[mom of 2]

I am an extremely honest ,upfront person.I am using this forum to be real and not keep things bottled inside .What you see is what you get. i would rather process this here than hide and manipulate and have unresolved guilt. i love my son and regardless of how he reacts ,that won't change.I meant it when I said I would never be a mystery,i just did not anticipate him ever feeling like contacting me was an act of disloyalty.It saddens me that I am being such a baby about this ,it just has been such a shock

[dpen6]

mom,

Your not being harsh...but you are taking the "disloyality" thing to personal. The mother he has now is the only mother he knows, any child that has had a good upbringing and realtionship with their parents don't want to be disloyal, or hurt their parents....thats normal, its not co-dependent or pathological...its normal. As much as you "know" him and love him , he has NO memeory of you, it doesn't mean your less then or more then...its just the way it is.

Just as there are some birthmothers that don't want to open the door to their feelings regarding the adoption, there are adoptees that don't either. he may need time to process and understand his place in all of this, no matterwaht the circumstance or his adoption he only knows one mother and to introduce you can be extermly confusing.

AS strange as this may sound, its not you personally he is not having contact with...its the whole situation that he is avoiding at this time, he needs to do this in order to be at a better place when he is ready to meet.

You said he is married with a child....its still very young with lots of resonability, maybe he is very busy with that and can not add bringing this up too.

[mom of 2]

Why is it disloyal to meet your birth mom????

[browneyes0707]

It might not be a question of loyalty. It may be that he's just not ready, he's overwhelmed with a newborn, it's so hard to say. It's hard when you don't know the answers, I understand that. You can beat yourself up wondering about the unknown!! Have faith it will all work out in the long run, and I will pray it does for you! But in the meantime, know you are not alone!!!

[dpen6]

It feels disloyal because we know only one mom...is ANyONE expecting us to feel daughterly/sonlike to this person that really is a stranger/ Willl my mom at some deep place be hurt, fearful, that I will try to replace her, will my mom feel at some level that she wasn't good enough, will my mom be hyrt....all because of me and the act of meeitng this "other mother". Is any of that necessalirly true...no...but those are fears for some of us. It really gave me a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach...the fear of hurting my mom. No, she did not manipulate me into this, no she was not controlling, it all came from me.
Will I be a bad daughter/...the ability to hurt her is very real and from one that was brought up nicely it was a huge fear. Does not kept children have a fear of hurting their mothers.....the level of hurt here is huge ...I would be playing with our mother/daughter bond.

[mom of 2]

I am also an adoptee as well as being a birth mom,thanks for your insights.i did not feel like I was initially betraying my a parents as it wore on because my b mom never communicated in any way with my adopted parents,I began to feel like i was in the middle of a triangle,but initially i just wanted to talk to my b mom and see her face...That is why I have had a hard time understanding this with my son...So i needed to hear another point of view

[zxczxcasdasd]

The fact that he's male may have something to do with why he is handling this differenly than you did with your adoption. From what I've read here, it's not uncommon for male adoptees to either not be interested, or not be open to contact, or at least not until their 30's. My son isn't. We are open to it and have all the contact info, but he doesn't want it. She emailed and after thinking a month, he said he doesn't want contact. I've suggested he even just email to ask for his ethnic heritage. But he doesn't want to. He says he likes that it's "a mystery." I don't know when he will feel differently. But it's for him alone to decide. In the meantime, I know that his bmom feels much the same as you do. As much as I can sympathize with her pain and anger, I have to let my son determine this for himself and leave it in his hands. That's all any of us can do. He didn't ask for the situation, and he should be allowed to decide when and whether contact with his bmom is something he wants for his life.

I know that doesn't make you hurt any less that there are many other bmoms whose bsons take much longer to be open to contact, but remember that you are working from your feelings and your timetable and he is working from his. You have to both be willing for reunion, you can't reason or convince him into it. If you push, it will likely push him away. As hard as it is, you have to respect his right to decide for himself without making negative assumptions about his decision.

That's what's so great about this place. There are others here waiting and wondering and trying to stay sane and positive in the meantime, so that you are not alone in this. Please try not to go down a negative road in your mind or let your frustration lead you to put your wants and expectations on him or drive yourself crazy. You can only offer yourself in openness. You can't control his response.

Just make sure he has your contact info and let him know you will be happy to hear from him when he is ready. I know some other bmoms who stay busy and productive during the wait by making family history scrapbooks for their bson or daughter, organizing family trees, etc.

I am sure it is a great grief and struggle to have waited all this time and then reach out and be told no. I'm sure you are just trying to understand WHY NOT CONTACT??? What's wrong with it??? There may not be anything wrong with it, except that he just doesn't want it now.

Please try to focus on staying healthy and drawing on the support of others in the same situation. You can't make him ready for contact, but you can take care of yourself until he is. Hang in there. God bless you.

[carolynppk]

For me, this is where I feel disloyalty comes in. I was adopted as an infant five days old. My amom is the only mother I have ever had. From the moment she got me, I was hers. She had loved me since she first thought of me, before she even knew I existed. I have always felt like it has never been hard for me to accept this person, who was not biologically my mother, as my mom. She is the only mother I have ever known, she has done everything with me a mother does, the only thing she did not do was carry me for nine months and give birth to me. I think it would be harder to take a child you know is not yours and accept them as your very own. But I am not an adoptive mother, this is just MY perspective. Looking at things from my mom's perspective, I would feel a little hurt, scared, apprehensive in my child looking for their biological mother. After all, this is the one person who was able to give me the one thing she couldn't: life. My mom is my mom and I would never want to do anything to hurt her. I can't put it into words, but what if some woman came up to your door and wanted to have a relationship with your daughter, as her mother? A little scary, no matter how secure the relationship.

Obviously, I have gone through this because I have reunited with my bmother. I think what made things go so smooth, that isn't to say my mom at times did not feel a little insecure, understandably, was the fact that 1) my mom is a social worker and has always made it known to me I was adopted and has always spoken very open and honestly to me, and 2) Diane (my bmom) is a mother herself and has said she knows how protective she would feel if someone came to her door wanting a relationship with one of her daughters. She has a great understanding of how difficult all of this must be on my mom. What has this gotten all of us. Well, my mom has met Diane on a couple of occassions and thinks she is wonderful. They have corresponded to one another on occassion. I think everyone having respect for the other and their fears has helped immensely.

I am not saying you do not have a place, you do, a very important place. I used to feel that my bmom was not my mother in any way, I loved her, but I never viewed her as my mother. Now after being a mother of six myself I realize you cannot carry a child for nine months and place them out of love and doing what is truly in their best interest without being a mother. So Diane is my mother, too. She is my first mother and I love her for that.

It takes time for it all to fall into place. I think a year and a half later, my mother feels much more at ease. She sees that no one is going anywhere, our realtionship has not changed any, and that really this is more extended family . It just takes time to get there.

Good luck, I know he comes tomorrow. Just take a deep breath and remember to take it slow and know you have found him, you have the rest of your life before you. If you read or learn anything from here, rushing and going too fast tend to have things backfire and end quickly. It is very emotional and personal for each person involved. We all come from different places, so to move slowly, even though we want to rush in, (believe me, I know, I am the queen of rush ) it is better to go in small steps. Have a great weekend with him. Congratulations!

Caolyn