The Impact of Adoption on
Birth Parents
Coping with Grief
All birth parents
must deal with grief. Many are sad about not being able to
raise or have a relationship with their child. Some have
said that they eventually adjusted to the loss of the
child, but that the pain and grief lasted a very long
time. Others have said that life was never the same after
placing the child. Birth parents' whole lives are
affected.
If
you are a birth parent whose adoption was arranged
confidentially, you may have many questions. You probably
do not know what became of your child. You don't know if
your child's life with the adoptive family is happy and if
the child is loved and treated well. You may wonder if the
adoptive parents ever told the child he or she was
adopted. If so, you may wonder how they spoke about you.
You may question what it would have been like to have
raised your child. Unanswered questions such as these can
be very difficult to deal with.
Most people at some time in their lives experience grief
when they are separated from a loved one. However, in
adoption, there are no standard grieving processes or
approved rituals to help birth parents cope. When a
well-liked co-worker accepts a new job in a new city,
there is often a going away party. When a loved one dies,
there may be a religious service, a wake, a funeral, and
visits to the survivors' home by friends and relatives.
But birth parents' grief is distinct from most other types
of grief, because it is not always socially acceptable to
talk about what happened.
Unresolved grief can cause problems in a number of areas.
It can affect romantic relationships, parent–child
relationships, the ability to work effectively, and a
person's feelings of happiness and usefulness. If you are
having trouble in your life, it could be related to your
not having fully grieved for the child you placed for
adoption.
For most birth parents it takes time to move past the
initial grief of placing a child for adoption. Some
realize they need professional help to deal with the
emotions that accompany the loss. Others feel fairly
positive from the beginning about the adoption decision
and accept that the decision brought with it certain
consequences. But just about all birth parents wonder how
their son or daughter is doing, especially when the child
has reached the age for important events such as starting
school, graduating from school, getting married, or
becoming a parent.
Romantic
Relationships
According to Merry Bloch Jones' book, Birthmothers: Women
Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their
Stories, many birth parents report difficulty in their
romantic relationships following placing a child for
adoption. As a group, birth parents seem to do things in
extremes. Either they marry the first person who comes
along so that they become "respectable" members of
society, or they stay away from a partner for years. Some
divorce and marry, again and again. Some marry an abusive
partner, subconsciously punishing themselves. Some marry a
rich partner they don't love so they will have financial
security and never again be in the position of having to
give up a child because of the lack of money. Some may
even marry a decent, loving, supportive person, but get so
caught up in their unresolved grief that the marriage
falls apart.
Some couples who planned the adoption together get married
and have other children. Other birth parents choose not to
get too close to any one person ever again. They go from
one relationship to the other on purpose, because to them
intimacy and loss are always linked.
A
third of the birth mothers that Jones talked to said they
have happy marriages. The marriages are happy because
their partners continue to be supportive of their need to
talk about the birth parent experience and of their search
for ways to help them grieve. Some who don't get it right
in their first marriage do get it right in the second one.
They say a large part of getting it right is learning to
forgive themselves.
Parenting
Issues
Birth parents also often reflect extremes when it comes to
parenting. Many have children immediately after getting
married, others not for years. Some have only one other
child, others more than three. Some are overprotective
with their child, because they are afraid something will
also happen to this child. Others are distant from their
children, because getting close reminds them of the child
they gave up. Almost all believe that placing a child for
adoption affected the way they parent and the way they
feel about their other children.
Some do not have other children, either on purpose,
because they don't want to be reminded of their adoption
experience, or because they or their partner cannot get
pregnant again. Some marry partners with children,
therefore becoming stepparents. Some even adopt.
What Birth Parents
Experience
A
number of factors may have influenced your decision to
place your child for adoption. Yet, although each
situation is different, there are common threads that run
through all adoptions. Birth parents usually feel
powerless and lack monetary and emotional support. They
may still feel social stigma, though the shame that once
prompted parents to place their pregnant daughters in
maternity homes to hide the pregnancy is slowly fading.
The following paragraphs describe experiences that you or
those you know may have gone through. These experiences
are divided into three time periods, and the specific
coping issues for each period are addressed.
Birth and
Placement
Under any circumstances, giving birth is an important
event in the life of a woman and her partner. But giving
birth knowing that the baby will be placed for adoption
adds another dimension.
The birth experiences of women who placed a child for
adoption are varied. Jones' book gives many examples. For
some, the birth took place in an ugly back room of a
maternity home, with very little medical care. For others,
it took place in a bright, cheerful hospital with their
partner, family, and pre-selected adoptive parents nearby.
For many it was somewhere in between. Some were allowed to
see their baby. Some held the baby, named the baby, and
were given some time to say goodbye. Others had their baby
whisked away by nurses who said it would be easier that
way. Some had lots of emotional support, others did not.
Women interviewed by Jones described a number of reactions
and emotions after the baby was placed. For some, after
recovering physically from giving birth, the reality of
what had happened sank in. To make it hurt less, they
denied that what they had gone through was important.
Other people also acted like it was no big deal and said
the mother should just go back to whatever she was doing
before she had the baby. Many women did just that.
Some women became angry, either at their parents, their
partner, the adoption agency, or "society." They acted
out, stole, lied, stayed out late, quit school, or got
involved with a bad crowd.
Or, they turned their anger inward and became depressed.
They decided that they were absolutely worthless. They
believed the people who said they were no good. They
started to take drugs, drink a lot of alcohol, or drive
carelessly.
Some birth mothers get stuck in this phase for a long
time, moving from denial to anger to depression over and
over again. Birth mothers who get out of this cycle of
emotions usually do so by doing one or more of the
following things:
-
Going to counseling;
-
Talking with supportive family members or friends;
-
Attending birth parent support group meetings;
-
Writing their feelings down in a story or poem;
-
Writing letters, even if they are not sent, to their
child;
-
Holding a private ceremony each year on their child's
birthday.
All of these are positive methods for dealing with grief
and accepting the loss.
When Your Child
Is a Minor
The emotions associated with having placed a child for
adoption will always be a part of your life. As a way of
dealing with your grief, you might decide to try to find
out how your child is doing. If you were involved in a
confidential adoption and you do not know the identity of
the adoptive family, the only way to find your child is to
contact the agency or attorney who arranged the adoption.
Many birth parents do this, even though the child is not
yet 18.
If
your adoption was confidential, you can write a letter "to
the file" of the child to explain the circumstances of the
placement and to tell the child that you love and wish the
best for him or her. This can be very therapeutic. And it
can be tremendously helpful to the child as well.
In
one such case, the adoptive parents of an 11-year-old boy
placed as an infant called their adoption agency for
assistance because he was having self-esteem problems. He
was convinced that since he was placed for adoption, he
must be worthless. Though he and his adoptive parents had
a good relationship, he expressed to them that he felt
"unlovable."
The agency social worker retrieved the boy's file and
found that the birth mother had recently sent a letter,
her first communication with the agency since the time of
the placement. The letter explained why she placed her
child, in case he ever asked.
The adoptive parents read the letter to their son and they
discussed it at length. His self- esteem "shot up like a
rocket." He started to like himself more, do better in
school, and get along better with his friends. The
adoptive parents were extremely grateful. The adoptive and
birth families have now started writing letters to one
another, without disclosing their identities and with the
agency acting as an intermediary—an arrangement that is
working out well for them.
You might decide to actually search for your child during
the child's minor years. If you find him or her, you will
have to decide if you want to contact the adoptive family
or not. You might just want to observe from afar. Those
that contact the family get different reactions. Some are
positive and some are negative. You must be prepared for
both. (See the discussion that follows about contact and
reunion with adult adoptees.)
If
you already have an open adoption, you have contact with
your minor child. Sometimes initial agreements about the
amount of contact can be changed. Perhaps you'd like to
increase your visits or receive more photos. These changes
may or may not be possible, but you can certainly try.
Adoption professionals with experience in this area may be
able to help you reach a new agreement.
What if you find out new medical information later in
life? Many in the adoption field believe that it is
definitely a responsibility of all parties in adoption to
share medical information. For instance, if you or your
partner develops breast cancer and you placed a daughter,
that daughter ought to know about it. Some kinds of cancer
run in families, and she ought to know so that she can be
screened for breast cancer as early as it is recommended.
In an open adoption, you can easily contact your daughter
and her adoptive family. In a confidential one, it may be
more difficult, but you should still try to do so through
the adoption agency and/or the attorney.
When Your Child
is an Adult
Your child is an adult when he or she reaches age 18. If
you've been tempted to search all along, you may get an
even stronger urge once your child reaches adulthood. The
thought that you could approach your daughter or son as an
adult is appealing. At this age, he or she might be able
to understand more fully what it was like for you when you
were faced with the placement decision.
In
the past, it was assumed that birth parents would never
search for their adult adopted child, and certainly not
their minor child. After all, they were expected to forget
that the birth and the placement ever happened. But birth
parents don't forget, and at least nowadays some do
search.
Voluntary
Registries
One route to take, short of an all- out search, is to
register with voluntary registries for birth parents and
adult adoptees. This lets your child know that you would
like to be "found." A registry works like this: You leave
the information about the birth of the child along with
your address and telephone number. You must keep your
address and telephone number current. You can register at
any time, even years after the child is born.
When your child is an adult, he or she can call or write
this registry. If what the child knows about his or her
birth matches the information the registry has about you,
the registry will release your current address and
telephone number to the child, and you could be contacted.
Should You
Search?
According to leaders of national search and support
organizations, more people are searching now than in the
past. However, you may still wonder if you should search.
You worry that your child may not be interested in hearing
from you. You worry about the adoptive parents. How will
they explain who you are to their family and friends? What
about your own family members? What will the effects of a
search be on them? How will they deal with a long lost
sister, brother, stepson, or stepdaughter, and how will he
or she fit in with your family?
While you may want to take other people's feelings into
consideration when deciding to search, your own feelings
are also important. In cases where you felt forced by
others to place your child and thus felt a lack of control
over your and your child's futures, searching is a way for
you to get back some of that control, fill in missing
pieces, and move on. If you have a strong urge to seek out
your adult child, many adoption therapists say you should
follow it, as long as your actions are within the law and
you undertake the search with some understanding of how
your son or daughter might react. If you have a supportive
spouse, adult children, friends, a therapist, or a birth
parent group, they can help you deal with the reaction you
get, whether it is positive or negative.
You may be worried that intruding into your child's life
might harm the child, but research shows that a reunion
often brings adoptive parents and children closer
together.1 The child
learns that all the parent figures in his life care about
him and his happiness. It can be quite beneficial.
Goals of
Searching
If
you do search, your goal should be truth. You must be
willing to face whatever you might find out, even if it's
the death of your child. The information you learn may be
painful; however, peace of mind most likely will come with
the pain. If you search for your child only to find that
he or she won't take your calls, answer your letters, or
send a photograph, at least you tried. Others before you
have found that the process still helped them set aside
their fantasies and accept their current life situation
with a more positive attitude.
Reunions
If
you do find your child and have a reunion, you will
finally get the answers to your most pressing questions.
You can be sure that your child knows why you placed him
or her for adoption, and you will learn how the child
turned out. But finding a son or daughter doesn't solve
everything. It will not magically restore self-esteem,
erase the guilt you may have felt through the years, or
make up for the time you didn't spend together. These
issues still need attention. And practical matters need
attention, too. Deciding how to spend time with your child
after finding him or her, and how to combine that
relationship with your other family relationships, can be
tricky.
Not searching is also okay. Searching is presented here as
one way that some birth parents have dealt with their
feelings.
How Birth Parents
Cope
You have probably found a number of positive ways to cope
with your situation. You may attend support group meetings
and conferences, go to counseling, search for your child,
and communicate with other birth parents. The sections
below discuss each of these. A list of resources is
provided at the end of this article.
Support Group
Meetings/Conferences
Some national birth parent support organizations have
local chapters. One well-known organization is Concerned
United Birthparents (CUB). Other birth parent support
groups are not part of a network and are independent,
local organizations. Two examples are Birth Mothers of
Minors (B.M.O.M.S.) in New York City, and Birthparents in
the Open in Santa Cruz, California. Other groups are
sponsored by adoption agencies, such as the Barker
Foundation in Cabin John, Maryland, and the Lutheran
Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan in
Milwaukee.
No
matter how they are organized, birth parent support groups
generally have the same purpose in mind: to offer comfort,
sympathy, and an opportunity to talk with others and
exchange information. For many, a support group is one of
the few places where everyone understands the birth
parent's point of view and people express their feelings
openly. It is an environment in which you can tell your
stories and hear about other people's experiences. Said
one birth mother after she attended her first support
group meeting, "I never knew there were other women
walking around with my same guilt and rage. For the first
time in over 20 years, I didn't feel so utterly alone!"
Some of the national birth parent support groups hold
regional and national conferences. These meetings offer
the opportunity to get support and information from a
larger group of people. While some focus on political or
policy issues, others cover a wide range of topics
designed to enhance the quality of life for birth parents,
adoptive parents, and adoptees. A birth father attending a
conference of the Council of Equal Rights in Adoption in
New York City said, "It's a chance to mingle with many
more birth parents than the core group of 10 or so that
show up at my local support group meeting. You hear
speakers with a national reputation, and you're sitting in
a large hotel ballroom filled with birth parents and
adoptees. There's still not enough birth fathers there,
but it's a start."
A
birth mother in California named Curry Wolfe started
another organization with a very specific purpose in mind.
Even though she had found her adult child and had been a
member of birth parent support groups, she wanted to
connect with other women who lived in the same maternity
home that she lived in while she was pregnant. When she
did that, she experienced even further healing. She
started Birthparent Connection because she wanted to help
other women heal, too.
A
birth father now in Florida started the only national
organization specifically designed to help birth fathers.
Jon Ryan started the National Organization for
Birthfathers and Adoption Reform (NOBAR), which
predominantly provides support and advocacy to birth
fathers concerning their legal rights. Says Ryan, "Birth
fathers have most of the same feelings as birth mothers
about adoption. Many are angry and unhappy being separated
from their children. . . . In my contacts with birth
fathers I've found them to be the total opposite of the
stereotype of the uncaring, neglectful guy who is relieved
not to have to support a child he fathered." NOBAR helps
fathers in a number of situations, encouraging them to get
good counseling during their partner's pregnancy, to be
involved in the placement decision if adoption is their
choice, and to get legal counsel to prevent the placement
of a child they want to raise.
Counseling
You might find individual or group counseling with a
counselor who is knowledgeable about adoption issues to be
very helpful. An experienced therapist can help you
untangle which of your concerns are adoption-related and
which are adjustment issues that many people in your stage
of life go through. You might work on relationship,
self-esteem, or parenting issues, as well as discuss
whether to search for your child. The outcome of a search
can lead to many different emotions that a therapist can
help you sort through.
Searching
Searching is another way that birth parents cope. Some of
the issues related to searching were discussed above.
Searching can take a number of routes: using support
groups; hiring an investigator or search consultant;
reading literature; surfing the Internet; contacting
agencies or attorneys' offices; or hunting down clues
yourself. For more discussion of this, read the NAIC
publication "Searching for Birth Relatives."
Communicating
Adoption issues often receive a large amount of media
coverage. But more importantly, there are a number of
books, newsletters, magazines, and on-line information
services that concentrate specifically on birth parent
issues. These can be especially helpful and comforting if
you live in an area where there is no support group or if
you are not able to travel to national or regional
conferences.
Until recently, there weren't many books about birth
parents issues available in public libraries. Now there
are a number of books available written by birth parents
about their experiences. There are also some books by
journalists or researchers who interviewed birth parents.
The larger, nationally based support groups have published
newsletters for a number of years. Recently some new
newsletters have become available. At least two are for
more recent birth mothers who are maintaining contact with
their minor children. Their concerns are somewhat
different than those of older women whose children are
grown and whose adoptions were confidential.
There are also a number of magazines that focus on
adoption. Some have a general focus but have specific
articles that are of interest to birth parents. Some are
about adoptee–birth parent searches and reunions. So far
there are no magazines that exclusively address birth
parent issues, but who knows what the future will bring?
On-line information services are another tool birth
parents can use to communicate with one another. There are
general adoption "forums" or "conferences" on these
services and specific subsections for birth parent issues.
People share stories, information, and resources and
become fast friends traveling on the adoption portion of
the information superhighway. All you need is the
hardware, the software, and a little training to learn how
to communicate using this technology.
Conclusion
You should now know that you are not alone and that there
are a number of resources available to you.
Resources for Birth
Parents
National
Organizations
Adoption Search
National Hotline & Reunion Registry
P.O. Box 100444
Palm Bay, FL 32910
(407) 768-2222
American
Adoption Congress (AAC)
1000 Connecticut Avenue, NW, #9
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 483-3399
Birthparent
Connection
P.O. Box 230643
Encinitas, CA 92023-0643
(619) 753-8288
(Maternity Home
Registry)
Concerned United Birthparents (CUB)
2000 Walker Street
Des Moines, IA 50317
(800) 822-2777
(515) 263-9558
Council for
Equal Rights in Adoption
401 E. 74th Street, #17D
New York, NY 10021
(212) 988-0110
International
Soundex Reunion Registry
P.O. Box 2312
Carson City, NV 89702
(702) 882-7755
National
Organization for Birthfathers and Adoption Reform (NOBAR)
3821 Tamiami Trail, #301
Port Charlotte, FL 33752
(941) 637-7477
Newsletters
Birth Mothers
of Minors (B.M.O.M.S.)
Cherokee Station
P.O. Box 20510
New York, NY 10021
(212) 532-4104
Birthparents Today
3423 Blue Rock
Cincinnati, OH 45239
(513) 741-0929
CUB
Communicator
Concerned United Birthparents (CUB)
2000 Walker Street
Des Moines, IA 50317
(800) 822-2777
(515) 263-9558
The Decree
American Adoption Congress (AAC)
1000 Connecticut Avenue, NW, #9
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 483-3399
Geborener
Deutscher
805 Alvarado Drive N.E.
Albuquerque, NM 87108
(505) 268-1310
On the Vine
Sweet Pea Press
P.O. Box 1852
Appleton, WI 54913-1852
Open Adoption
Birthparent
721 Hawthorne St.
Royal Oak, MI 48067
(810) 543-0997
Magazines
Adoptive
Families
Adoptive Families of America
3333 Highway 100 North
Minneapolis, MN 55422
(612) 535-4829
Pact Press
3315 Sacramento Street,#239
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 221-6957
People
Searching News
P.O. Box 100444
Palm Bay, FL 32910-0444
(407) 768-2222
Reunions, The
Magazine
P.O. Box 11727
Milwaukee, WI 53211-1727
(414) 263-4567
Roots and Wings
c/o Cynthia Peck
30 Endicott Drive
Great Meadows, NJ 07838
(908) 637-8899
On-line
Information Services
AdoptioNetwork
2312 N. Wakefield
Arlington, VA 22207
(202) 755-7420
(703) 803-5355
America Online
8619 Westwood Center Dr.
Vienna, VA 22182-2285
(800) 827-6364
(703) 893-6288
CompuServe
5000 Arlington Centre Blvd.
P.O. Box 20212
Columbus, OH 43220
(800) 487-8990
Prodigy
P.O. Box 8129
Gray, TN 37615
(800) PRO-DIGY
(800) 776-3449
On the Internet
Mailing Lists:
Triad
(Adoptive Parents, Birthparents, Adoptees)
Contact:
owner-adoption@listserv.law.cornell.edu
Birthmothers
(ONLY)
Contact:
nadir@acca.nmsu.edu
To subscribe send e-mail:
LISTSERV@indycms.iupui.edu
Type in body of text: SUB BRTHPRNT firstname lastname
Adoptees
(ONLY)
Contact:
hartung@crl.ucsd.edu
Newsgroups:
General
Discussion: alt.adoption
Persons Interested in Adoption: alt.adoption.agency
