My friend, J, is looking for her birth mother. J is 31 years old. She was privately adopted at birth, and knows very little about the teenage girl who gave her away to parents who were old enough to raise a child. J's adoptive grandmother was there minutes after her birth, and took her from her biological mother's arms to her own daughter's.
J was raised in a family of great means that desperately wanted children, but couldn't have them. She has enjoyed every advantage that wealth could provide, and is at ease nearly everywhere in the world. She is one of the brightest people I know, resembles a naturally blond Brooke Shields, and is a PGA-ranked golfer. She is also one of the funniest people on earth. J is incredibly special.
She has placed her name and information on a national registry that exists to reunite adopted children and their birth parents if both are willing, but so far, there is no match. Who wouldn't want to be her mother? Every effort to find this woman, who is now in her 40's, has failed. It isn't that J is unhappy with the parents who raised her. She isn't looking to replace them. But a part of her remains unknown to herself because she has no idea who her biological family is. How can she then fully know who she, herself, is?
I have always been intensely interested in the issues surrounding adoption, although I was not adopted, and am not an adoptive parent. Nor have I ever given up a baby that was born to me. I would not have been capable of that kind of selflessness. If I had ever been forced to do so, I would have spent my entire life peering into the faces of passing children. I would have marked my baby's birthday every year, and never stopped looking for him or her. Giving up my own child would have been worse than amputation. It is hard to praise women enough who recognize their inability to give babies everything they deserve. It is a truly noble thing to do. I cannot imagine that in most cases, it is done without enormous soul-searching and many tears.
It was always my dream to have biological children and to adopt others. I envisioned my home as a place where kids of various ethnicities would become a family. Since I did not have Angelina Jolie's bank account, I did not adopt. I gave birth to three incredible children, whom I raised alone, and I took in animals. We all find our own level. The clothing bills for my dogs, cats and ponies were non-existent, and I didn't have to put them through college. (All my children accomplished this with scholarships, grants, and student loans.)
But how incomplete J and other adopted children must feel not knowing such simple things as whose eyes they have, whose hair, whose artistic talent or math skills. They deserve to know of any medical conditions to which their genetic heritage predisposes them. No matter how much love they share with the parents who raised them, they must wonder what their lives would have been like with their biological family, and if they have brothers and sisters somewhere. It must be a very special kind of loneliness. I hope that J and her birth mother are able to find each other and connect in some way, maybe even grow to love each other as the wonderful people they surely both are.
Happy Mother's Day to the special women who gave their children better lives through adoption than they, themselves, could provide.
UPDATE: J has found her birth mother! They have been talking lengthily, and will meet in person soon. I am so happy to be able to report this beautiful outcome, and I really believe that all the good energy you guys sent her way helped.
