29 Things I Wish I Knew Before Adoption Entered my Life

29 Things I Wish I Knew Before Adoption Entered my Life

Written by First Mother, Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy has been online and involved in the adoption community since early in 2001. She originally began independently researching adoption issues in preparation of the successful search and reunion with her own son, Max, whom was placed for adoption in 1987.

This Grown in My Heart Adoption Carnival Topic was supposed to be “10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was Touched By Adoption”, but I can’t use the feel good wording of “touched”.
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I was not touched by adoption, it’s more like torched, trampled, traumatized, terrorized, tortured, and torn apart by adoption.

Overall, I feel like I allowed the destructive force of adoption into my life.

maxbabybaloonAdoption was almost more like a crack that happened in my soul. A crack that I thought and was encouraged to believe would be temporary or always below the surface. Over time, the rest of life worked its way in, like water in cement, and caused the  

So that gives me number one on my list; the rest is really really easy and I can, also quite easily go on and on, but this carnival only called for the ten things we wish we could have known.. I think I just have to go over it.
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  1. I wish I knew that relinquishing my child to adoption was not a one-time event that I would recover from by the most major life-altering “decision” that would alter the very course of my existence for the rest of my life.
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  2. I wish I knew that adoption would not be a decision made entirely by me and affect only me, but would have life-altering implications across the entire berth of my family. I thought nothing of how it would affect my mother, my brother, and of course my children, both the one that I relinquished and the children I had later on.
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  3. I wish I had known what I really was giving up when I relinquished my Max. I understood the concept of a baby, but I had no clue what it really meant to be a mother. I could decide to give up something that I never had to begin with.. or something that I never let myself have a chance to really experience.
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  4. I wish I had known that public assistance, social services, paternity, child support, and all manners of help in general was nothing to be ashamed of, to be afraid of asking for or receiving or something that made me less of a person. I still think about my adoption counselor explaining to me rather briefly how I “could” keep my baby and go on welfare and how very horrified I was of that thought and I never even attempted to consider it.
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  5. I wish I had known how it would feel to know for the rest of my life that I had assisted in denying a man the right to have a relationship with his only child. Had I thought through the ethical complications and moral obligation to the truth and this man’s rights, then I would not have to live with the knowledge of how I horribly and inexcusable wronged another human being.
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  6. I wish I had known that I was strong and capable and worthy of being the mother that I was meant to be. The normal self-doubts of a young person basically untried by life were not bolstered in the face of adversity, but rather exasperated and exploited.
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  7. I wish I had known that it was not my job, nor obligation to make another couple’s “dreams of a family” come true. I wish I had known that I should not have taken pride nor comfort or some sick sense of self-satisfaction by allowing other people’s needs to go before my own, not that I have an issue about giving of one’s self. I donate my knowledge, I give my time, I volunteer; but a child is not giving of oneself, an adoption is giving of another.. a child. I had no right to do that.
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  8. I wish I had known that my son’s parents would not be quite as grateful and thankful to me as I had expected, hoped or been lead to believe. I wish I was not quite as disappointed that they just won’t speak to me and I have the distinct feeling that they really would just like me to go back away. I wish that didn’t hurt.
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  9. I wish I had known that children really aren’t interchangeable. Just because one party wants something and another party isn’t so sure, doesn’t mean that we can switch things about and pretend we are God and it will work out OK.
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  10. I wish I had known that my son had basic rights to his family, his truth, his heritage, his father, his siblings, and me; more than I ever gave us credit for. To think that I could have thought so little of myself, my family, and all the individual traits and histories that make us unique and THAT could have been replaced with a one-paragraph bio and a few pictures is so insulting to every ancestor that breathed before me.
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  11. I wish I had known that you cannot re-write life as it comes to you. That we can’t cheat it and pretend that things happened differently than we would have liked. And sometimes, most times, given time time what seemed to be a disaster is actually part of making things work out exactly as they should, but we just don’t know it yet. I wish I had learned to just accept things as they come and live the hand that was dealt to me even if it meant being a mother at 19.. because I was a mother at 19!
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  12. I wish I had known that it was possible to love most fiercely and deeply someone that you haven’t ever really met. I wish I had known that I would know my son before I got to meet him again. That I would know his face and it would be so familiar to me. I would know his smell and I would need it to breathe. That I would know and understand how he felt, thought, and would react just because I knew…way before I ever knew.
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  13. I wish I had known how much it would suck to hear my other kids say things like” I forget what Max looks like”, or “I don’t feel like I have another brother,” or “If we got real poor would you have to give us away, too?”
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  14. I wish I had known that adoption, which was supposed to preserve my teenage way of life, turned out to be something that completely changed my entire life and here I am, over 20 years later and adoption is still a major factor in my daily existence, my thoughts, my dreams and, even worse, is also a factor in my whole family’s lives as well.
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  15. I wish I had known that genetics really play a huge portion of who we are and that things like our mutual love of pirates, combat boots, Mohawksand died hair, alternative music, god in the woods, being buried in plain pine boxes, Dr. Pepper, Boston cream donuts, thunderstorms, reading, and writing with these dern dots…. was all part of who he was before he was born. I wish I knew that my genes had carried more than the color of his skin and the familiar look of our feet and it was something that irreplaceable.
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  16. I wish I had known that not every adoptee thinks that being placed for adoption was the best thing since sliced bread, are not grateful, are not happier to have a bigger house, and sometimes, can be quite adversely affected by the whole experience. It was really hard to accept that the thing that I thought was “best” could have actually been much worse.
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  17. I wish I had known that there is no real “ready” to become a mother and that the mythology of motherhood as our society has crafted is a vicious losing situation. I wish I had known how easy it is for us to turn on each other and judge our fellow sisters because we are all so concerned about getting it wrong and not being the best supermom on the block.
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  18. I wish I had known that it was going to be crazy hard this way, being a birthmother, and that all the pain and sacrifices and sleeplessness would be coming to me anyway, but without the joys and pleasures of being with my child. I wish I had known that I would have wanted to make it work, that it would have been worth it to give up the fun.
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  19. I wish I had known that Fear is never a good basis for making a decision.
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  20. I wish I had known that the “scandal” was all in my head and that within six months no one would have cared much less remembered. I wish I had realized that my family would not have thought that I was a piece of poop for ver but would have loved and adored my baby as I would have.
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  21. I wish I had known that having a baby at 19 would not have “ruined my life”, that being a mother at 19 would not have “ruined my life” and that adoption, well it pretty much ruined my life .. or at least got closer to ruining my life s anything else ever did.
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  22. I wish I had known that school could have been put off a few years, but my motherhood was happening now.
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  23. I wish I had known that I was being exploited and enabled and I walked right into it.
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  24. I wish I had known that adoption was not glamorous or romantic, but that life being a birthmother pretty much sucks.
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  25. I wish I had known that the adoption agency really didn’t have my best interest at heart and they weren’t my best friends and I shouldn’t have worried about making them proud by being the “best darn birthmother” and following all the rules.
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  26. I wish I had known that putting everyone else’s wants and needs before mine for almost 20 years did not make me better, nor stronger, nor noble, nor brave and didn’t get me a key to heaven.
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  27. I wish I had known that a piece of paper would not make me an un-mother.
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  28. I wish I had known how much it would really really hurt and how, really, even after reunion, there is no normal and it is never over.
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  29. And then one final wish that I still have now; of all the things in my life and all the mistakes and bad decisions I have made, with all the missteps and situations that came to me, whether by my own hand or been done by wrong by someone else; I wish there was a way to change the past and make just this one thing all go away.
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I wish I had never let adoption into my life.

10 Recommendations for Birth Mothers: With Love From a Birth Mother who knows!

10 Recommendations for Birth Mothers: With Love From a Birth Mother who knows!

10 Recommendations for Birth Mothers
For a Successful and “Responsible” Reunion
By Sarah Burns
18 years in Reunion

1. At the very start, seek professional help or a support group: you can find professional help through individual therapy or find help in support groups. (You WILL need it and it WILL help!)

2. Remember that you and your son/daughter are both reclaiming lost parts of yourselves as you develop a NEW relationship, growing out of an OLD one.

3. Try to understand that the reason your son or daughter may want to reunite with you is to meet his/her own needs, but not necessarily to hear about your pain. You can share that elsewhere.

4. Reclaim your parental role in small but significant ways by stating your hoped-for desires, goals, and preferences. Don’t be afraid, to be honest, and sincere and to be who you are.

5. Do not approach the relationship as a beggar or supplicant (e.g., “with hat in hand’) and never make emotional, financial, or other demands of your child.

6. Know that you can’t do the work for each other. Give the relationship the time, the nurturing, and the respect it needs to be developed or restored. Know that even if you are rejected, you’ll still have established rapport, and your son/daughter will know you care, that you’re there to stay, and you’ll be there for them, no matter what!

7. Don’t pressure your son/daughter to assume that role, or to accept you as their mother or their children’s grandmother – if they are not comfortable with you taking on that role! “Give time time” as things might change and improve and decisions made now might change later.

8. Exercise choice in other areas of your life when you feel you lack control in this one; it will help you practice being more patient, accepting, and empathetic.

9. Let your child know you are sorry you gave them up. Then go on to be the person you are: a competent, caring, attractive woman worthy of respect.

10. Channel your anger and frustration into action to make changes for other women who are considering adoption or who have surrendered a child, so that you can move from being a victim to becoming a brave and proud warrior.


Join a Mothers of Loss Support Group HERE

Join Celia Center’s Support Groups to Hear from An Adoptee’s Point of View HERE

Listen to Birthmother’s Share their stories HERE

Learn more about Reunion in Adoption HERE

A First Birth Mother’s Heartfelt Poetry by Alison

A First Birth Mother’s Heartfelt Poetry by Alison

5 hours left…to tell my parents about you..
Today mocks my delicate mood
The clouds cry for me and together we brood
The air is calm and comfortable
But inside there’s a storm
My inside is real but outside I must perform
Everything is bleak and gray
My problems shall forever stay
I only have five hours left to keep my secrets
My tears will resemble the purest garnets
As I break down to tell my sob story
I’ll bloom at the end of the night, only for a small while, like a morning glory
5 hours left to live my life
Later I’ll be caught drowning in strife
Which the clouds cried a roaring river
I dove from the boat without signing the waiver
Now the ice water stampedes over my head
Some try to reach my, but the water pulls me deeper instead
A pestilence chokes its way down my throat
The angle of death stares at my to gloat
She won’t take me but tease me at arm’s length
I’m losing my grip as this secret drains all my strength
5 hours left for everything to be the same
5 hours left to prepare for today’s later pain
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The Bottle
Since that day, it’s been 16 years
That whole time, I buried my tears
With them, I filled a bottle
Combined with things that were simply awful
It was tightly capped, to make it all stop
But the pressure rose, as it filled to the top
The first layer was superficial
Day to day worries, that meant very little
They were a distraction for what laid underneath
Not far below, was my hidden grief
A layer of secrets that ravaged my body
Even though my mind stayed cloudy and foggy
This layer was older, it started at 8
Starting a cycle that decided my fate
The next layer and the decades that followed
Reinforced my need to keep it all bottled
Mixed throughout were life’s other struggles
Through which my tears continued to muddle
At the bottom was a pain
That shall forever stay
That is until I meet you someday
This layer was shoved to the bottom
With something I tried not to think about often
Compounded so hard, the tears couldn’t reach
Even though the pain continued to screech
Finally, I cracked it open
As the pain fizzled out, it let the hope in
At the bottom, this final layer was stuck
I thought about throwing it in the garbage truck
But I know I have to clean it out
No matter how much my pain might shout
Eventually, the bottle will dry
And finally, I’ll bloom like a butterfly
After 18 years, I’ll finally be ready
To fly with you, and keep you steady
I’ll take the bottle, and throw it in the ocean
Watching it drift away in the waves and their motion
We will watch the sunrise over the horizon
Together our days will begin to brighten
On grass, we will lay and look at the stars
As the clouds and storm eventually clears
To show us the sky as we watch together
And I can finally be your mother
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Another day
Another day I sit and wonder how you are
More and more time I spend daydreaming my life away
My heart is spilled
Yet filled with your love
My stomach is empty
yet filled with knots
My fists are clenched
Yet open and waiting
My eyes are dry
Yet tears flow inside
My heart is broken
Yet sewing itself up
My mouth is screaming
Yet no sound escapes
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The Picture … the first time I saw her as a teenager
A picture of you
A glimmer of hope
My days have been dark
Finally, you bring light
Like a look in the mirror
I can’t believe what I see
I know it’s the truth
Deep in my soul
My body speaks with authenticity
Joy fills my lungs
And my heart begins to sing
An impossibility becomes reality
I’ve awoken
And I’m still in a dream
I wonder if you feel me
Looking into your eyes
From a distance so far
But at my fingertips
As the time ticks away
And space shortens
The day will come

When a picture comes to life

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Utter heartbreak 
A girl, a child, a mother
Who cannot seem to speak
But actions talk of pain and despair
A piece of her soul, her heart, is missing
It was carved out on a bleak November day
And left in the half-melted snow
To bleed down the sidewalk
And eventually dry
Flaking off in the wind
Leaving no trace
Seemingly gone, lost forever
The void filled with the heaviest emptiness
There was nothing there
But it weighed three tons
Incapable of moving
Unable to breathe
Crushed by the weight

Of ultimate loss

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Searching online… 
Looking for you and I wonder
Are you looking for me?
Showering through pages
And clawing through words
That feel like a mountain
But end so abruptly
Cracking a code
Clues lead to nowhere
The only path is a bridge
That I cannot seem to cross
Maybe more notes
Can show me the way
Regardless there’s someone
I can’t walk past
You’re there, somewhere
On the other side
Can you feel me
Searching for you?