[epenn922]

Here's an article about how babies 'cry in their mother's tongue'...

BBC NEWS | Health | Babies 'cry in mother's tongue'

Someone recommended this book to me - about George Tann -- I just picked it up today and started reading it...

Amazon.com: The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption (9781402758638): Barbara Bisantz Raymond: Books

[RavenSong]

Elaine, thanks for posting the link to the BBC News story. That is some fascinating neonatal research!!

I've been in reunion with my son for almost 20 years...we reunited shortly after his 18th birthday. He shared with me a number of years ago how my voice usually has an instant calming effect on him, and how it's been that way since the first time he heard me on the telephone. He says that the first time he heard my voice, something just "clicked" inside him.

I played the guitar and sang professionally when I was a teenager. So the poor child was stuck inside my womb listening to me practice all the time. My voice is very much like a popular folk-rock singer from the early '70s, and I used to sing a lot of her songs while I was pregnant. When we had our first face-to-face meeting, his parents told me a kind of haunting story. It seems that when our son was an infant, whenever that particular singer came on the radio, he'd stop dead in his tracks, look over at the stereo, and get the saddest expression on his face. Sometimes he would reach his little hand out toward the stereo, as if to touch the voice coming out from the speakers.

BTW, the first time I ever asked him who his favorite musicians were, he didn't skip a beat...Carly Simon, he said.

[Dickons]

Elaine,

Georgia Tann...may her kind never see the light of day again...an incredibly horrific account of what narcissim, greed, self importance, corruption at the highest level and hate, and all done to families that were poor, to children and to society. Once you finish the book you will see why you cannot stop speaking out of behalf of adoptees. And her concept of how babies are blank slates is completely negated by the BBC article.

And yet some still deny that we have in inherent connection to our roots and the lack of roots haunt us (whether we realize it or not) our entire lives.

Kind regards,
Dickons

[Dickons]

Raven,

Loved your post...made me want to cry.

The sheer number of coincidences and correlations I have found in reunion cannot be explained by math. We may not know why or even that we are, but we are linked forever.

"I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come.
I looked back and saw my father and his father and all our fathers, and in front to see my son and his son,
and the sons upon sons beyond.

And their eyes were my eyes. As I felt so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now, as tomorrow and forever.
Then I was not afraid for I was in a long line that had no beginning and no end.

And the hand of his father grasped my father's hand and his hand was in mine,
and my unborn son took my right hand and all, up and down the line that stretched from
Time That Was to Time That is Not Yet, raised their hands to show the link.

And we found that we were one......" - Richard Llewellyn

[crick]

Unfortunately, the works of Georgia Tann still continues today. There was an article posted the other day about a woman in Mexico whose baby was sold, and she had to spend a year or so getting her back.

The articles on babies recognizing their mom's voices etc. don't bother me. Well..maybe slightly, if I'm honest. It's not that I want there to be a blank slate or can't acknowledge that certainly there is a big connection between the womb and child. It's simply an auto reaction, kwim? Not even a conscious thought of it at all really. Sometimes you just have to fight that off and realize that babies recognizing their other mom's voice does not have ANYTHING to do with you. And...it's not up to our children to calm those thoughts either.

So I don't know that everyone just wants to deny you your roots, I guess that's what I'm trying to say. It's that sometimes people just really have to get over themselves a bit and realize that it's not all about the "Me". "What? I'm NOT the all encompassing mother?"" (you know my humor, so you know where I'm coming from I hope!"

[Dickons]

Crick,

Never ever fear that we cannot love the mother who adopts us and is our mom just as much as the mother who brings us into this world...we are a combination of both. Just never ever forget that! When I am down, happy or sad you know who I turn to first.

Kind regards,
Dickons

[crick]

Dickons - I know I was trying to assure adoptees for a change (since y'all are in that position all the time) that just because a mom might have one of those "eh" feelings about something, it doesn't mean we want to quash anyone's belief in it or negate another mom.

[epenn922]

Still reading the book -- it seems like Georgia Tann took advantage of the 'perfect storm' -- so many things kinda lined up for her to be able to do such destruction....