This written confession
is being penned in real time
to be shared immediately with other adoptees.
Those that feel the heat even in the shade.
There is so much to say as I see you.
You remind me by just showing up,
who I am and I am forgetful.
Perhaps another piece of evidence?
Who questions the non-adopted?
For me it is a blurry reflection in the mirror.
It is a forever fear of doing it wrong,
saying it incorrectly,
confusing everyone’s name, birthday
and who or what really matters?
Where does this clue, piece, face fit?
How did I function,
brown eyes in a blue-eyed family?
I did.
I loved.
I grew.
I married.
We multiplied,
brown eyes,
beautiful, long lashed.
Is this where adoption ends and family begins?
I did love before!
What have I learned besides gratitude?
Does adopted legacy have memory?
Is narrative inheritance a biological luxury?
Maybe I now cast a bigger, grown up shadow
or have more darkness
experience a different disappearing.
Which family tree envelopes history?
Which branches shelter me?
Still being invited and completely left out.

Can I trust you?
Will you listen if all I say is black ink on a white page?
Certainly, you can read.
Can you see me?
Do I even have your attention?
Can I write this into making sense?
I can so quickly forget who I am
what I am capable of.
Thank you for listening.
I am grateful even if I didn’t welcome the questions.
It is not like me to take a stand and draw attention.
This life work has been adoption’s homework.
To come forward if only for a little while,
to the edge of one life
and beginning of another.
We exist everywhere
and nowhere together.
I am me
and the memory of someone else.
Most days I forget which is expected.
The world says either is not quite enough.
In reality, I have so much to offer,
but please don’t tell anyone what I’ve told you.
Can this be just between us?

Hello readers.  This writing is basically a paper lifted from my Master of Social Work graduate school professional seminar in child trauma.  I hope to disseminate this information widely in various ways, especially due to the recent overturning of to Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) and the rising argument that the simple answer to children born to those who did not intend on having them is adoption.  This paper is personal; my positionality is that of a female, an adopted person, adopted in infancy, and a clinical social worker working with the adopted population.  Side note regarding language: I am aware of the ever-changing and evolving use of adoption language.  In this article I chose to use language for clarity, and mean no offense.  If the language is outdated or harmful, please do reach out and let me know.  Thank you for reading.

DISCUSSION

Permanent physical separation between birthing mothers from their babies is commonly referred to as “relinquishment” in the context of adoption. This discussion article will explore developmental effects of relinquishment occurring at birth and in the early days of an infant’s life.  Examination of neurological, attachment, and developmentally positive outcomes attained through maintaining physical interactions between mothers and their infants during the first hours and days of infant life sheds light on what is missed if a separation occurs.  Contrary to conventional beliefs and attitudes that a baby will not remember or be affected by early life experiences, the neurological impacts of stress in very early life such as relinquishment should be re-framed, acknowledged, and understood as a form of developmental trauma.

The Issue

In general, there is a misconception in conventional attitudes that young children cannot and will not remember traumas experienced in their first few years of life. It is commonly believed that children “removed at birth may be spared the impact of ACES” (Anthony, Paine & Shelton, 2019) and although adoptions that take place at an earlier age are often associated with better outcomes (Perry, Hambrick & Perry, 2014), adoptees who experience relinquishment at all ages are vastly overrepresented in mental health and substance abuse clinics, are at higher risk for mood disorders, mental health issues, and are four times more likely to commit suicide than non-adoptees (Sunderland, 2019).  Adoptees are an unrecognized marginalized group deserving of specialized services that are currently lacking.  This article strives to debunk the myth that even when placed into the best of circumstances, adoptees separated from their birth mothers in early life face challenges with long lasting developmental, emotional, and behavioral consequences.

A Little History – From 1937 to 1965, the number of adoptions in America grew from 8,000 to over 70,000 due to the fact that newborns, as opposed to older children, became available (Fessler, 2006).  Prior to Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), now overturned, doctors often issued orders for birthing mothers surrendering their babies not to see their children (Fessler, 2006).  In some instances, birthing mothers were allowed to hold their babies for moments, and the majority were advised that it was against policy (Fessler, 2006).  In extreme cases birthing mothers were drugged at the time of delivery, awoke post-delivery, and were forbidden to make any contact with their baby out of fear that a bond would be initiated (Fessler, 2006).  Protocol sometimes allowed for brief moments of visitation, followed by the baby being taken by a social worker to a foster care family or facility until they were adopted (Fessler, 2006). Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, this article is of utmost prevalence.

In present day there is often no waiting period at all between the actual birth and placing a newborn into the arms of an adoptive family (Finn, Silverstein & Bodie, 2019).  Birthing processes are unique and varied depending on the pre-arrangements and wishes of the birthing mother and adoptive family.  In open adoptions some birth mothers are given the opportunity to pump breast milk for their babies, while in closed adoptions birth mothers have little to no contact with the child or family after giving birth (Finn, Silverstein & Bodie, 2019).  Noteworthy to mention is the overwhelming body of evidence that both birth mothers and adopted children/adults involved in open adoptions fair better in the areas of mental health, well-being, and productivity than those in closed adoptions (Grotevant, McRoy, Wrobel, & Ayers-Lopez, 2013).

Science and Brain Development

Research in animal studies conducted over the past 40 years finds that early life stressors “can alter key neural networks in, and functioning of, the developing brain” (Hambrick, Brawner & Perry, 2019: 2; Bath et al., 2013; Bedrosian et al., 2018).  Because “brain organization occurs most rapidly in the first days to first week of life” (Hambrick et al., 2019: 1), denying a newborn the familiar, regulating milieu associated with smells, tastes, movement, and sounds of its birth mother affects the foundational organization of core regulatory networks that form the backbone of the stress response.

The limbic system, which monitors danger, is developing immediately after birth at a rapid rate in all mammals (Van der Kolk, 2015).  In a healthy environment where a baby feels safety and love, neurons will fire in a manner that creates a brain wired for exploration, play, and cooperation; whereas an environment of neglect inducing fear and feelings of abandonment or being unwanted produces a brain wired to manage abandonment and fear (Van der Kolk, 2015; Perry, 2003).  The use dependent manner and neuroplasticity in early brain development affects the ability to form emotional relationships, which are critical to the outcome and ability to form healthy relationships later in life, and become mentally healthy (Perry, 2001).

The most rapid ex-utero brain growth occurs during the first two months of human life (Hambrick et al., 2019).  Severe early life stressors occurring during the 0-2 month period of life prove to be risk factors for self-regulatory functions such as “sleep, arousal, attention/tracking, primary sensory integration, affect mood/regulation,” (Hambrick et al., 2019) and chronic health and behavioral issues.  Because the brain is rapidly organizing in the first days and week of life, particular attention must be paid to the fact that the neurodevelopmental systems organize at unique rates and times; the timing of an early life stressor may provide disproportionately different outcomes (Hambrick et al., 2019).  Impaired bonding between infant and mother such as relinquishment should be viewed as an early life stressor.  The timing, length, and severity of impaired bonding will influence the degree to which the amygdala, limbic system, and long-term programming of hormonal systems affect a developing human’s emotions and functioning (Perry, 2001).

Oxytocin

Oxytocin is a nine amino acid peptide paracrine hormone and neurotransmitter system activator that brings about feelings of well-being, anti-stress, lowers pain sensitivity, decreases inflammation, and is a stimulus for both growth and healing (Moberg & Prime, 2013).  Oxytocin has a short half-life, but because it neuromodulates other hormonal systems within the brain, its effects can last long after its release (Buckley, 2015).

Oxytocin is instrumental in the development of use and state dependent functioning (Perry, 2001) as it has the power to wire the brain for both positive and negative associations in the brain (Northwestern University, 2013).  Experiments on mice found that “after a negative social experience the oxytocin triggers anxiety and fear in a new stressful situation” (Northwestern University, 2013: 2) indicating that oxytocin is involved in both the pleasure and stress responses.

In Utero

One can argue that attachment begins in utero.  Utero sets the stage for familiarity, comfort, soothing, and a sense of safety.  In utero the fetus becomes accustomed to ingesting the foods that its mother eats, the movements and rhythms of the mother’s gait and life, and the sounds of the mother, other people close to the expecting mother, and all environmental sounds in the mother’s life.  At 16 weeks of life, a fetus begins to hear sounds both from the outside world such as music and voices (Gordon, 2013) and the heartbeat of their mother.

One area that is understudied is how the stress of an expectant mother hormonally affects the development of a fetus and newborn.  Exposure to the mother’s hormonal stress and other teratogens directly relate to emotional, attachment, cognitive, behavioral, social and physiological issues (Perry et al., 2014).

Birth

Allowing for physiologic and salutogenic childbearing facilitates positive hormonal system outcomes for both women and babies (Buckley, 2015).  In utero babies are swimming, weightless, and impervious to gravity.  As Van der Kolk points out, being mobile, and “able to protect oneself is a critical factor in determining whether or not a horrible experience will leave long-lasting scars” (Van der Kolk, 2015, p.55).  At and during birth infants shift from a floating body in amniotic fluid to immobile, weighted by gravity beings.  Interestingly, higher levels of oxytocin are found in infants who experience vaginal births than cesarean births (Moberg & Prime, 2013) suggesting that a vaginal birth may more “stressful” to the newborn, and possibly better prepare it for the sudden drastic change of environment and immobility of gravity.  Any state of hyperarousal and prolonged trauma fuels the necessity for soothing (Van der Kolk, 2015).

Infant oxytocin production is triggered by the sight, smell, touch, and sounds of the birthmother (Moberg & Prime, 2013).  Research shows that infants have preferences for their own mother’s voice and breast milk over other voices and other breast milk when offered a choice (LifeWorksCommunity, 2015), suggesting that infants can sense the difference between caregivers and their biological mothers.  One could assume that the infant feels soothed by the voice of its biological mother. Physical separation at birth can cause disruptions to attachment, reward, and regulation and even infant survival (Buckley, 2015) due to the lack of familiar sounds, smells, and movements of the mother.  Changes to brain development regarding language heard in utero versus post birth placement (relevant in intercountry adoption) have not been studied.

Skin-to-Skin

Benefits of skin-to-skin contact in the first hour or so after birth include peak oxytocin activity, increased contractions reducing postpartum risk of hemorrhage, and vasodilation of the birthing mother’s chest which creates natural warming for the baby (Buckley, 2015).  Skin-to-skin contact activates hormones that increase biological bonding, and lower maternal and newborn stress (Buckley, 2015).  “The hour or so after physiologic birth is a sensitive period, when skin-to-skin maternal-newborn interactions foster peak oxytocin activity” (Buckley, 2015: 5).

In animal studies, even brief repetitious separations of mother and offspring detrimentally impact the “stress hormone systems …with enduring effects including depression-like behaviors in adult offspring and also in separated new mothers” (Buckley, 2015: 9).

Breastfeeding and Breast Milk

The birthmother’s breast milk is the best food for her baby as it is uniquely developed specifically for that infant human (Newnham & Milgrom, 2019).  “There is growing evidence that breastfeeding improves the brain development of infants… and can increase a baby’s brain growth by 20 to 30 percent” (Bergland, 2013: 1).  Although breast-feeding and the lack thereof is not just an adoption or relinquishment issue, this article will examine the act of breastfeeding and the benefits of breast milk in order to highlight positive developmental results that the child does not receive if a separation occurs.

Oxytocin, both a hormone and neurotransmitter, stimulates breast milk production (Moberg & Prime, 2013).  Maternal and newborn stress decreased by hormonal facilitation of initiation of breastfeeding (Buckley, 2015).  During breastfeeding prolactin levels correlate with protective “maternal adaptations including: reduced anxiety, aggression, and muscular tension; and increased social desirability (conformity), which may help mothers to prioritize infant care” (Buckley, 2015:9).

An infant’s Ventral Vagal Complex (VVC) is stimulated by interactions and controls sucking and swallowing, two actions involved in breastfeeding (Van der Kolk, 2015).  When the VVC’s functions are “stimulated in an infant, they are accompanied by a sense of pleasure and safety, which helps create the foundation for all future social behavior” (Van der Kolk, 2015: 86) and associates these actions and interactions with reward and pleasure.  Even minutes long routine separation of a birthmother and their newborn during the minutes and hours after birth such as evaluation and bathing “disrupts the babies ability to find the breast and attach” (Lothian, 2005: 44; Righard & Alade, 1990).

Development/Attachment/Bonding

Brazelton and Winnicott studied parent-infant pairs and found them to be interdependent; the newborn and mother were thought of as a unit (Brazelton & Cramer, 2018).  “Scientists believe the most important factor in creating attachment is positive physical contact… optimally (with) the mother” (Perry, 2001).  A baby knows its mothers voice and smell (Newnham & Milgrom, 2019).  This information is acknowledged as important in that it factors in a good base for bonding, attachment, and provides comfort and feelings of safety and security to the newborn (Newnham & Milgrom, 2019).  Some argue that a newborn has no “normal” or known “desirable” state, but as Brazelton demonstrated, babies will recognize and turn to their mother of origin’s voice and show preference for their mother’s breast milk.  This familiarity, currently uncategorized by modern psychoanalysis, is in itself, a regulating and safe base for the baby, and serves as a protective factor.

A number of these familiars are absent in multiple circumstances outside of the adoption context.  They can be observed briefly in cesarean section birthing practices, premature infants sent to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), surrogate circumstances, and in scenarios due to medical, cultural, unforeseen choices, procedures, or conditions.

Movement towards recognizing the importance of mother and infant bonding is evidenced by Minnesota’s new “Healthy Start Act” (HF1403/SF1315, 2021), where pregnant inmates have the ability to bond with their babies “during what is recognized as a crucial period when nurturing is particularly important for the development of children” (Gains, 2021).  Further recognition of protective factors such as familiarity between mother of origin and baby could initiate major changes in best practices across the birthing, adoption, and human rights fields.

Adoption Law

The law surrounding the revocation period given to birthing mothers considering relinquishment varies state to state from one week to 30 days (adoption.org, n.d.) although antithetical procedures still exist.  Allowing formation of a bond between mother and baby still invokes fear due to the possibility of a disrupted adoption.  A disrupted adoption is not only a tremendous loss for an adoptive family, it is also a risk to the adoption industry.

Research indicates that open adoptions serve as protective factors to both birth mothers and adoptees, where closed adoptions often prove to be risk factors for both adoptees and the birth mothers (childwelfare.gov, n.d.).  Further studies on open adoption would be instrumental in providing recommendations for best practices in adoption including adopting parental and birthing mother and father wishes surrounding the birth of the baby.

GAPS

Society often does not realize that babies are complex beings with feelings and reactions that activate systems with lifelong human repercussions. Due to this gap in understanding, it is vital that we use current information and give voice to the newborn.

 “High quality research is lacking” in the study of maternity care practices impacting oxytocin effects (Buckley, 2015).  There is a general lack of funding for studies in women’s health, birthing practices, breast milk, and long-term studies of relinquishment in adoption outcomes.  Studies currently in existence regarding adoption rely heavily on the adoptive parents second-hand information that could be missing large portions of a child’s story, or simply be inaccurate (Anthony, Paine & Shelton, 2019).

Additional studies should be conducted on breast milk, wet-nurses, surrogates, NICU infants, and birth-partner effects on the infant in order to identify promotive versus risk factors. Findings recommend that professionals involved in natal care incorporate and advocate for best practices promoting physiologic birth, immediate skin-to-skin contact between infant and biological mother, and breast-feeding.

Specific long-term studies on adoptees are needed in order to discover and support changes towards best practices.  Additional research on oxytocin’s power to wire both for positive and negative responses, and the developmental impacts of those measures could prove to be a link in understanding the overrepresentation of adopted people in substance use treatment centers.

Additional recommendations include that the “potential impact of complex trauma be considered in the deferential diagnosis of other mental health” (Murray & Sullivan, 2017: 221; Lee et. al 2015) as currently “a single disorder does not exist in the DSM-5 to adequately capture trauma’s impact on development” (Murray & Sullivan, 2017: 221; Van der Kolk, 2005). Great care must be taken to avoid pathologizing individuals who have experienced relinquishment and separation.  “Adoption-specific adjustment should be included in a comprehensive mental health assessment, even for children adopted from birth or infancy” (Murray & Sullivan, 2017: 219).  In addition, clinicians and providers should be trained in adoption-specific issues, especially if they are working with the adoptee population.

Additional Findings

Although this article originally sought to highlight benefits for the infant when allowed time and physical contact with its birth mother, findings point to undeniable long-lasting benefits  mentally and physically for both infant and mother.  Furthermore, denial of skin-to-skin and prolonged physical contact between mothers and their newborns prove to be risk factors for both parties.

Other areas where mother and child separation occur outside of the adoption context are surrogacy, cesarean section protocol, and the NICU.  Surrogacy is considered a high-risk emotional experience (Tehran, Tashi, Mehran, Eskandari, & Tehrani, 2014).  In surrogacy, after legal parenthood is set forth, the surrogate has no legal rights in relation to the child (conceivabilities.com, 2019).  As of 2019 it was illegal to contract for gestational surrogacy in four states (circlesurrogacy.com, n.d.) and in France (sciencedirect.com, n.d.).  Cesarean sections often call for early separation of newborns and their mothers “depriving (mothers) the opportunity to reduce epinephrine-norepinephrine for herself and her baby through oxytocin elevations with skin-to-skin contact and mutual interactions” (Buckley, 2015: 8).  “Separation of mothers and their healthy newborns, which typically follows cesarean section, may also impact postpartum maternal prolactin levels” (Buckley, 2015: 9).  There is a growing body of understanding regarding the importance of bonding and attachment while an infant is in the NICU (Newnham & Milgrom, 2019).  An important aspect of NICU bonding includes acknowledgement of infant recognition of parental voice and smell (Newnham & Milgrom, 2019) leading to soothing and regulation in all parties.  This knowledge could be further expanded upon in exploring the beneficial aspects of familiarity and comfort provided by birth mothers and fathers.

Social Contract

Are people living up to the social contract created by the intervention of human adoption? It is common knowledge that prior to the adoption of puppies, they must spend 8-10 weeks with their mother.  Removing a puppy prior to this 8-10 week period creates canines that are prone to nervousness and a “tendency to bark and bite.  They are also less likely to accept discipline and may be aggressive to other dogs” (Faricelli, 2019).  Is the widely accepted practice of human infants separation from their mothers a fair social contract for the baby and all parties involved?  It is ethically expected that all beings enter the world with equal opportunities, but if one enters the world with no opportunity to interact with his/her/their familiar secure base from which to explore and learn and grow, the removed child has unfair expectations placed upon them; their “normal” is in fact atypical.

Recommendations

Formal education on childbirth is still a relatively new concept (Hutchinson, 2015).  The information presented in this article should be shared with professionals who work with natal facilities, adoption services, and social workers.  The information should also be shared with pregnant women as a form of protective psychoeducation, so they are more informed of the benefits of prolonged contact with their infants for both themselves and their babies.  This empowering information allows room for educated decisions about post birth procedures.

It is recommended that mothers hold their “babies in skin-to-skin immediately after birth and remain with them in the first hours and days after birth” (Lothian, 2005: 45).  The absence of birthing mother and infant interactions that induce chemical network-forming pathways affecting brain development, attachment, regulation, and sensory integration should be viewed as an early life stressor and developmental trauma exposure that are currently not taken into consideration by mental health and medical fields.

As discussed above, impairment and interference with fetal neuroprotective systems affects the long-term programming of babies hormonal systems.  Disruptions to attachment, reward, and regulation and even infant survival can be related to brain functioning in early life. One hope in these findings is the fact that ongoing neurobiological maturation creates continuing opportunities for recovery (Perry, 2001), and it is recommended that the mental health profession take into account developmental trauma by including relinquishment, adoption, and foster care in the ACES, and by including developmental trauma in the DSM-5.

Policy & Practice Implications

Large-scale implications from changed global perception and recognition of early relinquishment as a form of trauma include the potential to affect multiple areas of policy and practice.  Changes may include updates to adoption reform, pre and post adoption practices, adoption laws, women’s health, birthing procedures, funding for research, original birth certificate access, assessment measures, practitioner training, and diagnosis.  Recognition and wider awareness will benefit adoptees, families, practitioners, professionals, and the global community at large.  Understanding the benefits of open adoption may lead to greater access to original birth certificates and a variety of unique family dynamics.  The training and creation of an adoption-informed provider workforce will offer better-informed and attuned mental health services for this marginalized population.  It is recommended that voices from the adoptee population are included in creating these methods.

Acknowledging separation consequences will inform pre and post adoption treatment, pre-adoptive considerations, clinicians, and professionals working with the adoption populations, and allow for critically needed policy changes.  Economical and emotional support for multiple adoptee challenges currently unaddressed by medical health insurance companies, workplaces, and other systemic structures may occur in our country and abroad.

Conclusion

Contrary to conventional beliefs and attitudes that an infant will not remember or be affected by early life experiences, this article finds that keeping a birthing mother and her newborn baby together with physical contact serves as a protective factor against developmental and behavioral issues (Lothian, 2005).  Early relinquishment should be acknowledged as a developmental trauma exposure that may lead to multiple behavioral and social issues that are currently not associated with early life mother and infant separation.  Consequence of this finding could have wide ranging effects on public and professional perception, treatment, and policy.

By giving voice to the infant, we become cognizant that “the first year of life is a time of significant risk for victimization” (Hambrick et al., 2019: 9; Turner et al., 2006) with long lasting consequences.  Through investigation of best circumstances surrounding birthing practices and relinquishment, the benefits of biological mother and child contact are explicitly underappreciated, understudied, and prove vastly beneficial for both the mother and her infant. Recognizing early relinquishment as developmental trauma is radical and immense, yet this knowledge gives us the power and opportunity to facilitate the creation of neurologically more-typical, and ultimately happier humans.

References

Anthony, R.E., Paine, A.L., & Shelton, K.H., (2019). Adverse childhood experiences of children adopted from care: The importance of adoptive parental warmth for future child adjustment. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(2212).

Bergland, C. (June 8, 2013). Breastfeeding Boosts the Brain Development of a Baby. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/201306/breastfeeding-boosts-the-brain-development-baby

Blackmun, H. A. & Supreme Court Of The United States. (1972-3). U.S. Reports: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113. [Periodical] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep410113/.

Brazelton, B. & Cramer, B.G. (2018).  The earliest relationship: parents, infants, and the drama of early attachment. New York, NY: Routledge.

Buckley, S. J. (2015).  Executive summary of hormonal physiology of childbearing: Evidence and implications for women, babies, and maternity care. The Journal of Perinatal Education, 24(3), 145-153.

Fessler, A. (2006). The girls who went away: the hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade. London, England: Penguin Press.

Faricelli, A. (July 18, 2019). Risk of removing puppies too early from mother and litter mates. PetHelpful.com. Retrieved from https://pethelpful.com/dogs/Risks-of-Removing-Puppies-too-Early-from-Mother-and-Litter-Mates.

Finn, K., Silverstein K., & Bodie, H. (2019). Placing Home (Piven Lab Series). Chicago: Piven Theater.

Gains, P. (2021, Aug. 4).  One state is trying to make pregnancy in prison slightly more bearable.  NBC. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/one-state-trying-make-pregnancy-prison-slightly-bearable-rcna1578

Gordon, K. (2013). Eight ways dad-to-be can bond with baby now. Parents.com & Meredith Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.parents.com/parenting/dads/101/ways-dad-to-be-can-bond-with-baby-now/ .

Grotevant, H. D., McRoy, R. G., Wrobel, G. M., & Ayers-Lopez, S. (2013). Contact Between Adoptive and Birth Families: Perspectives from the Minnesota Texas Adoption Research Project. Child development perspectives, 7(3), 193–198. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12039

Hambrick, E.P., Brawner, T.W., & Perry, B. D. (2019). Timing of early-life stress and the development of brain-related capacities.  Ed: Hunter, R. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. 13:183. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00183.

Hutchison, E. (2015).  Dimensions of human behavior – the changing life course (5^th ed.). Los Angeles, NY: SAGE Publications, Inc.

LifeWorksCommunity. (2015, Feb. 24). Adoption and addiction: remembered not recalled – a lecture by Paul Sunderland [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e0-SsmOUJI

Lothian, J. (2005).  The Birth of a Breastfeeding Baby and Mother. Journal of Perinatal Education, 14(1): 42-45.

Murray, K.J., & Sullivan, K.M. (2017). Using clinical assessment to enhance adoption success. The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 98(3), 217-224.

Moberg, K. U., & Prime, D. K. (2013).  Oxytocin effects in mothers and infants during breastfeeding. Infant, 9(6), 201-206.

Newnham, C. & Milgrom, J. (July 31, 2019). Bonding with your premature baby in the NICU. University of Melbourne and Parent-Infant Research Institute. Retrieved from https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/premature-babies/connecting-communicating/bonding-in-the-nicu.

Northwestern University. (July 22, 2013). ‘Love hormone’ is two-faced: Oxytocin strengthens bad memories and can increase fear and anxiety. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130722123206.htm.

Perry, B. D. (2001).  Bonding and attachment in maltreated children: consequences of emotional neglect in childhood. ChildTrauma Academy. Retrieved from www.ChildTrauma.org.

Perry, B.D., Hambrick, E.P., & Perry, R.D.  (2014).  Clinical challenges following intercountry and transracial adoptions: a neurological perspective – Pre-Final Draft. Fong, R., McCoy, R. (Eds.) New York NY: Columbia University Press.

Sunderland, P. (Aug. 1, 2019).  Relinquishment and Adoption: Understanding the Impact of an Early Psychological Wound.  iCADD. Retrieved from https://www.icaad.com/blog/relinquishment-and-adoption-understanding-the-impact-of-an-early-psychological-wound.

Tehran, H. A., Tashi, S., Mehran, N., Eskandari, N., & Tehrani, T. D.  (July, 2014).  Emotional experiences in surrogate mothers: A qualitative study. Iran Journal of Reproductive Medicine, 12(7), 471-480.

Van der Kolk, B. (2015). The body keeps the score: brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books: NY, NY.

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The documentary takes us back in time to the late ‘90s and early 2000s when a dying brand—originally founded as an outdoor retailer selling to the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway—was resurrected to become a pop culture phenomenon among teens and college students. Interviews with former employees bring to light the dark side of the company’s exclusionary hiring practices and its culture of white affluence and chiseled torsos.

As an elder millennial, I was in middle school in the late ‘90s and early 2000s—peak Abercrombie mania. I grew up in a predominately white, middle to upper-middle-class suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Although we weren’t the preppy East Coast target audience the brand was built on, there were plenty of well-to-do kids at my school dripping in the Abercrombie aesthetic. 

Unlike the majority-white community I grew up in, I’m Latina. I was born in Chile and adopted as an infant. I was raised in a family of four which included my mom, who I’m pretty sure inspired by the song Independent Women by Destiny’s Child, my younger sister, a kind-yet-feisty Scorpio who was adopted from Peru, and my grandma, the daughter of Swedish immigrants with a no-nonsense attitude and heart of gold. Our multigenerational, multiracial, all-female household was in every way outside the family norms of my peers and the community I lived in.

As an adult, I am so appreciative of the family I grew up in and how it shaped my worldview, but as a kid, I just wanted to fit in. And one way of fitting in was to wear the “right” clothes. As I went from elementary to middle school, something started brewing inside me—and it wasn’t just hormones. I began to recognize that what you wore might have a connection to who you identify with, and what group you’re a part of. 

Sixth grade ushered in an era of big change for me. A change in school. A change in hairstyle (full disclosure: my short crop was supposed to make me look like Monica from Friends, but I just ended up looking like a soccer mom). And a change in my anxiety levels.

I was always a nervous kid, but middle school was the woooorst (please imagine Jean Ralphio from Parks and Recreation singing that into your ear). I realize that it’s not an earth-shattering revelation to say that I, as an adolescent girl, felt insecure, socially anxious, and hyper-aware of what I looked like and how I fit in, but I was also a transracial adoptee and person of color in a mostly white space being raised by a single parent and a grandparent, and my otherness was starting to become more evident to me. 

Instead of thinking about my unique identity as something to honor and celebrate (that would happen years later in therapy), any sign of difference just made me want to double down on fitting in. 

Watching White Hot, which included footage of ‘90s mall culture and teens waiting in long lines to get the newest logo-emblazoned tee, I was transported to my sixth-grade self and all the feelings that came along with her. The documentary opens with the song My Own Worst Enemy by Lit with cut-out photo collages reminiscent of Bop Magazine that brought back memories of yearbooks, scrapbooks, and locker decor.

I remembered the feeling of walking nervously down crowded hallways studying in precise detail everything going on around me, making constant calculations about the ways I was the same and the ways I was different. 

I can still see one of the “cool” girls who seemingly had it all going for her—I’ll call her “Ashley” because 50% of my graduating class was named Ashely. Early in the school year, I remember Ashley floating through the hallways dressed in yet another cool-girl ‘fit that was straight out of A&F Quarterly: Doc Marten brown leather oxfords with white crew socks (pulled up to her mid-calf), khaki shorts, a white tank top with navy piping that had the words “Abercrombie & Fitch” printed across the chest, and a flannel shirt tied casually around her waist.

Girl was a living and breathing symbol of everything Abercrombie and American culture at large was telling me I should be, and I neeeeeeded it. I needed it like I needed to start shaving my legs. It was a matter of social survival.

Her whole vibe was, I’m blonde, I’m effortless, and I talk to boys with ease. I’m on the traveling basketball team and never have I ever been asked where I’m really from. 

She was Abercrombie & Fitch, and by comparison, I sooooo was not. My vibe was more, I’m the quiet girl from Chile with round glasses who likes boys but won’t date a boy until college. I don’t play any sports, but I do play in orchestra.

The chasm of difference between us didn’t stop me from believing that if I could just get the clothes, then I too could fit into the “all-American” (white) archetype Abercrombie was selling.

Although I wanted the clothes, obtaining them wasn’t so easy. My mom, like most moms, thought the store was overpriced nonsense, but I’d still drag her to the mall in the hopes that she’d change her mind and give in. She’d let me go in the store to look around while she sat on a bench trying not to pass out from the overwhelming stench of bro (A&F’s signature scent). 

After watching the documentary and getting a behind-the-scenes look at a deeply discriminatory company, I felt like someone had just sprayed A&F cologne directly into my mouth. AKA: it left a bad taste. I felt gross, used even. After all, I was Latina growing up in a white world, begging my mom to spend her hard-earned money and support a company that was in no way supporting a kid like me. 

White Hot is a fascinating—if not horrifying—look into a brand that in its heyday sold openly racist graphic tees to the masses and was so drunk on power that one A&F merchandiser recalled, “in the first week that I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch the HR rep talked about how you could write ‘Abercrombie and Fitch’ with dogshit and put it on a baseball hat and sell it for forty bucks.” LOL. Capitalism!

The only thing I know for sure after spending 90 minutes time-traveling back to adolescent memories riddled with insecurity and anxiety is that my mom, our moms, were right. Abercrombie & Fitch was loud, obnoxious, and as it turns out, not cool at all.

No matter who you are, growing up will always be hard. If you, like me, have intersecting and converging identities that you’re still trying to unpack as an adult woman in her 30s, it will come with some additional challenges. 

I’m hopeful for the future though. Thanks to a changing culture, discriminatory brands can be called out and shut down with a single TikTok from members of the most diverse generation yet. We still have a long way to go, but I’m glad to see that this brand of exclusion is finally going out of style.

Years of paperwork and persistence later, my parents finally got the ok and travelled across the world to pick up the newest member of the Jones family. After 36 hours of travelling, they arrived at the orphanage in northern Vietnam to pick me up. When asking my parents decades later about the experience, they speak about how I was a happy 6-month-old baby, how I ate a weeks’ worth of baby food in a few days, and how I was the biggest baby at the orphanage. My parents’ memories are ones that I cherish and hold on to because they help me piece together parts of the story of my life in its first year.

One question I often receive is, “when did you know you were adopted?” and I respond by explaining that I have known I was adopted from as early as I can remember. My mother always told me I was adopted because my birth parents could not properly care for me. Even now, as an adult, I find it difficult to put into words the emotions that come with being an adoptee. You are pulled in all directions; as an adoptee, I do feel sad to think my biological parents put me up for adoption, but at the same time, I am grateful for my amazing and loving family.

As soon as I landed at that airport in rural Québec, I was welcomed with an abundance of pure love. I know this is because my family recorded every minute of it. For me, this home video symbolizes my official birth to the Jones family. In the movie, you can see a packed room of my extended family and friends, all tensely waiting in anticipation for the newest member of the family to arrive. We then see the aircraft land, and people begin to disembark. Finally, the moment everyone had been waiting for, my parents walk off the plane holding me, and the crowd begins to cheer. When I entered through the terminal doors, a wave of joy and happiness erupts in the crowd and a plethora of celebratory hugs and kisses ensue.

I was accepted and loved by my family from day one, and I am forever grateful for this. Like anything else, there are always challenges. As an adoptee, you always live with unanswered questions that you simply can’t ignore. Where are my birth parents now? Do I have any biological siblings? What is my family medical history? Do I look like my biological family? How would I feel when or if I meet my birth parents? As you can imagine, having these questions left unanswered for your entire life can be a heavy burden.

Though I was/am loved and supported by my family every day, there were many times during my childhood when the racial-based teasing became too much to handle, and I would break down. It was during these challenging moments that I felt most alone because even though I had a strong support system, they could not fully understand what I was going through. Today, I continue to be perplexed by how I can be surrounded by so much love but continue to feel alone, but this is something I am continuously working through.

Being adopted is something that I am eternally grateful for. I am blessed with my vibrant family of 8, which consists of my brother, four sisters, and my parents. Additionally, I can’t forget to mention my loving extended family of grandparents, godparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Adoption has given me everything (family, opportunity, health, education, friendships, etc.), and if I had my time back, I would not change one thing.

Thank you for reading my story and stay tuned for more adoption-related posts,

Your Friend Miguel.

Tossed away, or thrown.

Way out, of my very first home.

A stolen life.

Given away.

Or taken away,

from the home of my birth.

A stolen life.

I wandered the earth.

Life’s a question mark.

An existence with just a spark.

A stolen life.

Invisible disabilities.

Blind to possibilities.

Surrounded by the Birds of Prey.

A stolen life.

Spirit and clay.

Slept through the pain.

They were all insane.

A stolen life.

Even still, close to the end.

A life hard to mend.

Always on re-start.

Throughout the film the only Chinese or otherwise Asian community in Mika’s life seems to be Yang (Justin H. Min), a technosapien- functionally an intelligent robot with flesh whose body presents as a Chinese male. Yang is not just a techosapien, it is a “cultural techno”. It was bought to play the role of big brother, caretaker, and racial mirror to Mika, the adoptee.

One of the pre-eminent concerns of “progressive” hopeful adoptive parents looking to adopt transracially / transnationally
is the presence of racial and cultural mirrors for their dis-and-re-placed adoptee.

A mirror is an object that reflects back to the viewer who they are. A racial, or cultural mirror is someone or something that reflects back to the adoptee who they can be.

By way of research and personal testimony of adoptees we know that counter to what the adoption industry has propagandized us into believing- love is not the only necessary ingredient in a family constructed through the use of transracial/transnational adoption. We, as adoptees, like all humans, must also be imbued with a sense of who we are and can be racially , and culturally. This is all the more important given that in the United States we live in a racist and xenophobic society.

In After Yang, the racial mirror robot malfunctions and is on the brink of robot death. Jake brings Yang first to an Apple Store equivalent but they won’t repair Yang because Jake purchased Yang from a 3rd party vendor- offering only to replace him. In response, Jake finds an outlaw techno mechanic named Russ (Ritchie Coster) that can help him save Yang. When Jake enters the garage we meet Russ, a white nationalist; possessing an American flag with the slogan “ain’t no yellow in the red white and blue” and a poster that reads, “Yellow Peril”.

In a racist and xenophobic society everybody, everyday is exposed to, and consumes messages of who “the other” is, and their place in said society. Yang, the dying Chinese Male presenting cultural techno is meant to bulwark Mika, the adoptee, from the very same kinds of othering messages that are displayed and embraced by the man whose job it is at that moment to revive Yang.
The film subtly acknowledges the inherent racial and cultural displacement of transracial / transnational adoptees but for the most part doesn’t comment on it beyond prescribing a solution: Yang.

Yang is programmed full of Chinese fun facts, and in addition to racial mirroring he also performs the emotional labor of helping Mika reconcile her status as a transracial/transnational adoptee.

In a visually gorgeous garden scene Yang likens Mika’s adopters’ to a tree and her to a branch that was grafted in, an apparent other that now belongs.

But, what is the adoptive family to do when the adoptee’s primary connection to her cultural heritage- a robot- is dying?

The film wonders what this death means for the family insofar as the parents being workaholics; so who will raise Mika- but not much wondering how Mika will learn who she is and can be in a family that first placed the responsibility of teaching Mika her culture on a robot.

In the 1972 Position Statement On Trans-Racial Adoption, the National Association of Black Social Workers write, “Ethnicity is a way of life in these United States, and the world at large; a viable, sensitive, meaningful and legitimate societal construct. This is no less true, nor legitimate for Black people than for other ethnic groups. . . The family is the basic unit of society; one’s first, most pervasive and only consistent culturing life experience. Humans develop their sense of values, identity, self concept, attitudes and basic perspective within the family group. . . Only a Black family can transmit the emotional and sensitive subtleties of perception and reaction essential for a Black child’s survival in a racist society. . . white parents of Black children seek out special help with their parenting; help with acquiring the normal and usually instinctual parental behaviors inherent in the cultural and psychological development of children. It is tantamount to having to be taught to do what comes naturally.”

Though the film is titled “After Yang”, it does not concern itself with Mika and her racial identity formation after Yang nor is it gutsy or honest enough to explore how the construct of race intersects with the desire of (hopeful) adopters and how both mechanisms can impede and obscure the life trajectory of a transracial/transnational adoptee. In After Yang, Mika is expected to trust her adopters to do the work they bought Yang to do- but can they be trusted? Is goodwill virtuous enough to parent Mika the ways that she, like all transracial/transnational adoptees need to be parented? I don’t know.

It’s important to note: the adoptive parents have real races (Black and white) but the bot doesn’t. It’s Asianity is a product of programming and the decomposable flesh that encases it’s circuitry.

It’s racialization is a wholly performative service to the adoptive family.

In the adoptive family’s decision to delegate the task of saving Yang to Jake, he embodies the contradictory role of both the White Savior, and the head of the family that introduces racial isolation and racial identity precarity to Mika in the first place, which, quite frankly, reveals the practices of White Saviorism already so prevalent in transracial/transnational adoption.

After Yang does this revealing without ever asking the big question: How do you save someone from yourself?

I couldn’t imagine that I was born from a woman. I assumed babies came on the scene by some kind of intentional or forced removal from their chubby mothers. My parents gave me “The Visible Woman” plastic model for Christmas, but Mom didn’t look at it with me. I was expected to figure it out for myself, like the amateur chemistry set I got that year. It was up to me to grasp the how’s, how-to’s, and the why’s. A curled up plastic baby was included in the female anatomy kit, but apart from thinking it sweet, I didn’t pay much attention to its placement in or exit from its clear, cold mother.

So, what did I understand about a nine-month gestation? My parents (actually, my dad) told me when I was six that I had a mother who was taken away in some accident, but I couldn’t imagine a connection to her. Neither did I have much of a physical bond with my adoptive parents. Nana let me snuggle with her on her bed to watch T.V. when we visited her. Mom was not a hugger. Dad planted a kiss on my lips when he returned from long trips, but when he was home he just said, “Good night, God bless you, and take care of you.” And sometimes, “Children should be seen and not heard.”

One evening, I sauntered into the living room with a blown-up balloon under my shirt. I was being comical. Bad move. Dad lunged from his chair, outraged. “Don’t ever do that again!” He swatted his newspaper at me like a bad puppy. I let my playful pregnancy drop from its place against my body, and bursting into tears, I ran to my room and hid, embarrassed and confused. What had I done wrong?

I know now that Dad saw his duty to protect both of his adopted daughters. He probably believed—likely knew—we were born of “wayward ” mothers. He would have to control me, or else I could turn out like my birth mother. Might not my parents have decided that since they had to rely on other women’s foibles to form their family, to simply “love these girls enough to overlook that they are not ours genetically; embrace them with all the love we might have given a child of our own?” Couldn’t they have relaxed and assumed that their adoptive girls would turn out fine if they only listened to their needs and loved them?

Prancing in front of him with my make-believe replete womb triggered my dad. He couldn’t ignore or chuckle it off, because that would give my behavior tacit approval. He had to shame me. Make a statement about illegitimacy. In the history of the adoption industry, the term, “disturbed” was used for unwed mothers. In my adoptive father’s puritanical, patriarchal view–how he was raised—they were undeserving of their babies, especially compared to a devout Catholic couple. So came about the rescue institution of adoption, to protect us all from the shame of our origins. How sad and archaic is the system!

I read a quote on Instagram this week. It said something like:

When people say “after all I have done for you,” they are trying to control you.

It really hit home because this phrase has chased me, and it caught up to me in the weirdest way possible. You see, I was adopted, and my relationship with my adoptive mother was always very turbulent. Until I completely cut her out of my life as an adult, she always made me feel, through her demands, that I owed her a lot for “all she had done for me.” I owed her for raising me, feeding me, and giving me a life that in her eyes was better than what my biological mother could have given me as a single, poor, and uneducated woman.

It has taken me over three decades to be able to open up and share this with anyone else besides my own therapist and my husband. Painfully, just three weeks after opening up about this with my ex-best friend, it was used by her as a weapon to blame me for why we could no longer be the close friends we were.

In a text message she said:

“You grew up in an environment where they asked you to pay for what they had done for you. Now you are doing the same thing to me. I hope that you heal and stop doing this to others.”

Those words cut through my heart in a moment in my life when I was deciding to revisit some of my adoption hurt and heal. Those words came from the person who had seen a lot of me, someone I also saw a lot of. Someone I felt deeply connected to in some magical way. The person who actually propelled me to finally have my first conversation with my biological mother 6 months ago. Apparently after a lot of consideration, and a trip down to Mexico, she believed that I was asking her to pay me back for all I had done for her.  She easily packed up her bags, cut that connection, texted on her way out, and has not looked back since. She walked away after both of us had gone through so much, grown so much, and learned much with each other.

These past few weeks, since that text, have been a period of wild ups and downs, highs and lows, and lots of overthinking, anxiety, wine glasses and mistakes.  It has also been a period in which I questioned everything, and allowed myself to go there and consider the possibility that I was actually destroying this magical relationship (and possibly many others). Could adoption really be sabotaging one of the most special connections of my life almost 40 years later? Yes, It is possible!

Let’s start by saying that I have a lot of known adoption-based trauma  responses. One of the most impactful behaviors I have is that I walk away easily from relationships that I perceive could end up in abandonment. I take a minute and a half to feel loved, and I am terrified of rejection.

In my journey of acceptance and growth, there is a balance between the things I want to improve and things I am very aware  are not good for me but that I am okay with keeping for this lifetime. I am not perfect. But I have no issues acknowledging a lot of my behaviors, most of which are worse to me than to people around me. I am also not humble. I know I have lots of qualities—showing up for people I care about being one of them.

While it is important to allow myself to revisit and consider how trauma can be constantly sabotaging my relationships, I’ve come to realize the importance of only allowing it to come in so that I can spend time honestly considering it to validate it or reject it. There is no point in dwelling on how someone I trusted, cared for, and loved deeply could have used this vulnerability so trivially in a text message.  My energy is much better spent considering if those words could also be a gift for growth.

In this case, the growth could only happen when I  allowed myself to consider the possibility of it being true, which I did.

In this process, there were key things I learned:

First, the relationship between an adoptive mother and a defenseless child should never be considered the same as the relationship between two adult women, who by choice or destiny befriend each other. A mother who adopts or births a child should know that child has a right to basic needs, love and care, and it was the adult who took up that responsibility. NOT THE CHILD. Parents are supposed to care for their child (adopted or biological), while two grown women who chose to become friends have no basic prerequisite of obligations. Therefore, when adult humans show up for us in ways that, for many of us, not even our own parents did, it means they care.

Second, I understand my biggest error was one of not always being perfect in my choice of words when expressing my frustration when she treated me in ways friends shouldn’t. I did at times express that my friendship had a “cost” or that “she should do for me what I do for her” when expressing the natural give and take of all healthy adult relationships. It was such a poor choice of words, because it allowed her to perceive that I was insinuating a type of payback for my love, care, time, energy, efforts and actions. Adult relationships are not meant to be unconditional.

Whether or not all friendships have a price, it could also just be a choice of words. Some could say friendship is paid with friendship. The higher the level of that friendship, like a “best-friendship,” the more is expected of both parties. It is not BECAUSE one has done for the other, but because of the relationship itself. Loyalty, communication and respect are basic for deep relationships.

A wife whose husband cheated on her won’t say “you should not cheat BECAUSE I didn’t cheat,” she will expect him to be faithful because of the unspoken contract of loyalty between two people. Friendship also has an unspoken contract. Friendship is not charity. Friendship is built on two people who show up for each other in ways non-friends probably would not (unless it is a charity or a one-off good Samaritan act).

I have also learned that what we do for people we love is what allows people to know we love them. When we do the same or less for the people we love than we do for those we don’t,  people have no way to know we care for them or that they are special to us. If we don’t speak up, we don’t protect, we don’t defend, we don’t show up; if we treat them worse than our enemies, throw them under the bus on the first opportunity, or weaponize their secrets, how can they feel that they matter?

When I made the poor choice of words, saying “You won’t find a friend who would do this for you,” I now know that I was screaming “Notice me, notice how much I care by showing up for you. Will you please show up for me too?”.

At first I also blamed adoption for sabotaging my perceptions and causing me to not feel that I meant much to her. Today, I also understand that it was not 100% adoption-based trauma either. I was for once in my life picking up on some real emotions.

What I understand today is that she is also on her journey of growth and healing, and maybe learning to cultivate a close relationship is not something that is in store for her—just like there are parts of me that I am also not interested in changing. However, as my therapist would say: “Even if your brain accepts this, her words still have a deep effect on you,” and it will still hurt for a while. Her words hurt not only because they were used, but because of the magical connection I thought we shared. As they say, “It is not the stab that hurts, but the one who was holding the knife”.

It hurt because that text showed how I could not be loved with this perceived flaw, or how I was not good enough to be part of her life as she perceived I WAS. In one text message she essentially said “You have this issue, which I hope you improve just so we can be friends again, and because of it you are not worthy of being in my life. You are not worthy of me doing better”.  As an adoptee, the fear of the pain I feel now is what has always made me walk away first. I often walked away and never looked back. Which ironically is exactly what she is doing. “All I had done for her” was not enough to add value to what I meant. Rejection, unreciprocated care, ghosting, and abandonment all happened at once here.

On the other hand, this was the very first relationship in my life in which I suppressed my natural trauma-based tendency to walk away because I felt she was worthy of me changing my own patterns. Something brand new for me. Only the most special connections have the power to push us to do better and become a better version of ourselves. Unfortunately, this broken connection may now only serve to prove the point that protection mechanisms exist for a reason, and maybe I should have left it alone.

As we open up to others about our adoption pains and our abandonment worries, we put our heart, life, and well-being on the line hoping that it will be handled with care and love. In my case, it wasn’t.  She made it clear that she believes that I am not worthy to be a part of her life as I am, or as she perceives I am.

Unlike a parent-child relationship, she has no obligations to love me, care for me, talk to me or even not hurt me. She is also under no obligation to not find flaws in me to use them as reasons for not wanting a close connection with me. As she says, I am not her victim. My grief for someone who is alive, just like with my biological mother, is something I will have to go through the motions. Alone.

The bottom line is that: Yes! I have a lot of adoption-based trauma behaviors that impact me and others. Here, however, the fallout of my adoption was not the culprit. I was actually responding to real events and actions. It does not make this moment any less devastating and ground shifting.

There is obviously a lot more to this story than that, but that’s beyond the point of this article, maybe many more articles will have to be written for me to finally process it all over the years.

Finally, I am wildly fortunate with the family and life I built rising above my challenges. I have hopes that I will also come out of this fog with time and a lot more writing. I am sharing in hopes that other adoptees out there, who are questioning their own adoption trauma and pain,  and who are considering the validity of their worthiness as they become better versions of themselves, do not allow adoption to define every relationship. And most importantly do not allow others to say adoption is defining everything about them.

Watching her, you would think she is like every other child until you pay attention. She is shy and prefers to be alone. It’s not that she does anything too drastic. It’s as if she is in her own world dealing with other things. I get a feeling something isn’t quite right. Why is this young girl with big blue eyes withdrawn and prefers to be alone? What are her secrets? I asked her once but she didn’t seem to know what I was asking. She appeared angry when I showed concern for her. Her brow furrowed as her nose scrunched, in a puzzled expression. Then for a second, it looked like she wanted to bite me. The wild animal in her came out! She ultimately dismissed the question and me. She put her head down and mumbled something as she walked away. After our encounter, I noticed her grades were slipping and she didn’t have much interest in anything relating to academia. The extracurricular groups like band, lost their appeal. It was as if the music had stopped inside her. Her once shiny flute, which she loved so much, now sits in its case, in the corner of her room, untouched, uncleaned. No more practicing for recitals. Other interests occupied her time now. Mainly trying to fit in and be popular.

Being popular is something most children want. They need to feel accepted by their peers. The feeling of isolation is too much for most of them to handle. This longing to be one of the group pushed the wild blue-eyed girl to not be as shy as she had been. This meant she needed to fit in. She wanted to be like the older girls that everyone wanted to date. Jaguars and BMWs would drop off the popular girls at the front of the school. They would hang out in a group while the boys would walk by and flirt with them. They had all the trendy clothes by the popular designers of the time. Clothes are a way of showing a person’s personality and expressing themselves as individuals. They can show others that you have similar interests or they can show others that you are unique and unlike anyone else. In the past, she had been made fun of for wearing the same clothes too often. She hadn’t forgotten the feeling as the girls laughed and pointed, asking her if she had any other shirts. She cleaned houses and mowed yards to help buy the clothes she did have. After being made fun of, she got a job delivering the daily newspaper. Trendy clothes are expensive. Working and going to school doesn’t leave much time for a social life.

One day at the Mall, a friend of hers took an Izod shirt. She said they had stolen from that store before. She knew it was wrong to steal but at the time, not fitting in was a fate worth stealing for. She tucked the bright red Izod shirt under the shirt she had on and ran away, fast. They both got away but that shirt was a constant reminder of what she would do to not feel isolated and alone.
The popular kids all lived in the right neighborhoods and had big houses. Her cousins lived in neighborhoods like these. One of her cousins had a quarter horse. She wanted more than anything to have a horse of her own. Her cousin wouldn’t let her near her horse. The girl never forgot how that felt. The feeling of being looked at as less than because you don’t have as much wealth. I later learned that feeling was rooted in one of her secrets.

She longed to have friends over for a sleepover but was too embarrassed. She was ashamed of her small old farmhouse. There were 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. The paint peeled from the columns that wrapped the porch. The peeling paint was so old it had lead in it. She was constantly being told not to put it in her mouth. She would roll her eyes and say, “I know, I know.” The garage looked like it was going to collapse. The house was located behind the rest of the neighborhood. It had fields all around it. This house was used as a farm house for the main house down the road from it. The main house was a grand southern mansion with big white columns. It was owned by a single man that was their landlord. I could see why she might have felt like people saw her as less than.

It was many years later that I saw her on social media. She was sharing her story of being adopted and rejected. I hadn’t thought about adoption as being traumatic. I had always thought it was something beautiful. As I read her story, I felt bad for her. I didn’t realize how painful adoption is for an adoptee. I never saw it from the perspective of the child that was given away. Most people think that babies don’t remember. She wrote about why she had felt isolated and angry when she was young. Her birth mother had never spoken to her. Every time she tried to contact her mother, she was rejected. She rejected her until she died. She had been completely ignored by the person that is supposed to love and protect her. I read how she found her sisters and how she had wanted to find siblings her whole life. I read about her heartache and pain as one of them won’t have anything to do with her now that she found them. I understood why she may have felt less then. My heart ached as I read through her story. I remembered my observations of her. The time she looked like she wanted to bite me when I asked how she was. The look in her eye as she ran, like a wild animal wanting to escape. I wondered what made that long-legged blue-eyed girl run. Now I knew. She was running away from the pain and trying to find herself.

Early autumn brings blue asters, sweaters, schooldays, and storms. My twenty-three-year-old mother, unloved and alone, is unaware my birth facts might be muddied or muddled in secrets, lies, and myth. That I would be kept from the truth of my origins. Hers is another post-war charity case. The records are sealed.

The woman and child, united by un-virtuous accident, are separated in a single, swift scoop of happenstance. A union of chance is brought asunder by circumstance, that all concerned should be protected. She is told she shouldn’t hope to see me again.

Out of the wild blue yonder, an infant girl from a foundling home joins a childless Air Force couple. Blue like a September sky. Like a sapphire birthstone.