(Recently I had the pleasure of facilitating an adoption panel that included an adult Adoptee, an Adoptive Mother and two Birthmothers. Between listening to the Birthmothers tell their stories and two of my children recently celebrating their birthdays; my mind has been traveling to thoughts of my children’s Birthparents. Even though I have not heard anything from them in a very long time, I still think of them daily. Below is a letter that I dedicate to all the Birthparents of my three children.)
Dear Birthparents,
First of all, I would like to apologize for passing judgement upon you before I even knew you. Before researching adoption, I had assumed all Birthparents were young, uneducated and did not care for their newborns. Otherwise, why would you not want to parent? After looking into adoption, I learned that odds were you would be in your 20’s and 30’s with children already. With all three of my adoptions, my research was much more accurate than my previous assumptions about you. This truly surprised me.
My adoption research also said that you do love your baby and that is why you chose adoption. I had such a hard time wrapping my mind around my preconception that you were emotionally empty. Little did I know that I would come to learn that your love for your baby’s well being far outweighed your desire to parent your child. This was an enormous sacrifice for you to make. It is one that because you made, I was able to become a parent.
Choices
Thank you for choosing to place your baby with my family. I am fully aware that you had other choices at your disposal. You could have chosen abortion and then not had to experience the struggles of a pregnancy. Instead you carried around your baby for months which could not have always been comfortable. You could have chosen to abandon the baby after birth. It would have made me so sad if I had not gotten a chance to know you and have information about you to share with my child.
You also could have chosen to parent your baby. Lots of thought about your finances, support system and future plans must have made parenting not an option for you. I am sorry that you had to come to that realization about your situation. But I am grateful that in turn you realized that your struggle of what to do with this baby ended up with you placing your baby with my family who desired one so very much.
An Unnatural Decision
There is a pain in my heart for you because you had to place your baby in another woman’s arms. You made this extremely hard decision with your mind when I am sure your heart was screaming for you not to. To hand over your child must have seemed completely unnatural. The cries and screams I heard from one Birthmother as she placed her baby in my arms still haunts me. It was a primal cry of grief that no person should ever have to experience. She was so brave to stick with her choice of adoption, but I would not have faulted her for backing out in that emotional moment. Only a very mature and strong person willingly made that decision and carried it through.
Please know that I felt guilty being so thrilled to have a new baby knowing that you were out there grieving. It seems so odd that my happiness had to come at the cost of your heartache. Your body after childbirth had to recover which I am sure was yet another reminder of the baby. The physical pain subsided but the emotional pain may be around for longer than you have expected. The only way I can help you heal now is to let you know that your child is loved by us more than I ever knew possible. Every need of theirs is met and that is the way it will always be. Hopefully knowing how content your child is will help confirm that your decision to place them for adoption with us was the right one.
Angry Feelings
I must admit that there is anger in me toward you that I do not see ever fading anytime soon. Months before I met my child you were in complete control of their care. I know your life was not easy in any respect but I don’t believe that is a pass for not providing the best for the life growing within you. At one time, I was blessed to be experience a pregnancy for a few weeks. I treated my body as a temple and gave that baby all the nutrition and care that I could. So for me to imagine that my child I adopted was not given that same prenatal care breaks my heart.
By choosing to adopt, I understand that I gave up that control to you, the Birthmother, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t feel angry about it now. Due to some of the careless choices you made toward your baby, I will now be picking up the pieces from it for a lifetime. I wish I could turn time back and convince you to have a healthy pregnancy because I know that you do love your baby. Sometimes it’s difficult to see the long-term effects from a decision made in the moment. I know that no one is perfect but I’d have liked my child’s in utero experience to have been as perfect as possible.
Always Family
I want to be clear that despite my anger, I consider you an important part of my family. As with all family relationships there are ups and downs. You may not agree with what your relatives do or say but you love them nonetheless. Even though I have expressed a range of emotions to you the bottom line is that I do love you. How could I not love the person who brought into this world a child whom I love with all of my heart?
We may have very different ethnic, economical and social backgrounds but we will always be connected through our child. I do not know when, or if, we ever talk in person again but I pray it will happen sooner rather than later. I want this for the sake of my child and for another opportunity for me to say “Thank You”.
I do miss you and hope you are taking care of yourself.
Love,
A Grateful Mother
Danielle I. Pennel
Three Yellow Roses
www.threeyellowroses.com
I would love to hear from others. Have any of you experienced similar emotions toward a Birthparent?
Danielle — really enjoyed reading your letter “A Letter to My Children’s Birthparents.” By listening to the two Birthmothers at the panel I have even more of appreciation of what my birthmother went through. I thought this would come to me being a pregnant mother, but it actually came when hearing the stories and emotions of these two Birthmothers. Thank you for making this happen for me!