Adoption loss and redemption

For so many years I have basically felt alone on this road of losing a child to adoption.  Adoption is not normal or natural.  After a very short time I closed down my feelings because so many people did not get it or understand.  I was not ready to educate people about adoption, besides I was in the adoption unicorn and rainbows land even though I felt the loss.   I felt like I was doing my daughter a favor by giving her more.  I was often told by well meaning people "what a great sacrifice", what a selfless act",  "you made a couple so happy", "don't worry you will meet your daughter again", or "you should just forget about it"or even better "you will have more children".  There have been people in my own family that never fully understood the loss that adoption is.  They would hold me and try to comfort me but never seemed to truly understand what sadness it is to lose your child to adoption.  The depth of sorrow is unimaginable.

It wasn't until Alyssa lost Owen that they are realizing that it is a major irrevocable loss.  It is like reliving it all over again but seeing it from a totally different perspective.  My family didn't realize that adoption loss stays with a mother forever.  Mother's move on and carry on with their life but that horrible loss changes them. The pain is hidden but stays with them.   After meeting Alyssa they realize that she does and always has belonged in our family.  She is so much like us in looks and personality.  She is like a missing piece to our puzzle.  They realize she has hurt directly related to being adopted. It is not about having good, bad, great, awful adoptive parents.

Now with Owen being adopted it is a loss.  It is relived and more intense for us because we know what is going on, we are no longer blinded by flowery words.  We know the pain we have and continue to live it.  But more of my family are coming out of the fog with the realization that adoption is not a great option.  Adoption does not make a forever family and the child is not born in some one's heart.  Every child is born into a family.  Every child has a mother and a father.   Adoption creates loss not only for the mother but the child also.  Seriously I don't know why that fact never occurred to us when I had Alyssa. Looking back I see we were to far into the fog to realize the truth.

I knew the loss for me but I never knew she would have a loss from losing me, her mother.  It wasn't until I listened to her that I realized that she had a very deep loss. It is interesting to see my family finally come out of the adoption fog after almost 2 decades.  It is absolutely shocking to say the least.  They have not said you should not have placed her and we are sorry you did.  But it is very close to that.  I know they worry about her adoptive parents and their feelings.  They don't want to overstep their boundaries.  They realize for better or worse Alyssa has 2 real families. They realize that Owen has 2 families.  I think they are realizing that it is best to keep children when ever possible with their mothers, to support mothers.  The loss that both the mother and child feels is great and will last a life time. 

I think that is why I get so caught up in adoptee rights as much as I get caught up in rights for mothers.  I can not change the past but I need to fight for my daughter, for my grandson, and for my daughter's adopted sister (the other child that was adopted by Alyssa's adoptive parents).  Until they have every right to have free and open access to their pasts, their heritage, their ancestors,  their natural family, their medical information, and their birth certificates I will continue for them.  I can not go out to San Antonio this year but come 2012 I want to be there. I hope I will have Alyssa and my friend Melynda beside me in San Antonio.

 I want to help other mother's to not feel pressured and coerced into adoption.  I will continue on for them.  Even the mothers and adoptees that are still in the fog I will fight for them.  As long as one mother feels coerced or pressured to place that is one mother too many.  One mother that realized after signing away her rights that just hours later that she regrets it is one mother too many.    Every mother that has tried to get her child back days after signing and told that it is too late is one too many mothers.  Every single mother that is lied to about the adoption or told half truths is one too many.  I as a mother of loss, as a mother of an adoptee will fight for equal access and rights for every person.