choose to be plopped down in the middle of my adoptive familial identity.
I don't even speak to my adoptive family any more. Too many bridges burned over the years and a sense of apathy on my part about ever fixing it. I don't even know why they bothered to adopt me or any of my adopted siblings (not blood related to me). My adoptive father never missed a chance to remind us that he only adopted us because my adoptive mother wanted to so badly. Yet she chose him over us as well, letting him be as abusive as he wanted.
What a mess.
One of these days maybe I'll start to share more about my own story, but for now, I think I'll just chime in when I see something I need to say "Me Too!" to.
So about the void? Yes, me too.
I don't know if knowing the birth family fills that void or not as I haven't sought or found mine and am not sure I'm going to.
I suspect that for some adoptees it never goes away. There was a potential which existed the moment we were born which suddenly "disappears" when we're separated from our birth mother. That potential and that moment can never truly be recaptured because we are no longer the same person we were back then. We've grown up, we've changed and we've been influenced by our experiences in the ensuing 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, whatever years.
It's why I'm trying to work through my issues before I make contact. I want to be as whole as possible. If I look for someone else to fill me up, I'll be disappointed. But I believe I can fill myself up if I choose to.
I'm dealing with a lot of anger the last day or two - ***name removed****** I want to apologize to you, especially, if I came across as harsh in my last post. I'm feeling extremely raw, as if every emotion is bubbling right under a tissue-paper thin layer of skin which will tear if I so much as breathe too deeply.
I am trying to journal these feelings I'm having, but that is only so effective since there is no opportunity for give and take. I'm discussing some of this on an adoption forum, but since each of us have our own experiences and opinons, I end up getting into debates with people over what I'm feeling.
A good example of this - apparently there is a trend among many adoptive parents "today" to have what is called a "Gotcha" Day. This "special day" goes by many names - "Forever Family Day" or "Homecoming" or some variation. Essentially, these families are creating a tradition of celebrating the yearly anniversary of the day their adopted child came home with them, or the day they first held the child, etc. A very sweet adoptive mother posted on the forums for adult adoptees asking our opinion on "Gotcha Day." Most of us reacted similarly - the terminology makes us cringe and the idea of celebrating this day - which only serves to drive home the differences between us and our peers - makes us uncomfortable. Certainly this wasn't the case with all the adoptees who responded, but I'm comfortable saying it was the majority opinion among those of us who responded. We ended up being told we were "oversensitive" by an adoptive mother.
Now, I can understand how exciting it is for these parents to bring their children home. I know our family was thrilled and anxious and excited while waiting for my nephew to be brought home. The anticipation was huge. But there is an element to this that it seems many people are unaware of: Regardless of whether or not we were with our birth mother for a moment after birth or for a few years, we have been separated from someone who we care about on the most fundamental level.
We know that babies "connect" with the outside world in the womb. (Please, no arguments about what week/month/trimester this occurs) My own children listened to music when I was pregnant with them. That same music had an immediate calming effect on them when played for them within 12 hours of their birth. This was especially important with my youngest who was a preemie. If a newborn can connect with music (and I was NEVER one of those expectant mothers who put headphones on my stomach - this was just one song for each of them I would play on the stereo when they were having a particularly "active" night kicking mommy in the bladder) - are we really naive enough to believe that a similar connection has not been made to the mother? Her heartbeat? Her voice? Her energy?
So now the baby is born, taken away from the only comfort s/he has known (heartbeat and sound of voice), and placed in the arms of strangers. Do we really think that on some level, that baby is not experiencing that loss? Nor does that baby have the consciousness to understand what it is feeling - it only knows that the feeling is not the safety and comfort of the womb and this is made even worse because the child does not even have the comfort of a familiar voice.
Unfortunately, our society has not caught up to the fact that adoptees (and birth mothers) are grieving the loss of this piece of themselves on some level. If a woman gets pregnant, has a baby, and the baby dies - society rallies around her to support her in her grief, to help her through the loss. We don't do this with mothers who relinquish their children for adoption. We tell them to "move on," we tell them "it is for the best." We don't acknowledge their loss.
I've noticed that many of these adoptive parents are VERY threatened by the idea that their child might be grieving for "some strange woman." She is NOT a strange woman to that child - she is the heartbeat and voice that comforted that child for 9 months.
The adoption process is a time of great joy for the adoptive parents. And in most cases, it is a good and positive long-term arrangement for a child. But the child is not cognizant of that at such a young age. They know only that they have been taken from the familiar and been placed with strangers. Yet we treat the birthmother as if SHE is the stranger.
And to top it all off, now we want the child to set aside their grief and celebrate the parent's joy on "Gotcha Day."
I am not a piece of furniture. I am not a commodity. No one "got" me.
Unfortunately, our society does treat these babies as commodities. Some of us continued to be treated as such throughout our childhoods.
I'm an adoptive mom and that term makes me very uncomfortable.
Thank you for writing this post and educating us.
The actual work GOTCHA does imply that we have "snached away" a child from a Bmother's arms. I prefer "the Sweetest day" or "sweet day" to celebrate when a child joins our family. We will not keep the adoption a secret from the child so they have to know there was a day they were brought home to us. We will tell the story to them on that day and have a day of fun, sweets and family....
We refer to that day as the day Madison came home to us. I took a picture of her in the carseat on the way home and every time I look at it I remember my very mixed feelings. We felt (and feel) very very blessed to have Madison with us but I look at that picture and I remember the grief of her mom, too, and what she (Madison) also lost. It's a reminder of the great complications that adoption brings. For awhile I wanted to put the picture away because it was hard to look at but that's when I realized I needed to look at it.
I find "gotcha day" a disturbing term. I'm an adoptive mother, and we call the day family day, but we don't tend to do much about it (although we talk about the date, and we looked at some video from the day, and looked at some old photos). I have really mixed emotions about that day, precisely because it's the collision of my daughter's losses, our gains, our losses, and hard transitions. And all that is worth talking about (and we talk about it on other days, too).
Legacy Of An Adopted Child
Once there were two women
Who never knew each other.
One you do not remember
The other you call mother.
Two different lives.
Shaped to make yours one.
One became your guiding star
The other became your sun.
The first gave you life,
The second taught you to live in it.
The first gave you a need for love
And the second was there to give it.
One gave you a nationality
The other gave you a name.
One gave you the seed of talent
The other gave you an aim.
One gave you emotions
The other calmed your fears.
One saw your first smile
The other dried your tears.
One gave you up,
It was all that she could do.
The other prayed for a child
And was led straight to you.
And now you ask me through your tears,
The age-old question through the years:
Heredity or enviornment-which are
you the product of?
Neither, my darling, neither-
Just two different kinds of love.
Lisa Wright, 19, Leeds, Mass.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home