From the other Side of the Uterus

Ok, so who's heard of the birth mother memoir Without a Map, by Meredith Hall?

It was published in 2007, so I'm a little late to the party, but geez, this one is a must-read. Hall's writing is exquisite, so if for no other reason, read the book for the beautiful prose.

Of course, there's more to it than that. She describes being shunned by her family and community as a result of becoming pregnant at age 16 in 1965, and her portrayal of her isolation mirrors my (and many other adoptees') experiences of loneliness and loss of sense of belonging. I have recently been thinking about how the birthmother's experience is very like the adoptees experience, and she affirms it here:

"It feels like a murder, and is baffling because there is no grave; no hymns were sung to ease my going or to beg for God's blessing on my soul."

The book chronicles her pregnancy, and much later, her reunion with the son she placed for adoption. Although it's incredibly painful to read about how she was treated and how she dealt with that treatment, I'm finding it very instructive and comforting to get inside the mind of a birth mother who is the same age as my birth mother, and was therefore subjected to the same kind of social stigma as she was. Because my birth mother is silent about all this.

Have you read this book? If so, what do you think?
Please, let us know!!

Find My Family

Well, I've already blogged a bit about the TV show "Adoption Diaries" here, and I've Tivoed another show called "Adoption Story," (haven't watched it yet) and, oh, what's this? Yet another adoption-related television show? And this one is brought to us by one of the big networks? Yes, I speak of "Find my Family." (See photo, above.)

Have you seen this show? It presents almost-real-time searches and reunions, wherein adopted people get help from the show's "experts" to search for their biological parents, and birth parents get help to search for their long-lost offspring. It's another example of exploitative television, showing the anguish of the search and the bittersweet emotions of reunions after decades of separation. It tugs at our heartstrings, especially if we are people who have been intimately affected by adoption, and especially especially if we have conducted our own searches ourselves and are figuring out how to live in reunion.

The New York Times published this article about it on Monday. In the article, someone who works at an adoption advocacy website (and who mentions that she "supports efforts to allow adoptees and birth parents to exchange medical information," so I have to surmise that she is NOT in favor of full reunions) accurately observes that "anytime you film somebody in real time having an emotional breakdown, that is exploitative." I agree with her on that point.

However, others who were interviewed, including an advocate for birth mothers, see some potential benefits of airing the program; to wit, FirstMotherForum.com author Lorraine Dusky said "Maybe this will be heard by people who think it is unloyal somehow for a person to search out his or her roots, parents, family, when it is a most natural desire of consciousness." I see her point, but I still believe it's exploitative.

However, the most burning question for me about all this is WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? Never before in my life have I seen so much spotlighting on issues of adoption, especially on search and reunion. I totally agree that as homosapiens, we have a primal need to know our origins in order to feel completely human, and I also believe that we adoptees have a basic human right to the information that is ours. But why is all this suddenly coming into the limelight? We have lived in silence, anonymity, shame, and doubt ("Is this really the big deal it feels like? Why doesn't anyone else except my therapist think so?")

What has shifted in our culture that has begun to train the spotlight on all issues adoption? I don't think it's the mere fact that adoption is occurring more and more often in the United States, and I don't think that it's just because our society is now much more accepting of people being born in situations outside of marriage. It's something else.

What do you think it is? Please, I'd really love to know.

A New Low In Reality Television


(this is a still from the one I'm watching right now.)

...or is it a documentary? I'm referring to the new television series "Adoption Diaries," an episode of which I am watching right now. I'm a bit flabbergasted by the show's goal to condense the entire length of a pregnancy, an adoption application process, and the placement of a baby with an adoptive family into one half-hour segment. It's so short, in fact, they throw in another segment of another adoption process just to make the program last a whole hour.

So one adoption isn't worth even one hour on television? What is the takeaway message from this show, then? It's all neat and tidy and wrap-up-able in thirty minutes?

They do show some of the uncertainty and sadness that the birthmothers feel, but the show definitely seems slanted toward the experience of the adopting family.

The whole thing seems really gross and exploitive to me. UGH.

This just in: I just watched a commercial about the show that comes on AFTER "Adoption Diaries" . It's called "The Locator," and it's about--you guessed it--a guy who helps family members reunite after they've been separated for decades by adoption and other such situations.
Unbelievable. Really, now.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Picture this: the first time you ever see your birth mother's face is when she was in a casket at the morgue.

So goes one of the true stories in Jean Strauss's beautiful documentary about middle-aged and older Americans searching for their birthparents called "For the Life of Me".
(She also wrote the fine adoption memoir, Beneath a Tall Tree, shown at right.)

It's heartwrenching and frank, and talks a lot about the toxicity of secrets.

Additionally, it made me wonder how the fact of my adoption will affect my son and his descendents? Anyone want to weigh in on this idea?--how one adoption in the family orchard affects the leaves and fruit that are borne thereafter?

The parting quote:

"For adoptees, the light at the end of the tunnel is illumination, and any school kid can tell you that all living things need light to survive."

Thoughts?

Plus, anyone want to fill me in on the protest in Philly on July 21st about adoptee rights to birth certificates?

Conference Tidbit

It's been a whole week since I returned from the adoption conference in Provincetown, and my life has been too busy to blog about it yet. But here's a little taste:

On Sunday, July 12, I got to meet the fabled adoption writer, Betty Jean Lifton (of Twice Born, Journey of the Adopted Self, and Lost And Found fame). She gave a great keynote address, and afterward, a friend of mine introduced me to her. I asked her about living in reunion--when it feels like you've finally arrived because you've found the sought-after person (in this case, my birth mother), but even though you've finally "arrived," you don't know where you are. (That's how it feels for me. I'm so happy to know Carol and to have her in my life, but I have a hard time connecting with her.)

When I asked Betty Jean Lifton what I should do about this, she asked me, "What do you want from your birth mother?"

I had to think quickly--I realized I don't really know what I want from my birthmom. I said "I want to know what happened!"

"Aaah!" Said BJL, "That's what all adoptees want--to go back in time to the 'then-and-there,' to the point of connection, to the point of conception, to the Navel of the World! But the birth mother doesn't want to go there, she wants to move on. She doesn't want to stay in that place; she wants to run away from it like it's a house on fire. She wants to be with you in the 'here-and-now.'"

Yes, I suppose that does create a conflict. And a bit of an impasse.

Thinking about it more, I realized that what I want from my birth mother is to know everything. To know her. And it seems so impossible.

On another note, BJL's reference to the "Navel of the World" stunned me. I have long had an obsession with the mythic idea of the navel of the world--I've written about it, researched how this notion is expressed in various cultures around the world, and, most importantly, have identified it as an important centerpiece in my understanding of myself as an adopted person.

I would love to post a few pieces of my writing here that refer to the navel of the world to show you what I mean, but alas, I am away from home and thus away from all my computer files. I'll post them later, when I return home.

Which brings me to my final point: I'm going on vacation--the kind where there are no computers (hard to believe such places exist anymore), so I'll be on hiatus from posting until August 1.

Catch you then!

Adoption in the News

What do you make of the news stories about adoption reunions that appeared on NPR around Mothers Day?

In one, which aired on May 8, two days before Mother's Day, the adopted daughter calls her birth mom a "Mentor" as well as a mother. Check it out and let me know what you think.

And In this NPR story, which aired on Mother's Day, an adopted son and his birth mother describe their reunion after 20 years of separation.

And finally, consider all the buzz about "Raising Katie: What adopting a white girl taught one black family about race in the Obama era." See My American Melting Pot for commentary.

I think something's afoot with regard to adoption in the media; are we approaching the critical mass of attention required to become a mainstream, highly publicized topic of discussion? What do you think?

A Word About Mother's Day

(Pictured left to right: My mom; me, 8 months pregnant with my son, and my grandmother)

Finally becoming a mother myself at age 36 helped me to better understand how much my mom has loved and cared for me ever since she received me from the adoption agency when I was three weeks old. I never understood, until I had my own child, the bonding that goes on between a mother and her baby during all those hours of holding, wiping spit-up, changing diapers, rocking, strolling, and nursing or bottle feeding. Doing all those things with my infant son birthed a new relationship between my mom and me.

So, Mom, Happy Mother's Day. I love you.

Then there's the birthmother issue. 2001 was the first year I had the opportunity to wish both my mothers (my mom and my birthmom) a Happy Mother's day. I had found my birthmother, Carol, and had exchanged emails, phone calls, letters and photographs with her, but I had not yet met her. I was elated that my birthmom was finally in my life: I could actually wish her a Happy Mother's Day, and it made me feel more whole to have access to her and the part of my personal history that accompanies her.

We have since met each other, visited on numerous occasions, and we have become a part of one another's lives. But to live in reunion is to navigate uncharted territory; we don't know who we are to each other. She is my mother, but she was unable to mother me; I am her daughter, but I am a stranger to her. When I reunited with Carol, I felt as if I had finally arrived at a place I had long yearned to be, but when I got there, I didn't know where I was. I'm curious to know whether other adoptees in reunion feel this way.

So now, when I go to the stationery store to select Mother's Day cards for my mom and my birthmom, I get a little stymied trying to find an appropriate one to send Carol. Mostly the cards wax poetic (albeit Hallmarkily) about all the things the mother has done for the child--all the boo-boos kissed, dinners cooked, long talks enjoyed in the middle of the night while snuggled up tight in bed. None of them, of course, says "Thanks for relinquishing me, I know it was an excruciating decision; Happy Mother's Day." I mean, really.

I usually end up making a card, or buying a card with no salutation inside and writing in my own sentiments. But my own sentiments are conflicted, so even doing that is difficult. I want to acknowledge Carol, to let her know she's important to me. I want to forgive her for giving me away, I want to absolve her of all the guilt she feels. I want to wipe it all away. I want her to be the person she would have grown up to be, had she not become an unwed teenaged mother in a society that condemned her. I wish all these things for her. And I also wish that my feelings of guilt, unworthiness, and confusion related to being adopted could be wiped clean. Finding Carol and building a relationship with her has helped to repair some of these wounds, but it has also opened up others. Becoming a mother myself has also helped bridge some gaps. But it's an ongoing process, a lifelong one, I suspect.

With that in mind, I wish a Happy Mother's Day to Sharon and Carol, and to all the brave adoptive- and birth-mothers in this confusing, wonderful world. Love to you all.

A Birth Mother's Point of View

This blog post portraying a birth mother's point of view is definitely a must-read, if you haven't seen it already. It's heartfelt, sincere, and very raw. Interestingly, many of this birth mother's points about her feelings of loss and anxiety related to relinquishing her baby correspond with what I perceive as the adoptee's feelings of loss and anxiety about having been relinquished--they certainly reflect mine.

Ironic that these groups of people (birth mothers and adoptees) who have been forcefully separated and hidden from each other via closed adoption, shame, etc., for so many years have such similar feelings about their experiences, despite our society's mandates for us to forget about one another and go on living our lives as if the other never existed.