For 18 years I worried about this reunion

[Nancy]

As some of you know I was able to locate difficult child's birthmother and filled out the paperwork to reestablish contact with difficult child. That was over six weeks ago. When the agency contacted her she claimed she wanted contact and was excited and would fill out the required paperwork. I made it clear that my expectations were that she would support us in our effort to get difficult child on the right track and not just a social reunion. The agency assured me she understood.

Like I said that was over six weeks ago and as of yet she has not made a move to make this happen. She lost her home several years ago and lived in a shelter for a while until a friend took her in. She has had a job now for two years but evidently still can't make it on her own. Her words were that she was afraid difficult child would be disappointed in her. Excuse me but shouldn't her first priority be helping difficult child especially after we explained the issues? She is worried what difficult child will think about her instead of what she can do to help difficult child.

It makes me angry that difficult child continues to treat us the way she does when we have been the ones who have been there for her all these years and put her above our own needs.

Nancy

 

[Hound dog]

Nancy

Sounds like biomom has some difficult child issues of her own.

You'd think difficult child would be her top priority and that her living situation wouldn't enter into her decision. It wouldn't mine even for a second. But then I've also lived around teens for so long that I really get they couldn't care less about such things as that anyway. They don't even notice most of the time.

It makes me angry that difficult child continues to treat us the way she does when we have been the ones who have been there for her all these years and put her above our own needs.

I know that has got to hurt big time. And I'm sorry for that hurt. My aunt adopted my cousin who came from an abusive home at age 3. The teen years with my cousin were hades for my aunt and uncle. Then their difficult child hunted down her biomom. Aunt and uncle refused to because it had been such an abusive situation they feared for her safety.

Cousin got worse after finding biomom. Finding biomom brought back memories of a younger sister cousin had cared for before cps stepped in and removed them. Then cousin was furious aunt and uncle hadn't adopted the sister, when aunt and uncle already had 4 bio kids when they adopted cousin and just couldn't take on 2 very troubled difficult children.

I think cousin was in her mid 20's before it came back to bite her in the fanny. She had her own child by then, bio Mom (a bona fide mega difficult child) had raked her over the coals and taken her to the cleaners and turned her life upside down.

Cousin came to realize that true parents are the people who raise you, love you no matter what, are there to comfort you, guide you, encourage you, and even dicipline you..........and that there are such things as primary egg and sperm donors. sigh

They've long ago patched up a very hurtful broken relationship. Biomom has long since been forgotten.

Some kids need a good wollup upside the head to figure out what they already knew in their hearts.

If biomom is gonna be all about biomom, then it's probably a very good thing she isn't filling out the paperwork and becoming involved with difficult child. Last thing you need is another difficult child to deal with. Even if difficult child isn't mature enough to understand that at this point.

I understand where difficult child is coming from.........she's still dealing with the My Parents Gave Me Up Issues which can be awfully hard to come to terms with.

You're a great Mom Nancy. She will come to realize that in time and truely appreciate it.

(((hugs)))

 

[Nomad]

Well, no doubt about this person having serious issues of her own.

My guess is that biomom has been in survival mode a very long time and has not had to, been in a position to nor been motivated to put the needs of others before hers or even along side of her own.

More than likely, others have not been particularly giving to her either....however...these things tend to be give and take...back and forth...what goes around comes around...you get the picture.

I think it should give you "pause" that you have put your needs aside for difficult child for many years and she continues to treat you in a shabby manner.

One can be generous and give a certain # of passes for a young difficult child struggling to make sense of things...but she is older now. You have proven yourself. No doubt you have made mental health services to her. Hmmm. Enough is enough.

Just my own personal thoughts....but no more putting your needs aside.

I would provide her the opportunity for good mental health care....I would give her opportunities to join the family on certain ocassions, but only if she is appropriate and is willing to following guidelines/boundaries.

Enjoy your freedom...no turning back. No guilt. Hold your head up high, put one foot in front of the other and run baby run.

 

[DammitJanet]

Hum Nancy. Sounds like bioeggdonor just isnt all that she is cracked up to be. Get it...cracked up...lol.

Well...I think this person needs to keep quiet until she is more stable...whenever that shall be. Maybe the 4th of never. difficult child knows the paperwork was sent in, now she knows that it is in the other ball park. Not your fault. Not her fault. Fault lies elsewhere. She can move on.

 

[Star*]

Nancy,

When you first wrote about her it sounded to me like she was all a very me person. The first thing out of her mouth was how this entire reunion affected her. I think there was some discussion about that too. I tried to be understanding of the other point of view, and was - but from an adoptee point of view - (shrug) I really felt that her first thoughts should have been about difficult child, and not herself. That said - and knowing how you feel about this? I think YOU should go talk to her. I think it would do YOU good to face this woman and tell her what you are thinking. I really do.

She has used her "genetic" bs as an excuse ALL HER ENTIRE LIFE. Her first comment when faced with possible reunion and hearing about a struggling child she brought into this world was not that of pity or remorse. Nope - it was "Well it's GENETIC." BALONEY. I think I'd want to see this woman and tell her that whomever in HER life told her that genetics gave her a free pass/excuse to mess up her life was wrong and further more it sure the H doesn't give her the right to tell an innocent that HER life should be a loss because of HER skewed thinking.

Six weeks and now what? Oh The GUILT is killing me? I guess that's genetic too. Fooey. She needs to be told to get off the pity wagon - she's rode it for 18 years and in the mean time she not only CHOSE to mess up her life, but now instead of saying "Sorry - I can't further mess up this childs life - hands out another empty promise?" Nah.

I do have empathy for Mothers who give up their children at birth. It's a noble thing. I think it has to be one of the hardest things ever. Shouldn't it make the rest of your life meaningful instead of one big pity party? Wouldn't MOST Mothers do ANYTHING in their power to have a chance at seeing their child again? Nope not this woman. And PLEASE do not misunderstand me Nancy. I'm NOT saying for you to go and berate her. Not at all. I'm saying that this is an oportunity for you to go, sit and tell this woman - 18 years is long enough to punish yourself and/or pity yourself and let her know that this kid is actually LOOKING FORWARD to a meeting. If she is still in a mind of "pity me, it's genetic" after you talk to her? Then to heck with her. I'd shut the door and tell her she deserves to live whatever way she sees fit - but that you wanted to see her face to face and Mother to ...whatever and let her know how much this would mean to YOUR daughter. How much it could heal this little girl.

If she's rejecting it after that? Serioulsy - the heck with her. But before I left her? I would make sure that I told her WHAT I was going to tell my daughter as to WHY her biomom was NOT going to speak and meet with her. I would tell her what I was going to say - and let that woman hear it word for hurtful word and ask her if she could live with that. And I'd tell difficult child that you tried, and that her biomom was not able to meet with her and then I'd tell her that you talked with biomom, and this is why she could not meet with her.

THen it's done. ANd maybe one way or another you can all move on with your lives.

and maybe---you talking to biomom with straight - stop the genetic pity party - will have a lot of healing for her, difficult child and you. That would be my hope above hope.

 

[jbrain]

I agree with Nomad about biomom--been in survival mode for a long time, she is not going to be thinking about anyone's needs but her own. Do you think your difficult child may have inherited her gfgness from biomom?
Jane

 

[BusynMember]

I understand how you feel and have our example so that you can see why I can relate. Also, I have thoughts on birthmother and your daughter. As one who has been in the same boat, we have bio. dad here thinking of nothing but himself as he sits in jail. It's not his first time in prison...I think there's a difference. He's in PRISON and a DRUG ADDICT. And he tries to get his mom and sister to contact us for him. We wouldn't mind her having contact with them...they have never ever been in any trouble (yes, we looked it up on the internet and also know people who know the family). A psychologist we went to who specializes in adoption told us that it is probably bio dad who is urging his mother and sister to establish contact so that HE can have contact. Trust me, all three of them are only thinking about birthfather and what HE wants.Doesn't occur to them that maybe it's a bad idea for a thirteen year old to have contact with a birthfather who is a drug addict in prison.

Maybe your daughter's b-mom thinks, "I gave her a great home. I don't have to worry about her care. I'm a loser. They're such good people. I feel stupid and ashamed and I don't even want b-daughter to see me." Just an idea. She can't even help herself. How can she help her birthdaughter?

From the little I know of you and hub, you've provided her with a great home and everything she could ask for. B-mother probably feels inept next to you. And it's interesting that your daughter hasn't contacted her yet. Maybe it was something she used to hurt you and the reality is scary to her.

 

[witzend]

I'm thinking that what she can do to help difficult child is to show what a disappointment you can be when you're 30-something and still thinking that your child should validate you while you have to move in with friends because you didn't plan out your life.

Not to say that if we were out of a job that we wouldn't soon be in the same place in a few months. We didn't plan so well either. But it sounds like a cautionary tale, to me.

 

[everywoman]

I am in a unique position in that I was raised by my biograndparents but had access through out my life with both my bio parents. Like any child who is adotped ( but I was not ever offically apopted) I had dreams of live with my bios. It was not until I was an adult with children of my own that I realized what I had been give by my bio parents. I am who I am because, even though they were the most selfish, self-absorbed, indiidvuals I have ever known, they had enough sense to allow my grandparents to raise me. Now, I get it. But it took a long time. It took having my own children and stuggling to raise a difficult child to really understand how fortunate I was.

 

[slsh]

Nancy,

I have zero experience with- this kind of stuff, and realize that logic probably doesn't necessarily have a whole lot to do with it... but it seems like difficult child has built biomom up in her mind to be more than she is. Maybe between biomom flaking out on her, and the reality of no more live-in maid service , difficult child will eventually come around and realize how good she's had it.

I can't imagine how hard it is to have lived with the "ideal" of biomom while you've been in the trenches with- difficult child, only to watch difficult child be disappointed by the reality of biomom. It certainly doesn't sound like BM has the ability to consider difficult child's needs at all.

 

[ThreeShadows]

I wrote this in Dec.2006, after a particularly painful episode in which I "was the Enemy" to my adopted children:

Raising other people's children
Current mood: rejected
Category: Life
Well, in the early hours of this morning, I decided that in order to be really loved by your children you had to die when they are young, preferably pre-teens. That way they will always think of you as the comforting mother who tucked them in at night and made the monsters go away. If you die any later you become the monster who has to say NO to drugs, NO to staying out past curfew, NO to messing up your life.

I guess I missed my chance to die young-ish, so now I am the enemy. The children I have raised can imagine that their birthmothers are wonderful, loving beautiful young women who will never age, who never would have said NO to them because these three children are so wise they know it all.
I am grey from top to bottom and black in my heart.

 

[Nancy]

It's a shame Lisa that we have to wait so many years before lessons are learned, but I'm glad your cousin finally learned them.

Nomad I think you are very correct about her not being use to putting other's needs before her own.

LOL Janet, you crack me up!

Star I agreed with what you said when you first commented on bm's reaction and I agree with you now too. I tried to look at it from her perspective and give her the benefit of the doubt but I thought her reaction was strange. I thought she would have been very sad for difficult child and willing to do anything she could to help. Instead she just threw up her hands and had the attitude that it was bound to happen. Well then why the heck didn't she warn us if she was so sure of that????

I don't understand how she can not want a chance to meet difficult child and help her. I have the letters she wrote years ago telling us how she was going to come and find difficult child when she was 18 and that she loved her more anything in the world and how she lived for the day she could be reunited. Obviously she found other things to live for that were more important to her. Four years ago we gave her the change to help difficult child when difficult child was sent to detention and she never followed through. I don't know why I thought it would be different now. I can't imagine anything being more important than getting that paperwork in so that she could finally meet difficult child. There would be nothing that could stop me and that's what she claimed 18 years ago.

I really have no desire to talk to her. I was hoping that she could help difficult child by putting aside her own needs and digging deep inside herself and having her motherly instinct kick in. I shudder to think of what would have happened to difficult child if she had not placed her for adoption so for that I am grateful.

I will not make any other attempt to contact her and if difficult child ever wants to find her she will have to go through the courts on her own. I don't know why I thought she could help. I guess I knew in my heart there was very little chance of that but I still hoped that she could say something to difficult child to help her. If we had never exchanged letters after the adoption I may feel differently. But I read those tearful letters for years and had to live with the guilt that we were raising her child and she resented us for that. If she was going to walk away at age 18 she should have done it from the beginning and spared us all the wondering.

I know I sound harsh. I too have a lot of empathy for those birthmothers who place their children for adoption so that they may have a better life. I am just so bitter that she was given two opportunities to put difficult child's needs before her own and she couldn't even do that. I wish difficult child knew this but of course I can't tell her. Even if I did she would still find some way to blame us for this.

Nancy

 

[Star*]

Nancy,

I thought about the bm letters and what you wrote. I did not know about them, but I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to share. Here's what I have taken a while almost daily to say and I hope somewhere in my thoughts it transcends to your heart, and it helped me in a way too that I'll explain at the end. Here goes.

When your daughters bm or any bm makes a decision to give up a child for an adoption process you or I couldn't know what that must be like. Try as we may, we'll never know. Your thoughts and mine would be polar opposites. Mine would run the gammut from very selfish reasons to near sainthood. Selfish in the fact that if there was a child who wasn't wanted in the first place why wouldn't you take precautions or just end my life with an abortion so I wouldn't even ever know this pain? Saintly because my bm didn't choose abortion and instead chose to bear me a great life, endure whatever hardship she would have, and then just hand me over, and then of course back to selfish because maybe she just didn't give a **** and her parents said - this is how it will be period and I was no more of a thought than a puppy that didn't work out and eventually she, they and the entire family just got along without me, and then of course we have your daughters bm who has obvioulsy had a long family history of dysfunction that perpetuates itself.

That's where the letter you you were given 18 years ago comes in and it becomes so obvious to me standing on the side watching it unfold with only the emotional investment of a friend of some years. Not the life-long investment you have as Mother child and family. I don't have a crystal ball or any ability to look back in time, but considering that bm's comment was "it's genetic" I would think someone had to tell HER that all HER behaviors were based on her familiy gene pool, and at 18 with the lack of guidance, raging hormones and emotional abilities of an 18 year old she wrote a very emotional letter that was up and down and up and down and really had put not thought into how it would impact you, or that baby years later. You're right - she should have never written it, but you were probably JUST as emotional at the time willing to do whatever she asked for the sake of giving the baby a better life, home, stability and a two parent home. You weren't worried about where her next meal would come from, how to pay for her education, where you would be at night, how to pay for her doctor bills, her clothes - these were all things that an 18 year old without a support system, job, and husband had to consider.

So don't sell yourself short Nancy. That letter was written by a child who had no help, no spiritual guidance, a self-admitted genetic quagmire, an emotional rollercoaster of hormones and the coping skills of an 18 year old who had no support system. It wasn't going to be Mayou - more than likely it was something she felt at that moment to make herself feel better about her poor choices and had very little to do with that child. Same as today, same as yesterday...not much is changed in 18 years has it?

I'm sorry for all the pain it's caused you. I think I would take it outside and burn it and be done with it once and for all. Her promises and her words are not trustworthy, and that's a shame since there is a beautiful little girl who carrys around a lot of anger and doesn't even know why. But I'll tell you this Nancy - there will come a day when your daughter gets rid of all this anger and when she does? It will be good between the two of you again. Better than ever. Then bm will just be like the ashes of that letter and she'll only exist to be thanked for giving your daughter such a wonderful Mom.

ps. the part that helped me? (laughing a little) I always wondered why, why not, or if there were some sort of letter and have even said I think that all Mothers & Fathers should have to write a letter for the children they allow to be adopted and why they were given up. I used to think it would help to allow us to move forward to know why you were given up. After reading how horribly it affected you? I now know this wouldn't have helped anyone and would have only hurt my Mom to have had this information and I'm very grateful to know there is no such thing, and even more grateful that my bm and bd have let me be....and are happy for me. That to me is true love. Thanks Nancy - I hope you know how much you've helped me.

 

[Nancy]

I helped you Star??? Oh my dear lady you have no idea how your words have helped me over the years. I am always so afraid that something I say may hurt you because of your own background, but you always seem to know where I am coming from and have the right thing to say.

I am humbled by your generous spirit.

Nancy

 

[Star*]

YUP. Thanks about 40 years worth. lol

 

[Sheila]

It will always be about the gfgbiomom -- it's the way she is.

One thing that will definately complicate your situation is to have her (gfgbiomom) introduced into the situation.

Cut your losses and run. Just my $0.02 worth having dealt with a gfgbiomom that's the same way.....

 

[Abbey]

Nancy...apologize for coming in late on this. I haven't read the responses.

I can imagine that it might be pretty hard, no matter how hard you are flipped up, to make this jump to see your bio child. It is equally hard for you and for your daughter. It's kind of a no-man's land. No one really knows what to do.

Trust me in that your daughter knows who 'mom' is in both sense. YOU are mom. She can always rely on you. That doesn't mean she can't have a relationship with bio mom, but she always knows where the love came from. She will NOT forget that.

Hugs, hon.

Abbey

 

[Nomad]

Star...you are very special to me as well.

I may create a special post about this...I have been deeply touched by it.

I am interning at a place and "get this...." My supervisor has an adult, adopted difficult child.

There are moments (I feel some shame and confusion about this) where I am deeply frustrated at the Universe/God/life by this entire difficult child situation. And then these weird little "coindidences" happen and it gives me pause.

The other day we had a long conversation about how she feels the greatest obstacle in these situations is that the adoptees refuse to give up their anger about being adopted. Putting diagnosis's aside, 'cause much help can be gathered there through medication and/or therapy, if a person refuses to move forward in their lives by holding on to anger, than not much can be done for the person. And I thought to myself "what ashame." Think about it. Almost all of us, have something in our lives that has created deep sorrow...a deep loss. But "letting go," and moving forward makes the difference. It was profound.

Star...perhaps one day you might "share" more information about how and why you didn't get "stuck" in that nasty place and instead of being filled with hate are filled with love. (hugs).

Nancy...you know you are in my thoughts and prayers.