Only to those who were adopted?

Question

I know you love your parents, okay but I just have to ask this... by the way this is an ongoing thing in my family about my brothers baby that isn't born yet... i need the deep feelings that maybe you felt along your childhood so here it is

1. How do you feel about your mom giving you up for adoption?

2. Do you want to know your real parents?

3. Do you want to know where you came from and you know the deep stuff you'll never know unless you knew them to talk about it?

4. What are something you think would be different if you weren't adopted?

5. Have you always felt loved by your adopted parents?

6. Do you feel lost or like you don't belong?

I would like you to please answer these questions to the best of your true ability and i know it's a tough subject but thanks for your input.

Answer 1

1 - She didn't. She, and my father, died in a car bomb when I was 10 days old. Not the world's biggest catholic fan here, seeing as they killed my family over who were the 'right' christians.

2 - I would love to. The one thing I would love to have, more than anything, is a picture. To see the woman that gave birth to me would just be incredible. It's hard to understand, but it's so strange seeing yourself in someone else, when you're not used to it.

3 - I would love to know family history, what my parents were like, what they enjoyed, if they enjoy reading as much as i do, same music, etc....

4 - I really can't answer that. It's the only thing I've ever known. I'd probably be a lot more confident, a lot more trusting, have a lot less issues. But then again I might have different ones.

But i would know. As far as I know, I popped into existance age 4.5. I was never a baby, I never learnt to walk, I never needed a lullaby, I don't know when I learnt to walk, what my first words were, what I liked when I was a kid.

5 - Nope. They were religious loonies, and since I'm bisexual they never want to see me again, incase my demons infect their 'real' child, the miracle baby. I love my sis to bits, but not them.

I don't look like anyone in that family. Not being big-headed, but I'm also a lot more intelligent than anyone of them.

I was always adopted, but it was never talked about. I was never one of them but they expected me to act like it.

6 - Always. I just want to know where I came from. Where I was born, what my name is.

Knowing the name of the woman that gave birth to you, it's not too much to ask now is it ?

Answer 2

1. How do you feel about your mom giving you up for adoption?

I feel so lucky that she loved me enough to carry me and give me up instead of aborting me.

2. Do you want to know your real parents?

I always wanted to know my birth parents. What they looked like, what kind of people they were, and most of all, why I was given up. I got to meet them when I was a teenager, so I feel very lucky to have been able to find them.

3. Do you want to know where you came from and you know the deep stuff you'll never know unless you knew them to talk about it?

Those things are really important. I don't think a person can feel entirely complete without knowing where they came from.

4. What are something you think would be different if you weren't adopted?

I know I would not have had a lot of the opportunities in life that I was able to have. I have a good education and have traveled a great deal. My birth parents lived in a crime ridden area with poor schools, and they had no money.

5. Have you always felt loved by your adopted parents?

Of course, just the way my birth mother loved me enough to give me up, my adoptive parents loved me enough to bring me up as their very own daughter.

6. Do you feel lost or like you don't belong?

Sometimes I did. I didn't look like anyone in my family, and I was just different than them. But don't we all go through that stage in life, adopted or not?

Answer 3

1. How do you feel about your mom giving you up for adoption?

It was not just my mother who did so, I also have a father who played his part in it. My natural parents were a married couple in their thirties who went through a divorce. My older brother and sister ended up living with my father (for a couple of years, before his new wife kicked them out of the house) and I lived with my mother for a year. My mother had a difficult time after my birth and the divorce (which happened almost simultaneous) and took little care of me. My father had no place for me and his new wife wasn't willing to take me in anyway. After a year my mother asked a sister of my father to take care of me, so she could get her life back on track. That never happened and I was eventually adopted.

It's hard to say how I feel about it. It has caused me a lot of grief over the years and I still see how it effects me. Given the situation, my mother partially did the right thing in asking "family" members to take care of me for some time, but I also think the family (read my grand parents and my adoptive parents) did very little in helping her to get her life back on track, hoping the outcome would be adoption.

I don't know how much of an effort she made to get me back and I can't ask her anymore, because she has already died.

2. Do you want to know your real parents?

I've never seen my mother after the day my "aunt" started taking care of me and though I like knowing things about her, I have chosen not to meet her. Over the years I heard various stories about my mother from different sources to satisfy some of my curiosity and knew she was not doing well, being homeless, most of the time having financial problems.  Maybe it is heartless of me, but I didn't want to meet her just to be asked to help her with her life, so I chose to stay away.

I met my father when I was in my early 20's. He had refused contact ever since I was six. In his own words at the time: because he didn't want my adoptive parents to show off how well they were doing (this I read in a letter he sent my adoptive parents and which i found when snooping in their mail). When I met him there was not really anything to talk about. He didn't seem open to discuss our biological relationship and I didn't dare to ask. I've seen him a few times since and he probably will never be ready to accept the role he played. He doesn't even want to see my brother's children, because he hates to be called "grand father", which makes him feel old (he is almost 80 now).

3. Do you want to know where you came from and you know the deep stuff you'll never know unless you knew them to talk about it?

Yes I very much want to know everything about my history, but I am not going to force people to talk about things they like to keep buried.

4. What are something you think would be different if you weren't adopted?

I think I would have had a better feel of being grounded had I not been adopted. I think I would have lived a more honest life as a child. Always being afraid to be rejected again made me extremely compliant to the point of complete self-denial. I think that would not have happened had I not been adopted. I would probably not have felt that I had to fill the void in my adoptive parents relationship.

My brother and sister didn't have a nice childhood either, even though they were not adopted. So had I been treated like they were I would probably have had a hard time too. Either way it would be choosing between a rock and a hard place.

5. Have you always felt loved by your adopted parents?

My adoptive father really tried, but I came to realize he didn't really like me all that much. He did his best, but we were so different it was hard to make a connection.

My adoptive mother loved me as baby/toddler and desperately wanted to keep me that way, until I was old enough to be loved as a surrogate husband. It took my entire teen years to keep her at a distance.

6. Do you feel lost or like you don't belong?

Yes I often do. There are few places I feel at home. Correction.. I feel easily at home immediately, but quickly lose that feeling. It rarely happens I feel I belong somewhere in the long run.

Answer 4

You have a lot of questions.

1. Respectful adoption language is important. You do not mean mother you mean birth mother. I've had to adjust to the term birth mother, though biological parent comes more naturally. But in the interest of respect across the triad, I think it's important to adjust. So... how do I feel about my birth motherr making an adoption plan?

Well, I think it's amazing. On the rare occasions that I think about it, I think that she must have been a very determined, brave and courageous person and I'm very grateful.

2. Respectful adoption language is important. Presumably you mean birth parents. You may find that your language choices will severely limit the response you get from people who were adopted.

I know my real parents.

3. I do not have any interest in my birth family or background. I enjoy a very close relationship with my family and can talk with them about all sorts of deep stuff.

4. I think I would have grown up in very difficult circumstances and probably wouldn't be the happy person I am today.

5. Yes.

6. No.

P.S. It's a pretty easy subject. But most adult adoptees do not participate in adoption discussions, particularly on-line because it's just a non-issue. As a result discourse tends to focus exclusively on individuals who struggle with adoption (or feel they have problems that relate to adoption) when that is just not the usual case.  

Answer 5

(1) It's a painful thing.  I'm not angry with her.  And I even believe I understand why she did it.  (I've always though I understood, and several of my guesses were right.)  But it hurts.  It's a loss that is difficult to get over, and even once gotten over (if such a thing is truly possible), the pain it caused doesn't ever fully go away.

(2) Yes.  (And I do know my first mom.  We've been in reunion for a year now.)

(3) Yes.  

(4) I don't know what would be different.  It's so hard to guess.  I would have had people around me with some of the same interests, the same intellectual pursuits.  I wouldn't have had wondered for three and a half decades who I was, and where I came from.  How would these have changed me and my life?  I can't guess.  How would they have changed her?  Likewise.  Too much has happened to really feel confident about going back for these answers.

(5) Yes.

(6) Yes.  I always have.  Maybe I always will.  Though I feel a little less like that since having been in reunion.

Answer 6

1. This is a complex question. For some people, they might say, "I'm really glad because then I wouldn't have the family that I have now" and other people might say, "I wished she hadn't done it."

Personally... I'm angry and happy, and then I feel guilty for feeling both of those emotions. Angry - because I just don't fathom how she was able to do it (inner child speaking here), Happy - because of the life I received, Guilty - because I know I shouldn't feel angry and because she might not want to hear that I was happy being *separated* from her. It's just not that simple for me.

2. I already know them - both sets. Adoptive parents are real. Biological parents are real. To make me have to choose who is "real" is not fair to me as a person. :)

3. I know where I came from but then again I don't *really* know what happened at the time. I was an infant. Who knows what they said to me at the time, what they told my mother, how she felt knowing that she couldn't raise me. I want to know all that stuff but I don't know if I will ever really understand.

4. My entire life. Speaking Mandarin. Writing the characters. Growing up in a home 12 hours away across the Pacific Ocean.

5. Absolutely.

6. Originally, no. I was a "white mind trapped in an Asian body." Recently, as I've started my journey and in turn my search for identity (nature vs. nurture?), I have felt more lost, having to acknowledge that I am not really completely either.

Answer 7

1)  I am glad I was given up for adoption.  My family has been wonderful to me, and I can't imagine growing up surrounded by anyone different.

2)  I do know my real parents.  If you are speaking of my bio-parents, then yup I would like to meet them eventually, but I doubt I will have a very close relationship with them.

3)  I know some of the stuff about my "origin" story... but I want to know more about health/genetic info more than anything else.

4)  I probably wouldn't have had such a problem getting help with some medical probs that came up, since I would have known my family history.  I probably wouldn't have been as nurtured as I was, but I would have been a lil less spoiled which might have been a good thing lol.

5)  Yup, every day.  There has never been a moment where I doubted their love for me.

6)  No, I don't feel lost or like I don't belong.

Interesting questions :-D.  Hope you get some insights.

Answer 8

1. How do you feel about your mom giving you up for adoption?

I thought it was a bad deal, even though people insist that it's wonderful, and adoptees should feel lucky.  Losing your family and identity at birth sucks, and nothing or no one can compensate for that.

2. Do you want to know your real parents?

Yes, and I found them 20 years ago.  I have an ongoing relationship with my mother, and her siblings.  My father died 3 yrs. ago.

3. Do you want to know where you came from and you know the deep stuff you'll never know unless you knew them to talk about it?

Of course.

4. What are something you think would be different if you weren't adopted?

I could have gone through life without a broken heart.  And in my case, I would have grown up with money and opportunity that I did NOT have in my adoptive home.

5. Have you always felt loved by your adopted parents?

No.

6. Do you feel lost or like you don't belong?

Not anymore.  But I did until I was 30ish.  And it took a lot of internal work.

Answer 9

Question One:

My biological mother is not my mother, never will be as she does not earn that title. Dayna, had me taken away from her through the ministry however, all my life I from what my adopted parents knew was told nothing but positive information about my biological mother and father and I had no negative feelings about being adopted whatsoever.

Question Two:

I met my biological parents four years ago at the age of fifteen because of many questions I wanted to become at peace with however, the opposite happened and meeting them has left me with more questions and emotional pain.

Question Three:

Deep stuff, I would still like to hear about from my biological mother as her own family members told me about her drug and alcohol use when she was pregnant with me. I did not find out till the age of eighteen because of a reaction to medication I was on that I indeed had Fetal Alcohol Effects, causing my many mental issues. Still to this day my biological mother blames me for all that happened and lies about each and every thing she can. I do know the truth, she does know the truth although she will not tell me, but I would do anything to have her be honest with me instead of lying over and over. It hurts more than not knowing.

Question Five:

Yes, my adopted parents have always loved me, and my older siblings always tease about how I was truly wanted, as my parents adopted me. I'm the special one and the baby of the family.

Question Six:

At times, but I think will all feel that sense from time to time. I just wish that I was not related to my biological mother has she has hurt me so much.  

Answer 10

1. At first there was a lot of hate & anger towards her.  Now I feel that maybe she felt like she had no other choice.

2. I would like to know my biofamily

3. I would love to know where I came from.

4. Honestly it's hard to say as my life would have been completely different all together as I would be raised in a different country which would affection my religious beliefs, my priorities, etc...

5. No.  I do believe that they mean well and that they do love me but I feel that it wasn't a natural love.

6. I don't feel lost but I feel that I am missing some part of myself

Answer 11

1- I am one of those adopted children, that actually am thankful that my birth mom loved me enough to give me life, and place in the arms of loving parents.  I have no animosity toward her at all.  I love her for loving me enough to give me life, knowing that she could not raise me.

2- I am 50 and I have never sought out my birth mom- I know my real parents by the way, they are the ones that raised me.   I have love and respect for her, so it is not because I don't love her that I chose not to search for her.

3- I may be one of the unusual adoptees however, I have never had a need to find out where I came from.

4- The only thing different would have been that I would been raised by my birth mom, ,or aborted.

5- I have ALWAYS felt love by my adoptive parents

6- I do not feel lost at all, as a matter of fact, my husband is not adopted and he always felt like he did not belong to his bio family.

Also I loved being adopted so much that my husband and I adopted 2 children of our own.

Answer 12

Dear Jennifer:

I've been researching this for a long time.  No two answers will be the same.  Part of how the child feels not only is related to how, when, and to who the baby is placed, but also has emotions that are part of the biological makeup of the baby.  For instance, a child that is born to a woman who suffers from clinical depression might have more issues with adoption than those from a "normal" person who places a baby.  Also, so many things from what age the child is placed, and the attitude of the people who adopt the child are also a lot of the attitude towards adoption.  A child who finds out at 13 that they were adopted all of a sudden is much more likely to hate it than a child who grows up knowing he/she is adopted, and is taught that it is an act done for it's sake.

Answer 13

1. My mum gave me up for adoption because my dad got two women pregnant at the same time. My grandmother didn't want my mother to be a single mother.

2. I know my birth mother and father.

3. I've meet them and asked questions about health and personal because I think it was important for me to know as a person.

4. If I wasn't adopted I think I would have been different as my birth mum lived inthe city and my adopted parents lived in the country.

5. They loved me to the best of their ability.

6. Yes I felt like I didn't belong and different.

Answer 14

1. I think in her situation being sixteen, my father being 27, my bio-grandpa and uncles having threatened my father with firearms, and me being unwelcome in the family since her sister had just had my cousin three months earlier, that she made the right decision and a selfless one. She got married at 17 and ran away and I can't blame her. How could she stay in that house with her sister caring for her baby in that house? It was a horrible situation for her, and her life didn't get better afterward unfortunately, but as I was an infant, I did not need the job of making things better for her. The one thing would have been if my bio-dad could have taken care of us. He managed his family's restaurant and raced stock cars (which is how he later died) and it would have been okay if he could support us while my bio-mom finished school and cared for me. But in the 1970s there was less help for such situations and I don't know if legally he could have been with her until she was 18 which would have been a long two years away. So...I feel fine with her decision. It was the only thing she could do.

2. I know my dear first mom, Beth, and love her very much.

3. I know as I have been in reunion since 1990. I found out stuff I didn't really want to know. The rest of her family is totally f*cked and a bunch of lying meth-heads. I have encouraged her to make a new start and move up by me. She could get a transfer from her job and do so.

4. I would never have known my adoptive family and had the experiences I had. I would not have been encouraged to pursue my education or had the wonderful professional counselors I had as parents. I would not have had the stable home I had or the opportunities to travel and experience the world. I would not have been cherished as much because on some level Beth would have thought I was in the way of her ultimate goal of being with the right man -- still her goal today as a 51 year old, three time divorcee with four adopted teenagers with husband #3. Since her divorce a couple of years ago she lived with a man whom she had to get a restraining order against for beating her. It's all about her getting worth from a man's attention and I know if I'd grown up as her daughter, I would have been victim of that and not her first priority. Doesn't make her bad, just makes her Beth, and it is sad.

5. Yes. I know she always loved me. She did convince husband #3 (whom she was married to for 17 years) to move from their haunts in Fresno/Vegas back to the Midwest around my 17th birthday so that if she did find me or I found her when I was 18, we could be together. She had an intuition that I was still in the state where I was born and she was right. Her ex-husband told me she used to cry for "Alisha" the name she gave me (which starts with the same letter as my actual name Amy) and missed me even ump-teen years later. I know she loves me now, yet I think what she wanted was not to meet a young adult but to have my childhood back and she can't. I think she struggles with that.

6. I was towhead blonde and towered over my Greek/Spanish/British adoptive mother's family and sometimes they made me feel like a freak (not my mother but her extended family). I did feel weird always explaining to people why I looked nothing like my parents. I think I feel like I don't belong because I have bipolar disorder and my mom died when I was sixteen a lot more than because I was adopted.

Hope this helps your family. I'm glad your brother is sensitive to the journey his baby will have throughout his life. I adored my adoptive parents (who sadly have both died) and I adore my first mom, Beth, and love her for who she is, struggles and all.  

Answer 15

This is complicated, but I will give it my best shot...

1. I don't know how I feel about being given up.  Really, I don't.  It changes depending on the time of year, or time of life.  I feel differently around my birthday when I have a sense of longing, and at Christmas I don't even think about it at all as I am totally focussed on my own family.   I felt differently in college than after I had my own kids. Right now? I don't know.  I'm 43 and still trying to figure it out.

2. Yes, I'm in the process of searching.  It only took me four decades.

3. Yes, I want to know where I come from, and where my kids come from.  I feel I need to give my own kids that gift, and they want to know as well.

4. Everything would be different.  My entire life.  I don't see that fact as necessarily good or bad it is just the reality of my life.

5. Yes, I have always felt deeply loved by all my family-grandparents, cousins, siblings, parents.  Never, have I doubted that I was loved.

6. Yes, in spite of feeling completely loved and accepted, and in spite of the fact that I have many close friends, I have always felt "out of place."

Thanks for trying to understand, and good luck with your family issues.

Answer 16

1. She died when I was seven, and that was very heartbreaking. I did not know my mother, or other relations, so I was put up for adoption. I can't be very mad that I put put up for adoption, because she did not know she was going to die when I was young.

2. I knew my mother until I was seven, like I said, but I never met my father. I don't even know who he is, and I would like to meet him eventually.

3. I know all of that, besides who my father is.

4. Where I live, siblings, school, friends, the basics.

5. Yes

6. Sometimes.... but not because I was adopted.

Answer 17

1) I understand. She was 20, my birth-father denied I was his child, and she didn't have any college/training. She went to nursing school after she gave me up for adoption.

2) I've met my birth-mom. We try to get together once and a while (we live in different states, so it's a little complicated to meet up). I've never met my birth-father but I really don't care about him.

3) I know a little of the story of how they met. He was in a band, the singer I think, and she was kinda a groupie. It's almost cute.

4) I think I would be a very different person. My adoptive parents liked the theater and classical music, but my birth-mom is more country (one of her sons wants to be a monster truck driver).

5) Yes.

6) I sometimes do. "Family" is defined differently for me than many people. My family are my close friends, not my cousins in my adoptive family. I have found other adopted people who feel the same way.  

Answer 18

1. I think she did it for the right reason.

2.My birth mom, but I dont think my birthfather wants to meet me.

3. If I had some time on my hands, yeah.

4.I wouldn't have a father figure.

5.By my mom, always.

6.Only when teachers make me do a report on my family.

Answer 19

1. Torn at times. Sometimes I feel resentful, other times, grateful. But overall, accepting of the decision, and appreciative for my life.

2. I am 4 mos pregnant, and am now growing more curious about my genes and biological parents' medical history. When it just was about me, I didn't too much care, but am now wanting to find out more for my baby.

3. I would like to know about my bio-parent's family history, parents, grandparents and so on.

4. I think every single part of my life would be different, and don't really think that would necessarily be a good thing, I enjoy and appreciate the life I have.

5. I always felt extremely loved and nurtured by my parents (adoptive) My father had children from previous marriages, and I was closer to him than his own blood children.

6. When I let it get to my head, around certain times, like my birthday, I start to feel a little melancholy, and introspective. But for the most part I do not.

Answer 20

1.  At various times in my life, I felt more confused and hurt as opposed to angry.  Knowing what actually happened when I was 1 year old has helped greatly with that.

2.  I know my first family.  I know my first father and that side of my family quite well.  There aren't many left living on my first mother's side of the family, including her.  I have a relationship with my step-grandfather, who raised my first mother.  My first mother passed away 7 months prior to my locating her.  

3.  Having the good relationship I have with my first family has enabled me to know where I came from, as much as a person can know that.  My father and I are quite open with each other, so getting answers was never an issue.  The rest of the family members fill in from their own perspectives, as well.  

4.  I would have grown up in the same state, not too far from where I did.  I would have mainly been raised by my father and his family, as my mother was ill and ultimately was unable to raise any of us.  My father and I are so much alike that people find it quite notable.  We have the same interests, talents, ways of thinking, intellectual values and pursuits.  The more I've gotten to know extended family members, the more I see the very clear similarities with them, as well.  So, I certainly would have, like most people, had genetic mirroring.

5.  Yes.

6.  Despite my adoptive family's love for me, I was quite unlike them.  This was something of which they were very aware, too.  So, I felt loved and accepted and that I "belonged" in that sense of the word.  I knew that I had a full place in the family.  However, I did not feel I belonged in the sense that I didn't quite "fit" the same as everyone else.  At my core, not simply on the outside, I was quite different from the rest of the family.  We did not have the same interests, talents, ways of thinking, intellectual values and pursuits.  While they may have valued some of those in me, they were not shared.

Answer 21

1. this is a question knows really asked me. but the truth is i am actually great she gave me up for adoption. i have a great family right now and my birthmom gave me a chance to live a life.

2. yes and no. i want to know them more but i know some stuff about them.

3. Kinda b/c i like to know them a little more.

4. I wouldn't have this great family i am adopted into i have now and i wouldn't have met some of my best friends.

5. Always. they loved me when i was a baby. they adopted me when i was only 8 days old.

6. Nope, i feel safe with them