[soulquest81]

My birthson is almost six now. Do any other birthmothers wish that they knew that adoption grief, unlike that of death often gets worse over time? I had no idea, although I have some wonderful days and every so often days like today when I cried for no reason other than pity. A bit pathetic I know, but sometimes I feel like a lifetime of separation is worse than death, which ultimately brings unchangeable closure to a situation. A very morbid thought indeed, but I've read from a couple of birthmothers who have discovered that their child was deceased that they actually felt a sense of relief because they at least knew where he was (in heaven). Knowing your child is in heaven, a very happy place does seem easier than hardly knowing anything. Again, I know this topic is morbid and wrong, but I've heard women say that they'd rather be dead than separated from their child. I thought the pain of adoption would lessen in the longrun, but its days like these that make me wonder if it ever will "until death do us part."

I lost my father to death when I was seven and three friends to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan just recently, but losing a son to adoption has by far been worse than all of those. Any thoughts?

[Betty1]

Although I was told that I would grieve, I too had no idea that it would last so long and that it would get harder as the years passed. I think adoption grief can be harder than death because it feels like there is no closure since you know your child is out there living their life without you. I think one thing the outsiders don't understand is that even though you feel that your decision may have been a good one for your child, you still mourn their loss.

[InBlindFaith]

You will have your good days and your bad. I placed DD in a closed adoption 18 years ago.

Have you tried creating a special scrapbook for your child? How about Journaling? These things have helped me get through some of these bumps in my Journey.

[browneyes0707]

I've often wonder this myself. I know someone who lost her son in the terrorist attacks, and I see how she grieves, and still grieves for her child. I can empathize with her pain, but it's diffferent. She had 24 years with her son, 24 years of memories and special moments she will cherish. I have only one day, and in that one day only a few moments that I truly spent with DD. But her son is gone from this earth and will never grow to marry and raise a family. She grieves for the person he should have grown to be. She never got to say goodbye, and she must live with all the things she wishes she can say but cant. In my situation, I have that possibilty that I will one day meet my child, and get to tell her all the things I have lived with that I wish I can say. And being in a semi open adoption, I get to see now all that the future will hold for her. She has that opportunity to grow into the person she is meant to become.

I made a choice to place my child. This woman did not choose for her son to die.

But we are the same in that we both miss our children, and we both cant do anything to have them in our lives right now. Birthdays and certain times of year are hard for us for the same reason. The ache we feel is the same.

She has the past and I have the future but we both share a present.

I don't think one is worse than the other. Just not the same.

[InBlindFaith]

Wow Browneyes...I had to reach for the kleenexes!!

[geogdeb]

Unfortunately this is a subject I know quite a bit about. I placed a child for adoption 27 years ago and lost a baby to SIDS almost 20 years ago. So not only do I have experience, but also some perspective.

Adoption grief for me was like a cancer. I was told not to grieve and was encouraged to hide what happened to me -- which I did from all but the closest people to me. But the grief, like cancer, was always there. Until I dealt with it my feelings became more and more painful. I started dealing with my emotions by finally realizing that I am not (or was not) the abnormal, immoral young girl I felt like for so long. I realized that I had been betrayed by the very people who should've looked out for my interests -- my church leaders, social workers, even my mother. I think I grieved because I felt like my son had been taken from me and I did not understand what I was doing when I signed those papers, as much as from the fact that I lost him. Several years ago I started searching for my son and finally found him last year. It has helped me heal. My healing is still not finished, but it has helped me to come to the understanding that although I was betrayed, I don't believe it was done maliciously or with any ill intent. Forgiving the people that hurt me and my 17 year old naive self has helped the grief. Even so, though my relationship with my bson is good and I am so thankful to have him in my life, I hurt when I realized what I missed and probably always will. It is bitter-sweet. But the sweet is there!!!

The grief I felt when I lost my son to SIDS was enormous, painful and intense and hit me like a heart attack. People around me helped me to grieve and acknowledged my pain. So I dealt with it in mostly the correct way right from the beginning -- but I also dealt with extreme grief for years. And death is so final!! There is no bitter-sweet. It is all bitter -- even if you believe in heaven, your baby is gone and there will be no other opportunity in this life to get to know him. You will never hold him in your arms again!!

So, is one harder than the other --- I don't know. They are different. I think the main problem is that loss from adoption is often not considered a loss at all and it is! It is a huge loss and should be grieved in many of the same ways that death is grieved. Society often takes this away from bmothers. Don't let them take it away from you. But keep in mind that one day you might have a relationship with the child you lost and that will be wonderfull -- even if a little bitter.

I hope this helps,

Deb

[SchmennaLeigh]

Every grief situation is different: you may grieve differently when your sister dies as opposed to when your mom dies. Every grieving human being grieves differently. Every adoption is different.

I don't think you can compare. While the two situations involve grieving, it's just going to be so different for every person in each unique situation.

[geogdeb]

While I agree that every grieving situation is different, I also think that yes you can compare and contrast. We should and need to discuss this process. Soulquest81 I am glad you brought this topic up and I hope your grieving becomes easier as the years go by. Talking to us will help and you can always get professional help. A good therapist is a friend indeed! Since every grieving process is a bit different as mentioned before, talking about it to an individual alone or to us on this forum is a must. Please let us know if we can help any more. I know I wouldn't have had as much healing without my wonderful friends on this forum.

Deb

[shellydm]

Hi-
I adopted from Guatemala but am so glad I read your thread. I want to tell you all my heart goes out to you.

I have this strong strong instinct feeling that our daughters birthmom needs to hear from us to know her baby is OK. She has been with us nearly a year.

We have not had any contact with her as our agency was secretive about it all. I have been thinking about trying to find her in a search to let her know her daughter is happy and well. But I go back and forth over if she would want to hear from me or not. I can't shake the feeling she is feeling the same way as you in this thread and I need to try and find her.

Thanks for sharing your feelings, you never know who you will help when you post and who is reading your posts. You helped me make my decision! Thank you!!

Shelly

[browneyes0707]

Deb:

Thanks for sharing! Hugs for what you must have gone through.

I agree that you should definitely feel free to share how you feel in order to process and heal. It's interesting that the reason why I started to compare the two scenarios was because my mother had said that in talking to her friend, one of the hardest things she has been facing is the fact that there are a lot of people who expect her to be over the grieving process now that it's been five years. That people are "expecting" her to move on, and that people don't encourage her to talk about her son the way they used to and when she does talk about him, people seem to get "uncomfortable". She thinks people pity her because she still needs to talk about it and she is "stuck in the moment". And she feels that this is something that permeates her life, how can she not talk about it ? She functions through her everyday life as a wife and a mother and a friend and doesn't take anything for granted, she lives her life, albeit with a huge piece of it missing. And she finds it hard when there are people who think "why is she still going on about him? Why can't she let go?"

And I thought, hmmm. That sounds awfully familiar.

I find this is a great place to share and talk when I get overwhelmed with loss and I struggle. And I think I always will struggle, I've just come to terms with it now. I hope you find a way to share your feelings too!!!! Don't be afraid to express and process things. It's natural, no matter how long it's been.

Feel free to PM me if you want to talk

[keds]

Deb,

I stumbled on this thread, I'm new at the site and still trying to figure out "posting". Your story is very much like mine. I placed my bson 26 years ago and don't remember much but that "I had to get over it quick and get back to life". It still feels like an open wound. I'm very fortunate to have 2 healthy daughters but suffered 2 miscarriages and 1 stillborn before my oldest daughter was born. I know you can't compare the grief process and it was very difficult each time but I think the fact that I was not allowed to be open and ask for help have made it much more difficult. Hugs to you and thank you for making me feel "normal".

[amyshaw]

Isn't it amazing how people outside the Triad expect you to just move on. My daughter turned 21 last month, and every day goes by I mourn the loss. I was adopted at birth, and I mourn the loss of my birth mom. It's not the same as a death, but it's every bit as hard. My a-mom doesn't understand my need to connect with the people I've lost. Yes, I have her (my a-dad passed away 8 yrs ago), and yes, I have other children, but that does NOT mean that I don't grieve for the ones I don't have.

[Isabo]

Originally Posted by soulquest81

My birthson is almost six now. Do any other birthmothers wish that they knew that adoption grief, unlike that of death often gets worse over time? I had no idea, although I have some wonderful days and every so often days like today when I cried for no reason other than pity. A bit pathetic I know, but sometimes I feel like a lifetime of separation is worse than death, which ultimately brings unchangeable closure to a situation. .... Any thoughts?

Soulquest,

I truly believe that the loss of a child to adoption is worse than the loss of a child to death. Society supports a mother in her grief over the death of a child. They understand and embrace her. There is a funeral, and she is supported as she grieves. Everyone agrees that there is nothing worse than the loss of a child.

HOWEVER, a mother who experiences the loss of a child due to adoption is not treated the same way. We are told to get over it, move on, we will have a replacement child, it is for the best, and my personal favorite - it is God's plan (what a load of crap!!). We then are priviliged to be told any animal can give birth, giving birth doesn't make you a mother, it was your choice, someone (anyone) who is older, married, richer, more privileged, whatever, will make a better parent to your child than you will. We are told that we don't matter, that our child has a new mother now, that we are replaceable and that someone who changes a dirty diaper is a real mother, while we are not. Heck, we even get erased off of the birth certificate - while milk is still leaking from our breasts. Can you tell I feel strongly about this issue? I have been personally told or have witnessed someone saying or writing each of these things, all set forth by ignorant people who want to deny adoption loss. There is a reason why mothers are not informed about what their true loss will be - what person could bear to relinquish a child if they truly understood the trauma the separation would cause to both mother and child?

I recommend that you read a speech given on "Adoption and Loss - The Hidden Grief" given by author and reunited mother Evelyn Robinson. You can locate it using Google. I have included an excerpt below. It is very powerful and discusses disenfranchised grief in adoption:

It became obvious to me that the common models of grief counselling would not work with mothers who had lost children through adoption. I concluded that the grief resulting from the loss of a child through adoption was fundamentally different from other types of grief. I explored grief associated with abortion, with stillbirth and neo-natal death and with loss of custody. Although there were some similarities, it seemed that adoption grief was unique. I read a book called "Disenfranchised Grief" edited by Kenneth Doka. His description of disenfranchised grief was very interesting, but nowhere in his book is there any mention of the grief experienced by mothers who have lost children through adoption. I decided to apply Doka’s definition of disenfranchised grief and see if it fitted with what I already knew about adoption grief. Doka says that grief is disenfranchised when the grief is connected with a loss which cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported. He also says that in many cases of disenfranchised grief, the relationship is not recognised, the loss is not recognised or the griever is not recognised.

The loss of a child through adoption is usually a loss which cannot be openly acknowledged, which is why mothers often suffer in silence. Losing a child through adoption is seldom publicly mourned because everyone is so busy pretending that it has not happened and it certainly is not socially supported. Traditionally, community support has been very much in favour of adoption.

Doka says that people who have experienced any type of loss often feel anger, guilt, sadness, depression, hopelessness and numbness and that in cases of disenfranchised grief, these feelings can persist for a very long time. Doka states that mourners whose grief is disenfranchised are by virtue of this cut off from social supports and so have few opportunities to express and resolve their grief and that the result can be that they feel alienated from their community. Doka also says that the lack of recognition of their grief often results in them holding on to it more tenaciously than they might otherwise have done. All of that sounded very familiar to me.

Everything that I read about adoption loss from then on was informed by my conviction that the grief resulting from adoption loss was disenfranchised. I read about the role of ritual in assisting productive grieving and the purposes of funeral rites. These include; announcing the death, recognising the place which the dead person held in society, assisting the bereaved through the process of grief, delimiting the period of mourning, allowing the grievers to express their emotions publicly and allowing the members of the community to gather to support each other. Rituals provide the bereaved with a very public opportunity to grieve.

There is no formal ritual surrounding an adoption loss. There is usually no public announcement by the mother of either the birth or the loss of the child; far from it. In many cases the intention was to keep that information from as many people as possible. There is no recognition of the place which the child held in society, because the child who was born becomes a non-existent person after adoption. Once the new birth certificate is issued, that original child has no place in society because society denies that child’s existence. Generally, no one assisted the mother through the process of grief. Most mothers were not allowed to express their emotions publicly. They had to hide their feelings after the birth as they had learned to hide them throughout their pregnancies. In the case of adoption the community usually does not gather round the person who is grieving; in fact they often avoid her. There is no public outpouring of grief. There are usually no photographs, no mementoes. For mothers who lost children through adoption there were no rituals to facilitate their grieving and to provide limits to the period of mourning.

I read about intrapsychic disenfranchisement. This occurs when the mourner feels responsible for the loss and it results in feelings of shame and guilt. Because of their sense of guilt and responsibility, many mothers who lost children through adoption disenfranchised their own grief. This resulted in them feeling that they were not as good as other mothers. They felt that they were not entitled to grieve and so they suppressed their grief. As a result they cut themselves off from some possible sources of support.

I read about the role of silence in grief suppression. In many cases of adoption loss, the pregnancy was hidden and so silence was inevitable. In other cases, people knew about the baby, but it seemed as if the whole of society was part of a conspiracy of silence, with everyone pretending that it had not happened. The fact that adopted children were issued with a second birth certificate which denied the existence of their original mothers only added to the communal denial of their experience. Mothers often joined this conspiracy of silence because they interpreted this community silence as disapproval. They did not feel that it would be safe to express their grief. They felt betrayed; betrayed by a society which told them to be unselfish and give their children away for their own good and then made them feel ashamed of it afterwards.

Mothers who have lost children through adoption were never given permission to grieve. It is not surprising then that so many of them come to feel that they have never quite regained their equilibrium. I believe that all of this explains why mothers tend, in the main, to report that their sadness and anger have increased with time. Taking into account everything that we know about grief, that is to be expected. They have been denied every opportunity to perform grief work because their grief has been disenfranchised by society.

[cheryl22]

My rief 20 years ago was awful. I think I grieved for 20 years. Then to top the loss off even more I was to meet him in July and he was stabbed to death at a teen party. I was in a private adoption. I really don't think a birthmother who finds her child has died is relived at all especially the ones I have ahd contact with. I'll never get over this loss and actually ahve lost my son twice. Once through adoption and now death.

[Denise Michaels Mom]

Unfortunately, I have experienced both; losing my only child to adoption in 1969 and then to death so I know what it's like...first of all when you lose a child to adoption the pain does not lessen over time, it increases. It's a horrible feeling to know you have a child out there somewhere and you don't know his/her name, where they are, if they are happy or healthy but you still have hope. You have the hope of one day seeing them again, one day you may have the chance to explain the circumstances that lead you to such a desperate decision - putting them up for adoption. I lived with that hope for 33 years, it sustained me...don't get me wrong, my pain grew and it festered every day we were separated but at least I had something to look forward to, I had something to hold on to, that being, at some point in the future, a relationship with my lost son. So, I went into denial waiting for that glorious day when we would meet again but that day never came so, I searched for him. On May 30, 2003 I found out that he had been dead for 15 years. He was killed on May 26, 1988 (and buried on May 30th - I found him on the 15th anniversary of his funeral)...all the hopes and the dreams that once kept me sane regressed into madness, into unspeakable pain. My life came crashing down all around me; to say I was devastated is a gross understatement. For the first time in my life I feel into a clinical depression, I couldn't function. I didn't get dressed, shower, comb my hair or leave the house for weeks on end; I felt like I had nothing to live for...hopelessness is an awful thing. Yes, there are similarities between losing a child to death and to losing a child to adoption; in both cases your child is gone but the big difference is where there is life there is hope. Maybe there is closure in death when you have memories to treasure but mark my words, there is no closure in my case and I feel safe speaking for the other mothers I know who like myself has lost a child to adoption and to death, we have no hope, no closure, no memories, just broken hearts and empty arms. So, I don't believe your pain will ever go away, my advise is to resign yourself for the life long pain that losing a child to adoption heaps upon a mother for you will never forget your child. When you child turns 18 years old start to search for him....and don't stop until you find him. However, reunion doesn't take away the pain, sometimes it actually increases in reunion for you will be faced with a young man, not with the baby you lost. All that you missed and can never get back will become painfully clear to you but we can't change the past. At least you have hope...
I wish that you will someday have a wonderful reunion with your lost child. Good Luck, Denise in NJ, Michael's first mother.