Hi everyone, welcome back to Blogville. I’m having a lovely ginger tea today. Last blog I wrote about the day I arrived at my parents’ home when I was placed on adoption with them. That blog was inspired by video calls with my 9 month old grandson. Recently we have been visiting with this little guy and my heart is filled with love for him but then, suddenly, an even greater sense of loss for 9 month old me. I thought I would share more about this with you in today’s blog, there may be some lessons here.

Spending some time recently with our 9 month old grandson feels bittersweet. If you recall, in my previous blog ‘9 Months’ I talked about being placed with my adoptive parents at that age. I wrote about the way I had been simply dropped off to them with no pre-placement visits, and no pre or post placement contact with my foster parents. I know that meeting my foster parents, even having spent some time observing me with them, would have helped my mom know what my routine had been and what comforted me. Remember, a 9 month old baby is not a clean slate, they already have preferences, likes and dislikes, fears, and things they found comforting.

My placement was further complicated by an immediate hospitalization that had been pre-planned, and a condition of my placement with my new parents. I needed a small surgery and my parents were able to arrange it almost immediately after I arrived at their home. To me, it should have been apparent to the professionals making these decisions that I would have been better off to have had the surgery while in the care of my foster parents than while in the care of my new parents. My foster parents had a relationship with me and would have been better able to offer comfort to me following the surgery. My poor parents and 9 month old me were really set up for a terrible attachment experience. As I see my 9 month old grandson and his secure attachment to his parents, deep feelings of abandonment are rekindled in me and tears fill my eyes on behalf of 9 month old me. Though our grandson plays with or is held by us easily,  when he suddenly looks at me or my husband, then looks around for his parents with lips quivering, we quickly hand him back to his mommy or daddy where he is immediately soothed and relieved. Watching this, it occurred to me that when I felt that insecurity at 9 months old, there was no one to hand me to where I would have felt soothed and relieved. I know that eventually an attachment with my parents formed but those first few weeks or months must have been difficult for all of us.

At one point in our visit we were calling our grandson’s name and as he turned from the window to look at us in response my husband said, “Well he sure knows his name.” I realized at that moment that my parents would have immediately been calling me by my new name, they may not even have been told what my old name was. How confusing that must have been for me. I suppose over time I must have realized that they meant me when they said “Lynn” instead of “Marie”. I wonder how long that would have taken? I wonder if I wondered where the people who had called me Marie had gone.

After we had been with him for about a week, our grandson’s parents had to attend an appointment, so my husband and I watched our grandson for an hour or so. When we knew his parents would be home soon we started watching out the window for them together. When they pulled into the driveway our grandson started to cry at the unexpected sight through the window of his mother standing outside; he’s used to watching through the window and greeting his dad as he arrives home from work, but not his mother. He was frantic for her to come in the house and hold him. When she came in and picked him up, snuggling him close to calm him, a strong feeling of jealousy bubbled up in me as I realized I had had no one that could comfort me like that when I was 9 months old. I cannot describe how overwhelmed I felt. My husband looked at me and asked what was wrong. My eyes filled with tears and my throat burned with emotion as I said, “Nothing.” There is no way anyone in the room with me at that moment could understand what I was feeling. There was no way I could help them to understand so I simply swallowed my grief. As I watched my grandson playing on the floor with his toys I noted that he is always tracking where his parents are, as is developmentally appropriate. How would I have known whom to track in my new family when I arrived? I had never met these people, a man, a woman, a little boy, and a dog. I honestly cannot even convey my strong feelings of sadness on behalf of 9 month old me. 

The adoption placement procedure has changed significantly since my placement day over 60 years ago. Now there is typically great emphasis placed on slow introductions, usually in a space where the prospective adoptee is most comfortable, such as in their foster home. Many procedural changes now contribute to a smoother permanent move for children. For example, not automatically changing a very young child’s birth first name but instead, giving it great consideration. If, after consideration, the name is changed there are helpful tips like initially using both the old name and the new name together, eventually dropping the old name once the child starts responding to their new one. Sometimes people will elect to choose names that are similar to the birth name, such as Byron and Brian, or Lena and Tina, to make an easier transition. (To me, not changing it at all is the best approach.)

Although I still see flaws with some International Adoption placement procedures, I appreciate that adoptive parents are now most often expected to attend their future child’s country of origin and begin building a relationship with their new child. What I cannot imagine is the depth of the loss experience as the child loses not only their caregivers, the sights, smells and sounds of their community, but also the landscape of their entire country and culture. What could possibly mitigate the magnitude of those losses? I think these are the things we need to pay better attention to not only in International Adoption planning but in multi-racial, cross-cultural adoptions as well. Our loss is real, and it is not necessarily about anything our adoptive parents did or did not do, it runs deeper than that. Just like everyone deals with their grief and loss resulting from the death of a loved one differently, adoptees deal differently with our losses as well. 

My eyes sting and my heart pounds with emotion when I see that my grandson is so protected from the kind of loss my adoption visited on me, at nearly exactly his age. I’m so happy for him, grateful on his behalf really, while at the same time feeling such enormous sadness for 9 month old me. 

So my message to adoption professionals is to say that, no matter how busy you are, how full your caseload is, a proper pre placement plan is critical to attachment (or perhaps better identified as attachment transfer) for that child and their new family. A proper life book, or life story, is one of the best gifts you can give a child you are placing on adoption. When your supervisor, manager, or even Ministry personnel return your Social and Medical History document for clarification or revision, be grateful, for they are helping you to provide the best, most accurate, information for that adopted person. The next gift you can give an adoptee as access to vetted files increases, is to be clear, concise and detailed in your notes. You hold their history in your hands, their truth as you know it, or as told to you, for them to receive and read some day, so please strive for accuracy. This is a great honour and privilege that needs to be respected.

My message to birth relatives and adoptive families, as an adoptee, is that some openness, in whatever form works best for everyone, can only help ensure the secure adjustment of their shared child, and may even help to mitigate some of their child’s abandonment trauma. I strongly believe that when a child is surrounded by love and acceptance they will learn to love and accept themselves and others more easily. 

As you know, I welcome comments from any or all of my Blogville visitors either here or by email at [email protected]. 

Our youngest grandchild just turned 9 months old. It made me reflect on the fact that I was 9 months old when my parents met me; when I became their daughter.

Since we do not live in the same community I do a video chat story time with my youngest grandson on a regular basis. I love getting to see him grow and develop even if it’s only on a ‘screen’. Partly as a result of these chats, my grandson knows who I am, he hears my voice and looks for my image. He sees my image on screen and reacts; I clap, he claps, I smile, he smiles, he belly laughs and my hearts just melts as I laugh too. At 9 months old he recognizes me. Even though we live hundreds of kilometres apart he knows who I am, and that we are important to each other.

Seeing my grandson’s secure attachment made me reflect on my placement into my adoptive parents’ care at about the same age as he is right now. We all know there is a 9 month gestation period for the development of a human being, and then the first 9 months of life outside of the womb are dedicated to the development of a secure attachment. I did not have that in my first 9 months. Instead I had an extended hospital stay (for housing needs not medical ones) as a newborn, followed by three foster care placements. 

I was lucky that my third, and final foster parents and their children, loved and cared for me. I’m sure I must have been forming an attachment with them. I can almost see it in the few pictures I now have of my short time with them. As was done in those days, in a sudden and bittersweet moment, I was matched with my adoptive family and removed from my foster home without thought to trying to transfer that attachment.

There is an old 8 mm film recording of the day that I arrived at my parents’ home to be placed on adoption with them. My mother had given the film to me on one of her ‘spring clean-up’ days years ago as she no longer had the projector it needed. I did not have any way to see it either so I simply tucked it away. Years later my brother transferred the old film onto a new format for me so I could finally watch it. The film starts with a flickering image of a smiling worker carrying a tiny white-blonde-haired baby girl down the outside cement steps to meet her new family . . .

One sign of the age of the film are the blinding lights that were part of the technology back then. So throughout, there is a whole lot of squinting going on, often making my expressions hard to see. Somehow though, watching my image, I can sense what I was feeling. 

Appearing in the film are the worker who was dropping me off, the other foster child she was transporting, my new parents and brother, as well as other women in the background, oh, and a random tiny little infant that I will talk about later.

Clearly my arrival was cause for a celebration as there were so many people in the house, including the person filming the event. If I’m not mistaken, my parents’ friends would have come over as a supportive gesture. I believe that were too many women present for me to figure out who my new mother was. My dad was the only man in sight so it may have been obvious to me who my new father was. 

9 month old me, the star of the production, honestly just looks lost, confused, and uncomfortable. Today, I recognize that 9 month old me was likely traumatized. I watch myself staring into the faces of the people holding me or sitting near me, looking for some sign of familiarity, an uncomfortable smile on my face. You know that look, the one when you plop a smiling little one on Santa’s lap at the mall and they are all giggles, until they look up, staring blankly with a frozen smile, trying to figure out who this is, then suddenly bursting into tears from a lack of recognition. 

In the film, while my new mother spoon feeds me lunch, I stare into her face as if trying to place her, or maybe even trying to understand why my foster mother is not there to feed me. I can be seen looking somewhat longingly over at the worker who is feeding my little carpool partner, after all they were the only two people in the room that were familiar to me. I noticed that while I opened my mouth automatically to accept the spoon, and later the bottle, from my new mother, I never seemed to take my eyes off of her face. Perhaps I was ‘filial imprinting’ in case I lost this mother too. Seeing this on film hits me right in the ‘feels’, every time.

There are at least two spots in the film where my parents are holding someone else’s baby (maybe to show me, or perhaps the worker, that they knew how to do it?) and showing the baby to me, even placing that baby on my little lap at one point. I feel that if my son and daughter-in-law were to be holding an infant, my grandson would be trying to pull that baby off of them, or at least be trying to move the baby so he could fit on their laps too. 9 month olds with secure attachment are territorial like that. Honestly my confused expression is only overshadowed by my complete, and obvious disinterest in that baby.

My brother, who was placed for adoption with our parents at 2 1/2 years old had only been with them less than a year, and was likely just getting settled when I showed up. His disdain for me is apparent in the film. Frankly, he seemed more interested and comfortable hugging the family dog than hugging me as repeatedly directed. It was a small consolation when I saw that he too had to hold that mystery infant; his indifference apparent. That poor little boy was like an actor auditioning on a film set with the directors telling him to hug me, to kiss my little cheek, and to accept this little intruder as his sister. He did not appear impressed. However, even though it was not a great audition, we were given the role of siblings.

When I look at this film it upsets me to see how many people were there on the day I met my new family. I wonder how I even knew which of these people belonged to me? If I had hurt myself, which person would I have shown my distress to and sought comfort from? I’ll even bet I felt abandoned when the worker and the other foster child left me behind in a house full of strangers. After all, they had been my only familiarity in that house. I often wonder how that other little girl, my carpool partner, felt when she was subsequently dropped off at her new placement, did she miss the worker and me too?

There is one spot in the film showing me jumping in a crib looking gleefully at my image in a mirror, reaching out and trying to touch the only image I recognized in my new environment! Another spot in the film finds me on the couch squinting and rocking myself; likely a self-soothing behaviour. Anyone outside of the adoption constellation who looks at this film might see a joyous occasion and celebration of a young child joining her new family. They would see a new family supported by workers, family members, and friends. What they would not see is the trauma, after all, how could there be trauma at such a happy event?

As I write and edit this blog I feel many things, grief for the way I was introduced to my family, and pride that as an adoption worker, I tried to do things better. There is always room for improvement but generally speaking adoption workers now try to mitigate the confusion of moving from one family to another. Pictures and videos are sometimes used before the parties meet. There are pre-placement visits between the foster home and the adoptive home before the big move. Visit calendars are created and information is provided (likes and dislikes, favourite foods, things like that) so that the receiving family is somewhat prepared. Thankfully, foster parents now play a huge role before a baby, child or youth is even introduced to their new family, and after they are moved. 

I mention these things to give prospective adoptive parents an idea of what types of pre-placement activities they should expect, or even request if necessary, to help that baby, child or youth transition to their family. I believe that, to mitigate some of the trauma of changing families, contact with previous caregivers should be eased off, not cut off like the umbilical cord, no matter how challenging it might be for the adults. A huge bonus is when contact continues through openness.

I remember when I finally met my last foster mother (I was in my 60s and she in her 80s) and she talked about her grief at having me ‘just gone’, no further contact, never knowing if I was okay. She never got to tell my new family my likes and dislikes, or my usual routine so that I could be comforted. All those years, she worried about me while I wondered who she was and if she missed me. Our relationship mattered.

If this blog has struck a chord with you, pun intended, feel free to leave a comment here, or email me at [email protected] Thanks for visiting and having tea with me in Blogville.