Fuck you, my birth mother!

The BBQ Pit
61

Nothing to add, elmwood, except that I’m on pins and needles and sending positive vibes from your neighboring state to the south. I think the best advice you’ve gotten so far is to make your own family. Figuratively or literally. You are not an old man and people get married for the first time way older than you are now. If not (or in the meantime), create a network of friends as your support base. Lots of people who aren’t adopted and have open access with their families have done this.

I’m just terribly sorry this is happening to you. It sucks.

62

It’s falling apart.

As of today, There has been no response or acknowledgement from my birth mother … no phone calls, no e-mail, no letters, no nothing.

Yesterday, I got a rather nasty phone call from one of my bio-brothers. He apparently just got off the phone with my birth mother, who was very upset; she did get the letter. He tried to say that I wasn’t one of them, I’ll never be close to them, he’ll never consider me his reak brother, and that I should just let things go. My argument … did he even read the e-mail between me and my birth mother? He said that was just between me and her, and that it wasn’t his concern. I told him that is that was the case, than she should have called me herself. I’m not going to get into a discussion where my point of view isn’t welcomed and understood. I then told them that as long as I was some secret, some THING that was seen as more of an object of shame, I didn’t want to deal with any of them; I didn’t want any of them to be a part of my life as long as that was the case.

I hope my birth mom is having a nervous breakdown. She deserves it. I now wish she would have stayed the fuck out of my life to begin with. If she just wanted some closure, with no thought about how I would feel, she can go to hell for all I care. Selfish, selfish, selfish.

As for the brothers … well, they look exactly like me, their behavioral traits are exactly like mine, but otherwise we have little in common. I was one of those incurable klutzy kids who was picked last for sports teams in elementary school gym class; they’re literally borderline world-class athletes (one brother was recruited by the LA Dodgers; my sister is supposedly one of the best lacrosse players to ever grace the soil of upstate New York). Meanwhile, I was the brainy one that flew through college and grad school on academic scholarships and assistantships. I’m an eclectic, creative closet geek; they’re sports nuts who are obsessive jam band followers and tape traders.

As far as my bio-sister goes, she’s getting a Christmas card from me, like it or not. Since birth mom won’t tell her, I will. I’m also going to send a letter to birth dad, in a few months, too. I will no longer be treated as an object of shame, or a reminder of a disliked ex-husband and father.

63

Oh elmwood I am so sorry. I am a birthmother and I can not empathize with your mother. It is cruel to treat your child as though they are a dirty little secret. All I can do is offer you the thought to go to counsleing for yourself. Do it for YOURSELF. Read books on adoption healing. Love your adoptive parents with all your heart. Pray. Pray that one day your mother will have realization of what is she missing out on.

I come from a very dysfunctional family and my family will NOT acknowledge my birthson. Let me claify that my other children (4 of them have welcomed my birthson with open arms) It is my parents and siblings that won’t. No matter what they just won’t. I am in counseling and reading adoption books to help me HELP MY SON. It is helping. So I offer you these bread crumbs my friend.

Good luck to you.
God Bless

64

I feel for you, and i’m not going to try to tell you what to do in this situation.

All the best for the future, whatever it holds.

65

This is such an intense situation, and I look forward to hearing from you when you finally do meet your sister elmwood.

I would like to add that reading Persephone’s first post caused tears to well up in my eyes.

66

elmwood, I don’t know how you can even wait until Christmas. I hope things get better here.

Now I have a question. I am both an adoptee and a birthmom. Things are going well on the b-mom front–my son found me a couple of years ago, we live in the same city, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know his family, including his adoptive mom (who bought me lunch when she came out to visit him, even though I think she felt threatened when he first found me–and she doesn’t live in the same city). No luck whatsoever as an adoptee, until recently.

I found an item on Ancestry.com relating that a half brother, a half-sister and a full brother are looking for their sister. Given the dates and the names–that would be me. The item was from February, but the email address of the person who listed it is not longer functional.

It’s driving me crazy. (But at least it’s an unusual name. My birth mom’s maiden name was . . . Smith. Arrghh!)

Now I know what it feels like to be an adopted only child and longing for siblings, and I know what if feels like to be a birth mom wondering if I’ll be contacted. But I don’t know what it feels like to be the sibling of a child who was relinquished and I can’t put myself in that place.

Anybody out there have this experience and want to tell elmwood and I what the siblings’ issues are?

67

::: sigh :::

Would you like to ever meet your sister? At least you are giving yourself until Christmas to consider this. What is going to happen when your sister gets a note from you? Whatever you put into that note (from a cryptic closing, “Your long-lost brother,” to a complete rendition of your search and your exchanges with your birth mom), the first thing she is going to do is go to the rest of her family and ask “What is this?”

And what will she be told? Your birth mom is terrified and upset; your brother(s) is(are) upset and angry. First she will get an earful of your “hostile” behavior (with additional adjectives supplied as needed). Then she will be faced with choosing to ignore you or suffer a rift in her own family. What has she done to you that you should impose that on her?

I am not discounting your pain or anger. I am trying to point out how you might inadvertantly cause yourself more grief, while unwittingly inflicting pain on someone who has never harmed you.

I like the Christmas time-frame, however, I would suggest a different approach. You might consider a letter to your birth mom and your brothers (one copy each, so that each has the opportunity to see it) explaining that your previous letter was driven by the extreme pain that you were suffering. Make it clear that you want to be reconnected, but that you are willing to establish those connections at a pace that is less threatening to everyone. You may be met with hostility, at first. However, carrying on a patient campaign in which you put aside the anger when you communicate with them, may eventually win them over.

You already have evidence that any anger you express will be met with equal or greater anger. Please don’t let that pain interfere with your potential reconciliation. (And do recall that if your approaches remain angry, you can only inflict pain on your sister, one way or the other.)

Good luck. I’ll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.

68

Well Cicada…sort of.

I’m an adoptive mom. But my son is five, his birthmom is in Korea and unknown to us. So we haven’t had to deal with reunion issue yet.

My father is an adoptee. Reunited with his birthfather when I was a teenager. Its a Christmas card relationship. His birth father does live very far away - and my parents have stopped by when they are in that part of the country.

The most interesting (to Elmwood) arrangement is my mother-in-law and husband’s. When my mother in law was a young woman, she gave up a daughter for adoption. She later had children with the same man (who she was married to when all three children were born, but when the daughter was born, he didn’t want children).

Fast forward … my husband is about 12. His mother divorces her husband (bet you didn’t see that coming from the above paragraph) and searches out the daughter she’d given up eighteen years before and they find each other. My husband now knows about his “sister.” Both mom and bio-sister have great expectations about the reunion and being real family.

Fast forward again. My husband is almost 40, now. He has known about his sister for twenty five years. He still says “she isn’t my sister.” They didn’t grow up together. They share few memories, and most of them are awkward. She is somewhat more distant to him than most of his cousins. Biologically, he has a sister. Socially, he has a brother and this weird shirt-tail relation that just happens to be his full blood sister.

This is despite an effort on everyone’s part to try to have his sister fit. Ten years ago, when I joined the family, we invited his sister to nearly all family events (her mom was getting elderly and we were the “only family she had left”) and saw her lots. (She is married with a child). And we still do invite her if we are having big family get togethers. But we don’t see her as much as we did - nor does my mother in law. Its too awkward and uncomfortable for all of us. Nor does she make an effort any longer to see us. Once upon a time she did, but we haven’t heard from her in years (except when she sends us deeply religious Christmas cards - we aren’t Christian) - we now only see her if my mother in law makes plans for us all to get together. And even that hasn’t happened in about three years. There is more to it than simple awkwardness though…times change. Her son is old enough to be busy (and is a horrible spoiled brat). We have kids of our own. No one gets along with her husband. She’s a conservative Christian, my husband’s family is not even close. (And I have a hard time inviting bigots into my house, so we are a little at an impasse after a conversation or two about homosexuality). My brother in law lives out of state - so our “family” get togethers are usually just my husband and us and his mom.

By the way, both brothers have, at times, resented their sister elbowing her way into family events where they don’t feel she belongs. My brother in law didn’t invite her to his wedding. When she would show up at Christmas, it was especially awkward and she was particularly unwelcome by her brothers. Its the “less meaningful” get togethers that have always been the most successful - the casual Saturdays. I’ve always had the feeling that the boys never really wanted “their mom” to be the mother of this other person - they didn’t want to share. In some ways, it seems to me to be similar to the feelings reported by so many adoptive parents when the birth mother enters the picture. They don’t always want to share. And they never asked for the reunion - sometimes, I believe, they’d rather just have never known.

In addition to my adopted son, I have a bio daughter. They are definately siblings. But I can’t say the same for my husband and his bio sister. It takes more than blood to make a relationship.

69

Thanks, Dangerosa, even though the info was not exactly what an adoptee wants to hear. Sounds like, basically, without the long-term relationship from early childhood there was just no bond. Or that the relinquished/reunited daughter is viewed as an interloper.

This is kind of a bummer for me because I sort of always felt like an interloper with my adoptive family, and this even though I was taken home from the hospital by my adoptive parents when I was two days old.

On the other hand I haven’t actually connected with my bio and half-siblings. So of course there’s no bond, of any kind.

elmwood, you know there are phases in the reunion relationship and the second one is a pulling away and reassessment of the whole relationship, and the boundaries to be set (or not) in the relationship. Adoption is ancient but the reunion bit seems to be pretty new.

For instance, what do I call the son I gave up? I don’t mean his name, I mean when I introduce him. He calls me his biological mother, which I am and that’s fine. But I can’t very well call him my biological son since all four of them are my biological sons and “the one I gave up” sounds really harsh. (But true.)

(PS–as soon as I asked the question about the issues of the bio siblints, I realized that I have four sons, three of whom could have answered this question, i.e., “How do you feel about this newly discovered half-brother?” Only we are still sorting it out. I’m not sure they know, yet, how they feel. I do need to ask them, though.)

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to answer.

70

I can offer you several solutions from personal experience.

My first suggestion is why don’t you ask your son what he wants to be called?

In the beginning I would say , …‘This is Matthew, the baby I lost to adoption, but met XX years ago’…

Now I feel differently and say “This is my son Matthew”

71

These guidelines are not cast in stone! But these are reunion guidelines.

  1. Nobody knows the “rules,” especially the person who is found.

  2. Adoptees may “back off” even if they did the search.

  3. Exiled mothers may not “back off” especially if they searched

  4. Everyone needs “space,” but not endless space.
    SPACE means: Separation
    Patience
    Acknowledgment
    Concern
    Empathy

  5. For those “in space,” a simple card signed “Happy Birthday” or “Thinking of You,” are acceptable: this can go on for YEARS, so do not have “great expectations”.

  6. SLOW is the signal especially at the outset.

  7. Do not launch into long or angry letters before meeting

  8. Not everything is adoption/reunion related, but separation at birth is a core issue that radiates through almost everything else.

  9. Expect that an adoptee will express anger, somehow, some way, probably not overtly, possibly not even recognizing that he or she is angry.

  10. When reunion is new, talk to one another about the boundaries you need to establish. (Again, the adoptee has leeway, but the exiled mother must remain in the “responsible adult” role.)

  11. Join a support group. Sharing and learning with others is most important.

  12. Start your own grief work. Seek professional help if needed.

  13. Help your current family and friends to understand that search and reunion will be your “life focus” for a while. Share that you may need a supportive shoulder or open ears. “Advice” may not be heard! Remember that your friends may not understand. Even you may not understand.

  14. Search and reunion are as much about YOU as they are about finding someone. Expect to change in many ways. Do not expect or allow a well-meaning family to expect that search will “fix” you.

  15. Remember that real life is “messy,” unlike fantasy, which you can bend to suit you. If you aren’t ready for “real” and ready to give up fantasies; don’t search! And certainly don’t make contact!

  16. Relatives happen! Relationships take time and work to put into proper perspective. (Remember this when experiencing Genetic Attraction, too!)

  17. Family is, ideally, supposed to be fun, thought-provoking, and supportive of each other, while still respectful of independence.
    I hope this helps!

72

My son is a Korean adoptee. Things are very different over there. If he makes contact with his birthmother, it is likely that she will have made herself available (held up her end of the search) only to give herself comfort that he has had a good life and turned out ok - and give him the comfort of finding her. She may not want to admit to any family that came afterwards (a husband, children) that she ever gave birth out of wedlock. He may never get a chance to meet any bio-half-siblings he has. When we talk about it (he is five) we set the expectation that he may look, but he may not find, and his expectations for what he finds should be low - someone that says “I’m glad you had a good life” and leaves it at that. To extend herself as far as doing that much will, in itself, likely be difficult for her. Now, should she not do that much? I think she should do as much as she is capable of and desires.

Now its possible that she will be able to give him more. But it is her choice to create the relationship - and a MUTUAL choice between her and my son as to how far to extend it. She is under no obligation to do more. Perhaps I misunderstand you, but you seem to want the adoptee to get to make all the decisions as to the depth of the relationship. That is simply not fair, nor realistic.

You may not get to choose your relatives - but you can choose how much contact you have with them. This isn’t even an adoption thing. Families - regardless of how they are made or defined - don’t always get along.

73

Another thought about “How to introduce your son”

How about: This is (name), my first born?

74

I make no claims to what I wrote. It has been passed down to me. I don’t claim to understand it clearly. I just used it as a guideline while I was searching…finding…then reunion.

Here here ain’t that the truth!

75

Dangerosa May I ask WHEN and HOW you told your son he is adopted?

I am dying to know how the adoptive parents told my son. I haven’t had the opportunity to ask my son this…yet. I don’t want to hear it from the aparents I want to hear it from my son.

I always wondered about foreign adoptions. I bet it isn’t easy tracking parents and adoptees.

I bet you love your son to death! Good wishes coming your way from the south.

76

A calf drops a bull, who 20 years later rants and raves. Who cares what womb you drop from. I’d be pretty pissed if I were this kid’s parents, and he whined and lowed about his birth-womb.

77

:::::bump:::::

Just wanted to know if anything new has happened and that I have been keeping you in my thoughts elmwood

78

The fact you haven’t snapped and killed yourself or someone else is commendable under the circumstances. You’re probably a stronger man than I. I’m terribly sorry for this to happen to you or anyone else. As a 30 year old who lost both parents in the past few years to cancer, PLEASE spend time with your Mom and Dad before they leave and keep reminding them how much you love them. When the inevitable happens, you’ll know why people like me say “If only I had one more day to let them know”.

79

I’d do the EXACT same thing …

You know what I think? I think you should THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS that you didn’t end up in that family. I suspect there is so much DYSFUNCTION that it would make your head spin. BELIEVE me, there is some deep dark secret about that family and it’s NOT you.

The fact that your brother called … WOW man! That means he’s “in” on this way of thinking too. Probably been raised with it since the day he was born.

I don’t mean to be reading into this, but all kinds of thoughts are coming to me. I believe there is a REASON why your brothers could meet you but your sister couldn’t.

Hell yeah I’d send your sis a Christmas card. Why not? Nothing to lose now! Blow that shit right out of the water. I’d send it REGISTERED MAIL so ONLY your sister can pick it up at the Post Office, WITH ID.

One serious thing to consider, and one a little funny…

Serious First: Don’t let their refusal to see what is obviously right and normal to everyone else get you down. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit of a loner also. I’d rather be alone than in bad company. Trust me.

A little Funny: (and I do mean little), but I have to ask… Does everyone’s name in that family start with S?

Wouldn’t it be great if your sister WAS READING THIS BOARD AS WE SPEAK? Alas, I dream…

((( Elmwood )))

80

Thanks for your thoughts. Let me give you an update on what’s going on. Sad to report, things are worse.

In November, I sent my sister an e-mail, letting her know about my existence. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I got a VERY NASTY call from my bio-brother in Atlanta, Scott. “You know, you’re dead to us. We hate you, you fuckin’ queer, fuckin’ homo. Dead. Fuck you” I’m not even gay, but I felt offended as if I were; would it matter if I was? You don’t use that as an insult, especially when you’re 33 years old.

Just one letter from the sister … “I have to think about this.” Since then, nothing. I did send her a letter a couple of weeks ago, asking if Sherry gave up on me. The response … “I don’t blame her if she did.”

Nothing from bio-mom Sherry. Well, it’s been four months since I last heard from Sherry. No e-mail, no Christmas cards, no birthday card, nothing.

This past week, I’ve tried writing to her – a message a day, sent from several accounts from several domains – with no response.

I just sent her a last chance message. All it said, like the others, was …

If I don’t hear back from her before about 10:00 PM, I’m going to send e-mail to all the family members in Syracuse. (I’ve got addresses because, for a while, I was on my birth mother’s glurge forward list.)

I have nothing to lose. I know they’ll hate me – as my birth mother, brothers and sister do – but I don’t want to remain a secret forever. It’s the wrong thing to do, I know, but I won’t be able to sleep comfortably until I do so. I want to hurt her the same way she hurt me. I’m tired of being some passive nice guy who sits and takes everybody’s crap in the name of preserving the peace, of not offending anyone. It’s gotten me nowhere in life … look at me. She called me an object of shame, so let her finally face the “shame” of what she did.

If I end up being the most hated guy in Auburn, New York, so what. At least this pain in my back might subside, and I can finally rest.