My Talk With An Adoptive Mother

I have been going through some rough times lately, as you can probably tell by my lack of updates on meeting Jamie and my blog posts. These tough times do not have anything to do with Jamie.  (He is fine and I received an email from him a couple of days ago.)

Through these difficult times I have been blessed with many wonderful connec­tions, and incred­i­ble support.

One of the connec­tions is an adoptive Mum.

She and I were speaking about how to help with issues I was dealing with and I sent her the link to this site. This brought us to a different place.

For me it was very inter­est­ing to hear an adoptive Mother’s perspec­tive.  She is not the first adoptive mother I have spoken to, but the first one I have spoken to who has read this site.

We shared, a lot.

She talked about the diffi­cul­ties she has had, and continues to have, with her adopted child.  The feeling of not fitting in.  Episodes of acting out. Years of the adopted child not being with her after the breakup of her marriage and more.

I told her of what I knew from my experi­ence with Jamie.  More of what he told me than what I actually saw.

They both seemed so similar.

Both of us, as Mother’s, experi­enc­ing the same yet different.

Her experi­enc­ing is in real life, real time, as a real Mother.

My experi­enc­ing it as history, as a story, as a Mother, but not there to help.

But as we spoke, when I listened to her, when I felt her words and her sadness, and her hopes, and her need to let it go, I also felt how close we were in so many ways. That the years she lost with her adoptive child were in many ways similar to the years I lost as a birth mother.

No not the same, but so similar.  So much can be shared and understood.

I know not all adoptive parents have problems with their adoptive child.  I know that not all birth parents want to find their birth children.   Both a happy and sad statement.

It’s different, but it was wonderful to have a connec­tion, and very real connec­tion with someone who has the opposite perspec­tive, Adoptive Mother — Birth Mother and yet share and feel both our pain and our joy.

Jan