Any adult adoptees having their first baby? - Page 2

[Polliwog]

That's where you posted. You're fine.

[tiffani]

Originally Posted by Lollybrat

Tiffani, I know you said you don't plan to continue this conversation, but I think it is relative to the topic of the thread.

I just didn't want to interrupt with my adoptive parent defensiveness... ya'll must get sick of that.

Originally Posted by Lollybrat

My point is that adoption is a huge factor in parent-child relationships, but not only because of attachment issues. You can't expect a strong parent-child bond to erase the losses the child has already experienced. Those losses last for a lifetime.

I totally agree, and understand that completely. What I was mainly disagreeing with is the idea that adoptions shouldn't happen when there are bio kids in the family, but obviously people who have had a hard time with that situation have every reason to feel that way, and I would love to hear more about that from those of you in 'mixed' families. Our whole family understands the trauma already inflicted on our bubs -- we have gone to crazy lengths to adopt these kids, but it is NOTHING compared to what they've gone through already. Suffice it to say I agree wholeheartedly with everything you've said, and appreciate your sharing it. I hope to have as strong a relationship with ALL of my kids as you have with your parents.

[Skim]

laurski, thank you for seeking out other adoptees for our perspectives. I, too, am an adult adoptee adopted through a closed adoption in 1969. I did a search for my birthfamily after my first dd was born, and found lots of dead maternal relatives and nothing about my birthfather or his family except that he is dead, too. I have a surviving maternal aunt, and a cousin. That is it.

But. I met my aunt and it was shocking to meet someone, as a friend put it, whose brain is organized the same way. My adoptive family and I never really understood each other; so many times we just looked at each other and in the process of trying to understand each other just scratched our heads. Of course, I felt that my parents believed they actually understood what I was going through at moments of conflict and growth, but in fact at those times they were the most distant from me. My aunt and I share a lot about the way we look at the world and what we believe, even though we didn't meet until I was in my 30s and she is now around 50.

Granted, our biological families are not always havens of understanding and love. I know this deeply from my own adoptive parents' family stories. Culture and parenting do have an effect on how we bond with our birth families, and how we feel about intimacy with others.

And it is definitely possible to love your adoptive family, have a baby and love that baby, cherish your adoptive family, and still grieve for all that you lose when you are adopted out from your birth family. Especially after you have your first baby. Truly, I didn't anticipate how big and powerful those feelings would be after dd1 was born - how I grieved for the lost connections, the opportunity to smell my birth mother, nurse, snuggle. To have all those things I did with my dd. I have had many moments of feeling completely betrayed by a culture that believes separating babies from mothers is better than doing anything possible to support those mothers before approving adoptions.

And I was lucky; I am white and I was adopted by a white family of similar cultural identities. I didn't have to lose my country of origin, my language of origin, my culture, my ancestors, or my religion of origin. I grieved a lot for many things after the birth of dd1, and this made me much clearer on what I believe to be the roles of mothers and families, and my own role within my own families. I don't envy the parents who adopt children; cultivating intimacy is very difficult even with physical connection. And helping an adoptee through their grief, supporting them, is so important. Really, I didn't know how much I had lost until I had a baby.

So the short answer is that I loved my baby like no one else I had loved before, even DP. She shared my complexion, my eyes, my hair color. It was life-altering to have a person look like me, someone to whom I was related. Grounding. She also shares other physical traits that I didn't know were just inherited, not necessarily something wrong with me. This knowledge was freeing. Her very existence changed my place in the world and gave me a place to start being who I am. Not only a mirror, but also a deep pool within which to drown and start again. She is also herself, just herself, with her own problems and differences. What a beautiful, complex relationship this is, to have been torn from a family of origin, one's physical anchor, and then find it again. It's like a Mystery given to me by myself. Shattering and important.

May you enjoy your baby, and your changing relationship to all who love you.

[karkli]

What a wonderful topic. Many thanks to the OP for posting this thread. It's a subject that I struggled with to varying degrees while I was pregnant with my first daughter (now 4.5) and relates to issues that continue to crop up and I'm sure will forever into the future as our family grows and our children age.

I had a very positive adoption experience. I was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1982 and was adopted by a Caucasian family in Pennsylvania when I was three months old. I know very few details about my biological relatives and have never attempted to locate them or find out more about them. (Though I may someday. It is on my 'Bucket List'.) Adoption has always been a fact of my life - one that never had to be (or, really, could have been) hidden or ignored. My adoptive family is my family. If a qualifier has to be put on one family or another, it would be the bios, hands down.

I consider myself very fortunate. I have several family members and close friends who are also adoptees and their experiences range from positive and unremarkable to tragic and regrettable.

When I was pregnant with my first child, the fact of my adoption hit me like it never, EVER had before. It wasn't overwhelming, but it really struck me that there ARE differences between adoptive and biological relationships. As this thread has already established, NO, they are not the most important facts in relationships at all, but I honestly had just taken for granted that my family experience had always been just like everyone else's except that we didn't share a bloodline. Period.

But, obviously, not so.

And, as the OP said, the idea that I would soon be meeting my very first blood relative was so exciting to me.

I really think I could sit here all day responding to this thread and write a novel about the topic. I won't. None of us has the time for that! I hope to re-visit later and participate more in this discussion.

In the meantime, I did want to say that I can understand why this was moved from the Adoption section into Personal Growth. Addressing these feelings really are an issue of personal growth, and it's really exciting to see how many people are sharing their thoughts. I disagree, however, that the topic doesn't address "parenting concerns", as would be appropriate to a parenting forum. No, it's not about parenting an adopted or foster child. Instead, I guess you could say it pertains to issues specific to raising a biological child for those of us who have been on the receiving end of that experience, ourselves. It is, indeed, a parenting issue.