The birthmother's perspective
Feb 04 '00 (Updated Jul 25 '05)
The Bottom Line .
I got pregnant when I was 22, out of college, and smart and old enough to know better. With all that, though, I really knew only two things: First, that I was entirely unsuited to bear and raise a child - my life was a mess and I knew that I would ruin the life of any child I tried to raise at that time. Since this was pre-Roe vs. Wade, the only way out was through. I loved my boyfriend with all my heart, but the second thing I knew was that we weren't ready to marry and if we forced it, we'd just be compounding one mistake with another.
I found an agency in another state that met my needs. I followed the diet religiously, exercised, went to the doctor weekly, and did everything I could to grow a "good" baby - one who would be immediately adoptable.
My baby was born healthy and with an Apgar score of 10. I made sure that she had a permanent adoptive family before I signed the relinquishment papers - no foster homes for my child. I was told that this relinquishment was permanent and irreversible, that I would NEVER be able to know about her or get any information.
I never saw her; the hardest decision I've ever made in my life was not the one to relinquish, but the one to not see her, because I knew that if I did, I could never go through with it.
I was advised to go on about my life and forget that this had ever happened. From that day to this, the day has not passed that I haven't thought about her.
On her 18th birthday, I cried gallons while filling out the paperwork (this was in 1985, pre-Internet) to register with every single birth registry I could find - five in all. I had spent the intervening years living in one city, working at one job, on the off chance that she might want to find me.
I had made a personal vow not to search for her - I felt that I had made all the decisions when she was born and now it was her turn. That resolve lasted for 30 years. But thanks to a wonderful group of birthmothers I met on the Internet, I decided to be a little more aggressive about it. The choice would still be hers and I would respect it, of course, but I wanted her to know that I was out there, and had never stopped thinking about her.
To make a long story short, the adoption agency located her and transmitted to me her message of "thanks, but no thanks." She's curious but doesn't feel that curiosity justifies... what? I'm not sure. She says she is very happy, has always felt loved by her large extended family, and thanks me for making the decision I made, but she has always had a fantasy about who she is and why I did what I did, and she's afraid to find out that her fantasy is wrong. It's not, but I have no way to tell her that. According to the agency, 99% of the time when this happens, it's because the "child" fears hurting his or her parents, or causing them to fear rejection.
UPDATE: In late 2004, I received word that while she was interested in knowing about me in principle, her mother was dying and she was about to have a baby. She asked that we try back in six months. Six months later, her mother hadn't died and she told us to try again in six more months, which will be October 2005. So it seems that as long as her mother is alive, she's scared or unwilling to deal with me.
I have considered hiring a searcher, but as long as she doesn't want contact, there doesn't seem to be much point. She knows how to get in touch with me if she changes her mind. Meanwhile, I don't know her name (I never named her - I wanted her to go to her family with a clean slate) and have no way of referring to her.
I'm at a loss. It never occurred to me that someone would reject the opportunity to know the person who gave them life. I have no designs on that life; I'm not her "real" mother - that's the person who raised her - but right now, I don't even have a term by which to refer to her. She isn't my baby any longer, she was never my child or daughter... what is she to me?
Meanwhile, I've re-established contact with her birthfather, after more than 30 years of no contact, and we have a very nice relationship, given that we live on opposite ends of the country. It's important to me that she know that her conception wasn't the result of a casual encounter, but that he and I really loved each other and conceived her in that state. I've written that in two letters to her that languish in a file at the adoption agency, waiting for her to agree to receive them. If she never does, she'll never know. And I have at least one grandchild whom I'll also never know.
If you have adopted or are doing so, please consider very carefully the long-range implications of raising your child in such a way that s/he fears meeting his or her biological parents. Of course your child will love you first, best, most, and always, and bio-parents can't change that, and don't want to. So why would you want to deny your child the opportunity to be loved by yet another person? Is there such a thing as too much love?
I am coming to terms with the fact that I will never meet the only child I ever had. It's a task fully as gargantuan as the one I performed almost 38 years ago when I signed those papers.
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