I wrote this some time ago as a submission to some contest some place. I have been holding on to it until today. It was ten years ago today that this happened. Last Hours of Cold She couldn’t find a freaking parking space to save her life. After all the meticulous planning and her careful timeline, she was going to be late because she couldn’t find any visitor or public…
You are a mother. This is your child. You do owe them and they have a right to truth, reality and to know the person who gave them life. Yes, a right, I said that. The adoptee has a RIGHT to know where they come from. No adoptee should not have to be a banned as a dirty little secret their whole life. No one should have to have their very existence denied to protect another’s feelings, even their own mothers.
“Hole in My Heart” isn’t light reading, but it is compelling and necessary. Perhaps it is best described as s strong dose of medicine; a strong antidote to adoption mythology, and a injection of raw honesty wrapped up in a riveting story of a life uncommon to most, much like a spoonful of sugar. The truth goes down smooth leaving needed ethical questions emerging as an aftertaste.
LONG LOST FAMILY, the TV documentary series for TLC that aims to reunite family members, is looking for participants. The show is based off a UK version and is made by the “Who Do You Think You Are” folks.
I felt 100 time “lighter” immediately. I actually DO feel likeit’s over. We have managed to break through the hold and restrictions that adoption has tried to put on our mother son relationship and it can’t do any more damage, Adoption, as a real threat to me and my son, is done. It’s over. It cannot hurt us anymore. The adoption industry might have tried and maybe it’s not the way I wish it had been, but that just doesn’t matter anymore because we are OK. Our connection is still there and we value it and it works.
I am an adoptee given up by my birth mother in 1966. I was adopted within the family, so grew up with my biological grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins around me. I was raised being told that my mother was my “Aunt Annie”. My adoptive parents (aunt and uncle, whom I called mom and dad) were terribly insecure and once the secret was out that I knew “Aunt Annie” was no aunt to me at all, my adoptive parents became extremely controlling about my access to and communication with my birth mother.
WHEN: Saturday, June 28th at 11: 30 a.m.
WHERE: Alfond Auditorium.
WHY: Roxbury International Film Festival; Boston, MA
WHAT: Film Premier of “You Have His Eyes”
If you have ever searched, then you know that the numbers of “online adoption reunion registries” is daunting. There is no lack of places to look through or to register with, but many are outdated, cumbersome and really NOT searchable. There comes a time when one must say “it’s time to build a better mousetrap”. Enter iReunion. iReunion is a new adoption search and reunion that is an App based program designed to search FOR YOU! Once you register and if no internal match be found, the software will search web-based sources for a potential match. It will actually network with over half a million other registries beyond the internal listings. It searches 24/7 on your behalf and gives you back any potential matches.
To get your search found by the right person should they be searching for you. There are usually three things that are identifiers in an adoption search: Sex of the adoptee, birth date and location. These three things are usually known by both parties and not likely to be altered.
In the spirit of the International Soundex Reunion Registry’s Reg Day, please post of share the links today to the ISRR. ISRR is a non-profit mutual consent registry dedicated to reuniting adult family members separated by adoption.
She was only 16 years old the day you took your final breath and she needed to be 21 years old to file without her adoptive parents signature per state laws. No birth parent should request contact with their child and not have that request answered when they die.
There is that classic saying, “you can’t change another person’s actions or feelings, but you can change how it affects you.” I think that is really important to remember in an adoption reunion. No matter how much we might want another person to think and feel and usually more importantly act, we cannot make that happen. No matter what you do, what hoops you jump through, the emotional gymnastics you attempt, you cannot change which you cannot control. If life was controlled by forces of sheer will alone, this world would be a much different, though I don’t know if necessarily better, place.
Truthfully? I have no idea. What works for one reunion might not work for another. The measure of what makes an adoption reunion successful really does depend on the parties involved and how they measure that success. Are they both satisfied with the measure of contact? Are they both getting what they need out of the relationship? Are the interactions relatively “healthy” aka not destructive to the other party? Again, so many variables, so many different personalities, so many different experiences, differences in timing, in support; how is one supposed to make heads or tails?
It often seems like a birthmother does not come out directly and say NO during a reunion. Of course, there are too many that do, but then there are a whole slew that just seem to fail miserably in the process of an active reunion. Meaning, on the outside, birthmother and adoptee have some contact, but due to her own damage, or expectation, or limitations, or personal boundaries and fears, over years and sometimes decades, the adoptee finds that the whole relationship feels unsatisfying. I completely understand that what one part might find “acceptable” in a reunion, the other party might really be left wanting way more. Let this go on for too long and what was an initial “yes” can turn into a ” I can’t take this anymore”.
Let’s face it ; we all love a good adoption reunion story. The media loves a reunion story. Most people off the street love a reunion story. In AdoptionLand, we especially enjoy hearing that another family separated by adoption has managed to beat the industry rules and find their way home. We marvel at the similarities and “near misses”. We get teary eyed seeing the cries of joy and the airport hugs. Yet, what happens after that first contact, that first find, that first phone call, that first hug is really where the determination of “success” comes into play.
So what does an adoption reunion look like when it works?