Hello my Blogville friends, welcome back. Let’s brew a cup of tea and visit a while. You have no idea how much your visits mean to me. Being adopted, as you likely know, creates a trauma. Not every adoptee struggles with their trauma so it’s important to note that my feelings are mine alone and that I do not speak for all adoptees. However, in case other adoptees may feel this too, I feel it is important to say things out loud, so they know they are not alone. I also think it is important that you know I was raised in a loving home with loving parents just as I imagined my birth mother had hoped for me when she chose an adoption option. That being said, let’s talk about rejection, real and imagined. This is a tough one for me because rejection has been a big part of how I see the world. Whether how I feel and respond to rejection is part of my psychological make-up, or maybe it is simply because I was adopted, remains an unsolvable mystery really. Like an armadillo, or a turtle, when faced with rejection I tend to curl up and expose my hard shell in order to protect my soft “underbelly”, which is akin to my vulnerability. When my birth mother agreed to go away to a home for unwed mothers I consider that it was not a rejection of me, but rather of the concept of single parenting, in that she did not, or could not, even consider parenting me. After all, she had no project manager, aka the position of father, to help her make this critical parenting decision. I will never fully know how much of this rejection was driven by her, and how much was driven by her parents and/or society’s view of single mothers at that time. Ultimately though, she was not able to, or not willing to, apply for the position of mother that I had available. I was not yet born, so at this point I feel that she was rejecting the idea of ‘parenting’ itself, not the idea of parenting me specifically. That brings me some small comfort. Sadly, there are no words written in my file about whether or not she saw me at, or following, my birth. I do not know if she ever knew, or wanted to know, how long I was or what I weighed. I will never know if she looked into my eyes, her daughter’s eyes, when I was born. I do not know if she held me, heard me cry, or even looked at me. All I know is that she was very anxious to leave the facility and return to her home community to attend an event being held in her parents’ honour. So some days I picture her holding me in her arms for the first, and last, time as soon as I was born, and of course I picture her crying. Other days I picture a woman giving birth, a propped up sheet preventing her from seeing the baby and in my mind I hear her begging to see me. As part of that fantasy the baby is quickly covered with a sheet or towel and whisked away, the last sounds the baby hears are of her mother’s cries. Solely because there are no details available to me about my birth, or any time spent with her following my birth, I am left with only my fantasies, never knowing the full truth. It cannot be denied that one confirmed rejection came in the form of the decision to relinquish her right to parent me. When she made that final decision I was already born, so that would have been her first rejection of me as a person. Those consent for adoption forms she would have had to sign required my being given a name, which in turn, gave me an identity. She had given me a name, so I existed now. Sadly, just like the moments following my birth, I have no information about contact, or lack thereof, during the brief time she and I were at the facility together. I often wonder why I can never know any information about whether she and I ever met or spent time in each other’s company when I was born, yet I can know for a fact she signed a form to relinquish her parental rights. Seems unfair. Once she returned to her home community her family began preparing to move away and have a fresh start somewhere else. Her parents’ goal was to settle in a new community where others would not be aware of her having had two babies ‘out of wedlock’. She had given birth to my half-sister first, born in her home community three years before me, and then gave birth to me in another community. As a result of my birth half-sister and I being born ‘out of wedlock’ she and her family ran the risk of being rejected by their whole community in those days. Instead, they left for a new community, off to a fresh start, our birth mother, birth grandparents, birth aunts and birth uncles; leaving the memories of us behind. While my birth family was preparing for their move, I remained in the clinical setting of the hospital, according to my records, rejected by my birth family and abandoned by the agency mandated to protect me and my rights. I was born on the 22nd day of the month and my birth mother discharged herself from the home for unwed mothers on the 26th day of that same month and returned to her home community to get packing. There was a plan in place for a worker from my home agency to attend the home for unwed mothers to pick me up and return me to my birth family’s community to begin adoption planning. My records indicate that three weeks after I was born the Mother Superior wrote a curt letter to my home agency commanding that they come and get me as the facility needed the cot for “other unwanted babies.” It was hard to read those words in my file. So I think you can see how rejection is my greatest fear. Who knows if it is because the people who created me chose not to parent me or if it is simply a part of my genetic make up. Perhaps it is a combination of genetics and life experience; again, nature/nurture at work. It still affects me, even now in my 60s. I know there are other adopted people out there who feel it too. We are not alone. It is important to note that I do not remember any specific feelings of rejection as a young child. I do remember feeling a bit weird when my mother would talk about her miscarriages and her lost dream of motherhood. Then she would retell the story of how she and my dad had attended mass one Sunday when a visiting missionary talked about adoption. He talked about how many children exist in the world waiting for families to adopt them and love them. According to my mom, she turned to my dad and said that maybe they should look into that. I have always felt loved by my parents but somehow always felt a little bit less worthy of their love than my mother’s lost babies would have been. Sometimes it felt like I would always be second place in a bizarre bid for my mother’s affection between me and those lost babies. I want to be very clear here, these are feelings created by my own emotions, not in any way by my parents’ behaviour or their messaging to me. As a result of my adoption story I struggle with rejection. Meeting my birth half siblings left me in awe of the people my birth parents chose to raise, and constantly comparing how we are alike and how we are different. When I am left out of plans by friends, how can I blame them when my own mother did not want me? When my husband and I have disagreements I feel that I’d better change or fix things before he rejects me too. I live in fear that I might do something to alienate myself from my children or their life partners. Even sometimes writing these blogs leaves me feeling vulnerable to the possible rejection of people who may be reading them. But you know what my Blogville friends? You Are Worth The Risk! If you benefit from joining me here then that makes me happy. In closing I want to say, “We are adoptees, we are awesome and we are meant to be here!” As always, I look forward to your comments here, or via email at ldeiulisauthor@gmail.com! See you next time in Blogville!
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Welcome back to Blogville my friends. Today I’m drinking a hot chocolate with a nod to Northern Ontario winter adventures. One advantage as an adoptee is that I was able to be raised in the North by my adoptive parents, as my birth family had moved to Southern Ontario following my birth. Read on to learn what I would have missed out on . . .
My husband and I were both raised in Northern Ontario, and we raised our four children to adulthood in Northern Ontario. We have experienced the benefits of winter activities both as participants and as spectators. Northerners do not let winter travel stop us from driving from community to community for activities like hockey tournaments, curling bonspiels, skiing, swim meets and a myriad of other types of competitions! Therefore, winter stays at Northern Ontario hotels when there is also a tournament in that town are always adventurous. Just curious, have you ever stayed at a hotel in Northern Ontario in the winter? If you have, you will likely relate to this blog. If you haven’t yet, this blog should help prepare you for your first time. Recently, we took a trip down south with a stop halfway. When we arrived and saw that trucks and trailers had reduced parking spaces by half in the hotel’s lot, that was our first clue that our overnight stay would be an adventure. When we finally squeezed our truck into a remote spot, and exited it, we were immediately surrounded by the distinct smell of snowmobile exhaust, classic Northern Ontario! Bath and Body Works should look into that unique scent for a candle, maybe they could call it ‘Northern Winter ‘. We could gift them to friends and relatives about to come north for the first time. Or gift them to homesick college and university students or former Northern Ontario residents. Just a thought. Anyway, we hurried towards the hotel building and when the main entrance’s automatic doors slid open to welcome us, we were hit with the unique odours of empty pizza boxes and hockey equipment bags. An odour that can only be found in Northern hotel lobbies! I feel I should note that no candle product should be created to smell like a hockey equipment bag does. Happily, the new smell of pizza made us quickly forget the odour of the snowmobile exhaust. While my husband checked in at the front desk I took note of the stack of at least 50 pizza boxes in the ‘breakfast nook’ area and the haphazardly placed chairs filled with hockey parents laughing and debating the wisdom of the tournament organizers. Even after a four hour drive south on a snow-packed Highway 11, we were clearly still in a Northern Ontario hotel. It was apparent that we had unknowingly booked ourselves a room at a hotel in a tournament-hosting community so we prepared ourselves for the trek to our room. We shouldered some of our luggage and were wheeling the rest toward the bank of elevators when we suddenly stopped, looked around while listening carefully, and realized that there was not a child in sight in that very busy lobby area. Uh oh. We loaded ourselves and our luggage into the elevator and selected our floor. After a few moments the doors opened and we instantly realized that we had found the children who had somehow become separated from their parents in the lobby. Here they were in the hallway, just outside of our assigned room. It is a well known fact that hotel hallways are the perfect venue for practicing wrist and/or slap shots. After all, the space at the end of the hallway is just a little wider than the standard hockey net opening. In addition, the walls and room doors act as great sideboards. It is important to note that not having a goalie in net will potentially save any teeth (aka chiclets), from a hallway slap shot. This significantly reduces the risk of having to drag a hockey parent out of the hospitality suite for a trip to ‘Emerg’ to get their child a stitch or two and maybe a dental consult. Having had experience with hallway hockey practice during many previous Northern Ontario hotel stays, we planned precise timing for our trip from the elevator to our room while using our wheeled luggage like goalie pads to prevent injury. Finally we were safely ensconced in our hotel room without injury or penalty and we started to relax. Very soon we noticed that the ‘kapow, kapow, kapow’ of the hallway hockey practice was suddenly drowned out by the revving sound of snow machine engines being warmed up outside in the hotel parking lot. To Northerners, this is the ‘white noise’ that helps us fall soundly asleep. A dedicated Northern Ontario snowmobile enthusiast will often travel to many different regions in the north to enjoy their sport. These adventurous folks load up their snowmobiles on trailers, attach the trailers to their vehicles, and then drive for hours, often on treacherous northern highways, for the thrill of riding on another snow packed, tree-lined trail in a different region from their own. This is a passion I do not totally understand, but, to be fair, my snowmobile experience is rather limited. My last ride was straight up the side of a steep hill, then suddenly falling backwards, machine, driver and me, rolling back down the hill like a sad reenactment of the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. As a result, I cannot relate to the thrill of the ride, but I do understand that snowmobiling is a great way to embrace our Northern Ontario winters! Before calling it a night, but to avoid another hallway hockey adventure, my husband and I decided to order a pizza. Sigh, it was a two hour minimum wait time for pizza delivery. By way of explanation for the unusually long wait time, a seemingly frazzled staff member stated, “Sorry ma’am but there is a hockey tournament in town.” Thinking we might be able to risk going out to pick up some food, we ran to the window and were saddened by the view of a very full parking lot. Driving to find food would likely mean no parking spaces left upon our return, well except for the one or two spaces between the commercial garbage bins in the back lot. Oh, and it had started to snow. Lucky for us there was a Tim Horton’s restaurant (you can’t get more Northern Ontario than that) and a small convenience store within walking distance of our hotel. Waiting for a break in the hallway hockey game we carefully made our way back to the bank of elevators. Once the elevator doors opened, we cautiously negotiated around the water puddles left on the elevator floor by the hotel guests whose children were competing in the regional swim meet, also being hosted by this northern community. We waved to the desk clerk and told him that we were on our way for a short walk to go grab some food. Looking appraisingly at our footwear he told us to watch our step as the sidewalks and roads were pretty icy. We thanked him and made our way out of the lobby. “Watch out for skidoos” he called out to us in additional warning as we were exiting through the automatic doors. “Don’t worry, we’re Northerners” we called back as the doors whooshed closed behind us. I hope you enjoyed my little Northern Ontario travelling tale. Thanks for joining me for this blog. Please feel free to share your comments with me either on the blog page or more privately by email at ldeiulisauthor@gmail.com. I love hearing your thoughts. Greetings my Blogville friends, thank you for joining me today. I’m sipping on a green tea this morning for its fat burning benefits. This is a long post today, you might want to steep a pot of tea. I will warn you dear friends I’m feeling pretty low and self-deprecating at the moment. Somehow, I always feel a little better when I share my thoughts with you, and I thank you for that. I’m also driven by the idea that someone else out there feels this way too and through my words they might see that they are not alone. Before I begin, I need you to know that this blog is not a judgement about weight or body type. It is about adoption trauma and lack of information. I mean no offence to anyone.
When I got my first non-identifying information report I was 22 years old and a new mom. That report gave my birth weight as 8 1/2 pounds, in those days that was considered a pretty big baby, and my discharge weight was 9 1/2 pounds. I remember thinking that was weird, I had gained weight in the hospital. As a new mom I had done a great deal of reading and learned that newborns typically lose some weight before they go home from the hospital. Not me!Remember, my adoptee brain is always looking for a reason why I might have been given up for adoption, some reasonable explanation. So it makes sense that as I read about my unusual weight gain as an infant I immediately defaulted to thinking perhaps that was why my birth mother left me, maybe I was too fat. Later, I would learn the reason for the unusual gain in my discharge weight was because I was almost a month old before someone from the agency came to get me from the hospital. Eventually I came to realize that my birth mother was long gone from the home for unwed mothers before I put on that extra pound. Unfortunately, I would not find all of that out for decades and had many years of associating abandonment with weight. As a young child I was underweight. I cannot tell you how many times my mom would tell people that no matter how much she fed me I never seemed to gain the proper amount of weight despite the fact that I had been such a big baby when I was born. I think there was a part of me that was grateful I was so skinny; a part of me that thought maybe if I was not too fat when she found me, my birth mother might take me home with her this time. Conversely, the moment I thought of her taking me away from my home I felt a deep, cold fear in my belly. Could she really take me away from mom and dad? I cannot fully explain the conflict I felt as a young, adopted child. I loved my parents wholeheartedly while at the same time I yearned to be accepted by my birth mother. It is honestly inexplicable, even to me. This is why I’m so committed to helping adoptive parents communicate with their children. I was afraid to talk to my mom because she always seemed hurt and afraid of my questions, like she had done something wrong. I loved her so much I never wanted to make that hurt appear in her eyes, yet I yearned for answers. I spent my adolescence as a very slender person. I was tall and thin with long fine hair that allowed my ears to poke out and wave at the world. I remember wondering who, between my birth parents, had the big ears gene? In an effort to minimize my height I developed awful posture and became quite round-shouldered. I mean it helped disguise the lack of boobs on my chest, so that’s was a positive I suppose. Being taller than my friends was a struggle but being slender still made me confident that my birth mother would accept me if she found me. Adolescence was quite difficult for me as my mom struggled to guide me. At that time I still believed that I was the product of a teen pregnancy and was afraid it might happen to me too, like some weird sort of inherited trait. I have mentioned before that my mom often warned me that a teenage pregnancy would result in an adoption plan. I don’t think she ever realized that she made adoption sound like a consequence, and that made me feel like I was a consequence of my birth parents’ bad behaviour. At the same time my mother would tell me how grateful she was when the agency called her about a baby girl and how excited she and dad were to finally get their daughter. I was torn, how could I be a consequence and a gift at the same time? Adoptive parents, talk to your children and youth about pregnancy and managing biological urges and peer pressures, instead of emphasizing that they should not follow in their birth parents’ footsteps. Honestly, adoptees are at no greater risk for untimely pregnancies than their peers are. I was a slender bride, and when we later had children, I got my “shape” back without much effort following their births. I was never self-conscious about my weight as an adult. As I matured I’m not even sure I noticed that I was not as thin anymore because I had always been pretty slender or at least average build. There was a day though, I cannot even recall how old I was, but let’s say I was ‘mature’, like over 40, when a friend came over to borrow a dress for some event she was attending. I gave her some dresses to try and, after trying one on, she suddenly exclaimed, “It’s too big on me! Omg it’s actually too big!” I was confused at her excitement until I realized that she meant I was fat. That was not her intention of course, but I was completely stunned. Now if you recall, I thought for a very long time that maybe my birth mother gave me up because I was fat! I was instantly insecure and suddenly overwhelmed by a fear of losing my loved ones, like I had lost my birth mother. I had not realized I was overweight because I’d never really been aware of changes to my body type until that moment (I think of it as my ‘anti-Kodak’ moment). That was the day when I looked down, when I looked in the mirror with my eyes open, and suddenly all I could see was my fat. For days after that event, I found myself taking a silent inventory of who I might lose now that I was ‘fat’. The strangest thing is that my reaction was not about my ‘mature’ weight gain, but about my earlier perception that my weight caused my birth mother to abandon me. The very idea of being abandoned by my loved ones terrified me. From the ‘day of the dress’ as I have come to think of it, I have never again been satisfied with my appearance and I avoid looking at pictures of myself, becoming self-deprecating. Sadly, this is what adoption trauma can do, it can cause extreme reactions to every day events, and reinforce any feelings of low self-worth. I know, I live it. This is why I urge adoptive parents to talk with their children, especially about the ‘why’ of their relinquishment story. Believe me when I say the ‘why’ in their mind is probably not anywhere close to the true story, and is likely a much worse scenario that wrongfully places blame on their infant or child selves. They need their truth, at developmentally appropriate stages of course. Trust yourself, you will know when it is the right time. I believe in my heart that children need to understand what happened in their pre-adoption story, even if they were placed with their adoptive parents at birth. They need to know what circumstances led their birth parent(s)’ to choose an adoption plan, and that it was not their fault. Their story needs to be told to them, of course keeping in mind their developmental level and their ability to understand the facts. I believe that society needs to be clear to children that the day they were born birth is, and always will be their birthday, a celebration of the anniversary of their birth, and that it was actually their birth parent(s)’ relinquishment day, not theirs. I also think clarification is in order, birth parents can not actually ‘give the child up’, because the reality is that they will always be the child’s birth parent. Birth parents actually ‘give up’ or relinquish their legal right to parent the child. That legal right to parent the child is granted instead to the adoptive parent(s), or sometimes their kinship parent(s). Speaking of being clear, most children are not consoled by a fantasy conception explanation such as ‘when a mommy and daddy fall in love yada yada and so on’. Adopted children are honestly not interested in the details of their conception, any more than birth children are interested in hearing about the details of theirs. Adopted children are more interested in what happened during the birth mother’s pregnancy and after they were born. Did they do anything wrong? Did they hurt her during their birth because they were a large baby? Was there anything that they could have done differently? Why didn’t their grandparents or aunts and uncles want them? In some cases their community and even their country let them go, why? Were they ugly babies, or fat babies, or did they cry too much? Be careful about saying things like ‘they loved you and wanted you to have good parents’, as it can be confusing later when you tell the child that you love them. Yikes! Are you thinking of giving them up too? Examine what you know about their birth parents’ adoption planning and phrase your explanations carefully. Consider statements like: Your birth mother wanted you to grow up in a family that was ready to parent. Your birth parents wanted you to have opportunities that they did not have, or felt they could not give you. When your children ask you questions about their birth families, try not to jump to conclusions about what information they are looking for. Instead, seek clarification with comments like, ‘Tell me more about what you want to know?’ ‘Are you asking how old a girl has to be before she can have a baby or before she can take care of a baby?’ Or even by asking directly, (but not defensively), ‘Why are you asking about this right now?’ as they might not even be asking what you think they are. I find adoptive parents often jump to the adoption topic when it is the last thing on their child or youth’s mind. Clarify, do not assume. Adoptive parents, this is not about your love or your family’s love for your adopted child. Your love is what gives them the confidence to ask their questions and face their own fears. Your love reassures them that they are lovable despite being let go by one family in order to be adopted by another, no matter why that happened. Birth families too, in any ongoing or future contact, need to make sure that their birth child, the adoptee, understands that decisions about the relinquishment of the birth parents’ right to parent them were made based on circumstance, not based on them as infants, children, or youth. They need to know that having to change families was not their fault! Phew, I warned you it was a long one. I have cried a lot writing these words. I write them so no adoptee should know the same pain, or if they do, that they know they are not alone. I write them so adoptive parents might gain some insight into what is going on with their child and to communicate with them. I write them so birth parents know their birth children deserve the truth about why they gave up their legal right to parent them. I believe that one of the best treatment tools for adoption trauma is communication. Let’s start talking! Speaking of communication, please remember that you can comment here, or for more privacy you can send me an email at ldeiulisauthor@gmail.com As always your comments give me the courage to keep blogging, thank you. See you back in Blogville in two weeks. Welcome back to Blogville my friends, it is so nice to have you back for a visit! Today I am sipping on a chai tea because it has so many mystery ingredients, kind of like the biological mysteries of being an adoptee. Maybe it was my granddaughter’s recent birthday that inspired this blog, or more specifically her other grandmother commenting how much my now eight year old granddaughter looks like me. It was at that moment I realized how lucky my granddaughter is to know who she looks like. As an adoptee, I remembered that I had to wait 22 years to meet any biological family members that might look like me! That was just the beginning of my journey. Here’s how it went . . .
I grew up not knowing anyone I was biologically related to. I knew no one who looked like me. When I was 18 years old I met my true love. Two years later we married, and two years after that I met my first biological relative, our first child, a daughter. I’m not sure there was ever a baby more stared at in wonderment than she was. Maybe all adoptees feel this way when they meet their first child. I simply could not stop looking at her, seeking any resemblance to me. I was 22 years old before I met anyone that might look like me. She was later joined by three siblings, but by the time I was 32 years old I still only knew four biological relatives. Think about that for a minute. Soon after the birth of our fourth child, I met my birth half sister, who had also been adopted. I was 32 years old and she was 35. I later met her two sons so I then knew three more biological relatives. A few years later I met my birth father’s adult children. I now had two more biological siblings, and two biological nieces. I was 39 years old. The next year I met my birth father. I was 40 years old. I never had the opportunity to meet my birth mother but eventually I met her four other daughters, and their children; suddenly finding myself among so many biological relatives! I was 60 years old. Yes, you read that correctly, I was 60 years old before this privilege was granted to me. I was invited to a family reunion of my birth mother’s extended family where I met generations of people I am biologically related to, but who did not know my half-sister and I even existed. They were never given the chance to know us until my half-sister and I were in our 60s. Meeting them was filled with both happiness at gaining all of these family members, and a sense of loss at how much of each other’s lives we had missed. Among these people were some who knew, and kept, the secrets of adoption. Among these people I felt both acceptance and curiosity. I caught many sidelong glances as they studied me, comparing my features to that of my birth mother’s. At the same time, I found a commonality and sense of belonging at this gathering through things like the shape and colour of my eyes, my height and fair skin (Dutch ancestry), and even my sense of humour. Among these people with whom I share genetic material, I learned so much as they shared their memories of my birth mother. She became more than simple descriptors on a page written by a social worker as I learned things about her as a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a sister-in-law, an aunt, and even as a cousin. As you can see, I have come a long way from meeting my first biological relative when I was 22 years old to today when my life is enriched by connections within my immediate family. I am now connected with both my extended family members through adoption, and my extended family members through birth. Though I have found a sense of connectedness with my birth family members through physical resemblance, I feel that I have an even stronger connection with my adoptive family members through life’s experiences. In my adoptive family, my cousins, aunts and uncles all form parts of my lifetime memories as a result of our having shared so many lived experiences. Our memories of mutual visits to our grandmothers’ homes when we were children are gathered in our hearts. They knew/know me as their daughter, their granddaughter, their cousin, their niece, they knew/know me as me! My birth family will never know me like that. I believe that human relationships are built on shared experiences. There are good and bad relationships among family members no matter how that family was created; through birth, marriage, kinship, adoption, surrogacy, and so on. We can choose to focus on or blame any poor relationships on how we became members of our families, or we can accept that we have a relationship with each other, no matter how we arrived at it, and work together at creating good experiences. With changes to openness in adoption practices it is the hope that my adoption life experiences will prevented and that adoptees will be spared having to wait 22 years before meeting someone biologically related to them. Adoptive parents are certainly provided with more information than my parents were ever given, in the hopes that they can answer their children’s questions about their birth family. Pictures are even provided in many cases so a child can see for themselves where their features came from. When adoptive parents are provided with the tools they need to help answer their children’s questions about biological identity, those children are better able to form trusting relationships with their adoptive parents. Pictures truly are worth a thousand words. Thank you again for visiting with me in Blogville. Feel free to leave a comment so I know you stopped by. As ever, you are also welcome to send me an email at ldeiulisauthor@gmail.com See you next time! |
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January 2024
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