Adoption: A Cure or A Curse - Part 2

Adoptive children have lived inside their birth mothers for a period of nine months and have become quite accustomed to the smell, touch and sound of the mother. Once born, they are prepared biologically to be taken care of by the mother who gave them life. Once that has been taken from them, they are put into a world for which they are unprepared. According to Nancy Verrier,

"..the connection established during the nine months in utero is a profound connection, and that the severing of that connection in the original separation of the adopted child from the birth mother causes a primal or narcissistic wound which effects the adoptees' sense of self. It manifests itself in a sense of loss, basic mistrust, anxiety and depression, emotional and/or behavioral problems." (Statistics 13).

Adoptees are placed in homes where they have to make several adjustments. There is so much secrecy involved in the act of adoption, the adoptee has to play the game of "don't talk about it". Everyone who knows the family is aware that the child is adopted, but the child still has to pretend that this is "mommy and daddy". Then the child "acts out" by being promiscuous, rebellious, may perform poorly in school, troubled or disturbed, provoking feelings of misunderstanding and helplessness in the parents. Therefore creating an "unloving" environment in the home, which cannot be corrected because the adoptee cannot articulate their feelings and the parent cannot react appropriately. Adoptees seem to always have to "test" the adoptive parents' love for them.

When we look at secrecy in adoption, the adoptees' original birth certicate is altered to name the adoptive parents instead of the birth parent. Secrecy is so pervasive that adoption records are exempt from the Freedom of Information law, (Landsberg, sec. 3). A fact I found out trying to obtain my own records. While the agencies that assist in the relinquishing of the child, promise the mothers confidentiality, there is no promise or protection for the cild. Not having your own unaltered birth records is an extreme form of denying who the adoptee is.

Adoption has become so socially acceptable, that no one thinks twice about families who adopt children or even about the child who is adopted, no one except the adoptees themselves. And everything that the adoptee is thinking is not positive. Some adopted people think all of their problems are related to being adopted. Others think adoption has not interfered with the ability to live a happy and fulfilling life. Some people feel very positive about their adoption, but they do realize that adoption brings with it certain issues. (Clearinghouse, 4).

When exploring the feelings of adoption, the same feelings are echoed by most adoptees. Every paper written could have the same information; identity and self-esteem problems, feelings of abandonment and an interest in genetic history. My cousin expressed her feelings of being afraid of being abandoned again. She also stated that she felt being adopted prevented her from becoming emotionally attached to people, therefore making it difficult to have friends or intimate relationships. Another adoptee expressed exactly the same feelings when I spoke to her in 1998.

It is easy to ascertain that stress related illnesses in the older adoptee may have been brought on by the simple act of being adopted. The situation is made more stressful when the adoptee decides to try to get information about their birth mother. Gina Stronum, who was interviewed by People Magazine said it best when she said, "It was like everyone who was adopted was turned into a vicious animal out to stalk their birth mothers." (People, 104).

The climate for adoptees may change as the make up of the parents who adopt are now more willing to seek professional help for the adopted child with problems. In an early study of nearly five hundred privately arranged adoptions, nine to fifteen years later, the children were only marginally behind in social adjustment, where the family relationships were good. (Humphrey, 74).

When potential parents first think of the idea of adoption, the usual fear is that they know little or nothing about the childs' background. The parent(s) also do not know the full ramifications of the long term effects of adoption. Unbeknownst to the parent, is that the adoptee has problems based on their hidden background. It is the responsibility of the adoptive parent to obtain as much biological information as possible to share with the adoptee. So much more information needs to be revealed and more research needs to be done to bridge the gap of the unknown for the parent and the child.

Adoption: A Cure or A Curse - Part 1

For years I have wondered who I was. Since I was adopted as an infant, I had no familial background and could not focus on anything but who I was. I needed to know who my birthmother was. I wanted to know facts about myself. I had several medical problems that I felt were inherited and I needed to blame somebody.

Recently, I was home from work early enough to watch an episode of Oprah. Gary Zukav, author of The Seat of the Soul, was the guest. He was describing an "ah ha" moment. That is the moent when something becomes clear to you. I guess it was at that moment I had my "ah ha" moment. It finally dawned on me maybe it was not my birthmother I needed to find, but perhaps it was me that I should begin to look for. Maybe all I needed to look at was the dynamics of adoption to understand more fully what I had gone through for too many of my previous years. I began to wonder if there were more people out there who felt like I did and had the same issues that I had. Certainly, when the bond is broken between the mother and child, some damage has to be done. And certainly some of that damage could have long term effects.

So when you examine the motives of why mothers give their children up for adoption and why parents adopt, it is not surprising that the event of adoption is stressful for the child in the middle. When we look at the medical problems that are exacerbated by stress, then we can look at adoption as being the root cause.

We will look at two adoptees in particular; myself and an adopted cousin (name removed to maintain privacy). I have vitiligo (loss of pigment) and fibromyalgia, which is described by Dr. Shankland as a chronic, painful muscle condition. (Shankland, sec. 1). My cousin suffers from the effects of lupus, an autoimmune disorder. These conditions are known in the medical field as being stress related illnesses. And although, both of us were adopted by a loving family, "being wanted by our adoptive families did not make up for not being wanted by our birth mother(s)." (Verrier, sec. 21).

There are many reasons that a mother may decide to relinquish or surrender her child for adoption; too young to cope with having a baby, conceived out of wedlock, conceived outside of a marriage, rape, health issues of the mother and health issues of the child. All of these reasons are stressful to the mother who must make the decision to give the baby up for adoption. That stress certainly has to be passed on to the baby while still in utero.

Now let us examine the make up of the adoptive parents. According to M.E. Humphrey;

They are usually well educated with middle class standards. The adoptive
parents may have waited rather late to adopt children and the family usually has no more than two children. Couples who have waited a significant amount of time before adopting, have grown dependant upon each other and do not realize until too late that the prospect of being childless because of marital disharmony or sexual inadequacy, the couple may be ill suited for parenthood. Reproductive failure may cause depression and that could be a factor for inadequacies in adopting a child. The couple may have biological children before or after the adoption which may also affect their ability to parent an adopted child. (Humphrey, 73).

We have looked at why people should not adopt, now we need to look at why some people choose adoption. Some parents may have girls and want a boy, but do not want to leave it to chance that they would conceive one. Many parents may think adoption is better than bringing another child into this mixed up crazy world we live in. In some families, a child of a relative is adopted by other family members. Some people want to adopt because of the inability to conceive a child. And there are people that simply want to adopt for all of the right reasons.

With the aforementioned in mind, you now have to look at how the adopted child is the beneficiary. Adoptees make up a large percentage of the residential treatment facilities according to Dr. Claude L. Coleman, M.D., a child psychiatrist in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He advised that it is a well known fact that a large percentage of the patients seen by mental health professionals are adopted. (Coleman). Also, according to the Statistics on the Effects of Adoption, adopted 'children' are disproportionately represented with learning disabilities and organic brain syndrome. Adoptees are more likely to have difficulties with drug and alcohol abuse, as well as, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, infertility, untimely pregnancies and suicide. Adoptess are also more likely to choose alternate lifestyles. (Ginni, sec. 2).
























Copyright©2000 Rosa Ferguson

Those Who Do and Those Who Don't

In my research over the years as an adoptee, the one thing I've noticed is that the adoptee who is privileged enough to have their birth information is usually the one who doesn't want to know anything more about their birth. Those of us who have no information about our biology are the one's who want to know. Why is that? Is it because our curiosity is piqued by the unknown? Would having the information be enough for me or if I got the information would I want to reach out to my birth family? Perhaps that is why the Confidential Intermediary held back just enough information to keep me from trying to find my birth mother on my own.

Several years ago, when I sent letters regularly to Montel Williams, Sally Jesse Raphael, Jenny Jones, Phil Donohue, Oprah and all of the talk show hosts who periodically featured reunions on their show, I was home from work one day and I still swear to this day Montel was speaking directly to me. He said "if you've been writing to us about finding someone from your past and you don't hear back from us, it's not because we haven't looked. If we find who you are looking for and they tell us they don't want contact, we have to stop the search and pretend like it never happened." He apologized and went on to introduce the adoptee and her birth mother who were the guests on his show that day, leaving me in tears because once again, it wasn't me who had been found.

Does my birth mother think about me? Does she miss me? Does she remember what it was like to give birth to me? Does she remember my birthday? Has she ever tried to find me? These are the questions that I would like to ask her. Of course, I would love to have a relationship with her and maybe that's what she's afraid of. But I would settle for answers to the questions above.

I still have to believe I'm only a sleigh ride away from finding myself.

It Has To Be Talked About

This is a hard subject to talk about because you don't want to step on anyone's toes or hurt people's feelings, but why people adopt is a question that must be answered. If you were to ask an adoptive family why they chose adoption the most common answer would be "we couldn't have children and wanted a child to love." Okay, that's a good answer and for the most part it's an honest one. But let's look at the other reasons people choose adoption.

There is the couple who has had trouble getting pregnant. They adopt because they really and truly want a child to love. But what happens when they become pregnant? Some love both children equally. Others... well, they don't. They sometimes treat the biological child better and differently than the adopted child.

Then there is the couple who can't have children of their own. They want a baby by any means necessary. That's commendable and to those parents I take my hat off to.

You have the person(s) who adopt to imitate someone else who has adopted. They see the other person as a martyr and want the accolades that person has enjoyed. Imitation is a form of flattery but perhaps adopting a child to be like someone else goes a bit overboard.

There are couples who want to adopt because their marriage is in trouble and one or both of them think a baby will be the glue to hold the marriage together.

Some potential adoptive parents think their community or society in general will look at them in a new, different and better light. That probably goes back to the martyr issue.

Then you have those who want to adopt to make up for a lack of relationship with their own parent(s). They want to treat their "child" better than they feel they were treated.

And please don't get me started on the parents who pick out a child to adopt simply because of how the child looks. Agencies used to try hard to pick children who matched the potential adoptive family (white children with white parents, light children with light parents, dark children with dark parents). I don't know if they still do that or not. And it certainly wasn't done in my adoption.

There are some parents who pick out a child because they remind them of someone else. Then they dislike the child because they remind them of that same person.

I know I've only touched on a fraction of reasons why people adopt and I haven't started trying to tell you the affects and the effects that these reasons have on the adoptee. Parents, please understand the adoptee feels whatever you put into their adoption. If you love them they love you back it's that simple. But if you had ulterior motives for adopting, the child feels that as well. Think about why you chose adoption and if your motives weren't pure, you can turn that around.

I Love My Parents

It amazes me that when I tell people I am searching for my biology, the number one concern people have is about my love for my adoptive parents. They actually question whether or not I love my parents. Well, let me set the record straight. Yes, I love the people who wanted me enough to adopt me when I was five days old and raised me into the woman I am today. However, that does not preclude me from wanting to pursue the search for the woman who actually gave me life.

I'm excited there are more open adoptions now than ever before. Every child has the right to know about their birth family. People don't understand that the bonding process begins in utero. When a newborn baby is handed over to a "stranger" that bond is broken. It sometimes takes years for a connection to occur between the adoptive parent(s) and the adoptee and on occasion it may never happen. The book that explained this phenomena to me is The Primal Wound written by Nancy Verrier. Mrs. Verrier is a psychotherapist and an adoptive parent.

The primal wound is described as follows "The core premise of the "primal wound" theory is that a child separated from its mother at the beginning of life, when still in the primal relationship to her, experiences what she calls the primal wound. This wound, occurring before the child has begun to separate his own identity from that of the mother, is experienced not only as a loss of the mother, but as a loss of the Self, that core-being of oneself which is the center of goodness and wholeness. The child may be left with a sense that part of oneself has disappeared, a feeling of incompleteness, a lack of wholeness. In addition to the genealogical sense of being cut off from one's roots, this incompleteness is often experienced in a physical sense of bodily incompleteness, a hurt from something missing." (Wikipedia) I often think adoptees suffer from more health issues and emotional issues than people who have been raised with their biological families, quite simply it is a primal wound and should be treated as such.

So when I tell you that I am continuing the search for myself, don't question my love for my parents. Just know that I love me enough to want to know everything about me.

No Image in the Mirror

Can you imagine what it's like to pass a mirror and not see anything but a blur? Okay, well that's the story of my life. When you see your reflection it's easy to see Aunt Bertha's eyes, Grandma Joan's nose, Uncle Bernie's mouth.. you get the point. You see the collective you are a part of; a family. I don't see that. I do see something but without the family parts to put it all together it leaves too many blanks to try to fill in. The only collective I feel like a part of when I see myself is the fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek series known as the Borg.

Troy Dunn, The Locator says in the opening of his show "you can't have peace until you have all the pieces," Without my biological history I will never have all the pieces. When I was in elementary school, classmates would tell me that I had no mother or father because I was adopted. So it is obvious that someone out there knows who I am and where I came from.

Recently I hired a Confidential Intermediary to find the information about my birth. She did find out that my birth mother's name is/was L. Sleigh. She was 19 years old when she had me. She was from South Carolina but lived in Muncie Indiana while pregnant with me. She even found out that my birth mother stayed at a local church parsonage in the Muncie area. I think that should be enough information to put the pieces together. But I'm still searching. Who knows, maybe I'm only a Sleigh ride away from finding myself.

Different But Similar

I just finished reading The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell. Ordinarily I wouldn't give my opinions on a book simply because I'm not a book reviewer. However, I have to say something about this work of art. It was amazing and although Victoria's story is different than mine, they are so similar that I could've written this book myself.



I have to admit when I first started reading I struggled with all of the details. Then as I read on, I struggled with all of the details. No, I’m not crazy...I think I’m jealous! First of all Victoria Rowell either has an incredible memory, she’s a heck of a researcher or she has a great research team to have all of the information about not only her life but the lives of those she was surrounded by.


In the beginning I found it hard to read the book because it was chocked so full of background information it got convoluted, but as I continued reading I realized I wish I had the same kind of information she had about my own biology. This book affected me deeply. As an adoptee, I have searched for my birth mother or anything I could find about my past and all I have is L. Sleigh. Yeah, L. Sleigh is my birth mother. She was 19 when she had me and was from South Carolina. I need Victoria’s people to do some research for me. Had I been a “foster” instead of an “adoptee” perhaps I would have had all of the information I needed to establish who I was.

As of now, I’m an “adoptee” That is who I am, what I am. It consumes me. And not that I didn’t love my adoptive parents, but once they both passed on, I felt free; emancipated, I could finally embrace who and what I was. While they were alive, we weren’t supposed to talk about it. Who wants to be a secret all of their life?


There were several parts of Victoria’s story that I could have written. I guess clichés apply to fosters and adoptees. I only wish I had all of those women in my life to nourish and nurture me. This was a great story. My only complaint was that by the time, I began to get a sense of one of the women in her story, she had moved on to the next one and I felt like a stranger to the person I was just reading about.

But after all that is said and done, I realize that Victoria, just like other fosters and adoptees, led a chaotic and constantly changing life. I felt that confusion in the book.

This is a story worth reading.