Just an Introduction, and an Invite...

ladyjenna13

Hello Everyone!

I have been debating coming on this board for some time now.  As an adoptee I feel I can offer a view that is unique from a child of adoption.  However, I was adopted in 1974, and so much has changed since then in terms of open adoptions, having relationships with BP's, etc....

I was born in 1968.  My BM kept me until I was 2 1/2, and at that point she gave me up for adoption.  I was in foster care from that age until I was 4 1/2 (7 different homes), when my parents adopted me.  I remember the whole adoption process, what little there was, and I remember going to the courthouse here in Milwaukee the day it became legal.  My parents are both Irish Catholics, and I am biracial.  Needless to say, that was a huge deal back in the day!

I did a BP search when I turned 30 because I had so many questions due to the circumstances of my adoption.  I had to know if I was to blame for her giving me up.  Trust me, I knew logically that none of it was my fault, but emotionally I beat myself up on a near daily basis until I did that search.  I had issues with trust, rejection and relationships until I did that search and cleansed my soul, so to speak.

I just wanted to make myself available, to answer questions and to provide a point of view from an adult child of a closed adoption.  I know how adoption can be such a blessing, but I also know the complications that comes from it as well.  I am proof of how this blessing can have untold rewards for everyone involved.

Feel free to hit me up and I will try my best to answer, if I can.  Peace!

ladyjenna13

By the way, I can be found hanging out on the dads board.  Our first son is due in a few weeks, so you can find me there quite a bit these days!!

jillianmb

Thanks for coming on this board!  I am assuming you are a man if you are on the dad's board?  Sorry I am confused by your screen name!  :-)

 I would love to hear how your parents talked to you about your birth mom and what things stick out in your mind about what they did right and what you wish they would have done differently. 

I'd also like to hear about how your trust issues played out in your relationship with your SO.  

Thanks again for opening yourself up like this!  We are adopting a little boy so it is great to hear from a male perspective. 

IRR

Welcome.

Foster1Mom

Welcome to the board. Congrats on the little one.

ladyjenna13

jillianmb:

Thanks for coming on this board!  I am assuming you are a man if you are on the dad's board?  Sorry I am confused by your screen name!  :-)

 I would love to hear how your parents talked to you about your birth mom and what things stick out in your mind about what they did right and what you wish they would have done differently. 

I'd also like to hear about how your trust issues played out in your relationship with your SO.  

Thanks again for opening yourself up like this!  We are adopting a little boy so it is great to hear from a male perspective. 

Yeah, I'm a dude.  Lady Jenna is our 13 year old black lab...sort of our first born!

Remember, my situation was a little unique in that I was 4 1/2 and had gone through my initial time with my BM through a not too pleasent foster home experience.  My mother often tells me I was already like a 8 year old in terms of how I related to people at that point, because I was in full blown "sell mode", as she puts it.  What she means is that I really forced myself on them...trying to get them to want me.

Records were closed at that time in the state of Wisconsin.  My parents learned about my BM through my social worker.  My parents were told that she was young and white and that it was too hard to continue trying to care for me.  I had no health issues physically, and I had gone through those multiple foster homes over a two year period.  They also were told that my BM did not drop me off personally, but had a friend do it for her.  I would not hear about that until I was an adult.

My mom still sees red when she talks about my BM.  She has learned to hide it well over the years, but it is obvious to me whenever it comes up.  She has always said she was meant to be my mother, and she would thank my BM for giving birth to me if she would ever meet her, and she means that.  But I also think if that meeting would have ever happened, the next sentence would be aggressively protective of her baby boy, asking that woman what she was thinking scarring me like that.  That's my mom:-)  But my parents have never once spoken ill of her, and instead have embraced what we are about as a family.

Trust issues ended years ago.  Age and years of self evaluation and growth have led me to where I am now...happily married to the woman of my dreams, sharing all of me, the good and bad, with her openly.  However, through my teen years dating was a nightmare.  I constantly went into "sell mode", causing me to be clingy and bring a ton of baggage with that.  I think college made me more aware of that, and it was around that time I started thinking about the BP search.  By the time I was 30 I went forward with the search, and I was able to resolve tons of issues as a result of facing that baggage head on.  By the time I met my wife I was more than comfortable in who I was and what I could offfer someone by just being myself.

My parents are the most loving, stable people I have ever met.  I cannot begin to think of anything different that they could have done raising me.  I continue to view them as the greatest blessing in my life.  I hope I was able to answer your questions.

heaven22tw

I am also an adult adoptee...also adopted older at three years old.  Ironically I have never thought to bring it up on herd bc I'm on here as a soon to be adoptive parent now.  My mom refused to bring up my no but I have a grasp due to my bio brothers mental illnesses that may have played into it.  So nice to meet another adoptee and congress on your little miracle:)

jillianmb

ladyjenna13:

jillianmb:

Thanks for coming on this board!  I am assuming you are a man if you are on the dad's board?  Sorry I am confused by your screen name!  :-)

 I would love to hear how your parents talked to you about your birth mom and what things stick out in your mind about what they did right and what you wish they would have done differently. 

I'd also like to hear about how your trust issues played out in your relationship with your SO.  

Thanks again for opening yourself up like this!  We are adopting a little boy so it is great to hear from a male perspective. 

Yeah, I'm a dude.  Lady Jenna is our 13 year old black lab...sort of our first born!

Remember, my situation was a little unique in that I was 4 1/2 and had gone through my initial time with my BM through a not too pleasent foster home experience.  My mother often tells me I was already like a 8 year old in terms of how I related to people at that point, because I was in full blown "sell mode", as she puts it.  What she means is that I really forced myself on them...trying to get them to want me.

Records were closed at that time in the state of Wisconsin.  My parents learned about my BM through my social worker.  My parents were told that she was young and white and that it was too hard to continue trying to care for me.  I had no health issues physically, and I had gone through those multiple foster homes over a two year period.  They also were told that my BM did not drop me off personally, but had a friend do it for her.  I would not hear about that until I was an adult.

My mom still sees red when she talks about my BM.  She has learned to hide it well over the years, but it is obvious to me whenever it comes up.  She has always said she was meant to be my mother, and she would thank my BM for giving birth to me if she would ever meet her, and she means that.  But I also think if that meeting would have ever happened, the next sentence would be aggressively protective of her baby boy, asking that woman what she was thinking scarring me like that.  That's my mom:-)  But my parents have never once spoken ill of her, and instead have embraced what we are about as a family.

Trust issues ended years ago.  Age and years of self evaluation and growth have led me to where I am now...happily married to the woman of my dreams, sharing all of me, the good and bad, with her openly.  However, through my teen years dating was a nightmare.  I constantly went into "sell mode", causing me to be clingy and bring a ton of baggage with that.  I think college made me more aware of that, and it was around that time I started thinking about the BP search.  By the time I was 30 I went forward with the search, and I was able to resolve tons of issues as a result of facing that baggage head on.  By the time I met my wife I was more than comfortable in who I was and what I could offfer someone by just being myself.

My parents are the most loving, stable people I have ever met.  I cannot begin to think of anything different that they could have done raising me.  I continue to view them as the greatest blessing in my life.  I hope I was able to answer your questions.

Thank you so much for sharing this!  When we went through all our training for adoption we learned all about the issues kids deal with as a result of being relinquished by their birth parents.  It made it seem so grim, but it is wonderful to hear that there is healing and hope and that you have experienced it.  Thanks again for sharing! 

silliestbunny

Any thoughts on transracial families?

irismorning

Great to "meet" you. I am also an adult adoptee and have adopted two wonderful little boys. Welcome!

jenjen930

Welcome, and thanks for sharing!

ladyjenna13

silliestbunny:

Any thoughts on transracial families?

I love the fact that my family is transracial.  My parents, both white, adopted me, biracial, during a time in our nation where that was heavily, heavily frowned upon.  My mother worked in a school district, and her white co-workers would say some of the most vile things to her in terms of my adoption.  Things like, "Why would you be a traitor to your race?"

Adoption runs in my family.  We are a huge Irish Catholic family, and I have four cousins who are also adopted.  Two are white and two are Korean.  I was around ten when my aunt and uncle adopted their first Korean daughter, and I was so protective of her because of what I had gone through!!

Even my grandparents on both sides were so loving and protective of me.  While they had reservations, in terms of how society would view my adoption in the early 1970's, they loved me with all the love they had.  My Nana was my best friend as a young boy, and when she passed when I was a teen it was one of the hardest losses of my life, even to this day.  I was her everything, and she made sure the whole world knew that I was her grandson.  Imagine being in Charleston in 1976 and seeing my mom, my Nana and in a horse carriage touring the old town...we were trendsetters!!!

My mother, to this day, relates more to black folks than to white folks.  Simply put, she had to raise a biracial son, and in the real world during that time that made me black.  So she was the one who had to tell that I had to be better than 100%, or that when I turned into a teen I would stop being that cute kid with the nice afro and would become that black boy trying to date the girls I went to school with.  Times have changed a great deal since then, but that was my reality, and why my mother truly believes that she is more a black woman than a white woman.

My wife is white.  So between her and I who knows how our boy will look when he is born.  We do think about adoption down the road, and more than likely that child will be a child of color.  More and more I see white families with black children, and even some black familes with white children.  And biracial kids are as common as the clouds in the sky.  I see a transracial family and I smile proudly, knowing that I helped in some little way make that acceptable today.

ladyjenna13

Spooko:

What a fascinating story.  Our DS adoption was first finalized when he was 4, so he also has memories of going to the courthouse, etc.  Fortunately, we were part of his life from earlier, so he doesn't have the same memories of being bounced around.

I was adopted by my dad because me BD died before I was born.  My mom never really talked about my BD and their family wanted nothing to do with me, so I get the rejection aspect that can come from that as you're growing up.  I went through a stage where I really put BD on a pedestal because of the unknown, which is a common side effect of closed adoptions.  Did you have that experience, or did you tend to focus on the negative aspects? 

I was completely all negative.  And it was all focused on my BM.  I never even gave much thought to my BD, but my BM was the focus of all my rage and anger.  I would lie awake some nights fuming about her, questioning what was wrong with me as I cursed her. 

The ones I put on the pedestal were my parents.  I was always so afraid of them hurting me that I would do things to hurt them first, just to test out the idea that they would never do what SHE did to me.  They won that battle real quick, and when I got my first spanking from my dad, I knew that I was not going anywhere!

I shudder just thinking about how much anger and resentment I had in my heart as a young child.  I still am amazed by the unconditional love my parents provided me with as I worked through those complex emotions associated with that trauma I went through.  So as I become a parent soon (few weeks left!!!!) I can totally understand how easy it is for parents to love unconditionally.