I am so, so, very sorry.
I’m angry again.Sigh… . Once again, an adult adoptee shared their pain in an adoption community. It was heartbreaking and I completely identified with this person, but I was too afraid to respond. Why? Once again, the birthmothers told this person that they had to understand the birthmothers pain! And, once again the majority of adult adoptees kept silent.
(I am no different…. I am so fearful that even writing this anonymously is giving me a panic attack.)
Let me be very clear: Birthmothers do not understand my pain! Here’s the result of birthmothers explaining to me of how hard and traumatizing it was for them to give up their baby: The more they tell me about their pain, the more guilty I feel and the more worthless I feel!
Why do birthmothers respond so enthusiastically to adoptee questions, when it is very clear that the questioner…
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Adoption: Second Generation Birthmom 
The only way I could cope and continue to live with the unconscionable decision to give away my flesh and blood was to try to convince myself that Joanna would have a better life with two strangers who would be legally sanctioned in 1969.
When Joanna, at age 26, found us, after failed attempts to find her, this is what I said. I understand now that, unwittingly, I was failing in my attempt to defend my wrong decision of giving my baby to others to raise, regardless of the circumstances at the time. Only the passing of time has given me this insight.
Today, I know for certain that relinquishing my child was the worst mistake of my life.
I ought to have fought to keep her regardless of the odds against me. I did not, and I regret this decision.
I have learned a great deal since then, regarding the lifetime of damage adoptees often experience, I know I ought to have made a different decision in 1969.
Changeling, I am sorry for your pain.
To my daughter, Joanna, I am truly sorry that I gave you away.
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I understand and empathize. I think most of us, if we could go back and change that one thing. Always that one thing. I feel the same way. It’s my biggest regret, my most crushing grief and it has informed every decision I have made since that fateful day. And yet My family doesn’t understand why I didn’t get over it and just move on with my life… Yet I did. There was no way but forward. And I have lived my life, but I have lived it broken. There is a piece of my soul running around somewhere else, calling someone else mom. You don’t get over that ever. You just learn to live with a gaping hole.
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