“Stranger adoption should be considered a crime against humanity. It is experienced as an emotional death by the mother who does not recover; …the saddest and most horrifying aspect of adoption is the amount of emotional damage inflicted upon the natural mother. To call her the ‘birth mother’ instead of the ‘natural mother’ allows her only the physical birth and denies her those feelings she wasn’t supposed to have. By implication this makes the adoptive parents unnatural, but secret adoption cannot be considered natural when the real mother, the victim of this hit and run, is left battered shocked and damaged. Nothing could be more unnatural” – Joss Sawyer
Dear MP
Please forgive my very public addressing of you. I am going to do my best to keep this short and avoid revealing any personal details. I use only your initial and will state that I know you have a daughter. I am writing this post with a great deal of intent. I sincerely hope you find it now or in the future.
I dont know if you read my blog. I dont know if you ever looked me up. I only know that I have sent you several emails and facebook messages and you have not responded.
This does not upset me. I dont take it personal. If anything, I completely understand. More than you know. Easter House lied to me too. They made promises to me that heavily influenced my decision to surrender my only daughter to them. They also threatened me with lawsuits. Out of fear, shame and more, I gave my only daughter to them. They promised me a semi-open adoption. They told me I would get updates and pictures for my daughters entire life. I took comfort in that. In signing my rights away, I reflected that “at least” I would know how she was, if she was still alive, what she liked and what she looked like. She would be better off without me but I would know how that “better off” would play out. This never came to be. Within six months of my signing the papers the adoption was final and my daughter was forever gone from me.
But this is not about me, it is about you. Let me tell you why.
I understand some of my story is also yours. I also understand that you surrendered your daughter to Easter House under false promises. I understand they lied to you and ignored you and that perhaps, you hold your daughters adoptive parents responsible for that.
Please don’t. Your daughters adoptive parents are wonderful people. I know them. Your daughters adoptive mother is an amazing woman. She adopted three other children and all others are fully open adoptions. She views her children’s first families as an extension of her own. She wants to know you. She wants you to know your daughter. Your daughter, while only seven, is regularly asking about you.
Just this week she asked her adoptive mother if she had your phone number. When adoptive mother responded she had an old one but did not know if she had a current one your daughter replied “Well, could you find out, cuz I wanna call her”. Adoptive mom asked daughter what she would say to you. Your daughter responded that she would ask you if your last name was X (her unamended last name) and if you answered “yes” she was going to tell you that you were her birth mother. Adoptive mother smiled and asked “well, then what would you say?”. Your daughter said “Well, if she said yes, I would say “well, hi, it is very nice to meet you again”.
M, your daughter wants to know you. She needs to know you. I am going to guess your lack of response to me and your daughters adoptive mother is rooted in anger, fear, pain, anxiety and more. I know the pain the loss of my daughter has caused me. I know how it has effected every aspect of my life. Your daughter is only seven. Mine will be 24. I found her five years ago and have yet to meet her. She doesn’t want to meet me. She doesn’t want to know her half brothers or her medical history. She wants to pretend I don’t exist.
I don’t know why this is but again, I am going to guess that it is too painful for my daughter. It is easier to avoid me than deal with the pain of what happened to both of us. It is easier to stay in one life than integrate two. I am going to guess you are doing this too.
You have a chance here M. You have an opportunity here. You can minimize the future pain for both of you. Oh, how I wish I had that chance.
Your daughter is beautiful. Her hair, her smile, her face, is clearly yours. You would be so proud of her.
I may sound like I am begging. May be I am. Maybe I am envious of the situation you don’t even know you are in. Maybe I am older and wiser and don’t want younger mothers to make the mistakes I did. Whatever it is, please know that I, and your daughters mother, and even your daughter have only your best interests at heart. They want to respect your boundaries, your needs, while trying to manage their own. (I know this all too well). They wont push. They wont demand. They will wait. But what happens in that waiting period? What does your daughter feel like each year that passes and you don’t respond. How does that affect her? What does she falsely interpret? How does she handle the fact that her three adopted siblings have their first families in their lives but she does not? She is clearly bright but she is still a child. A child that is not likely to understand that her first mother is hurting too and is not responding for reasons of her own. Reasons that may have nothing at all to do with the child and her adoptive family.
Oh MP. My heart aches for you, for your daughter, for me and for my daughter.
I have friends, experienced first mothers and adoptive mothers, who can help you with opening an adoption that should never have been closed. Easter House lied and closed it – not your daughters adoptive parents. I know people you can talk to. I know people who will understand your situation far better than I do. Please MP Now or in the future, please consider letting your daughter and her adoptive family into your heart.
You are already in theirs.
Happy Holidays.