We are adoptive parents, I wish I could tell my son’s birthparents…

- how much he is loved
- what a happy boy he is
- how he touches so many lives
- how we marvel and rejoice at his growth and all of his accomplishments
- how we pray every day for them, and honor them
- how we worry about the day he can really understand his adoption story, and how we hope we will have the right words to answer the tough questions…

Beautiful, Junofoxtrot.

As an adoptive mom to two kids with the same birth mother, I’d love to tell her how thankful we are for the difficult decision she made, how we talk about her with the kids, how we try to foster empathy and understanding on her behalf (judgment and disbelief always seem to be the first reactions from our family when they hear our story), that her kids are thriving and deeply loved, and that we want her to be in touch with the kids whenever she’s ready.

Double post, my apologies.

My daughter was adopted from China 12 years ago, so she is in a closed adoption.  I would love to meet them and tell them:

-she is deeply loved
-she is a beautiful girl inside and out
-she is artistic and good at math (must have gotten those genes from you.)  =)
-she grieves for you and loves you.
-I am so sorry that you had to abandon her.  I can’t fathom leaving my baby in an apartment building and having to walk away.  I wish you knew that she is safe and happy.
-we pray for you and celebrate you on Mother’s Day
-I could use your help in raising her to be a strong, Chinese young woman
-you would be so proud of our girl
-thank you, thank you, thank you

We are fortunate enough to be in close, frequent contact with our daughter’s birthmom, but here’s my list for her birthfather, who we have never even spoken to:

-This little girl is the light of our lives, and I wish you knew how grateful we are for the selfless decision you made.
-We meant it when we said we wanted you to be a part of her life. We still hope you will be when you’re ready.
-It makes me so sad sometimes to think that she will probably grow up with almost no information about you, and I hope it doesn’t cause her too much pain.
-We respect you, even if some of the other people around you don’t treat you with much respect. We wish you’d give us a chance, for her sake.

To both of them, I would say:

-Please be patient with us. We’re still new and learning, and this is one of the hardest relationships we have ever had to form. We’re doing the best we can for her and for all of us.
-Please forgive us if we ever hurt you, it was unintentionally done.
-I wish you could know how deeply my heart feels the pain your decision must have caused you, and that we stand in awe of your self-control and selflessness. Nothing could describe it or adequately express our gratitude.

Good question, Lavender Luz!

I agree this is a wonderful question! I would like to let our birth mother know that we respect her decision to step back- we can never realize the pain she has gone through or is going through now- and that we do not want to ever be the cause of additional pain. I would also want to emphasize to her that we are here when she is ready to contact us again…
Also, I wish this question was extended- I would love to have heard what adoptees would like to say to both their adoptive parents and birth parents…I think that is a VERY important discussion that would benefit many of the people who made these decisions in the adoption process to hopefully, be more sensitive to those who are most effected by the adoption- the adoptee…

I agree Mel.. I would like to hear what they would like to say.

I would love to tell our daughters family how blessed we are to have been able to have them in our lives.
how much sunshine she brings to our family and how proud of her they would be to watch her through our daily lives.
Luckly with todays easy access to media we get to share videos and pictures whenever we make them and we have an open door whenever they want to reach out.
I am humbled by the fact that we were the family she chose.

My birthmother has passed away.  However, if I had had the opportunity to say anything, it would be along the lines of:

1)  I just want to reassure you that I had a good life.  I never felt unloved or unsafe.
2)  I appreciate that you most likely did what you felt was in your child’s best interests, given the times as they were, the advice you were given, the lack of options to do otherwise and the general support or not that you had surrounding you at the time.  1964 wasn’t an optimal time to be a single mother and certainly no encouragement would have been forthcoming. 

As I don’t know my bmoms innermost feelings, I don’t know whether “thanking” her is necessarily appropriate.  I know other bmoms who made the decision to relinquish with the heaviest of hearts feeling they had no real option but to do so and to be thanked for doing so would have been like a stab in the heart.  That is why I thought “appreciate” was a better word.

One thing I certainly wouldn’t have done is say what the following person (a pastor mind you!) would have liked to say to his bmom:

“I would love to have the opportunity to say to the woman who gave birth to me, “Thanks for not having a back alley abortion. Thanks for giving me up for adoption. God worked it all for good. I love you for giving me life, and I thank you for loving me enough to give me up for adoption.” I truly love a woman I’ve never met”

Hmmm - I could just imagine if I said anything like that to my uncles re their sister when I first met them - they would have been aghast.  I know the pastor meant well but I have heard quite a few people say that they would say something similar and I sometimes wonder that if they did say similar stuff that that could scuttle a reunion.

I would love to just say “thank you”.  My son’s birth mother (and his birth father) created a WONDERFUL child.  At his core, he is smart, funny, and has a beautiful soul, and while I would love to take all of the credit, I know that much of it must come from her.  I would love to thank her for carrying and delivering him into this world, for having the courage to relinquish him for adoption, and for allowing us the opportunity to be his forever family.

As an adoptive parent, I often think of the plight of our daughter’s birth parents in China.  I wrestled with this mysterious piece of her history as I was writing SWEET MOON BABY: AN ADOPTION TALE, so I included them as pivotal characters who made a difficult decision about her future.  By the end of the story, it is clear that their hopes for her were fulfilled by the adoptive parents.  Many families tell me how valuable this has been in their discussions with their adopted children, and they add that it has allowed them to take heart, believing they were the answer to the birth parents’ dream.  I know we all feel that powerful connection.

I would want to say: “Your son is happy and healthy and loved beyond measure. I love being his mother more than anything else in life.  I very much wish for him that you will want to connect with him at some point.  You are his mother, you are where he came from, and you are part of him. He wants to know what you look like, if he looks like you, and why you are not raising him.  This does not mean you made the wrong decision, or that he is not a happy child.  I think it means a piece of him is missing and I cannot give him that piece. He wants to know who you are, because he wants to know who he is, all of it.”

Thanks for the beautiful answers, everyone. I’ve asked a reciprocal question on the Birthparents’ group here:

http://www.adoptivefamiliescircle.com/groups/topic/What_do_you_wish_you_could_tell_your_childs_adoptive_parents/

@areyouserious, I have to admit, I’ve had the same thought as your pastor friend.  I don’t think I would ever lead with that thought until a relationship had been established that warranted bringing up such a sensitive topic, however.

The fact is, I get to be my daughter’s parent because her birthmother did not choose to abort.  It is a difficult road to carry a pregnancy to term, both physically and emotionally—not to mention all the questions about her choice.  So many birth moms hear the judgemental, “I could *never* give my baby away.”  It seems miraculous to me that she chose to endure the risks and heartache that resulted in making my husband and I parents.  I am ever in her debt, and I pray that we will do her justice by the way we raise our daughter.

I just don’t think there should be the automatic assumption that every bmother’s first thought was to abort, especially in the 60s/70s.  There seems to be a general assumption by the general public that a birthmother’s choice is always “Hmm, should I abort my baby or give it to somone else to raise?”.  Quite often, abortion may not even have been a consideration.  Also, especially back in the 60s/70s, many bmoms did hope that they could find a way to raise their child and others had parents pressuring them, so assuming that an unplanned pregnancy always mean an unwanted child.  I would say that even tda t quite a few of today’s women relinquishing their children are women who could never imagine going down the abortion route but are unable to find resources to raise their child. 

I don’t think my bmom would have considered abortion because of her upbringing and from what other relatives have said.  Also not knowing the particular ins and outs of her relationship with my father (whom I think might well have been her “first”), she may have hoped for marriage wih him (a friend whom she knew at the time seemed to think that she was in love with him - I suspect he was already married).  Also, it really irritated me when there were all those articles about being thankful that Steve Jobs mother didn’t abort him because it seems to me (since the bparents were engaged to be married) that it didn’t cross their minds to abort him and the only reason people assume that his parents considered abortion is because he was adopted.

As for thanking one’s bmom for giving them up for adoption, it is possible, especially back then, that in fact, a bmom may have felt railroaded into relinquishing her child and to be thanked for making the only choice that was really open to her could be like a stab in the heart.  I am not saying that is the situation with my bmom, I have no idea, but it is for other bmoms I know.  Most bmoms though do understand that if their child said it to them, that they mean well so tend to get past it but even so, it can cause them pain.

Btw I am always hearing from APs how many abortions their child’s bmom had and how the bmom considered abortion first - is that really up to the AP to be sharing with her child?  It should be between adoptee and bmom and only if adoptee asks.

When women considering abortion raise their chlld, then no-one tends to go around reminding them that they could have been aborted so why should adoptees need reminding.

Btw in the case of those women who do consider abortion, it doesn’t mean that they can’t grow to love their unborn child even if adoption is the eventual option.  I have seen posts on here and in the blogosphere that ridicule an emom if she eventually decides to parent along the lines of saying things like “She wanted to kill the kid and now she wants to parent it?!?” as if the emom isn’t capable of developing feelings for her unborn child

@areyouserious—thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here.  I am so glad that adoptee’s voices are heard on this forum, and that you’re providing insight and your own perspective on topics like this.  My daughter is only five, so the options available to her birthmother are pretty different (and single parenting is much more supported, with daycare in high schools, etc.) than those of birth moms in the 60s and 70s. 

I am cringing at the fact that so many APs offer such personal details to people about the birthmother’s history of abortions (or whatever).  One way we have chosen to honor our daughter’s birthparents is by keeping the few details we have private.  Their lives are not for gossip or shock value. 

My husband’s oldest sister became pregnant in high school (she’s 50 now), and is very open about her own history and decision to place her child for adoption.  Having her perspective is so valuable to us.  Pertaining to the topic at hand—she never considered an seeking an illegal abortion, and it was extremely difficult to be a pregnant teen in her small city, not to mention saying goodbye to her newborn baby.  I have so much respect for her courage, facing the judgement of so many in her town as she carried her baby to term.  She didn’t have a lot of options for finishing high school as a teen mother, the birth dad was out of the picture (and there was no legal recourse for support at that time, I believe), and her parents couldn’t take on responsibility for a new child.  You’re absolutely right when you say that many birthparents’ options were limited.

I don’t think that it’s necessarily a judgemental statement (like in the articles about Steve Jobs that you mention) to consider that birthparents could have chosen abortion . . . It’s just a part of reality, when you think that a hundreds of thousands of unexpected pregnancies end that way every year.  I read this week that in the early 80s, there was one year where nearly a third of pregnancies in the US ended in abortion (that was the peak year in national history for abortion).  I think it was 1980 or 1981.  I am sobered and humbled that our daughter’s first mother went through the difficulties she did, and we are the beneficiaries of her hard decisions.

Thanks again for this discussion.  I can tell you are a thoughtful, insightful person from your comments here—and I appreciate you taking the time and effort to make sure we understand your perspective as an adopted person.

The ONLY reason they decided to write articles about the possibility of Steve Jobs being aborted was purely because he was adopted.  The backstory apparently didn’t matter.  As far as most people writing articles along that line were concerned, it was a case of assuming that his mother didn’t want him and that it was a toss up between abortion and adoption as to what way she was going to relieve her problem. One article even talked referred to him as an inconvenience. 

Even though today’s mothers have more options, it doesn’t mean that they are relinquishing their child purely because they can’t be stuffed parenting.  The present form of adoption option counselling arose because the powers to be in the adoption industry were concerned that not enough women were chosing adoption - they *needed* to find ways to ensure a more steady supply.  The following tract was written back in 1999 to try and counter that “problem”:

http://www.heartbeatinternational.org/pdf/missing_piece.pdf

quote

“Counselors must be trained to give women sound reasons that will counter the desire to keep their babies.”

(Note that the words selfless/selflessness/selfish were used a total of 30 times in the above tract)

I can assure you that today’s major US bmom counselling training scheme has taken the majority of recommendations from that tract to heart (I’ve done the online one).

For those who say that those with unplanned pregnancies are more likely to abuse their children, funnily enough counsellors who are counselling women re continuing/not continuing their pregnancy might quote from this:

http://www.lifeissues.org/AbortionQandA/chapters/c32.pdf

“Back in the ’50s and ’60s, there were a good dozen
well done studies which were reported in detail in your author’s editions of Handbook on Abortion in the ’70s. All of these presumed the negative effects claimed above. They matched groups of pregnant women (1)who wanted abortions, couldn’t get them and went on to deliver and (2) women pleased with wanted pregnancies. These investigators studied the resultant children and compared them. Without exception, they found littledifference in love, care and wantedness and of neglect and lack of care in the groups that were compared.”

However, suddenly that is ignored when counselling women re adoption - the fact that a women’s pregnancy is unplanned then supposedly makes her a danger to her child. 

Btw I note that in the US, most people assume the main reason the number of adoptions dropped in the 70s was due to abortion being more available whereas in Australia and NZ, we tend to assume it was mainly because of greater resources available to parent.  Both played a part of course but it seems that the emphasis is different so we down under tend to get less of the “you should be grateful you weren’t aborted”.

Sometimes I get the impression from some APs (note that I am saying “some” not all) that the reason they want their child to know that abortion was considered is in the hope that their child will then not want anything to do with the bparents.