How does a mother grieve for a child that is still alive?

Mary G

How do you grieve for a child who is not dead, that you are supposed to pretend is dead or better yet, pretend the child was never born? You don't grieve properly that is a certainty. For me, the first year I cried everyday, the years following the crying diminished but the grief and pain never did. I just hid it, pushed it so far back in my own consciousness that it was hidden.

This sort of grief doesn't follow the patter of other grief, the stages don't seem to apply. So many want to pretend that this sort of grief isn't real or that it is no different than the grief of losing a loved one to death, the fact of the matter is, it is different. The child is alive, somewhere and you have no idea where or if the child is alive and well. It is maddening to say the least, crazy making in the extreme.

I can tell you that for those of us willing to talk about it, it makes us stronger, we go on and we do live. Some of us have more children, we get married, we are happy in many ways. Yet, we are incomplete, the hole left by adoption in our lives is a huge gaping wound, that at times threatens to swallow us, to eat us alive. For me, that hole is not filled, but it is healing, when my daughter found me many of the grief "issues" were resolved. But, nothing will ever make it better, nothing will ever make it all better, the grief will never go away.

There are some in this arena who will tell you they know how you can heal, that they are the be all, and end all when it comes to healing. From personal experience, I can tell you that healing is unique to every woman who has suffered this. And suffer is what we have all done. Some of us find the answer to our grief in activism, some in reunion, and still others find the answer in the fog. I have a combination of the first two. I can't say coming out of the fog was a wonderful thing, but it was a healing thing for me. To realize that I was lied to, coerced and lied to some more was horribly hard, and yet, here I am speaking my truth trying to help others understand what a really horrible thing adoption is for mothers. Mothers who lost their children for no better reason than someone thought we would not be "good enough" to raise our own children, that others would be better parents by virtue of marriage and money.

So tell me what do you think grieving an loss due to adoption should be like? All peaches and cream and rainbows and butterflys? Or should it be the dark and horrible thing it really is?

Sly, again as always you are an eloquent spokesmother who I hope to emulate...

Lori A

I drank, did therapy, drank, did drugs, drank, more therapy, drank, got sober and waited. She found me and now I'm cured.

ETA: Did I misunderstand the question? Is it "How would you do it if you had it to do all over again?" or maybe "What is the proper way to grieve for a child that is still alive?"

I get the impression by the thumbs down that this is an unacceptable way to grieve. She asked HOW, and that's how I did it.

I did a lot of what Independent said too and when I wanted the guilt and the gut wrenching to stop I used alcohol.

That's HOW I did it, but I do not recommend it to others. It has side effects.

ETA: Lrg where were you when I was doing all that slow suicide stuff. I thought I was supposed to hurt, had someone told me "they didn't think I shoud have to do that" maybe I would have straightened up and forgot about it.

You miss one very important point in the grieving proccess of a live child. YOU DON'T KNOW. That's what eats you up. You don't know for sure if what you did was for the best interest of the child or not. You don't even (and are not allowed to) know if that child is still alive.

magic pointe shoes

Oh my. Someone really did link to a website about adoption where the first entry on the link page discusses monkeys up for adoption. Well isn't that helpful for discussing the grief of relinquishment. Especially when the one blog entry when you really dig around that site that refers to considering relinquishment calls it a win-win scenario. PFFFFT. (Aww, the answer with the awful link was deleted. Sorry y'all who missed out on that lol.)

The stages of grief is applicable if understood that the stages can come one at a time or many at once. They also aren't felt in listed order necessarily, and there is no resolution for this grief, not even reunion.

Sly

41 years later and I am still searching for the answer to this question. I have found that for most of us, the only thing is to cope. Reunion doesn't fix it. The grief and loss remain.

I have also decided that if we can't have peace we will have justice; if we can't have our children back we will have acknowledgment; and, if we can't regain our infants we will have truth. That won't fix it, but we will have satisfaction.

snowwillow20

I don't think it's possible. You can't have closure of an open wound.

Freckle Face

Dear Maybe,

The only comfort i had was knowing my daughter was safe in Heaven. If that had not been an option.......I don't know if i could fully grieve. I visit her grave and talk to her, I sit for hours filling her in on our lives. If i did not have that, I could very well go insane. With death there is finalization. Not so with adoption.

I guess a better comparable would be a woman who lost her child to abduction. I don't see how you could resolve your grief until you know where your child is. How your child is. Are they healthy? Happy? The not knowing would be maddening. I don't see a cure.

Counselors didn't resolve or even help with my grief. Nothing but time helped. Most well intended people who had not experienced this type of loss only ended up hurting me more.

*It wasn't meant to be
*You'll get over it
*God has a reason for everything, pffft
*Just have another one

I wish i had the answer for you but i don't think there is one. I can't imagine a resolution to this type of grief. My heart goes out to them.

Felicita1

Can you grieve the loss of any person where there is no closure? That's why people whose loved ones have "vanished" due to suspected foul play seek closure with a passion. Our grief is just as profound, and just as impossible to resolve. And no-one understands or feels we should be grieving because of the myth that we willingly gave-away an unwanted and unloved child.

The grief itself is proof that we wanted and loved our babies and needed to keep them, and should have been provided with every opportunity and support for doing so.

What most people don't understand is that the grief is as profound as having lost a child to death and that open adoption is no panacea (Blanton and Deschner, 1990). Plus for 50% of all natural mothers it either remains at the same intensity of increases over decades (Winkler & van Keppel, 1984)

I also think that one problem that is confused in with grief is PTSD. There are many similar symptoms between PTSD and complicated grief. I know moms in even modern "open adoptions" who have severe PTSD.

p.s. the "stages of grief" don't apply if there is no closure. the grief just keeps on going ... and going ... and going.

p.p.s. One researcher concluded from a meta-analysis of other studies that an alarming 38% of the individuals receiving grief therapy grew worse relative to no-treatment controls. So counseling is a crap-shoot at best.

myst1998

No. Even if you want to move on, want to continue with your life it is hard to pick up the pieces. When you lose a baby to adoption (and yes, contrary to popular thought, adoption IS a loss to the mother), there is never any closure. No funeral to celebrate that baby, no validation of the pain you suffer, just an expectation for you to move on and continue as if you never had that baby.

The thing is, when you take a mother's baby from her, you cast her into a completely alien land. A place where the lights have gone out and it is a very lonely, isolated and cold place. At the beginning, suicide is a common thought for many mothers; self harming, hanging onto sanity by a mere thread. How do you take a baby from a mother and tell her to forget him/her? And how do you grieve for a baby that is not dead? For the mother, in some ways, the baby is dead. Yet people tell her she is lucky because the child is still alive. This doesn't help. Mothers need validation of their loss and constant support. You can be going along fine and a song on the radio or a mention of a name, word etc can trigger that primal grief and you can be unable to breathe or move again and the loss feels just as profound as it did the day you first experienced it.

This pain is very difficult to explain to anyone who has not walked in these shoes.

Tired of the Crap~!

No it's not possible to resolve the grief but to learn to live with it and move on is another story.

nikki g

I would think that it's just about the same as a death. It is a loss. They say that there are five stages:

Denial (this isn't happening to me!)

Anger (why is this happening to me?)

Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)

Depression (I don't care anymore)

Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes

Hope this helps!

Independ"ant"

They can try to grieve by living on the "Hope" that they will one day be reunited and that their child is being taking care of by the loving strangers.

Mother of Many

I have never had to grieve for a child of my own. But I do not think that you can 'get over it' or 'resolve' it. Its your choice to give the baby up for adoption, its your Grief you have to live with every day, every morning you wake up. People grieve in many different ways, some are healthy and some are not. I beleive that giving your child up for adoption is a very serious and personal decision, you have to live with it for the rest of your life. And you never forget.

littleJaina

It depends on whether the adoption is open or closed. In an open adoption, I suggest slowly weaning yourself off the child until your reach a sustainable level of involvement. If it's closed - well, I really have no idea. Just the very thought makes my heard pound. However, I think the best way is to write to the child, and remember that at 18 there's always a chance for reunion. Adoption isn't the solution for everyone.

diamond

yes..pray...that's about all u can do....and believe that the child is better off....just pray that the child gets the love and safety he/she deserve

Lrg

I suggest contacting a counselor. Possibly one at Bethany Christian Services, they are an adoption agency that have wonderful counselors to help a mother through this transition. I don't think you need to grieve a loss for a child, especially if you know that the adoption occurred to grant that child a better life.

Ekul38

I feel there is no way for closure. My son was taken away at the age of 11. I was told if i don't give him up and i loose the case then i will loose visits with my other boys and will have future children taken away. I tell you getting to know them and then adopted has been the hardest thing i ever had to do. I have 4 boys counting my one adopted. You can have another child and people assume you had another child to replace the one adopted which of course is not true. I have a 2 yr old that has never met his adopted brother and it breaks my heart. The only thing keeping me going is the fact that one day he will find me thru adoption agency. I send letters but never get to see him. I have been told by others that he don't even ask for me anymore. I have depression/Anxiety Disorder and they use that against me telling him I am mental and that is why i got him taken away which is not all true. I went thru my kids all having ADD etc. Going on is hard i think and cry every day but in order to keep me strong enough for my other boys I let them keep me going. It is well worth it. They are great boys. there will always be a place in my heart for my adopted boy

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