Oooooh, I soo feel your pain.
That’s a tsunami of emotion into your world. I have had a similar experience.
I was the 16 yr old, who surrendered a child. I made my deal with the devil and I was prepared to live with it - for a lifetime. I saw reunions on TV but was always highly suspcious, yikes!
Two years ago, I got a phone call from an agency who had tracked me down and wanted to know, “Did I want contact.”
Now, when the world stop spinning, I reviewed how I had made it through those 28 yrs. By hoping somehow she’d never feel the need to look, wasn’t that the goal after all? Most of the adult adoptees I knew said they’d never wanted to look, and it just made sense to me somehow. Maybe I hid a little behind that, who knows.
Was I ready for contact? Who is ready for this journey? I tell my daughter that I am not her Birthmom so much as her Bonusmom. You’ve known all your life you have yet another mother.
It’s been the most amazing journey for me, I can hardly find the words.
Don’t be so sure you can predict her circumstance. I never married or had another child, she is as welcome in my life as sunshine in May. And while we were apart I thought of her once for every star in the night sky.
I shared her with them, is it really so wrong to want them to share just a little?
Of course, I would never have sought her out, like most birthmothers, I felt I had no right. I am fortunate in that her parents were very sensitive and supportive, she told me she’d often been reminded, growing up, of “the importance of my contribution to their family.”!
I joined a support group, online, for women all over the world in this same experience, it was a real life saver for me. It was a private list so it took a little looking to find, but their voices and their ears made my world stop spinning just enough for me to catch my breath.
I have learned a lot. For your mother, this is the healing part of an open wound. Remember how all those shell shocked people looked on the TV after 911? not knowing if their loved ones were dead or alive? She’s lived with that your entire life. We live in an age when a genetic match could save your life or your child’s life. Just genetic information can be immensely valuable I’m sure you’re aware.
Part of her needs to know, did she hit one out of the park or was it a foul ball?
Has it been painful, well, yes, parts of it have been very painful. There were uncomfortable questions to answer and old wounds to open. It has been emotional and confusing in turns, delightful and surprising for us both. Was it worth it? Hell yes! For every adopted child there is somewhere a woman with a broken heart.
I have these taped to my fridge;
Denial
I have lived my life, with something on my mind.
Although never knowing quite what it was.
A life disconnected. Distracted.
Never giving too much.
Never getting too close.
Never quite fitting in.
I seem to have lived only on the perimeters of my existence.
Never feeling quite whole.
Until a day came when I realized…
…my mind had been protecting me from the pain of remembering.
" I will not let anyone take my experience as a birthmother away from me, by silencing me again or telling me not to question or feel it fully. I do not want to be spiritually, emotionally or psychologically sedated by silence and denial any longer. I want to feel it fully" Bonnie Hughes (RBM)
“And she is mine own, and I as rich, in having such a jewel,
as twenty seas, if all their sand were pearls,
the water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.” William Shakespeare.
But don’t forget the breathing part because that’s really the most important.
It will get better, and easier.
You need patience and strength. I am sending you both.
Peace.
