Perfectly Chosen Family

Although Mother’s Day is still a few weeks away, the cards in the store and constant online reminders quickly trigger the stress and anxiety I feel every year. It seems no matter what I do, I can’t get this holiday right.  Either I feel like I didn’t do enough, or I do nothing at all…and I’ve hurt everyone’s feelings.  Between my birthmother and my mom, every year it is an emotional tug-of-war that makes me feel like I’m leaving my birthmother out, or not being fair to my mom. I lived in another province for about a decade, so I was able to avoid the holiday almost completely. Honestly, I didn’t even want to think about it   and actively tried to spend as little time on it as I could. I have now moved back to the same province that they are both in. So, I had no choice but to face my anxiety and emotions head on.   I needed to think about how I could possibly honour both of them and feel good about it. I once had another adoptive mother explain to me how

Being adopted is something that adoptees have no choice in. In fact, it is the choices of those around us that decide how our lives will play out, or at least at the start. Our birthmother made the choice to place us for adoption. Perhaps reluctantly or without other options. Sometimes they are able to choose the family that we the child will go to, sometimes an agency makes that decision. Our adoptive family made the choice to adopt us.   Often this is because the option of having a biological child is not an option at all.   Adoption is almost never someone’s first choice.   In an open adoption, adoptive and birth parents decide together how often visits will happen, how communication will be handled.   Unfortunately, this can start a push and pull between “sides”. There is so much pain and fear, that the most important part of the equation can be overlooked; when the ONLY focus should be on the child and what they need or may want in the future.   The hope is o

It is a very interesting thing, to write letters to the person who gave birth to you...and yet is a stranger. Thankfully, my birthmother wrote the first letter. To my surprise she addressed it to me by first name. I had specifically told the adoption disclosure worker NOT to provide my name. Initially, I felt very exposed, however little did I know how much knowing my first name meant to my birthmother.  When she was pregnant with me, her sister was also expecting. It was a very different circumstance as her sister was married and expecting their second child. She gave birth to a girl, born three months after me. By absolute chance, we share the same name!  In the years between my birth and this early stage in our reunion, my birthmother had watched my cousin grow up, seeing where I would be in development and milestones. It had helped her cope with the loss of placing me for adoption. Life is a crazy thing!! We wrote letters to each other for about si

Using the term "chosen" to describe an adoptee can be quite controversial.  Some adoptees more strongly identify with being rejected or taken away from their biological family rather than being chosen by their adoptive family.  In order to be chosen, it means that someone else did not choose them. So, how can adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents navigate this? Is it possible? Or are children who are adopted sentenced to feeling rejection for life? As an adoptee myself, I can share only my opinion. Allow me to explain why I personally resonate with being chosen rather than left behind or given up.  As an adult in my 30's, almost 15 years into reunion with my birthmother, my eyes are wide open to loss and circumstance, and yet I am forever chosen Let's start with loss. Many adoptees describe the act of being placed for adoption as an early trauma. Often one that they don't consciously experience or comprehend until they are i