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 | A Peculiar Rhythm - Birth Parent Search
by Terra Trevor |
My son, Jay, then 14, was on the telephone talking with someone who knew his birth mother. My heart thumped. I took deep, slow breaths, my hands clenched themselves. The minutes ticked away. I waited. I felt caught inside a miniature world where everything was frozen in place like a scene inside a glass paperweight. I stood inside this glass world, looking out at my son.
Then he dropped the telephone receiver back into its cradle and said, “He’s trying to locate her and will call me back in the morning.” Jay’s voice was rough, as if the words scraped his throat. I watched him straighten his shoulders, take a deep breath. His dark eyes, swelling with moisture, were not afraid to look into mine.
Years earlier, Jay shared with me his desire to meet his birth parents. Loving my son with ferocity and purpose, I made sure he knew I wholeheartedly supported him. Yet since he was abandoned at birth without a paper trail, a reunion seemed unlikely. In an odd turn of events, the brother of a friend lived in the same small rural town in Korea where my son was born. He offered to make a few phone calls to see if anyone had any information. Jay bolted alert, eager to move forward.
I’d always hoped my son would someday locate a member of his birth family, but I didn’t expect the process to begin without warning, while I was slicing tomatoes in the kitchen on a Saturday night, before we ate our pizza, while the DVD movie we were watching was placed on hold.
Later that night Jay sat beside me on the couch. The sides of our legs touched slightly as we tried to envision the day he was born; his birth mother breathing him in, memorizing the way he smelled. Maybe she carried him on her back in a quilted maroon piggyback blanket. As we combed through our imagined details, my son looked at me with his huge moonbeam eyes, and my heart tipped away. Then he got up to go to bed, as if that ended the matter, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
The decision to initiate a birth family search belonged to my son, but the roller coaster of emotions needing to be worked through belonged to me. A peculiar rhythm stirred within me; the knowledge Jay first belonged to another. I never glossed over the loss, pretending it didn’t matter, claiming he is my child now.
All adoptions stem from loss, and I did not shy away from acknowledging my son had lost his birth family. I wasn’t afraid of losing Jay if he found his birth mom. I never worried that he might send red roses to her on Mother’s Day and forget to send them to me. From the first day Jay became my child, I felt invisible thread connecting me to his birth mom. Yet a reunion would mean I would begin sharing him with her on a new level.
My biggest fear stemmed from hoping Jay wouldn’t get hurt. My friend, Libby’s birth father broke off contact after a year, and it broke Libby’s heart. I hoped Jay’s birth mom would be kind and loving and accept him, and value him as much as I did. Yet I knew I couldn’t protect my son. My job was to give him a firm foundation, and love him enough to allow him the freedom to explore.
I was able to quiet my fears, and then a wild thought hit me. What if my daughter’s birth mother suddenly appeared? I didn’t want to give time to her, at the expense of my own, because I didn’t have an easy-going relationship with Kyeong Sook, like I did with Jay. Our years together were filled with subtle pressures and sudden knocks.
At age 25, she was still fiercely independent. We had finally found our rhythm as mother and daughter. Things were beginning to settle down. If she developed a close bond with her birth mom, deep down, I knew I’d be jealous. After all, I’d done all the hard parenting work. Her first mom would only have to swoop in and enjoy the results. Kyeong Sook wasn’t thrilled about having one mother poking into her life asking questions. Two mothers might be more than she could bear. What if I was left out like her birth mother once was? Worse, what if I were invited into the circle, would I be able to forgive her mother for those first 10 years of neglect and abuse?
What I knew about birth family reunions was gleaned from the experience of others.When my friend, Margaret’s daughter located her birth parents, she discovered she is half Cherokee. I’m Cherokee and know the responsibility being American Indian carries. Margaret’s other daughter is adopted from Korea. A transracial adoption is not a new concept to her, yet interacting with her daughter’s birth family and learning Native American protocol and culture is new territory.
I have other friends whose children’s searches have resulted in ongoing relationships. Some of these unions are comfortable, wonderful and easy, and others are not. Then there is Maria’s son who after initiating a search, met his birth family and then he pulled back, and doesn’t maintain contact. Losing him twice left his birth family broken. What if one of my kids chose to do the same? Would I have to respect their decision, even if I didn’t agree? Could I be supportive without interfering?
As an adoptive parent, with our children standing in the center of our lives, desperately important to us, deeply loved, it’s natural to believe a birth parent search belongs to us. It doesn’t. The decision whether or not to search, and then how to proceed, is up to our children. Where we adoptive parents come in is letting our kids know we support them if they decide to search. If we’re lucky they might let us help them gain skills and insights into this new birth family dynamic they are now involved in.
Sometimes helping means backing off when our teen and adult sons and daughters ask us to back off. When our involvement is not wanted it might feel as if we are not part of the process. Yet we are, because it takes much soul searching to do the inner work necessary to grow flexible and accept the not always balanced give and take that comes with birth parent connections. It requires us to have an open heart to gain the solace and faith needed to be able to trust enough to let go of our kids, and let them connect with the mothers and fathers who came before us. If we do, our arms will be viewed as a point of both origin and return as they walk toward their birth families.
Terra Trevor is the author of the memoir “Pushing Up The Sky: A Mother’s Story” to be released in 2006 by KAAN. She is a contributing author of “Children of The Dragonfly: Native American Voices On Child Custody and Education,” and speaks on transracial adoption nationwide. Her son and oldest daughter were adopted from Korea.
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