Adoption Loss: talking about the ‘why’

I’ve been doing a lot of talking this week about grief and loss. I’m sure some folks are thinking this is overkill. I’ve been there. Especially when you’re at the start of the adoption process, it can be overwhelming to read about the issues that adoptees might face. We want our kids to be happy, and we want adoption just to be another great way to build a family.

I think y’all know by now that I am a passionate advocate for adoption. As I mother both the children who were born to me and the children whom I was blessed to be able to adopt, I can say without reservation that the adopted children are just as gratifying to parent, and that I feel just as much their mother. They are a blessing, pure and simple, and they reside at the core of my heart just as surely as the ones born from my body.

But that’s just looking at adoption from the point of view of the parent. If we are going to do this adoptive parenting thing well, I think it is imperative that parents need to wrap their minds around the viewpoint of an adoptee. To gain this new family, first they had to lose their first family. And they are almost always going to wonder why.

What are you going to say to your beautiful precious longed-for and cherished child their first time he or she looks at you in anguish and asks, “Why didn’t she want to keep me?”

I can tell you from experience that it shreds your heart. For this precious awesome kid to doubt his or her own worth — to wonder if somehow it was his fault — oh, it is painful.

I personally have always told my children than their first moms wanted to keep them, but because of the circumstances in their life, they weren’t able to provide the children with what they needed. I talk about the fact that each one of our children’s birth mothers got the kids to the people who could get them to us– that they did a good job keeping them safe.

But the truth is, I have not met or spoken with any of our children’s first parents. I don’t know for sure what was on their hearts. I am only extrapolating from what I feel myself as a mother. Some day my kids may look me in the eye, and say, “Mom, you don’t know anything about my first mom.”

I hope they won’t feel like I tried to feed them a lie. I hope that by then they are also old enough to be aware of the terrible circumstances that some people face. I hope that they can choose to give their birth mothers grace. And by extension, give themselves grace.

Because — bottom line — they are precious, priceless, infinitely valuable people, no matter their story at the beginning of life. And that is a message I want them to hear with every explanation, and every discussion about the loss involved in adoption.

I would be very interested to hear how other families answer the ‘why did she give me away?’ question. Also I would very much appreciate hearing from adoptees. What did your adoptive parents tell you? How did it affect you?

I would so much appreciate all of your views on this core topic.

Related Links
Adopted children and grief
Processing grief
Keeping communication open

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