Factors Influencing Adoption Reunions

There are a number of factors that influence the possibility of a reunion taking place. Some of those factors also influence the intensity or character of adoption reunion experiences and relationships after reunion.  These are some of the factors that may influence reunion outcomes.

Readiness of Both Parties

If both mother and adopted adults are ready and eager to know each other, contact will be much easier. However, if one of the parties is resistant or has not been thinking about reunion the process will most likely have more issues to work through and therefore will most likely take more time to achieve.

Current Personal Circumstances

The current situation in each person’s life can influence if and how a reunion progresses. If he or she has just married, had a child, started a new career, or just experienced a considerable loss, he or she may not have the emotional energy to devote to reunion, or may become overwhelmed by taking on too much, as reunion is “all absorbing” , at least in the early stages of contact.

You may have found your child, but he or she is still a minor. Your child is still under the care and control of his or her adoptive parents and without their involvement it would be unwise to proceed with a reunion at this time. You must also want to consider the impact on your child and his or her life and proceed with caution depending on the age of your child and what they may be involved in right now. Would your child be in the middle of exams just now? Is your child just going through puberty right now? Has your child just started high school? It is wise to give some thought about what your child’s circumstances might be and the involvement of the adoptive parents before you proceed.

It may be wise to put a new relationship on hold if current personal circumstances do not allow for the extra emotional commitment necessary for a healthy reunion right at this time.

Most mothers of the 60’s Scoop in Canada were told “never to tell their secret” to anyone when they left the hospital without their children. These mothers were so traumatized that many still live in secrecy and shame from the birth of their child. Their fear of telling is insurmountable for some of them. Many of these mothers could be in 30 or 40 year marriages and have never told their husbands of their “shameful secret.”

Your parent may be very elderly, and it is important to consider the impact of reunion on the health or well being of that parent.  If possible in this case it might be wise to contact a natural sibling first to see if a reunion is possible.

Time

The use of time in reunion is very important. Many reunions go awry when people become impatient. It is important to allow the other party to let information “sink in” and allow them to process new information and formulate questions and identify feelings surrounding the new information. By “pushing” for contact or for a response to you on any issues you may be “pushing your loved one away.” Ask the other party if they need time to digest what you have just discussed before you call again, or write again…go by their answer.

Age and Gender of Reunion Members

Where each person is in their life cycle can have a bearing on how they handle intense feelings, if they are ready and willing to form new relationships, or if they have the capacity to enter into a reunion. Very elderly people for example, would be less likely to take on something new and difficult.

Young adults who are adopted might find another set of parents is the last thing they want right now, or that their friends take precedence to any family including reuniting with new family members.

Reactions of Important People

The feelings and reactions of each person’s family and friends can influence a reunion. No one wishes to jeopardize their current relationships. If there is a great deal of stress created for an important person or people, the reunion may have to be slowed down while those issues are addressed. For example: if a Mother has not told her current family that she has another child, or if an Adopted Person was not told of their adoption, it will likely take more time and patience for a reunion to proceed as these issues are worked through, and the relationships of those family and friends are nurtured with respect to reunion issues.

Understanding the Past

Having an understanding of how adoption was handled in Canada in the past will have a very important influence ion how adopted adults approach their natural mothers. Their mothers are not “birthmothers” who “gave them away.”  Understanding this very important distinction and the intense emotions and deep scars that are their mothers’ reality and truth can be very helpful in creating healthy reunions.

Reunions usually bring up a number of intense feelings from the past, feelings that natural mothers in particular, have most probably repressed for years. These often long hidden deep scars are very painful to open up again and fear may be ever present for those mothers to revisit those painful memories and the trauma of losing their child in the way they did. The secrecy and shame piled on top of the trauma makes it very difficult for them. Reunion, however difficult emotionally, begins the process of healing those wounds. For some, the wounds of the past are so intense, and so difficult, they feel they cannot take the chance of opening “the vault” and rejection of their loved ones is the outcome.

Motivation For Reunion

Why Find Your Relative Lost to Adoption?

It is simply natural for you to want to find your child or for your child to want to find you. You were bonded and that bond was broken…

For mothers, you have always been your child’s mother and you have thought about them and loved them since the day they were born and before…for most mothers, they have worried and wanted to know if their child is alright…if their child is ok in the world. They search because they are mothers and have lost their children. As a mother, you have a right to reconnect with your child lost to adoption. You do not have to feel that you may be interrupting his or her life. You have a right. You are a mother.

For many adopted persons, it is important for them to find out the answer to why – why did their mother leave them? They also have the need to find a part of themselves that has, up until now, been denied to them, their history.

Expectations

You should consider what you are expecting from a reunion. What kind of relationship do you expect and/or hope will develop? If you are adopted, have you given thought about the fact that you will be finding not just your mother, but a whole family that may include other siblings and relatives? Have you considered the problems that might arise if your expectations are different from those of the person you are searching for? What would be your greatest desire? What would be your worst disappointment? It is important for you, as an individual to give some thought about your reunion expectations.

For mothers it is important to remember that your child is now an adult and has no conscious memory of you in their lives …  they have no experience being your child so do not expect him or her to act as if they did. Although they do have an unconscious memory of you and may have suffered the primal wound of being separated from you … they do not have an actual experience of you. On the other hand, you DO have conscious memories of being pregnant, bonding with your child as he/she grew in your body, giving birth to your child and being your child’s mother since then. This is a fact which is indisputable. However, it is important not to expect too much right away and to give your now grown son or daughter sensitivity and time and space to settle in with this new experience of having you in their life.

Those that have very strong expectations of any type may be disappointed … it is probably best to try not to have too many expectations…just go with the flow … it is okay to have a “wish list,” but better to go slow and see if your wishes are realistic as things unfold.

Telling Others/Effects On Others

It is important for you to give some thought about how your reunion will affect the other members of your immediate and extended family. If you are married, is your spouse supportive of the reunion? Do your children know and understand what is happening? Is their relationship to the person you are going to meet clear to them? Mothers, your parents were most probably a big factor in the adoption…how do they feel about reuniting with their grandson/granddaughter? How do adoptive parents feel about the reunion? Frequently family members can feel left out when a person becomes caught up in the emotion and excitement of meeting their natural families.

It is also important to note that no matter what, you have the right to go ahead with your adoption reunion plans whether or not those close to you support your actions. It would be nice to have their support and it would make things easier, and more joyful, but it is not necessary. You have the absolute right to reunite with your son/daughter/mother without reference to any other person or how they feel or what their opinion might be on the matter.

If your family is not supportive of your search and reunion plans, find a friend or counsellor to support you.

On “Others” – For Adoptive Persons

One of the difficulties adopted persons sometimes struggle with is telling their adoptive parents of their need to find their natural families. Many adopted persons feel guilty or feel that they may be hurting the feelings of their adoptive parents. They may also believe that that they may be considered “ungrateful” or that searching means there was something lacking in the parenting of the adopters. Adopted persons quite often believe that their adoptive parents would either be against the idea of reunion or hurt by it, and that is not always the case, particularly in more recent adoptions. However, some adoptive parents can be quite against reunion. In the closed adoptions of the Baby Scoop Era (1955-1985), the adoptive parents may be more threatened by this idea as their entire existence has been a myth told to them by the adoption industry of “as if born to,” and they find it hard to come to terms with the fact that their child has another family in the world who loves them and misses them. It would be nice to have the support of adoptive parents, but if not, then it is still okay to go ahead with your reunion plans.

The right of the adopted person to know their natural families and know their true identity is a right that supersedes all others. Adopted persons have a need and a right to find their natural families, and they should not feel any guilt in exercising that right…..it is “nature longing for itself.”

On “Others” – For Natural Mothers

Natural mothers face a different kind of difficulty. Many mothers were told to “keep their child a secret and never tell anyone” when they surrendered to the pressures of society, and many mother to this day have kept that “40 Year Secret.” Some may be married for 35 or 40 years and they have never told their husbands, or even their sisters and brothers. They have not told their subsequent children about this secret they have carried alone for so long. It is one of the most difficult things to do…to open that vault and tell that secret, especially to someone who thought they knew everything about you for 40 years. It takes great courage to do this, and it is a very difficult thing to do. Some mothers simply do not have that kind of courage. This represents the small percentage of mothers who put vetoes on adoption files and reject reunion overtures. Their fear is too great for them to overcome. Many more mothers do find the courage, and do tell their secret in order to reunite with their child. Most of them find continuing support from their families after the initial shock of the new information.

Mothers you have a right to know your child lost to adoption, and he or she may be seeking you and needs you in order to complete himself/herself. Do not deny yourself and your child this right to start to heal. Find the courage to tell your secret, the one locked so heavily in your heart, the one that wears you down day after day, the one you are so used to having you think living with a heavy heart is normal.

Understanding the Emotions Associated With Reunion

To understand the difficult array of emotion that comes with adoption reunion, one must first understand the original loss.

For Mothers

For mothers, they lost their child, perhaps shortly after birth. For many mothers they were kept away from their children in hospitals, or other settings, unable to see them or touch them after birth, for some the actual primal act of birth was interrupted and no eye contact allowed with their babies a wound in their psyche from which no mother was able to recover. For others they held them and fed them and then they were lost to them. As a group they were hidden, shamed, chastised, ridiculed, assaulted, punished, ostracized from society, shunned, and then thrown away after birth. Then they were further victimized as they were labelled “the kind of woman who could give away her own baby” after the pressure and coercion of the adoption agenda that was brought to bear upon her.  She was alone, vulnerable, frightened and helpless against the pillars of society … the churches, the Children’s Aid Societies, the doctors, the nurses, the social workers, the matrons in the maternity homes, the hospital staff, and even her own parents. These facts and the secrecy to which she was sworn are a deep wound which she has lived with since the day you were taken form her. This is the wound she risks opening just to be with you again.

A mother may feel:

• Joy … to think she may be reunited with her child
• Grief … years and years of disenfranchised and unresolved grief over the loss of her child
• Shame …  ashamed of the sin of being an “unwed mother”
• Terror … to tell the secret to which she was sworn so many years ago and which she has kept
• Fear …  of opening the “vault” of memories and emotions, fear of reprisal, fear her child will judge her
• Unworthy … to intrude into her child’s life

For Adopted Persons

Adopted persons have lived their entire lives knowing that they did not belong with their adoptive families. They worked hard to be accepted and to do what was required of them.

They were victims of the primal wound of separation from their mothers at birth. They bonded with their mothers; they knew their mothers smell, breathing, voice, touch and then suddenly they were taken away from her. Their cells have the memory of their mother and their loss. They were never consoled for the loss of their mother. They were expected to become someone else, take on another identity. Their original identity was stolen from them and their records have been kept from them in most provinces in Canada and this is still the case. They were issued false birth certificates in new names which were not theirs, and they were expected to act “as if born to” their adoptive parents and live up to the expectation of their ideal of a family. They have wondered all their lives about their origins, about their mother. They have felt abandoned, and they have trust issues. They are adopted. They have no medical or family history. They are adopted. That is all they know about themselves.

The adopted person may feel:

• Lonely …  in the sense that they are “alone in the world” without their natural family to validate their history and their future.
• Abandoned … by his/her mother
• Hurt … deeply to the core that their mother left them. Imagine being a little child by the roadside left there by their mother – imagine how you might feel – this is deep inconsolable hurt that an adopted person feels.
• Angry… that they were left by their mother and that they had to “pretend” their whole life and no one cared about how they felt about losing their “real” mother.  Angry with their mother for leaving them. Angry with their adoptive parents for not understanding them.
• Fear … of their fantasy of their mother being destroyed. Fear of being rejected again.
• Rejected … by their mother because she left him/her
• Unlovable … to their mother because she left him/her
• Guilt … for searching for their mother as it may hurt their adoptive parents , or that they will be considered “ungrateful” by their adoptive parents if they search.

Sources:

Birthright: The Guide to Search and Reunion, by Jean Strauss. (Penguin, 1994). ISBN: 0140512950
Adoption Healing: A Path to Recovery for Adoptees, by Joe Soll. (New York: Adoption Crossroads, 2000). ISBN 0967839009
Adoption Healing: A Path to Recovery For Mothers Who Lost Children to Adoption, by Joe Soll and Karen Wilson Buterbaugh. (Gateway Press, 2003). ISBN 0-9678-3901-7.
The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child, by Nancy Verrier. (Publisher: Author, 1993). ISBN 0963648004.
“Your Children” by Abreah Karam
Toronto CAS Disclosure Package
“Reunion Relationships” by Marlou Russell, Ph.D.