As an adoptee I often feel the victim, yet somehow I am expected to play the role as heroine. Although I do feel fortunate having contact with my birth mother, I also feel the relationship between us weighs heavily upon my shoulders, and I often wonder why.
No, I didn't make the choice to be adopted as a young baby; placed in a babies home and left to 'hopefully' become part of a loving and caring family, raising me with all good intentions, providing me with all the necassary skills to walk through life without any inhibitions. Luckily I did get a loving family but unfortunately no one knows how such an event as adoption can affect an individual, it is a very personal experience and with it comes many complexeties- whether we like it or not.
Before I became an adoptive mother, my thoughts and feelings were quite different to what they are now. I once questioned my mums agenda that blatantly opposed the idea of any contact between my birth mother and myself. How could she ever doubt my love for her and why would she think that would change because I wanted to meet my birth mother? As an adoptive parent, I now understand her reservations; it's not because she doubted my love for her, it was a genuine concern for my welfare, my state of mind and path in life that may or may not benefit from such an unknown entity. I can put myself in my mother's shoes and fully understand her concerns, yet there is one big difference between that, and that is I will never deny or sway my daughter's right to meet her birth mother - but there will be strings attached; she will have to be old enough to make that informed decison herself.
I truly believe that the adopted child (come adult), should have the ultimate right to choose whether they want to contact their birth origins, not the birth parent.
So where does the herione come into it I hear you say? I must be the herione to my adoptive parents and I must also be the herione to my birth mother. My parents (adoptive) don't want me to persue any contact, so I must forfeit my own right of passage for what I want; my own judgement is swayed - whether I like it or not - I now feel obliged to honour my parents wishes. But hang on, my birth mother wants to meet me; she tells me of all the thoughts, feelings, sense of loss and hopelessness she has been burdened with since relinqhuishing me. So now I feel I owe her something-but what, something for breathing life into me? Something because she feels so bad about what happened and wants to make it alright-but for who? And know I am expeced to make all things right for all us. I must respect my parents wishes ( after all I love them, and I don't want to hurt them), - I don't want to hurt them - ever. And so too, I don't want to hurt my birth mother and her feelings and I don't want to make her live the rest of her days feeling guilty for placing me for adoption. But who's thinking about what I need or want? Me! Just me.
So I make all parties involved happy. I keep contact with my birth mother hush hush. No talking openly about it around my parents; no birthday or Christmas cards displayed among others - instead boxed away with all the letters we have exchanged over the years. Do I feel a sense of betrayal in doing so - hell yer.
Am I comfortable with how things are being handled - hell no. My birth mother wants to meet in person, letters are not enough anymore. I can't extend my betrayal this far; and now even I don't know what I truly want anymore. Is it because all these years I have come to accept that I should put others before myself?
Yes, I am very much stuck in the middle.
