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Winter 2000 Newsletter

(Winter 2000) Newsletter Contents:

• Regular Columns:

President's Message
Searchlight: Searching Q&A

• News, Announcements, and Events:

Baby Abandonment Bills

• Stories, Poems, and Book Reviews:

Black Cats
Don't Go In Alone
Adoptee and Birthmother: A Dual Journey of Healing
Touched by Adoption
A Ghost at Heart's Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption
Identity Theft and Recovery: Late Discovery Adoptees
Shame and Fear and Hope
Conference
I Can Say The Words "My Daughter"
My Son's Mom
Adopting the Older Child
Nothing Wrong with Moving On

Winter 1998-1999
Fall 1999

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Adopting the Older Child
An interview with Elizabeth Bugenthal by Susan Love

Susan Love interviews Elizabeth Bugental, the mother of a young woman who was adopted at 81/2 and is now 34 years old. For 18 years Elizabeth was a member of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart in Los Angeles, and for 12 years chaired the theatre arts department at Immaculate Heart College. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. After leaving the religious life she retrained in psychology, earning her MFT License, and was in private practice for 15 years. Elizabeth and her husband, Dr. James Bugental, conducted workshops for several years and also founded and supervised a low-cost counseling center, Inter-Logue, in Palo Alto and Santa Rosa. She has authored several articles including ?On Intimacy and Death,? ?Challenge of the Heart,? and (with James Bugental) ?Resistance to and Fear of Change? and ?Dispiritedness: A New Perspective on a Familiar State.? Elizabeth and her adopted daughter Karen will be among the featured speakers at the Adoption Unity Gathering on April 8 at Grace Cathedral.

Susan: Could you tell me a little about yourself and your husband before your daughter came into your life, and why you decided to adopt an older child?

Elizabeth: I had been a nun for 18 years so by the time my husband and I were married I was 41 and he was 52 with two grown children by a former marriage. He was a psychologist in private practice and I had been a teacher. I had taught on all levels but mostly in college. When we married I switched careers and became a psychotherapist also. We were very happy living and working together and in many ways I felt I had it all.
My life in the convent had been very rich and rewarding on many levels, but I regretted not having any children. At that time, the medical establishment was not as encouraging as it is now to older women who wanted to become pregnant and there wasn't the support there is today. So, after some attempts, I gave up, but I continued to feel very sad about my loss. My husband was very empathic about my feelings, although he didn't feel the need that I felt for a child. Given our ages, adopting a baby was not a practical option so he was willing to consider adopting an older child.

S: So how did you proceed to do that?

E: We simply called and made an appointment in the county where we lived. We walked in the door not knowing what in the world we were doing and behind the desk was this wonderful woman who became our guardian angel and continues to be our dear friend to this day. Judy helped us with all the paperwork and we became more and more excited about bringing another person into our relationship. We made no demands as to gender or ethnic background. In fact, we expected we would probably end up with a minority child.

S: But that's not what happened?

E: No. At that time there was a great effort to match the ethnicity of parents and children. We were shown pictures and heard stories of many children and our hearts went out to each one. But Judy was wiser than we were, and given our ages and history and education, felt that our lives would be totally disrupted with many of the children who had very special needs. We did finally settle on a little boy, but he was given to a younger couple and we were very disappointed. By now, maybe ten months had gone by and we were tired and ready to give up. Then the phone rang one night and Judy asked us if we still wanted a child. Jim got very teary and I saw that he really wanted this too. Our juices began flowing again and in an hour Judy was in our house with pictures and a story.

S: And that was Karen.

E: Yes. A darling little freckle-faced blonde whose smiling face gave no clue as to what her life had been like up to that point. We met her a week later in a big mall where there was lots to do and look at, rather than just stare at one another. Karen took complete charge of our afternoon and we saw what she was like. She worked very, very hard to keep us interested and entertained, which was amazing because I was so scared I was completely numb.
Judy had told us that once we met, Karen was ours because she had been through enough rejection in her young life. And I realized that an 81/2-year-old is a person, not an unformed baby, and we had to like as well as love one another. Then, at dinner, she fell asleep exhausted from all her trying and pulled my arm around her just before she dropped off. All my maternal feelings rushed in as if I had just given birth.
Judy was taking her back that night to the family she'd been living with and on the way to the car she was walking between Jim and me. Suddenly she stopped, looked up at us and said, ?I hope it works with this family.? I knelt beside her and said, ?We're all going to work to make our family. We're in this together.? I meant that from my heart but I was also aware that our lives had changed irrevocably.

S: How would you describe that change?

E: Well, first of all, we discovered we were living with a lot of ghosts. We came from two different sets of experiences and we didn't know hers and she didn't know ours. I expected her to be a part of my life forever but she, out of her own experience of rejection and abandonment, expected no such thing.

S: She'd been through a lot.

E: Yes. She had been with an older couple for five years who loved her but had no legal right to her. When that was discovered and the home was also deemed unfit, she was removed overnight with no preparation. She was taken out for ice cream and never allowed to go back. Her birthmother was contacted and went to court to allow her to be legally adopted. That was a generous act on the birthmother's part because she had to appear in person and admit that she was an older woman, an alcoholic, and wanted Karen to have a normal family life.
Karen had been taken precipitously from everything and everyone she loved and was in a kind of emotional shock. She had also been infantalized and was still on baby food. The family she was placed with had two older boys who terrorized her and, according to neighbors, she was always being punished, emotionally and physically. Supposedly, this was an adoption placement, but the fit was wrong and nobody would admit it was never going to terminate in an adoption. Finally, some action was taken, the whole family was put into therapy and the parents admitted what Karen knew all along, that they didn't want her. This was how she came to us.

S: So she was wounded. Were you aware of this story?

E: Yes. The facts were not withheld from us. However, I think it takes a lot of time to uncover how that pain gets translated into behavior, and how a child protects herself from more hurt. Karen held on to a lot of fantasies. One night when I was putting her to bed and was about to read her a story, she took the book from me and said ?I'll read.? She always preferred to be in charge and I was disappointed not to get to be the reader and cuddle with her.
I guess she sensed this because she had only read a little bit when she suddenly burst into tears and screamed at me, ?Someday I'll find my real mother. I know I will. You're not my mother and never will be.? I was shocked but some instinctual part of me recognized those feelings. I said ? Yes, I know. Just like you'll never be the child I gave birth to. But we can be a lot to each other. We can be a mother and daughter
but just not that way.? She stopped crying and then said to me, ?How did that happen to you, Mom, that you never had a baby?? I said, ?Well, I just gave that up when I was younger and then it was too late and I was very sad about it until I met you.? And she said, ?I'm so sorry.? And we connected at that moment around our mutual loss.

S: So you felt connected with her?

E: Yes, at that moment, and there were others like that. But deep inside she was always ready to leave. She was alone in the world and needed to feel that she could make it on her own. She insisted on getting a job when she was 15 and always worked even though we just wanted her to do well in school and have a good time. She couldn't stand to be passive or dependent. She was much too vulnerable.

S: This is what you mean by living with ghosts?

E: Yes, Karen was so personable and attractive that we often forgot how frightened she was. In fact, I had very high expectations for her because her gifts were obvious, but in a therapy session a few years ago she was able to tell me how burdened she felt by my expectations. She experienced them as ?judgments,? which, of course, they also were. I think many daughters feel that way about their mothers, but this had an extra edge because her feelings of inadequacy were so deep and her fears so overwhelming. She had no uninterrupted early bonding to fall back on emotionally.

S: So by this time you were committed completely to her, but underneath she was still not sure about you.

E: Right. And once she graduated from high school she just kept leaving. She spent a summer in Europe that she mostly paid for herself. Then she went to live in Hawaii, then she went to Utah to become a Mormon, left that after a year, lived in Colorado and even New Zealand. We made up our minds that wherever she went we would stay in close touch, go to visit her, talk with her on the phone. Once we went to Hawaii and she wasn't there to meet us at the gate. I thought, ?Oh, I bet she doesn't want us here.? Then she came around the corner with flowers and leis, crying, ?I thought I lost my parents!? So, she was needing that proof from us all the time.

S: Did she ever seem to want to find her roots, her birthmother, during this time?

E: Jim and I had talked with her about this but it seemed to be more our idea than hers. I felt it would really help her gain some stability. We had taken her to Ireland for her 13th birthday because we knew her mother had been born in Ireland. We also knew the county she was born in and her maiden name. So we made a big deal out of seeing the name on pubs and shops and encouraged Karen to identify with being Irish. But when she finally went to register to find her birth-mother when she was about 19, she found her mother had not registered. She said she didn't need another rejection, so she dropped the search, although she did register herself.

S: But there's more to the story?

E: Yes, this is the happy part. After Karen finished college and was settled down working and finally living close to us, we were all feeling very relieved. One day, Karen got a letter from a genealogist who told her that someone in her family was looking for her. It took Karen two weeks to respond to that letter and once again we realized how the specter of rejection and disappointment hung over her. But she did make the call eventually and found that her sister, who was 16 years old when Karen was born, had decided to search for her. They met for coffee one day and have been completely connected to one another ever since.

Miriam, her sister, has a husband and teenage son who have become Karen's other family and also part of ours. They live in our area and Karen now knows all about her mother, who died 17 years ago, and about all the other members of her family, including a brother who died of alcoholism. She has Irish cousins who've come to visit and other relatives in Ireland she has yet to meet. Karen is now engaged to a wonderful young man and I think that connecting with her sister and feeling all that stability helped make her ready to make this commitment.

S: After your experience, do you have any advice to give people thinking of adopting an older child?

E: Because children act out the pain they are carrying inside, we need to help parents with truthful preventive education regarding this wonderful and difficult lifetime commitment. And we need an experienced support system, groups, individuals, a whole network of people to respond in the moment.
I guess the main thing is to be very secure in yourself and your marriage. Enter into parenting in this way not to meet some need in yourself or your relationship, but rather because you have something of value to offer a child ? unconditional love, experience, patience and a deep commitment to parent.

S: Anything else?

E: Yes. One of the other things I learned is that it isn't just what you give them, it's empowering them in learning how to be the giver. I knew how to be the helper and giver and worrier, but I wasn't great at helping my daughter feel empowered. We need to look for ways we can affirm who they are, coming to us as separate people with something real to give. Sometimes it's hard to find those things, and I wish I'd done better. In the end, she's discovered her own strength on her own, and now I learn from her every day. I get it all back now and more.
Susan L. Love is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, specializing in adoptionissues for all the triad and a member of the PACER Board. Contact her via email at soozlove@aol.com, or at 510/287-8981.

Return toTop Shame and Fear and Hope
by Albert S. Wei

Years ago, in a European city, a young adopted woman confronted a political dissident from Korea with the words: ?You are a leader of a country that sold its own children, that continues to sell its children. Are you not ashamed?? At a press conference this October, the same man, Kim Dae Jung, tearfully apologized as president of his country to the hundreds of thousands of infants and children divested of their identities and exported around the world in order to spare their communities the ?shame? of their existence. Now, a president agreed to take upon himself another type of shame ? that of a nation for treating its children in such a manner. With slaughter in the Balkans, politicians facing morals charges in Kuala Lumpur and Washington and his own country under the brutal discipline of IMF trusteeship, the world barely noticed this president's apologia. In distant North America, only two radio programs even bothered picking up the story. Yet I am convinced that some day this event will be seen as a milestone of sorts for the cause of adoptee human rights.

Activists may remember 1998 as the time when public entities around the world first took responsibility for injustices committed in the name of adoption and acknowledged that those separated by adoption have an entitlement to social justice. In Argentina, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Maserra was arrested for ordering the adoption and identity deprivation of the children of his political enemies. In Australia, a parliamentary commission was convened in New South Wales to investigate abuses alleged to have been committed by agencies over four decades of closed adoption, and to recommend measures of redress for those affected.
Once unquestioned and, in large measure, unquestionable, lawyers, social workers and bureaucrats find themselves squirming under subpoena on the witness stand, the hostile questions now directed at them instead of by them. Guatemala and Romania moved to properly regulate the often under-monitored and undocumented flow of infant babies from their countries to the developed world. In Canada, Premier Lucien Bouchard apologized on behalf of Quebec for the plight of the Duplessis Orphans, whose records were falsified and who were subjected to years of abuse in state and church-supported orphanages.

In Ireland, the apex court of that country refused to acknowledge the right of birthmothers to perpetual privacy and ordered their parliament to draft legislation resolving issues relating to the informational rights of adoptees, a process which is still underway. In London, the U.K. government expressed regret for 160,000 ?child migrants,? many relinquished under coercion, sent from Britain to destinations around the Commonwealth for adoption through 1967, and set aside public funds to facilitate the identification and reunification of those involved.

Just this month, Korea's National Assembly, acting on the country's official apology in October, tabled legislation to offer the right of abode and other measures to the benefit of a generation lost to adoption. And, as we all know, in the U.S., voters in Oregon took the first step toward reconciliation by passing historic legislation allowing adoptees access to their original birth certificates for the first time in nearly half a century.

These victories are of limited and ambivalent scope. Maserra may yet be freed by a military court. Some Australian states still have contact vetoes, although, to their credit, these are subject to sunset provisions and languish on the books unenforced. Canadian reform legislation in several provinces seems stuck in committee, thanks to unrelated filibustering and legislative gridlock, and, to a fault, they all contemplate compromise provisions. In Ireland, compromise in the form of disclosure vetoes seems to be the byword. Quebec has yet to introduce measures to compensate victims for the horrors of the Duplessis institutions. The U.K. avoided a full and unconditional apology for its child migration program (in diplomatic doublespeak an expression of regret falls just short of saying sorry). Korea, an OECD country, is still exporting the odd undocumented and unidentified baby.

And, in the U.S., the National Council for Adoption (NCFA) ? the major force opposing truth and openess in adoption ? continues its tactic of obstruction and dis-information, litigating against reform legislation in Oregon and Tennessee and fighting a rear-guard action in the nation's media. Meanwhile, fly-by-night facilitators continue to peddle their wares from the third world to the infertile rich, with few or no precautions for full disclosure, assuring yet another generation of identity-deprived adoptees. The desperation of their trade is seen in occasional wire service dispatches relating, with digital precision, stories about mercenaries employed to compel relinquishments in the Russian Federation and gun-battles between the Indonesian navy and baby smugglers in the Straits of Malacca.

Closer to home for many, the American government has now officially given up on collecting statistics on domestic adoptions, and cross-border imports continue to increase at a decade-long cumulative average growth rate of nearly 10% per year. Many of these take place without any precautions to ensure that the informational, civil and political rights of adoptees will be protected. And to add insult to injury, the U.S., which receives over two-thirds of cross-border infant adoptees each year, has still failed to ratify a single international instrument protecting the rights of the adopted, with opposition to treaties like the Convention on the Rights of the Child championed by many of the same people and organizations who also lead the fight against adoption reform.

Those opposed to change around the world seem to have two emotions in common ? fear and shame, the traditional engines of reaction. The fear side of the equation includes, quite predictably: parents who are fearful of losing perpetually infantilized children; adoption agencies, lawyers and facilitators who, having forgotten they operate in the public interest, are fearful of what lies they might have told in years past or of losing their inventory in years forward; and bureaucrats and politicians fearful of dredging up old secrets now conveniently cached in locked file drawers, or of losing the benefit of future patronage.

On the shame side, we are told, birthparents live in shame of their indiscretions or of the violence committed against them, adoptive parents live in shame of their infertility, adoptees are creatures of shame and must live to gratefully serve in order to atone for the sins of others. And we are also told that all of these people live in fear of being confronted with their shame, and hence all the king's horses and all the king's men must protect everyone from their fear of everyone else by crushing underfoot just a few civil and political rights. And of course, the only way we can ascertain the truth of these claims is from the mouths of the fear-mongers themselves.

Meanwhile, the baby sellers, their legal counselors, certain government and orphanage officials and professional searchers continue to operate, often in an atmosphere of relative unaccountability and regulatory forbearance, capitalizing on markets made possible, in large measure, by this fear and shame. This cycle remains intact and, in large measure, unchallenged. Dis-mantling these impediments to change, through advocacy, education, bureaucratic trans-parency, reconciliation, reform and, where necessary, judicial retribution, will be the next challenge. 1998 only laid some rather tenuous groundwork.

Nonetheless, I believe this past year will be seen as the point where adoptees got their first glimpse of something which might sustain optimism in the years to come. It was the year when a sizable piece of the world recognized that adoptees have rights, even if only observed in the breach ? that to know one's identity, to grow up and become independent adults in the eyes of the law, to expect accountability from those who placed them, to have their cultural and ethnic roots respected, to not have secret and often doctored files maintained on them, and to have the legally-protected expectation of being told the truth about their own lives, are all basic human rights.

It was the year when, for the first time, a sizable minority of interests acknowledged that adoptees too should benefit from equal protection and non- discrimination under the rule of law and that they should be allowed to live free from the shame and fear of others. Thanks to the efforts of adoptees and their allies around the world, this minority now understands that only those who have abused the rights of others need experience shame, and only those who have not yet owned up to the policy mistakes of the past and present need feel fear. In these respects, adoptees have in 1998 grabbed for themselves the gift of hope.

Albert S. Wei is an adoptee. He presently resides in Southeast Asia, where he works in the securities industry, and can be reached at weialber@best.com.

Copyright 1998, Albert S. Wei

Return toTop My Son's Mom
by Donna Oman

As I am tidying the gravesite of my son's adoptive mother almost 35 years later, I reflect on the secrecy that has caused so much pain and kept us apart.

We had all the answers in 1965. Adoption would easily solve the problem of an unplanned pregnancy: The birthparents would forget, the adoptive parents would take the child as if their own, and life would begin anew. Adoption is far more complex and has far more facets than anyone realized in those days. Today we are reaping the results of our arrogance and our ignorance.

It was forgotten that we would all grow old together. I would love and remember my son for a lifetime, so would his adoptive parents, and so my son would remember me. We are all connected forever. The woman I am remembering is a woman that I deeply regret never meeting and never knowing. I bring flowers to decorate her grave as my private declaration of the love I feel for her.

The inscription on her tombstone reads "Beloved wife, loving mother, and caring friend." I am pleased because I think it includes me as well as "our" son, his father, and his brother. She would have been my caring friend. Her happiness would have brought me smiles.

I realize that whether we like it or not, my son and I are connected, but so am I connected to his parents -- and they to me. I am part of their lives and they are part of mine. To think otherwise is shallowness. To never speak, to never know each other is a painful, needless loss of never knowing these kinfolk to whom you are related. There is a place for all of us. There has to be.

We can pretend we are not connected, but in fact when parents adopt a child they are also connected to the birthparents. When birthparents place a child for adoption they are connected to the adoptive parents as well. This is what is real.

I was told I would forget, they were told to continue as if born unto. I don't want to disappear. I want to claim my place and be recognized for it. It is an important place in our son's life. I've considered giving it up and decided I will not -- cannot -- do it. I don't want more than my place. I am not his parent. I am his birthparent. We are all connected and will be forever.

Are we needy as some would claim? I think not. We are related to one another. The arrogance of those who knew all the answers, the naiveté of my young self who believed. I vow to teach my children.

Donna Oman was one of the original founding board members of PACER. She relinguished her son for adoption 32 years ago, is a credentialed elementary school teacher, and now lives in Lakewood, Washington.

Return toTop
Nothing Wrong with Moving On
By Melissa H. Kelly

Everyone agrees that this ?search and reunion business? is emotional and, for better or for worse, necessary as each part of the triad handles the ups and downs of the journey. As an adoptee, I have spent plenty of time since my search and reunion pondering over the meaning of life as I now know it ? sometimes feeling up, often feeling down, talking and listening to others who have gone through the same thing. As we know, there isn't one way to do things or a certain way to feel, but there is something all of us can do ? and that is to move on with our lives.

I have heard so many adoptees talk about their angst and pin everything unsavory that has happened to them on being adopted. It is one thing to talk about this and acknowledge the negative in our lives, but it is another to hang onto it and let it control us. I am always surprised when my suggestion of letting go is met with glares, and I understand it is sometimes difficult to let go of what has become a comfortable feeling, even if it's not a healthy one.

I was interested to read in the PACER newsletter last summer that Nancy Verrier, author of The Primal Wound, was working on a new book about ?personal responsibility and the unhealthy embrace of victimhood.? I have seen lots of ?victims? out there, who need to take charge of their life, of their emotions, and stop permanently embracing the pain that goes along with this journey of adoption. One does not have to be adopted to feel pain or know loss or feel abandoned, just as one does not have to be related by blood to feel connected to others.

It is all too easy to take antidepressants indefinitely, gain too much extra weight, or develop some unsavory habit because we were adopted. Too often, we lose touch with old friends, our family, our kids and spouses because we get so caught up in our pain and blaming our circumstances on our past.

It's okay to wallow in it for a while ? but then move on. As a therapist friend of mine says, ?it is just information.? Look at it, then let it go. Acknowledging information can't hurt us, but hanging on to it can do all sorts of things to us over time.

In my birthmother's case, she can't tell her secret that she gave birth to and then relinquished me. I have siblings and relatives who will probably never know about me because of her difficulty in letting go of what happened 44 years ago. I feel great empathy for her and I wish she could let go ? for her sake, not mine. As she now battles cancer, I can't help but believe that secrets can make us ill.

Life is a journey, no matter who you are. We can choose to let the knocks that come with life pin us down, or we can bounce back up and get on with things. It's not always easy, but it is necessary in order to really have control over ourselves. One of the main lessons my journey has taught me is that while we cannot control those around us, we can control ourselves and how we feel about things. We can choose to let the facts bother and depress us, or we can choose to learn from them and go on. After doing it both ways, acknowledging the past and then moving on has worked best for me ? no matter how hard it seemed to do at the time or how comfortable it felt hanging on to that pain. And moving on does not mean forgetting.

How many of us can forget that we relinquished a child long ago, or were separated from our birth roots, or were not able to conceive a child? We do not need to forget in order to let go. But my identity does not need to be ?I am Melissa and I am an adoptee.? That is a part of my life experience, not the sum and total. As reunions go, mine was not that great ? my birthfather wanted no further contact, and while my birthmother acknowledges me, she can't do so to the rest of her family. And that's okay.

It is the way it is for now, and I am going to move along ? because life is too short to stay stuck. Instead of embracing the victim role, I believe we learn from our past and share our message of growth with others. We can look at all the important events in our lives, feel them, cry and laugh over them, and move on. Don't allow past pains to keep you from achieving what you deserve: peace of mind and happiness of heart. This is the least we can do for ourselves ? and for those who love us.
Melissa H. Kelly is a writer who completed her own search for roots over the past three years. She lives with her husband, two daughters and three cats in Davis, California where she continues to move on.

Return to Top Identity Theft and Recovery: Late Discovery Adoptees
By Ron Morgan
?Our law emphasizes the right of the child. It demands that children be told the truth, that they are adopted. Sometimes we think it cruel to tell a person the truth (first as a child, later as an adult). But that view reflects a colonialist attitude. Only the colonizer refuses to respect the identity of the colonized.?

? Graciela Fernandez Meijide, member of the Argentine Congress, on the 1997 law making it mandatory that adopted children be told they are adopted. From Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo
and the Disappeared Children of Argentina, p. 156,
University of California Press, 1999.

The email message I received tonight was not unusual. In the months since I started the Late Discovery Adoptee List on the Internet, I get at least one such post a week. The man who wrote me had just discovered that he was adopted and was grateful to communicate with someone like himself. Like many Late Discovery Adoptees, his story was very similar to mine. I remember when I first found out I was adopted, I felt like I was the only fool on earth who hadn't known, and possibly the only person to find out they were adopted when they were grown.

I discovered I was adopted when I was 36, shortly after the death of my mother. My father had passed away a few months before, and as their only child it was up to me to make her funeral arrangements and clean out her home. While sorting through family photographs, letters, and official papers, I found the documents that first informed me of my adoption.

I felt as if the ground opened up beneath my feet and I was falling into an abyss. This free-fall lasted for two- and-a-half years. Who was I? Why had the people who were supposed to love me and protect me lied to me my entire life? I had to meet many other adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth-parents before I could begin to answer these questions.

There are many books available on adopting, on adoption, on being adopted. There is plenty of advice to prospective adoptive parents about when to tell their children they were adopted. Although there is a great deal of discussion about when to tell your children they are adopted, very few touch on why you should tell them in the first place. It is assumed to be a given. It is as if the choice not to tell is so wrong it is taboo to even speak about it. I've learned that the things which cannot be spoken of become very powerful.

When I finally reached out to other adoptees through a local support group, I found we had much in common such as the longing for grounding in our identity and the questioning of our ?official? stories. I found the emphasis on search in this group, and others I contacted at that time, confusing and frightening. I wasn't ready to search. As a friend remarked to me when I told him I wasn't even considering locating my birth family at that time, ?Who needs more people to resent??

Isolated, I simmered in my anger and resentment. I finally met another like me, online, and we shared war stories through email. Slowly, through posting my story on the Internet use-net group, alt.adoption, I found six or seven more. Shea Grimm of Bastard Nation asked me if I would like to make a presentation about the experiences of adoptees like me at the First Annual BN Conference. I accepted reluctantly because I had no credentials relevant to the subject other than my own life story. I sent out a questionnaire to the adoptees with whom I corresponded, and from the dozen responses I forged some general observations about us.

I found that writing the presentation, ?Late Discovery Adoptees: Are You Adopted? Are You Sure?? was a crucial turning point for me. For one thing, it exhausted the rage I had held for years against my parents. Not only was I able to place myself in an understandable context, but my adoptive parents as well. I went back to the place I had left them when I read the first adoption document with my name on it, and I returned to mourning them.

Over the last eight years I've been in contact with hundreds of people like me ? people who found out their true history as adults. If I've met so many, how many more are out there? How many more have yet to discover? When I was adopted back in the '50s, adoption was still deeply wrapped in shame. Shame of illegitimacy, shame of infertility. My parents' decision not to tell me has a certain dysfunctional logic. Many of the stigmas that stained past attitudes about adoption have been lifted, but members of the triad still face many conflicting attitudes and social prejudices. Adoption as a means of forming a family still suffers by being ?different.? The temptation to sidestep the pressures of ?difference? by denying the reality of a child's adoption is still compelling to some.
I enjoy speaking with groups of prospective adoptive parents. I usually meet them in pre-adoptive classes, where I give them the benefit of my own experience. However, the adoptive families who listen attentively in parenting classes, meet in support groups, or keep abreast of adoption issues in newsletters are the ones who need to hear my message the least. The parents who manage to rearrange their entire lives around the fiction their children are not adopted stay far away from such counsel. They are instead out there pretending to be ?normal.?

The quote at the beginning of this article intrigues me. It rings true to me, yet is dissonant with the memories of my parents' love for me. Can we be colonized by those entrusted to love and care for us without condition? Of course we can, and the lie that creates Late Discovery Adoptees is only one remarkable motif in a discordant symphony of family dysfunction. I feel the only resolution to this contradiction is to bear witness, and encourage all the others who have had their truth stolen from them to come out of the shadows.

Resources for Late Discovery Adoptees:
http:/www.rhyzome.com/LDA
Reach Ron Morgan at 415/647-2417 or rhyzome@best.com

Return toTop Adoptee and Birthmother: A Dual Journey of Healing
By Marty Donahoe

How can you possibly heal as a birthmother when first you are an adoptee? You spend your time trying to fill the void, trying to find your roots and healing the split-off parts that run you. In fact, being a birthmother was, in a certain way, outside my consciousness. In writing this article I discovered that although I have been writing a book on adoption for five years, I haven't written much on being a birthmother and that wound. My healing process focused on reconnecting with my inner children who felt lost and terrified of being alone. I had worked with healing the parts of me who felt outside, and who felt the loss of not belonging, and who, from this wounded place, ran my adult life. The young adult who gave birth and relinquished her only blood daughter, I healed only recently.

Being adopted ran my life, while being a birthmother I contained into an episode in my life. I allowed myself to feel the loss and grief of relinquishing my daughter once a year, on her birthday. I prayed for her. I prayed that she was safe and loved and well taken care of, but my pain and loss I saved for this yearly event. It was a natural process. As her birth date approached, I was taken over with grief which came flooding out. As time went by, I wrote letters to my daughter and sent them to the county to be placed into her file. I wanted her to know I loved her and also provide a vehicle for her to find me, when she chose. But I never worked directly with the 20 year old part of me, who gave away her only known relative, until now.

I asked myself, why I was so unconscious of my birth-mother wound? I believe the experience of losing my birthmother conditioned me to experience loss and separation, for I knew these feelings well. I didn't know how to bond, so I gave up my child for adoption. To heal from two such losses ? loss of my blood mother and ancestors and then my child ? is a lot for one being to heal. I was only able to heal in stages. First the core wound and then 30 years later, to actually feel and heal my birthmother wound.

Until I was in my early forties I didn't know I needed healing. I was not conscious of my neediness, I jumped over my fear. I faked it. I had an attitude of ?I'll show you,? and most often I did. I believed I could do anything I wanted, and I did. But under this facade was a dark hole, the void. Fear from this hole would rear it's head when I was tired, or before a new project. At such times I had to prepare and prepare, I had to look good, and do it right and be the best. But in my forties I began to feel overwhelmed more often ? over less and less. Then a boyfriend left and triggered my entire past. I felt wounded to my core. I wanted to be with people all the time and I felt raw and needy. I acted out and I felt small and helpless. A friend suggested early childhood counseling and within a week, I found a therapist and began my healing. I wasn't conscious that my healing was related to being adopted. The word abandonment made no sense ? I had been chosen was what I knew. This was the first step in my healing. In therapy I learned about my losses, I saw my secrets and I began to make life changes.

Along with therapy, I continued to deepen my spirit journey, my connections to the Divine, Great Spirit, God, and my guides who teach me. I learned (remembered) the Native American Medicine Way, and I opened to guidance from my Animal Totems, Angels and Arch-Angels. I designed and taught empowerment classes which empowered me. I walked into my feelings and fears of being alone, of being abandoned, of feeling I have to do something to be worthy of friendship, etc. When fears arose I went inward and found who was afraid and what was needed to heal, and then I gave this to myself.

Sometimes I nurtured an inner-child or brought in more love. I worked with these younger parts of me and brought them home to my heart, where they could feel the heart beat and know they were loved and safe. As they healed, they became integrated with me fully. I acknowledged my losses, and I discovered my gifts from these wounds. I connected to the Greater, my spiritual journey. I saw my pain as an opening to my spiritual journey, an opening to heart wisdom, a gateway to my soul's journey and my work as a healer.

I have experienced many healing methods to come back into wholeness. I began healing the heart wound through early childhood counseling, re-mothering, interactive hypnosis, connecting to my higher-self and letting her guide and mother me, and getting regular massage for nurturing and release. I attended retreats to deepen my connection to Spirit and God and connected to the wisdom and love of my soul-heart.

While healing others, I created ways to connect my heart to my center brain. Through my indigenous guidance, sweat lodges, prayer circles, drumming, rattling and becoming a healer I found my place in the oneness of the universe. I know I am not alone, I feel my connection with my animal brothers and sisters, the plant and mineral kingdom, my spirit ancestors. I sit daily in meditation, I've learned to listen to the greater, to my soul wisdom, to God and the universe and great mother earth.

Through this journey I have unfolded as a healer, and it heals me. Holding love space for others to heal their wounds heals me. Walking with others into and through their pain, heals my pain. It is a life journey and we are all in it together. We are all connected. I am not outside and alone. Being a healer teaches me everyday how to be loving and compassionate, how to use my wisdom and the wisdom of the greater, how to remain in heart space no matter what comes up and how to be related in a deep and profound way. Being a healer touches me at my core and brings me great joy.

Marty Donahoe, is a Transformational Coach and a Spiritual Healer and may be reached at 415/461-4275.

Return to Top CONFERENCE

We come together, most in pain
searching for the person we lost
that will heal the wound
that never stops aching, never goes away.
Maybe if I talk to just the right person
go to just the right workshop
I can find the peace that has eluded me,
that holds the promise of eternal love
of love unconditional, the kind a mother gives
if she stays,
if she takes you home to love and nurture,
if she doesn't give you away.
But she didn't and I am left
alone and searching and reaching out
for something or someone
who will take her place and fill the void.
And in a group of two hundred, surely,
surely someone will hear my call, but no one did
so I come home and wait for the next conference.

Al Holmstrom
November 16, 1998

Return to Top
DON'T GO IN ALONE
by Denise Roessle

I went into reunion alone and clueless. Before being reunited with my son three years ago, I had never even met another birthmother. For all I knew, I might have been the only one on the planet! TV movies, talk show reunions and Dear Abby columns were the extent of my education on the subject. I had never read a single book. I had no idea there were support groups for people like me.

Even though I didn't actively search for my son, I never let go of the hope that somehow I'd see him again. Every so often, I'd go through the motions of looking for him ? gathering paperwork, looking in old phone books ? but in the end, I was too frightened that he'd be angry, that he'd hate me. Still, I had to do something, and on his 18th birthday, I sent my information to International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR) in Carson City, Nevada. Then I just waited, fantasizing about him coming to the door, and sulking as the years went by and it hadn't happened.

Eight years later, when I got the call from ISRR that they'd matched me with my son, Joshua, I thought, at long last, everything was okay. We talked, we laughed, we met, we cried. We loved each other completely. That's all there was to it, right? Let the happily-ever-after begin!

It was about nine months later (ironically enough) when the glow began to fade, and the illusion I'd bought into more than two decades ago was shattered. The child I'd given up because everyone said it was ?the best thing? hadn't had such a great life after all, and the more I learned, the more I saw how troubled he was. He'd been estranged from his adoptive family for some time. Two children ? my grandsons ? had been relinquished to adoption after his first marriage failed. Now his second was falling apart, just six months after my granddaughter was born. It became painfully obvious how different our attitudes and values were. We began to argue and his angry outbursts would flatten me. Josh had left a battlefield of broken relationships in his wake. And I had the terrifying feeling that he was doing his damnedest to chalk me up as another.

Confused and overwhelmed, I turned it all in on myself. If only I'd found a way to keep him! He had suffered and it was my fault. He was suffering still and I couldn't fix it. I began reliving my pregnancy, Josh's birth and relinquishment, obsessing over the details and playing out happier scenarios in my mind. Having never grieved losing him in the first place, I was ill-prepared for the avalanche of emotions coming down upon me. All those years, I had thought there was something wrong with me when I couldn't just forget and move on. In reunion, the fear and sadness I felt was even more devastating. Even though I had lots of loving support from my husband and friends, I found it difficult to talk to them, to express these feelings that even I didn't understand. I began to lose my grip.

I was at my lowest point when my friend Jacquie called. We'd known each other for years, but had never revealed any personal details. My recent Christmas letter, in which I shared the news of my reunion with Josh, had prompted her call. Did I know she was adopted? No! And she hadn't known that I was a birth-mother. Just a few years ago, she had searched for and found her birth family. We exchanged stories and I admitted hesitantly to having a hard time. She recommended some books on reunion, told me about PACER, and referred me to a therapist she knew who specialized in adoption issues. It was as if she had thrown me a life-preserver! Suddenly, all of my feelings were validated. I wasn't abnormal, and I wasn't alone.

I began reading everything I could get my hands on, and discovered that hundreds of other birthmothers had expressed many of the same feelings and had similar problems in their own reunions. I joined PACER and found a support group for birthmothers. From the first meeting, I was stunned by the sense of belonging that I felt. We were of all ages and from many different backgrounds, yet we had this one tremendous, life-altering experience in common. Even though the details varied, just hearing what others had been through and how they had dealt with it made all the difference in the world. Later, I participated in triad groups where I gained perspective from adoptees and adoptive parents.

That was two years ago. Through a combination of education, support and one-on-one therapy, I've made my way back to a place where I can cope. The roller coaster ride is far from over. Josh and I have lots of work and lots of healing left to do, as we continue to carve out a mutually-rewarding mother-son relationship. There will be rough times, mistakes made, hurts and disappointments, as there will be good times and victories. But now the ups and downs no longer seem life-threatening.
Knowing what I do now, I wish that I had prepared myself instead of jumping in cold. But having traveled the path I did, I would encourage others ? whether birth-parents, adoptees or adoptive parents ? to read and learn, attend support groups, and talk to those who have been there. There's no reason to go in alone.

Denise Roessle is a writer and graphic designer, and does the desktop publishing for PACER's newsletter. She facilitates the Contra Costa Group, and can be reached at 925/828-4644 or drmc1@ix.netcom.com.

Return to Top Touched by Adoption: Stories, Letters and Poems
Compiled and edited by Nancy A. Robinson
Green River Press, Santa Barbara, CA
Reviewed by Laura Ingram

I too have observed the phenomenon Ron Morgan notes above, a typically inverse relationship between accounts of deeply-felt personal adoption experiences and their objective literary value as judged by those not personally involved. I doubt that many readers without some direct personal or professional connection to adoption will read much of even the best-written adoption work, whether fact or fiction. In any event, as more adoption triad members find their voices and write about their experiences, the authors' cumulative skill levels are rising. And the millions of Americans who are directly touched by adoption themselves will be an eager and grateful audience, provided the authors and books can find them.

Touched by Adoption is an anthology of mainly first-person prose narratives and some poetry, by writers from all sides of the adoption mosaic. Many of the contributors are published writers and poets, as is the editor, an adoptive mother from Santa Barbara. A broader than usual range of experiences is presented, including a significant number of pieces by adoptive parents, many of whom have adopted internationally, and a number of adoptees with varied perspectives. There are tales of search, reunion, rejection, joyous connections, and people struggling to establish their families and identities as parents and children.

I found most of these pieces at least interesting, and a number of them very moving. One writer whose work particularly spoke to me is Paula Naomi Friedman, a Bay Area birthmother whose prose piece and three poems describe her reunion with her relinquished son and their complex, developing relationship. Another is Penny Callan Partridge, an adoptee and adoptive parent well-known in adoption reform circles, who submitted several poems, all in her characteristically strong, clear voice.

A minor quibble is occasional lapses in editorial judgment, which allowed a few pieces to slip in that clunk or fall flat in comparison to the rest. While the book could have used a more professional-looking presentation, it is obviously a labor of love, and is providing a forum for a number of writers who will likely become better-known as time passes. I enjoyed seeing each author's picture and reading their biographical sketches, which deepened my appreciation for many of the writers and their experiences.

All in all, Touched by Adoption is a worthy addition to the collections of those of us who are touched by adoption ourselves, and would make a good gift for people just starting to explore the issues raised by the adoption experience.

Laura Ingram is a reunited birthmother, PACER board member and adoption reform activist. She may be reached at 510/653-4637 or Lcingram@aol.com.

Return to Top A Ghost at Heart's Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption
Edited by Susan Ito and Tina Cervin
Foreword by Jacquelyn Mitchard
North Atlantic Books, 1999
Reviewed by Ron Morgan

There is a heap of adoption books out there: bromides and diatribes, books on how to adopt, books on how to parent adopted children, books on how to be adopted, books on how to search. And, of course, books by professionals of every stripe on how to process and hopefully recover from various adoption experiences. These volumes uneasily share the special adoption section in bookstores all over the country, but with the exception of B. J. Lifton's lyrical prose, there isn't much literature tucked inside them. My test for literary worth is simplicity itself: if you weren't directly involved in some adoption drama or other, would you read any of these books?

Literature is a triumph of imagination and craft. Most folks writing about adoption are journeyman writers at best; in the case of how-to books, they're writing to the lowest common denominator, and in the case of memoirists, the narratives they transcribe are their own lives, which naturally limits their ability to use imagination. Unfortunately, the quality of adoption books suffers in inverse proportion to their ?authenticity.? The great thing about literature, as opposed to ?authentic? narratives, is that the artful lies of a great writer often contain more truth than the narrower tale told by one who lived the story.

A Ghost at Heart's Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption is an anthology of literary pieces, some original to the collection, some republished from other sources. Its beauty and strength lies in its art; although some of the work is highly personal memoir, most of it is artifice. The selections run the gamut of adoption as experienced by the triad: the agony and relief of relinquishment, the ambivalence, frustrations, and rewards of adopting, and the synthesis of all these forces in the adoptee.There is a smattering of ?big names? here: Allison Lurie, Joni Mitchell and Isabelle Allende are the marquee stars, and Allende's piece is one of the weakest of the collection, with the feeling that it was excised and lifted from a longer story. The best works capture the bitter and the sweet. ?Personal Testimony,? by Lynna Williams, is a story of a picaresque nine-year old adoptee's epiphany at a Southern Baptist summer camp worthy of Flannery O'Connor. Lurie's piece, ?Waiting for the Baby,? paints a moving portrait of an American prospective adoptive couple in India, focusing on the woman's anguish and alienation as they are rejected by their agency.

When the editors of Ghost, Tina Cervin and Susan Ito, called for submissions, they were awarded an embarrassment of riches in the form of hundreds of submissions. The editors did a superb job of winnowing. Ghost is slightly uneven, but I can't think of many anthologies that aren't. Importantly, the editors maintain a rhythm and tone which well suits the subject. My only quibble is that there aren't any stories about social workers or adoption activists.

Ron Morgan discovered his adopted status late in life, and now compiles data, writes and lectures on the LDA (late discovery adoptee) phenomenon. As Bastard Nation's Events Chair (and a member of BN's Executive Committee), Ron spearheaded a Uniform Adoption Act protest at the American Bar Association conference in San Francisco, emceed the Bastards at the Bell rally in Philadelphia and worked on the 1998 Bastards on the Bay conference in San Francisco. Ron is a writer, web designer, contractor and political activist who lives with his wife and three children in San Francisco.

Return to Top

I Can Say The Words "My Daughter"
Poem by Corrine Dowling

For Maura

Do what is best for your baby, they whispered.
It is not you who is best for your baby,
were the plain as day words.
Shut the door, you'll forget, they said softly,
Listen well, this is best kept hidden from view.
Words ever spoken, always heard.

Unloved and unlovely, we gave birth to our babies,
and then wept goodbye to our babies,
knowing already that the door had swung open,
saw the ache walking through with
an I'm here to stay grin,
words never spoken, always heard.

Did you know that you've always been loved?
A small face in a photograph seen only by me.
(Please, God, if you'll just keep her happy and safe.)

The words in your letter blur as I read them
over and over.
My hand lingers on your unfamiliar name.
I hold it tightly. This will not be taken away.

On Saturday , we will meet.
On Saturday, what will happen?
On a perfect Saturday in a suddenly perfect world,
I see a young woman flying down the hill,
so lovely, I catch my breath.
You are running to me for the first time,
and my soul leaps to meet yours in startled,
joyful recognition.

Gently, carefully, I fold you, newly precious one,
into my arms,
arms empty for twenty-nine years,
and my eyes close in gratitude.
We move towards a future that shimmers with promise.

Did you know that you've always been loved?
As I now am well loved by you. (Will you take off your shoes so I can look at your toes?)

Return to Top Baby Abandonment Bills
by Ron Morgan

AB 1764 and SB 1368 are identical bills, introduced by Senator Jim Brulte and Assemblyman Ken Maddox, that would amend present California law to allow mothers to anonymously leave their babies at emergency rooms and police and fire stations. Current law forbids such abandonment. On their face, the intent of these bills is laudable: to decrease endangerment, injury and death to infants abandoned in public restrooms, dumpsters and fields.

Unfortunately these bills, based on a Texas statute enacted on January 9, are poorly considered and extremely slippery. The law would allow anyone claiming to be the infant's mother to abandon it legally up to 30 days after the baby's birth, no questions asked.

There is no funding allocated in these bills to publicize the new baby drop-off locations to the target populations they intend to serve, so it's unclear how it's supposed to help. It is clear that adoption professionals will be well versed in its finer points should it pass. There are no services, medical or psychological, provided to women in crisis who use the new baby drop-off centers. Identity is an internationally recognized human right. Countries that have tacitly approved legalized abandonment have done so during periods of war or severe societal instability. California ? and the rest of the U.S. ? is in no such period. The Department of Health and Human Services has produced statistics showing that in 1998 no more than 150 infants were abandoned nationwide in the manner this law intends to address. No infant deserves to be left in a dumpster, but these laws, as written, are unproven and radical solutions, which open incredible areas of potential abuse.

California is not alone in considering such laws. Similar legislation was introduced in Kentucky last week, Alabama is considering one, and as other state legislatures reconvene after winter break, we will probably see more. These are ?feel good? laws that few will stand against for fear of appearing to promote infanticide.

Please write your state representatives and voice your concerns with these laws. The media have presented these laws as the best way to deal with infant abandonment, but they need work. Let your reps know that.

Ron Morgan is a late discovery adoptee, PACER support group facilitator, and member of Bastard Nation's Executive Committee. He can be reached at 415/647-2417 or rhyzome@best.com.

Return toTop by Jane Calbreath

Rev your engines!

When I stop to consider some of the gifts of my adoption experiences I remember that childbirth is a rite of passage under all circumstances and facing the fear and grief of a lifetime does build courage and character. I am who I am because of the mountains I have climbed.

This past year has been tremendous for PACER and for me. PACER celebrated its 20th anniversary by hosting the Southwest Regional Conference for the American Adoption Congress, and I celebrated my 50th anniversary on earth!.

I can't say enough about the gifts and rewards of volunteerism and activism. I have finally found a community where I am accepted, honored and supported for who I am and what I do. For this I am especially grateful. Working with PACER has been expansive experience and an eminently creative outlet. I have grown and prospered by giving and receiving from all of you, and as a community, we have flourished.

I want to thank you all for your support and participation during this past year with donations and memberships, as board members, support group facilitators, newsletter volunteers, conference and steering committee members, and those who participated with our visioning process over the past several years.

There is new vigor and enthusiasm within our ranks and many more of you are coming forward and joining the efforts to support and heal our community and to educate and inform the public and professionals who work with adoption.

This year we will expand the use of our web page and newsletter to circulate information and announce events.

Since we are now certified by the Board of Behavioral Sciences of California, we plan to offer a number of one-day educational events for professionals to earn Continuing Education Units.

There will be an ecumenical healing service at Grace Cathedral for the entire triad in April. This service in "Celebration of All Our Relations" will honor all the branches of family by adoption and the interrelatedness of everyone.

Our third annual Mother's Day Picnic will be bigger and better than ever, this year featuring a volleyball contest among support groups. Be sure your group or family has a team and is represented!

Development of a speaker's bureau that will provide triad speakers to educate professionals at adoption agencies, medical schools and elsewhere.

You might have guessed; we have immediate openings for a few good people to work with us. Please reveal yourselves by contacting one of the board members listed on this page. And a blessed New Year to all. Jane Calbreath is the President of PACER. Contact her via email at jbreath@aol.com, or at 415/898-8938. by Colleen Buckner

This is a quarterly column on searching. SEARCHLIGHT consists of questions posed by PACER members about searching which are answered by Colleen Buckner. Colleen welcomes your questions for inclusion in future newsletters.

Q:I am 61 years old and I was born in California. My parents died last year and I just found out that I was adopted. I was told that because of my age the best way for me to find my birth family was to petition the court to open my file. How do I go about the process of petitioning the court and what should I expect to find in my file?

A: I would recommend that you call the Superior Court offices in the county where your adoptive parents resided when you were adopted. Ask for their county form for petitioning the court to unseal your records. This petition request will be pursuant to Family Code Section 9200-9203 and Health and Safety Code Section 102705. The Superior Court will expect you to have a good reason for requesting to open your file. Exceptional medical circumstances are a good and compelling cause for opening the file. Some questions that the county might require that you answer regarding your medical need to know are: 1)