Twenty Things: #1

1. I suffered a profound loss before I was adopted. You are not responsible.

I'm not sure that any of us can grasp the loss that a child feels when they realize that they have lost a family.

When my daughter was 4 years old she suddenly encountered her loss. We were driving and she was in her car seat. Suddenly from the back seat I heard her sobbing. When I asked what was wrong she responded, through her tears, "I miss my birthmom!" I am so glad that I had had some experience and a bit of knowledge about adoptive grieving before this happened. Otherwise I might have responded with surprise and a bit of exasperation. Instead I simply told her that I knew that she missed her birthmom and I was sad that she was sad. She asked a couple of questions and then went back to being a 4-year old- happy and carefree. A few weeks later she calmly asked me..."So, Mommy, did we kind of switch mommies?"

We did all the right things (well, as much as we could humanly do) - telling her about her adoption and her birthparents, reading her Lifebook and giving her all the unconditional love we could give. The reality is this - nothing we, her adoptive parents, could do could fill the space in her heart that needed some kind of connection with her birthfamily. We desperately wanted her to feel loved. We wanted her to never feel rejected or abandoned. But eventually she could express the grief she felt over losing her birth family.

If she were telling this story she would tell you that she loves her adoptive family very much. She has never desired to return to her birth family. She simply needed something to fill in the empty space left by her birth family. She knew when she needed it the most and she asked me to find her birthmom for her. She had questions and she needed answers.

When she was 15 we were able to reunite with her birthmother. We spent a couple of hours at IHOP talking. My daughter spent most of the time listening. There were several moments when her birthmom would say something and she would punch my leg under the table. The punch meant - listen to her, she sounds just like me or she likes what I like or we have the same opinions, etc. After leaving that day I asked her how she felt and she replied, "I feel complete."

My daughter will soon be 19 and we have not had another meeting with her birthmom. They have communicated by email. Perhaps someday they will have a closer relationship. But through all these years I have occasionally asked my daughter if she wnated me to try to set up another meeting and she always said "I'm okay, no thanks."

I know there will be other times in her life that she will feel the need for her birth family and I sincerely want her to have healthy relationships that will help her to know who she is. In the meantime, she is confident in God's divine plan for her life.

As an adoptive mom, it is important for me to be confident in my role as her mom. It is critical that I not feel threatened by her need or her relationship with her birth family. She will feel the most loved when she knows that I want what is best for her; when she knows that I support her. I believe that she would not have felt the depth of loss if she had had an ongoing relationship with her birth family. I pray that families starting the adoption process will understand this loss and will do what they can do to build a heathy relationship with their child's birth family.

Remember, It's not who the child belongs to; but who belongs to the child.