Adopted at Birth // Unknowingly Broken from the Start
5: my story of growing up as an adopted child, my journey to finding my birth mom, and how I am beginning to process it all now
Key:
I call my mom who raised me, whom I consider my mom: “mom” and “adoptive mom.”
I call my biological mom, the one who gave birth to me: my “birth mom” or “bio mom.”
This story feels different every time I tell it. Only recently have I begun to process all of this, so I wanted to leave my current feelings out of the story portion for the most part. I know this will be a long story to tell but I want to tell it right and tell it well. One of my biggest motivations in starting this blog was to be understood, but let it be understood that this story is still ongoing. I am finding pages of it all over, crumpled and uncared for or hidden and pristine. This is actually my life, even though it sometimes feels like a telenovela.
Growing Up
“My parents couldn’t have kids the regular way so God sent me to another lady’s tummy so that they could still have me.”
This little diddy was the story I grew up with, and honestly, it was a foundational piece to my faith in God. I was adopted at one day old. My parents had been chosen by my birth mom months before. It was never a secret that I was adopted and it never felt like any sort of problem. I looked enough like my parents for people not to assume I was adopted (and to be shocked when they learned) and most of the time it wasn’t relevant to think about.
My parents weren’t able to have children on their own, even after trying for 10 years. When I was 8 years old, my mom tearfully told me the story of my her infertility journey. This had a big effect on 8-year-old me, though I didn’t know at the time. She explained her sadness in not being able to have me herself, about being afraid my birth mom would come to take me away, or that I would want to leave to be with her.
I think it was during that conversation that I unconsciously made note of 2 things:
1. My adoption was a sad thing for my mom to talk about.
2. The mention of my birth mother was scary to my mom.
Growing up adopted meant many people asked if I had ever met my “real parents.” I knew how sensitive my mom was to wording, so I always educated people on the correct terms, since my adoptive parents are my “real” parents in almost all forms of the word, legally and emotionally.
There was, of course, the fact that my mom didn’t give birth to me and because that was my experience, I assumed it was the norm. When I was in 5th grade, my parents seriously talked about adopting a foster child in my class and I told a friend I was possibly getting a brother. She casually responded with “Oh- is your mom pregnant?” and my head practically exploded with confusion. What did that have to do with anything?? And why was I angry that she asked me? Was I grossed out by this idea? Why did I get defensive over this?
The one sibling I do have was adopted from another set of birth parents. She is almost 2 years younger than me. My sister and I were told we were lucky we were adopted, as the life we would have had “would have been filled with hardship” because both sets of our birth parents were “teenagers” and both circumstances of our conception were “one-night stands.” The picture in my head had painted our birth mothers out to be so young and careless. I was thankful we grew up with our parents that adopted us. We had more than anyone could ever want. On paper and most of the time, we were happy. We had more food, more clothes, more games, toys, and vacations than most all of my friends at school, so it seemed my parents were right to call us spoiled brats when we were sad about anything in a life so full.
I spent a lot of time diving into books, pretending in my mind that I was a wizard adopted by a muggle family, or a demigod waiting to get invited to Camp Half-Blood. I found myself reading these books even on the beaches in Hawaii and on trains to London. My parents always shook their heads, saying I was missing the life around me, but many times, I preferred the company of my imaginary friends.
I was told only a few things about my birth parents. I didn’t know her name but I knew my birth mom was adopted from Columbia. This is where, my parents said, I got my “Columbian fire” which referred to my angry and/or emotional outbursts they didn’t know how to deal with. It felt like the only thing I had gotten from my birth mom was framed as negative.
When people asked if I wanted to meet my birth mom, I always responded flippantly, claiming, “I don’t see the purpose of meeting her. What would I do? Thank her for birthing me?” Joking about serious subjects such as these always made people around me more comfortable.
Reaching Out
I truly never considered reaching out to my birth mom- until one day in college when a student shared their research on the rights of biological mothers being overlooked and ignored by the adoptive caregivers. I was deeply concerned by these stories. The biological mothers’ wishes of wanting relationships or just some simple information were not honored.
My mom still had many exposed nerves involving my adoption. Was this why?
I had painted my birth mom as uncaring and distant, walking through life without ever thinking of me. I was challenging this picture and its origins for the first time. I had never considered that maybe she wanted to know me.
“Are you someone out there
Who's a little bit like me?”
A year later, I shared my internal struggle with a coworker, who advised me to take action. She shared the story of how her husband decided to find his biological father at 60 years old and he regretted not reaching out sooner. He felt like he missed out on all this time. “The time is now. She’s your family.”
She’s my family.
This hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never looked at her that way.
And then, without any mention to my parents about my thought process, my dad said my biological parents’ names for the first time and told me a fire box with “letters from my birth mom” existed. I was stunned. My dad seemed excited to tell me; my mom did not.
After pushing to go through the fire box together was continuously shrugged off by my parents, I decided to go through the box myself.
Upon opening, I was met with letter after letter, at least once a year since I was born, from my birth mom. I see pictures of me as a newborn for the first time, with all my parents there together. It was absolutely insane to experience. I read letters that talked of my birth mom’s interest in the arts, how she was an art teacher, how she would celebrate my birthday every year with a little cupcake, and how she kept a photo album of pictures that my mom sent her. My mom had apparently sent letters back to my birth mom every time she wrote. However, communication stopped from my mom’s end when I turned 18.
I started having dreams about her, where a glass office with foggy windows kept the view of my birth mother a mystery, but I could clearly see a big bouquet of yellow flowers in the center of the conference room table behind her. I didn’t know anything for sure, but now I knew from her letters that we already had so much in common and that she was kind. Even after watching hours of Youtube adoption reunion videos that ended in the worst and the best of ways, I knew I had to do it. I had to meet her.
“Show yourself
I'm dying to meet you
Show yourself
It's your turn
Are you the one I've been looking for
All of my life?”
After what seemed like too quick of a process, a call and a signature, I had her contact information and I reached out. I basically held my breath until she answered- and to my surprise, she was better than my best case scenario! She wanted to talk to me, she wanted a relationship with me, she wanted to meet me! She had been waiting for me to reach out and just knew that I would someday. She even had a stuffed elephant that played “It’s a Small World” that she bought the day I was born- planning to gift it to me when we were reunited. It’s really impossible to explain the emotions I was feeling throughout the next month as I excitedly waited for her email replies to my long questions and stories every couple days. Meeting her didn’t feel real, but as I sat across from someone with my same height, body type, and smile, I knew it was. I had never met anyone I was related to, so it was hard to wrap my mind around the connection I felt to her. We talked and still do talk at least once a week and we try to meet up once a month or so. I’ve now met my grade-school-age half-brothers, my birth grandma (hehe), and my birth mom’s now husband. I have yet to reach out to my birth dad, as I didn’t have years of letters to convince me he wanted something to do with me. This already felt like I gambled it all and won a million. Why chance it?
Almost 2 years after that first email I sent, I was pregnant with my son and already thinking about how I wanted my birth mom to come to his first birthday. Motivated not to pause my life for what makes other people more comfortable, I finally told my parents about reuniting with my birth mom during a family therapy session. It went really well, until they realized it wasn’t a one-and-done situation. My birth mom, in their eyes, “gave away her rights to me when she gave me up.” So, even though they viewed me as something they had the rights to, I was going to remind them I didn’t belong to anyone and it was my choice to bring her into my life.
And now, my son’s first birthday has passed and she was there, my parents have re-met my birth mom and things seem to be good between them, and I feel perfectly fine inside. Mostly.
Let’s rewind a little bit.
I was told because I was adopted at one-day-old, I didn’t have the trauma that someone adopted later in life or through foster care would have. It was as if we could pretend I just came from my mom. But, as a child, I was always comforting my mom’s insecurities about me not being able to be hers. It’s like I was nobody’s.
Little by little, since I first reached out to my birth mom in 2020, I have realized how deeply buried this trauma is. I realized recently that I am constantly and continuously afraid that everyone will leave me and when I explained this feeling to my therapist, she told me this feeling is common in people who were adopted, no matter the age.
She explained that the trauma started before I was born. As a fetus, I felt the emotional distancing from my birth mom when she started considering adoption, which was fairly early in her pregnancy. The reason my fear of rejection and being unwanted feels foundational to who I am is because it is. Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) has its roots in my womb. As my body formed, so did my consciousness, and I was formed around the idea that my biological mother was choosing to give me away.
So now, in meeting her again, I was dealing with the mixed feelings I had within myself surrounding her, the big sad and the big happy. Along with this, the adoption trauma (or relinquishment trauma) was never spoken into reality by anyone in my life. My family operated as if that part of my story was and should be forgotten. Maybe my parents didn’t want to make me feel othered or they themselves didn’t want to feel like they weren’t really my parents. I also just feel my parents were not equipped to handle my emotions, so— in a way— I was abandoned by both my birth mother (physically) and adoptive mother (emotionally).
No matter my parents’ intentions in making the decisions they did, by not speaking about my adoption, my feelings doubled. I was not only upset, but I was also ashamed about it. Why was I so unhappy? Why did I want to escape my seemingly perfect life? Why didn’t I feel truly loved or wanted or like I belonged anywhere?
Scene from Steven Universe (0:06) — This Cartoon Network show is cute and silly on the surface but has so much heart and shines light on very real topics. Amethyst was a product of an evil undertaking. She had nothing to do with it, but is sometimes made to feel like she did.
At the time that I began this deep dive, I was pregnant and was with a therapist with knowledge of adoption trauma. She sent me 2 articles on the subject, warning me to not read a whole article at once and definitely spacing both articles out across multiple days. However, once I started reading, I didn’t stop. As I read, I cried more and more. The articles said that this pain started in me pre-verbally, so I would not likely ever have the words to describe the pain if I sunk in deep enough to feel it. And while 5 months pregnant after learning too much at once, I sunk deep enough to feel it, sobbing on the floor, alone. I really struggled with a lot of feelings about my parents, about my birth mom, about myself, and about my son. It was a lot. And it was really hard.
I actually made this TikTok while I was sinking, trying desperately to process my feelings. The song is called “Shouldn’t Have Walked Away” by Waterdeep. I included shaky footage of the 3 items in my living room gifted to me from my birth mom. (0:15)
Thankfully the therapist I was with at the time had specific knowledge surrounding relinquishment trauma. I thank God for placing me with someone safe and knowledgeable. And the new therapist I have now is also a safe, kind person who is up to speed on the work I have done already.
I’ll Keep Moving Forward
The feelings I have on this whole experience really challenge what I grew up being told. Why was I told I was lucky if I was also broken so deeply? Why wasn’t I ever given my whole story? Why don’t adoption agencies require training for adoptive parents and mandatory therapy for the adopted children?
On the flip side, a lot makes more sense now, because I had always been aware of this pain without knowledge of the source. The emotional outbursts I had were due to my lack of processing of any of the pain I had endured. There is a lot of healing to be found now, but the only way out of this is through- and it’s a dense forest of feelings.
A movie that has always gotten me right in the feels is Meet the Robinsons. Obviously, it’s an adoption story, so that makes sense, but I always related to it. Louis gets this deep feeling of sorrow when thinking of his birth mom and spending years in an orphanage feeling unwanted. And in the end, he finally gets to feel like he belongs and is accepted for exactly who he is by his new crazy family that loves him.
Looking back, my parents just didn’t have the tools to process their own emotions and could therefore not teach me how to process mine. They grew up being made to feel like their emotions didn’t matter either. My parents have their faults and they did not handle my adoption perfectly. And I can accept this. My birth mom gave me up as a college student and that was what she believed was best at the time. I can accept this. All these things happened to me without me having any choice in the matter. So many different people making the best choices they could make at the time created the life that I am now living. Apologies are nice and appreciated, but the love I have from everyone I call family- mom and birth mom- does a good job of making up for it.
Ending scene from Meet the Robinsons (4:39, but you really need to start at 1:26)— I can literally never get through this video without dissolving into a puddle of tears on the ground. Unexplainable- you’ll just have to watch it. The song featured is “Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas, which was also the father-daughter song at my wedding.
I’m still angry, still broken, still wishing, and still dealing with my fears of rejection on the daily, but “it’s the heart that really matters in the end.” All of these dark and damaged parts of me are me. And I will get stuck sometimes, but I will find a way to keep moving forward. And I choose to move forward, with an optimistic outlook and a really cool story to tell.
thanks for sharing this!
1. I love this…I’m a puddle of emotions 🤗❤️🩹🥹
2. I desperately need to see Meet the Robinsons 😊