The work of my lifeWhy do some mothers reject reunion? Because they have closed up that hole in their heart. It's still there, underneath the scab, but they are afraid to let anyone rip it off. Besides they haven't...
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| The work of my life |
Why do some mothers reject reunion? Because they have closed up that hole in their heart. It's still there, underneath the scab, but they are afraid to let anyone rip it off. Besides they haven't told...the people in their lives today. There's more to say than I did in a previous post and so I am continuing the except from the new edition of Hole In My Heart, Love and Loss in the Fault Lines of Adoption, which to the end of the day is on sale for $2.99 in ebook. Now about those mothers:
...These women may have told their partners. Or not. They may have told any other children they had. Or not. They may not have had other children.
They may have told their best friends. Or not. Cousins and more distant family members may know of the birth and adoption. Or not. Having found no
succor from their mortified families throughout the pregnancy, birth, and relinquishment, they never talk to them of it. Neighbors and work friends probably
do not know.
In short, dealing with reunion feels like fresh punishment for an
old sin, one they thought they had atoned for. Instead of looking forward to
meeting their now-grown child, they fear exposure. The overwhelming release
of repressed grief on first contact—an email, a letter, or a phone call—unleashes
a renewed sense of loss, guilt, shame, anger, and grief, now intensified by the
loss having been shrouded in secrecy for countless years.
And now, come out of the closet and tell everybody in the family? Have
her or him visit and figure out how to introduce her or him to people you run
into together? Tell your best friend, when for decades you kept this from her? Tell the children you’ve kept this from their entire lives? Everybody will look
at you differently.
You have been pretending to be someone you are not. You
have been hiding this basic, essential truth about yourself for years! How can
anyone trust you again?
These women are everywhere. They don’t admit this on Facebook—
or they avoid Facebook because they might be found—they don’t volunteer
for TV shows, and they don’t end up in surveys and research.
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| Lorraine |
As noted earlier, couples who married after relinquishing a child
appear less likely to welcome contact. Though I could find no data confirming
this, other than anecdotal, this is commonly accepted among searchers and
confidential intermediaries.
Some individuals may decide not to seek a continuing relationship—it
could be the parent, it could be the child. When there are vastly different lifestyles, or strongly held but conflicting religious or political beliefs, or addiction
and criminal behavior, one or the other party might find reunion too daunting. Too much time has passed, and it may be impossible to build an enduring
connection, no matter how much one side longs for the severed relationship
to be stitched back together.
Often, adoptees initiate searches when they are about to be a parent.
They may only want a medical history, not a relationship. Yet for an adoptee,
reunion provides a second opportunity to claim something no one else on
earth can provide: a mother’s unquestioning acceptance and love. They don’t
speak of it in those terms because this yearning is difficult to acknowledge or
articulate, yet the adoptees’ posts on Facebook attest to the pain associated
with rejection. They are excruciating to read. Time and more reunion stories in the media—as in-the-closet mothers read about how others handle reunion—may lessen the number of these rejections as they embolden women
to open their hearts and welcome their children.
If any natural mother afraid to reunite wants to leave a comment here, they will not be crucified. We will carefully moderate comments. We want to help you deal with this issue, not make it worse. I understand why this is so hard. --lorraine
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And don't forget, the sale of Hole in My Heart ends at midnight.