[Lynn Barry]

I don't know if some of you regulars here remember my story, but here goes...
Our family had two sons and decided to adopt a daughter so we did. She came to the family at age five when the sons were nine and four. When she was 21 we helped her find her birth relatives and a year later she took her two year old and left her husband and all her adoptive relatives and lived in the neighborhood she was removed from as an infant by Social Services and put into foster care until we adopted her. It was shocking and we had a rough time adapting to the change in our lives. The years were mostly filled with no contact, but recently we reconnected and I received a call yesterday that I never thought I would receive. Mind you, we never had a falling out, just a falling away I guess. She seemed to need or want to get to know the relatives she did not get to know growing up. She has a child by someone she knew from visits (a child her birth dad kind of raised) when she was in the foster home but does not remember. She is expecting another child by this guy and told me she is naming her baby with my name in mind and that they are all coming for Thanksgiving. So, there you have it. I gave up on ever having a relationship with her and now it looks like things are taking a turn... I am a happy mom, for sure. All the insecurities and heartache these past five years were as real as they get...but at this moment I am as content as can be and THANKFUL...I DO have a daughter.
I will keep you posted.
Why do I want to share this? I want to share that it is important for adoptees to reunite if they want to BUT it is painfully real that feelings get hurt and a lot of grieving goes on when there is disconnection. But I now know...there is hope.

[DCMomLady]

I hope you and your daughter enjoy a wonderful reunion at Thanksgiving!

[kakuehl]

All we can do sometimes as parents is keep the door open (or at least unlocked) and love them unconditionally. It is good to live in hope!

[Lynn Barry]

AMEN to the hope and I just talked to her again on the phone and it feels SO good...I keep thinking it will all go away like it had during these five years, and then I relax and go with it.

[zxczxcasdasd]

So happy for you. Truly. Just remember that you don't need her approval or affirmation to be her mother (although it feels SOOO much better to have it!), or to know that you are. You are the only one in the world that can un-make you her mother, by ceasing to be it.

Happy Thanksgiving. Just love, love and love some more. There are times when motherhood hurts like heck...so soak up the times that feel like heaven.

Congratulations on your upcoming "reunion" !

[bromanchik]

Congratulations! Have a beautiful Thanksgiving.

[Lynn Barry]

I find it a bit similar to getting dumped when you are going steady or something like that. You start to wonder if you had anything of substance in the relationship to begin with and feelings like that. Was I simply a babysitter or more of a foster mom, did she think of me that way or at all...and what does that validate? Anything, something...I always said to people when they asked about her and I knew nothing and told them the situation, "I raised her and i will always have that and am thankful for it." This feels better though. Much better.
I never adopted to save a life or for any of those reasons, I adopted because I wanted to raise a daughter in my lifetime and have a daughter and now I know I do. It feels pretty darn GREAT!

[Lynn Barry]

Long awaited blessing

Many have known...many never gave up even when I had...this is for them..

She charged into my life
This beauty who needed a place
I did the best I could
To be the mom even though my face
Looked nothing like hers at all
I thought love was all that mattered
Even so, I always supported reunion
With the ones who put her on this planet
After that occurred
She up and left what she knew
And inside her tummy, a second child grew
She has lived so disconnected
From all who raised her up
It has been a hard hard thing
With nothing to do but give up
Then hubby found her one day
And told her we just want to be part
Of her life and hopes and dreams
And that she is unconditionally loved
So what is happening now is a blessing
I dared not consider
She is carrying child number three
And naming her Cailynn, go figure
I hate to give others false hope
If their situation seems bleak
But I found I had to give up
So later I could reach this high peak

[kelceesmom]

Congratulations! Having no expectations can help. What a wonderful person you are. Good luck and enjoy Thanksgiving. A time of blessings.

[love4]

[quote=zxczxcasdasd]
] You are the only one in the world that can un-make you her mother, by ceasing to be it.

I found that to be so true during my struggles. When my daughter went to live with her birthmom I wondered if I were really her mom. I wondered if I were just a babysitter all those years. It was very painful. Little by little my pondering led me to realize I was her mom. I raised her with my morals and values. I loved and nurtured her and did all the things mothers do. I loved when she didn't want me in her life for awhile. She was confused and wondered where she fit in and one day she came to the place where she felt she belonged............Home. She called a short time ago and said, "I just called to say I love you because I don't think I ever said that." The title of "MOM" is feeling comfortable and right once again. We both had to find our place and we did.

We cried many sad tears Lynn. We comforted each other and helped each other to go on when we felt the journey was too painful. Now we are both experiencing the joy in having our girls back in our lives. We kept our hearts open. Thankfully.

[mom2shan]

Hi Lynn - I am new to this group as of tonight. I have a story similar to yours. Right now it is a torture test every day. My daughter and I once had a very close relationship. That started to change when she was about 13 years old. Mostly I thought it was typical teenage stuff that most parents go through. She is now 18 and the last 5 years have been horrendous. Exactly one year ago we introduced her to her birth mother because we wanted to do anything that would help her with the emotional issues she had. We tried numerous counselors. Basically the counselors said that she just wouldn't open up. We did family therapy and individual therapy for her. Over the years she became more and more secretive, pulled away from us and became very angry. She has turned her father and me into villains. She says we expected perfection of her. We just wanted her to do her best. I could go on and on but it is enough to say that it was a constant spiraling downward. She left for college this summer but not on very good terms. She lives in a town about 30 minutes away. She doesn't want to see us. She doesn't call and is very abrupt and even angry when I call. She has what appears to be a very good relationship with her birth mom. I like her birth mom. I am happy for my daughter that maybe a hole in her heart may now be filled. The problem is that I now have a huge hole in my heart. The thought of waiting five years to have her come back to me is unbearable. How did you survive it? It fills my every waking moment. I wonder if she is angry at me because we adopted her. I wish I knew what she wanted from me now. It is very hard to live like this day to day. I could tell from your writing that you have walked the path I am now on. I am so happy for you that your daughter is returning to you. It gives me hope. I pray someday that I will be able to post a message similar to yours. To all the happy adoptees and birthmothers who read this please understand that it is not that adoptive mothers don't want to share their precious child with you. It is just that after 18 years of loving, nurturing and cherishing this child it is so incredibly painful to be cast aside and rejected. If I had a promise that after 5 years of this suffering she would come back to me and we would have a wonderful relationship once again I think I could get through this. Unfortunately, no such promises exist. How did you get through this? I think you said you gave up. Is that how you survive this? You have absolutely no expectations and so you are not devastated day after day. Anyway, I wanted you to know that it was so good to know that I am not the only one to go through this. There is no one to talk to about this. Friends who are biological parents could not begin to understand this. I realize that a birth parent's happiness would make it difficult for them to understand or even recognize the adoptive parent's pain. It is not the pain of sharing. It is the pain of separation and rejection. Thank you Lynn for helping me to see that I am not alone. This is a very lonely situation to be in. Very few people would be able to relate and understand.

[lonni]

Adoptive Moms,I am a female adoptee.I felt like a square peg in a round hole starting in late childhood.(around 12?).
I was so lost and spent most of my time feeling enclosed in a glass prison unable to connect to anyone,just watching the world go by.Yet,wonderful adparents.
When I met my parents at 24,it was so "affirming" to see what made me tick!!!! I wanted to immerse myself in it,because it was my core identity.
I did not close my adparents out as extreme as your girls,but I feel this is a struggle of lost identity that some of us feel. ((((((hugs))))))) to you moms and I am so sorry you are in pain as your daughters struggle.

**I wanted to also add that as the years of reunion go on,my perspective has become much less fantasy and more reality.My first family is not quite as flawless and perfect as I dreamed and my adoptive family is where my heart remains;~))

[kakuehl]

Ionni - I hope your post gives some of these amoms hope. Unltimately, reality is better than fantasy, at least in my opinion - although some people would say that I live in a fantasy world all the time because I try to look for the positive!

Momtoshan: in addition to my birth son, I raised 2 younger children. My daughter would like to have believed she had another family I think. When she was a teen, the parents of her friends would tell me what a wonderful girl she was. At that point, if she did talk to me it was nasty. (It was really hard to look for the positive.) She went to college several hours away. Gradually she started calling me more and now we have a very good relationship (she's 28) but I still have the sense that her "family" of friends are more important to her than I am. (Do remember that appearances can be disceiving - her relationship with her birthmom/family may not be as rosy as it appears from the outside.)

As a birthmom I truly hurt for the afamilies who have been rejected by their kids. The little I've heard about my birthson's adolescence parallels many of the stories I hear here. He actually moved out when he was 16. By the time I came into the picture however, he and his parents had rebuilt their relationship. I can understand his mom's uneasiness with his decision to have an ongoing relationship with me and his birth siblings. I do not want to replace the parents who raised him - they are his family. I am pleased to be part of his life. Christmas will be interesting. I get to meet his 2 sisters for the first time.

Being a birthmom in "reunion" is a challenge. He is part of my heart but legally we have no connection. His aparents are his parents! and yet there is a unique connect between D and me. I asked D once how he would describe our relationship. His answer was healthy. I hope that's the same way he would describe his relationship with his parents as well. As you can tell, it's hard for me to figure out exactly what the relationship between us is. I only know I care deeply about D. Knowing him and his afamily enriches my life. I hope his family feels the same way.

I truly hope that those of you who feel like you have lost your children find healing.

[mom2shan]

Hi Kathy and Lonni - I just read your posts and they are both very helpful. Just to have someone to talk to about this is incredibly helpful. It is important for me to know that I am not the only one to go through this. I know that I've been and am a good mom. Lonni's description of a square peg in a round hole and being "nasty" to her mother sounds so familiar. I don't want to alienate any birth mothers. I want to again say that I really like my daughter's birth mother. We have a good relationship and we even do things together, sometimes without our daughter (boy, that's hard - I haven't used that phrase before - but she is our daughter). I've been used to being called Mom and she's her birth mom. It's kind of been like two separate things. This is really stream of consciousness. I'm putting this together as I type. Anyway, she is a good and loving person. I know she cares about me and knows how painful this all is. I will do whatever it takes to help my daughter be happy, healthy and whole. I just wish that rejection by my daughter wasn't one of those things that I have to experience. Both her birth mom and I are trying to put this together for all of us. We all have the best intentions in the world. I am so glad I found this forum. Thank you both for writing back. It is so incredible to talk to people who understand what I am going through. If I tell anyone about this they just feel sorry for me. I don't want pity. I want hope for the family and relationship I had with my beloved daughter. I can share. I just don't want to be left out. Why is this so hard on everyone - adoptee, birth mom and adoptive parents? Her birth mom and I both have boundless and selfless love for our daughter. She in the beginning had to have the selfless love for her child that she wanted her to have a family who could love and take care of her in every way she couldn't at the time and now at the other end I have had to find that same selfless love to help my daughter be happy, healthy and whole again. I hope someday my daughter will be able to fully understand how much two women loved her that they would give up their own selfish happiness because of the endless love we have for her. For adoptees, I hope you read this and really understand it because it is very important. There are two people in this world who would do anything for you without ever thinking of themselves. They have both already proved it. Again, Lonni and Kathy, thank you so much. I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me to be able to reach out to someone who really understands and relates to this.

[kune]

Lynn
I have been watching the threads for a post from you, and I'm so happy that both you and your daughter have found some peace. Do you think she has matured enough to now understand your can never be loved by too many, as long as you acknowledge and respect each and ever one of them?

I love your short stories - you truly are a work in progress!!
I wish your family some peace, solidarity and togetherness.

Ann