[loveis]

So what if I can never call my birth mother, Mom. What do I do, will she be happy being called by her first name for the rest of our lives? I have said it before, I don't like the name birth mother either. But what do I do then?? She is not "Mom". She can't be no matter how hard I try, maybe it's too soon????? She is my Mother, but I can't go around calling her "Mother" can I? That sounds so....snobby! "hello Mother", no too snobby. I get what you are saying Mrshoot about b being second, I don't want her to feel that way, but then what do I say? I have a situation where my parents DO NOT accept her being in my life and even if I could call her Mom, and my parents found out my Mom would be crushed. Maybe that is why I can't call her Mom. I can't refer to her as my Mother since again, if it got back to my Mom it would be horrible. I feel in my heart she is my Mother but this whole name thing is so frustrating!

If you were never called Mom by your birth child would that be ok? I really don't know what else to do and would NEVER want to hurt my birth mother so any light anyone can shed on this would be really helpful!

[thanksgivingmom]

Loveis, I will be happy with whatever DD is comfortable calling me. If that's Mom or some form thereof that's awesome. I'll embrace it and love it. But if it's not I'll be understanding and supportive of that too.

I hope your birthmom accepts that as well.

And just to add to the a vs. b thing - I GET being frustrated about certain labels, really I do. I prefer firstmom and will say so. However, at some point, I really think it becomes an issue of making a mountain out of a molehill. Especially in situations where i really don't feel that words are used with any kind of malice.

[Mommy24]

I second what T says about the Bmom issue, mountain,molehill.

Loveis, It doesn't matter to me if my birth son (and I only call him birth son when clarifying, otherwise he will always be my son) calls me Mom, Michelle, Hey Lady , whatever he calls me as long as he calls, I am A-OK.


Do what makes you feel comfortable, I bet your birth mom is just thrilled to have you in her life.

((hugs))

[TxMom65]

AS someone else has already said, I wish there were no labels. I don't think of amom as being above bmom because of alphabetical order, but now that it has been pointed out I see where it can sting.

No matter what the title each person has a role that the other doesn't. I am raising my daughter. Her other mom gave birth to her, carried her and I feel that she loves her. WE are in a closed adoption through foster care, and I see what my daughter is missing. I wish we could have contact so she could be certain of how much she is loved.

Sadly, it can't happen and when I read the mothers on here who are in open adoption I am jealous. I wish my child had that.

[MrsHoot]

Originally Posted by loveis

So what if I can never call my birth mother, Mom. What do I do, will she be happy being called by her first name for the rest of our lives? I have said it before, I don't like the name birth mother either. But what do I do then?? She is not "Mom". She can't be no matter how hard I try, maybe it's too soon????? She is my Mother, but I can't go around calling her "Mother" can I? That sounds so....snobby! "hello Mother", no too snobby. I get what you are saying Mrshoot about b being second, I don't want her to feel that way, but then what do I say? I have a situation where my parents DO NOT accept her being in my life and even if I could call her Mom, and my parents found out my Mom would be crushed. Maybe that is why I can't call her Mom. I can't refer to her as my Mother since again, if it got back to my Mom it would be horrible. I feel in my heart she is my Mother but this whole name thing is so frustrating!

If you were never called Mom by your birth child would that be ok? I really don't know what else to do and would NEVER want to hurt my birth mother so any light anyone can shed on this would be really helpful!

If you can't you can't - it's that simple...but I know it would hurt me to hear my daughter call me her "birth mother"...I'm not sure what she referrs to me as when she speaks to her parents about me but she's in the same situation you're in - her parents do not support her being in contact with me, so I imagine they have their own set of names for me

I have seen her call me her Mom in a blog once - and it really made me feel terrific. And, yes - one day I hope we will get to the point when she referrs to me as Mom instead of by my first name..but there are some loyalty issues that are likely preventing her from doing that...as you mentioned it would likely crush her mother. So I hang on to "one day"

BUT - she is your Mom, your Mother - she may not be Mommy but she is your Mom and it IS okay to have two of them...just my 2 cents

Wishing you peace and happiness in your journey!

[Rylee45]

When my daughter and I were close and things were going well in the reunion, she called me "Mema" and sometimes "Mom".

That was exciting for me to be called by those names. She told me she loved me. She was so thrilled about meeting me and it was wonderful.

Then her adoptive mother got so jealous about our relationship that she destroyed it the best she could.

I had always went out of my way to get her to call her mom when she (my daughter) was living with us for awhile. I wanted her mom to always know that my daughter hadn't chosen me over her and she had nothing to worry about.

I'm talking, I went out of my way sending the woman things that were about my daughter and doing everything I could to make sure the contact was regular so she DIDN'T feel as I was stealing my daughter back. My daughter fought calling her mom because she didn't want to bother with it. I however was insistant that she keep contact and call her mom on a regular basis. That was important to me that she do that.

It didn't matter at all with that, the woman still got angry and jealous and felt threatened and now has gone out of her way to keep my daughter and my grandchildren away from me. It makes me sick.

My daughter now calls me by my first name. It's ok I guess but it does hurt after she had called me Mema and Mom for so many years just to have her adoptive mom decide to stop her from even contacting me or ever calling me Mema or Mom again. Of course we won't be talking anymore since I wrote that email to her but it still hurts how the adoptive mom went about destroying our relationship.

The "a" and "b" do make me feel less important in the scheme of things. However, abreviations are abreviations. I guess I just have to try to not let that bother me. It's really not worth the stomach ache to fight it.

Rylee

[bajj]

Originally Posted by InBlindFaith

I use bmom, amom, etc because it is quicker to type. I do refer to DD's amom IRL as "her Mom" because to me she is Mom. I just hope one day I will have the chance to get to know her too!!!

(((Rylee)))

(((Bajj))) you are an awesome mom and I can only hope that DD's mom is as fabulous as you!

Thank you Roni!

[kakuehl]

Originally Posted by loveis

So what if I can never call my birth mother, Mom. What do I do, will she be happy being called by her first name for the rest of our lives? ...
If you were never called Mom by your birth child would that be ok? I really don't know what else to do and would NEVER want to hurt my birth mother so any light anyone can shed on this would be really helpful!

Loveis,

D and I have been in reunion for more than two years. He has never called me Mom, nor do I expect him too. It's funny, it doesn't bother me that he calls me Kathy; it does sort of that his children also will call me Kathy (So who said I had to be consistent!) My relationship with D is a comfortable one and it really doesn't matter what he calls me. He will always see S as his mother -- she raised him, and frankly it would bother me if he didn't. I care deeply about him; I think he has come to understand that. My desire is not to disrupt his relationship with his parents and family (and I suspect his mom would have some difficulty with him calling me mom.) I believe that our relationship can enrich all our lives. More important than what he calls me (to me at least), is the fact that D has invited us into his life, including me and his half siblings in family celebrations, etc.

[meggggann]

I had my twins adopted .44 yrs ago,After great difficulty i traced them,and sent a letter to them.I wrote to their MOTHER first who ignored the letter..My son came to meet me and it was truly lovely.my daughter answered my letter and rang me.
My son also met my two daughters..my son called me mum.my daughter called me Anne..
I havn't seen or heard from them in six years now....
i have never met my daughter..that is her choice...


I am a stranger to them....but they are not to me.....
Their adopted mother loves them..and they love her ..and that is all that matters to me...
lol.Anne...

[Jannyroo]

Originally Posted by loveis

So what if I can never call my birth mother, Mom. What do I do, will she be happy being called by her first name for the rest of our lives? I have said it before, I don't like the name birth mother either. But what do I do then?? She is not "Mom". She can't be no matter how hard I try, maybe it's too soon????? She is my Mother, but I can't go around calling her "Mother" can I?

I can't help get a tad frustrated when threads like this come up and then all out war seems to break out with very strong reactions and almost arguments, and its a shame. I can only speak from my own experience and when my son and I went into reunion (he found me) he called me mum right from the start. So its mum and mum. Mom and mom. Whatever.

Its coming up to 2 years reunion and I have been very careful to take everybody's feelings into consideration in the triad and I feel that in this, I have taken the lead. Over the reunion time, I have sent one or two letters to my sons amom and yes, I refer to myself as bmom. I have no problem with this, why should I? my son loves me and wants a relationship with me and his parents have been very supportive of his search for me and consequent reunion, even though he has proved to be a son that has enormous emotional problems and has brought great pain to us all whilst he attempts to cope with his pain stemming from being adopted.

Getting back to this naming business. I was quite happy to acquiese to calling my situation and naming myself as the bmom and give amom (name withheld) full credit for all that she has done - an amazing job trying to cope with a now adult, our son, that frankly has proved to be a handful. Reunion IS steadying him down, but the goal is for all of us, is to help him work through his issues and help him achieve the happiness he seeks and in his eyes that was finding me and relating to me. He is far too busy trying to cope with the agony of being adopted (his words) to worry about what we call ourselves and I'm not really in the mindset of being overly worried as to what he calls me or what I call his amom (which I use to distinguish on these forums for ease of identification as well) as I call her by her first name and she calls me by mine.

Kune made a good point recently about the roles that us birth mothers have in our adult childs lives - that adopted children with good adoptive parents can feel ill at ease at having two mothers and she found that by identifying herself as more of a friend that she could see her son visibly relax. I thought this was a good point and I acted on this by emailing my son with a description of how I saw my role in his life and got an almost immediate response from my son. It was a good one.

This is what I wrote (I have inserted amom instead of his mothers name to protect identity):

Just remember that my calling myself your mother is not the same as my being anything near the same as (amom's name) your mom, I'm a mum that fits your needs since we met and in a different way to (amom's name), there is no way I am a mother in the same way. I'm a friend and yet more than a friend, and your mum in the way I show you who you are, and what you need to see that, and the love you need...(my addition: from me as his birthmother)

I felt that there had to be some clarification and yes, we are all happy. When our son went headlong into anaesthetising his life yet again, with crack cocaine, I acted immediately and phoned (amom) for the first time, whom I credit absolutely with all that she has done to raise a child that happens to be my son and whom I consider 'our' son. We call each other by our first names and I am pleased with all the groundwork I laid up until this point, as I didn't expect to interact with her so early on into the reunion. I know that there is pain all around in adoption/reunion and by being sensitive to my son's mother, we are all benefitting, because now we talk freely, she has said I can phone any time which is great, and yesterday was the first time I did without the context of whether he was in hospital, on drugs, etc, it was the freedom of phoning him without recourse as to whether I was hurting anybody's feelings. We'd moved on as a triad and it was a wonderful feeling.

She has been so buoyant and welcoming me into the family, and I've been careful to take my time on this to show careful consideration for her, I want to get the best results for all, chiefly my son, that the last conversation we had, I was so pleased with the largeness of heart this woman has and how she has responded to my efforts, that I sent her a bouquet.

Now I appreciate that perhaps not everyone gets on like this, but we are two mothers that want what is best for our son and have been able to be mutually supportive through a tough time and it continues to be tough, although the efforts made are now starting to show better responses from our son. So I guess what I am saying is that each triad have to work out their own approach to reunion, hopefully with compassion, understanding and empathy with support thrown in. I feel the adoptee needs good support from both mothers, but acquiese that in some cases, they don't get it and that is sad. However, this is my opinion, whatever is best for your reunion, sort it out beforehand and suggest what you want, but don't demand. I know a birth mother who insisted that her son call her by her first name when he wanted to call her mom. I thought that was sad in a way.

I would beg anyone, please don't fight over names, just find what suits you. My son calls us both mom and mom and neither of us are upset about it. He needs me in his life as much as he needs his amom (again, said to avoid identification) in his life - he needs us both, very much. If I need to call myself a first mother, birth mother, primal mother, or just plain Jannyroo to get the results I have just got with all of this, I would not hesitate. I am more interested in getting my son his peace of mind back than worrying about names. If my son had of called me Jannyroo, or bmom, or whatever, its our relationship that is important more than names.

I know mine is a particularly difficult reunion and perhaps some of the issues here don't belong to other's reunions, but I feel the approach is something to be encouraged and in fact Verrier encourages that we unite to give the adoptee the best possible chance of adjusting to what was their birthright... their identity and wish to know who they take after. My son drifted immediately into calling me mum. I think each reunion must align itself with what feels right for everyone, but its that treading on eggshells stage where everyone is frightened to ask for what they would like. Just be flexible. If adoptee wants to call mom mom or first name, just say it, it can be said gently without insisting, and if someone says they are hurt, then adjust again, and come to some agreement as to what each other would prefer?

Right, I'll get off my soapbox now!!!! For anyone who feels offended, please don't, these are my thoughts and my approach to reunion and I am only relating these thoughts to my experience. I hope it helps some.

[Liz79]

Well I thought the b stood for birth and the a adoptive, so I guess I was totally wrong! I am an adoptee, and my Mum,and Dad get very insulted if I don't say birth mother, or father, but I call them all my Mum's and Dad's, or by name, cause, I don't want to hurt/insult either of them.

[Liz79]

I feel exactlly the same. You wouldn't think a name would mean so much, but when Mum, thought she heard me call my birthfather, Dad, She was very upset! I also don't like the term, birth mother/father, and I as welll feel strange calling them by name, but couldn't see myself calling them to their face mum, and dad. It would be too weird for now!