Minka Disbrow, who was raped as a young teenager, chose to feel only love for the child she bore and gave up when she was 17. She wanted to keep the baby, but her family, couldn’t live with the constant reminder of what happened. She kept a black-and-white photo of the baby bundled in blankets and tucked inside a basket, and hoped that the minister and his wife, who adopted her would treat her well.

She tried to stay in touch with the agency that handled the adoption, but at some point, all communication was cut off. She went on to have her own life and family, but never forgot the little girl in the basket, she had named Betty Jane.

Betty Jane, renamed Ruth Lee, always knew she was adopted and had a happy childhood. When she was in her 70s, she started suffering from heart problems and decided to search for her biological parents. Her son petitioned South Dakota for the adoption records and actually found a handwritten note that Minka had sent the agency, in an attempt to stay connected.

When he typed Minka Disbrow’s name into a web directory he expected to find an obituary, but instead he found his grandmother. At 96 years old, Minka was reunited with her 77 year old daughter, “Betty Jane” and Betty Jane’s entire family which now included great-grandchildren.

The two women discovered how much alike they were, and they both felt “it was just like we never parted.” The entire family is now getting ready to celebrate Minka’s hundredth birthday.

What a wonderful reminder that we don’t have to keep secrets or feel shame for things that are beyond our control. It is so good to simply feel what is in your heart and know that it is right for you.

Like so many other issues, Oprah Winfrey shined a light on this topic when she reunited with her secret half-sister on her show. Both sisters sense of happiness and joy seemed to make the secrecy a burden no one should have to carry. But for many people, giving up a child seems to be the act of the desperate woman and violates the natural order of things.

Talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey revealed a “bombshell family secret” today, telling her viewers that she recently learned she has a half-sister whom her mother had hidden from her for decades. “Imagine my shock just a few months ago, at the end of October, when I found out I have another sister living just 90 minutes away,” said Winfrey, 56. Winfrey’s half-sister Patricia, a single mother of two, had been given up for adoption in Milwaukee, Wis., by Winfrey’s mother, Vernita Lee, in 1963. “I was 9 years old at the time of [Patricia's adoption], living with my father in Nashville, Tenn.,” Winfrey said. “I had no idea my mother was even pregnant.”

Research shows that at least 24% of these birth mothers need to be treated for depression, including half of them who need to be treated as inpatients.

Some women, as was so eloquently depicted in the movie, Mother and Child, are not only depressed, they seem to stop living in some way, simply going through the motions of life, and shielding themselves from making other human connections that might lead to other possible human mistakes.

The film Mother and Child by Writer/director Rodrigo Garcia strings together three different stories that include an older woman, Karen, who regrets giving up her newborn in her teens and Elizabeth; a cutthroat yet lonely lawyer who was adopted in her youth and still hurts from not knowing her real parents; and Lucy, an infertile mother, striving to adopt a baby. The film becomes an emotional study about the ramifications of giving up a child for adoption. [Karen (Annette Bening) / Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) / Lucy (Kerry Washington)

There are times when our celebrity obsessed culture is a waste of time or even harmful, but when celebrities talk about secrets in a meaningful way, they can help change the culture for the good.

Some secrets are harmless and even inspirational, a secret desire to climb Mount Everest (even though you are not an athlete of any sort), or a secret goal that you are not ready to share with the world.

Some secrets however are burdens. They weigh heavy on our hearts, or stick in our throats as we even think about saying them out loud. Sometimes when we share a secret with someone we trust, our ideas seem more possible, or the burden begins to lift because we have shared it.

It is very sad to think about that adoption used to be full of secrets and lies. Happily this has changed a great deal over the years, but I have never forgotten the story that I read in “Being Adopted, the lifelong search for self.” The book tells the story of Mildred, who felt throughout her entire lifetime that she was adopted because she felt so different from her birth family some many ways – from the way she looked, to her attitudes, and even her sense of humor.

Mildred’s family had her see a therapist about her obsession and she finally began to accept that all of her feelings were in her imagination. Then three years after she completed her therapy, her dying mother called Mildred on her deathbed, and confessed.

“You were right,” the woman said to her now 58-year-old daughter, “you were adopted.”

This is a powerful story of the destruction that secrets can cause. I think there’s not as much secrecy in adoption today, but having had the pleasure of publishing this magazine for over a year now, I think that people had many secret feelings about their adoption experience, whether they are birthparents, adoptees, or adoptive parents.

Sometimes it does not feel safe to express a secret desire, or a strong feeling, and sometimes it is simply not possible because of an inability to find birthparents or a child lost to the adoption process. Some adoptive parents have a secret grief about the birth children they never had, or a secret fear that their children will find and love their birthparents more than they love them.

This week, we are launching a new feature on the site this week called “Message in a Bottle.” It is an opportunity for everyone in the adoption community to share, anonymously, a feeling, a thought or an event that has never shared before. I was partly inspired to do this by reading a very powerful paragraph in “The Primal Wound” by Nancy Verrier. Nancy writes…

“One woman told me that she intended to write a long letter to her birth mother about whom she had no conscious memory but for whom she had been thinking about searching. She wanted to explain how she felt about being adopted. She decided to write it with her left hand, because she had heard that this would access her right brain and put her more in touch with their feelings. Taking pen in hand, she wrote: ‘Dear Mommy, come and get me.’ After that, she told me, there seemed to be nothing more to say.”

This got me thinking about the power of making very short but very powerful statements about ones feelings, thoughts, actions or desired actions. In my personal experience, I have seen secrets damage families, and I have seen the sharing of secrets heal individuals and relationships.

I hope that you find this new avenue for expression interesting, creative and something that allows you to speak the words that might free you from whatever burden you might be carrying.

Simply click on, “Message in a Bottle” to view a few examples. Then follow the brief instructions to leave your own message. I’m busy thinking about the message I want to send, and who I want to send it to.

Jane Ballback, Publisher and Executive Editor

It was one of those peaceful car trips where everyone seemed happy with their lot in life—and more importantly, their seat. One of those rare times when parent-child conversations just naturally flow. Each actually took turns without screeching over the other’s voice vying for my undivided attention or my unbridled love.

“Did we adopt Princess?” Ashley asked.

“Yes, I suppose so,” I said.

Ashley, six, was an excellent reader. While we were waiting for the vet, she read the advertisements, bulletins, and notices posted around the office. “Adoption” was a frequently used word. Pets for adoption, adoption do’s and don’ts, adoptions are us.

“But what does ‘adopted’ mean?” Ashley asked.

Andrew turned to me, ready for my answer.

“Well, it’s when you bring a pet into your house and raise it. You agree to nurture it, love it, and take good care of it. You agree to become its new family.”

“But what about its old family?” Ashley asked, a hint of sadness in her voice.

“Pets can’t stay in their own family. They need people to take care of them,” Andrew said.

“Aren’t children adopted, too?” Ashley wanted to know.

“Yes, children can be adopted, too,” I said, my stomach starting to churn at the twist in the conversation.

“But why are children adopted? What happens to their old family?”

I took a deep breath; I saw where this was heading. Maybe I saw it even back at the vet’s. Why didn’t I leave them home with their dad, I thought briefly. Then I admonished myself for wishing away such a quality morning with my kids.

“Children are adopted sometimes,” I began, “if their mothers cannot take care of them.”

“But why wouldn’t their mother be able to take care of them?” Ashley pushed on.

“Oh, for a variety of reasons,” I said. “Sometimes mothers are too young to care for a baby, or they don’t have enough money or experience or they don’t have anyone to help them. It’s a very big job taking care of children.”

“Yeah,” Andrew said, glancing behind him at Princess, content in her carrier. “It’s a big job taking care of pets, too.”

Ashley was quiet for a few seconds. But I felt the storm coming. We were not done with this conversation, not by a long shot.

I don’t know why I never told them. I didn’t set out to be deceitful. It’s just not a topic that pops up often.  Not something I was ever really comfortable announcing. I’m 37 and I can count the number of people I had told on one hand.

When are you supposed to tell people anyway? When you meet them? Hi, my name is Jennifer, and I’m adopted. After you’ve developed a relationship with them? Maybe after you get to know them and you begin to inquire about each other’s background or family.

How about when you give birth to them? Welcome, I’m your mommy, and I’m adopted. It’s not like they sent me to classes on adoption etiquette. Okay, so clearly I’d fail if there were such classes. I had made it such a big damn deal.  I had shrouded it in secrecy the same way my parents had.

I’m ashamed.

The truth hits me in the gut and leaves a nauseous taste in my mouth. I feel inferior, like it’s my fault my kids were born to my adopted self. My not-good-enough self. As if I could have changed that and requested they be born to my un-adopted persona.  Their grandparents on my side are their “adopted” grandparents; my brother, their “adopted” uncle. What if this changes things for them?

There, I said it. What if they feel less loved, less connected, or just plain less like I always had? I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to change that reality. Or silence it. But did I want it silenced for their sake, or was it my own reality I wanted to change? I couldn’t tell anymore. My feelings were jumbled.  Had I not told them to protect them? And if they asked, would I now tell the truth?

Ashley absorbed the information about mothers not being able to care for babies as best she could. She lived in a world where mothers have plenty of skills, money, and help to care for their children—and I had just crumpled that concept.

I was startled by her next question, though I shouldn’t have been.

“Am I adopted?”

Andrew turned away from the window he was staring through and studied my face. Surely he remembers my pregnancy and his sister’s arrival, even though he was only four.

“No, you weren’t adopted,” I told her. “You grew in my belly.”

I heard relief in her silence.  Or maybe I just imagined it.

“Was Andrew adopted?” Ashley asked.

Andrew’s eyes betrayed him. He was wondering why he’d never thought to ask this question himself.

I smiled at him reassuringly. It seems quietly understood that the “good” answer is not to have been adopted. Or maybe I just perceived it that way. “No, Andrew wasn’t adopted either. He grew in my belly, too.”

Then my turn came. It had been on the way since we left the vet, hell it’d been on the way since I gave birth to Andrew, ten years before.

“Were you adopted, Mommy?”

My children hung in silence while I gathered my answer. The light turned green, a horn honked—traffic flowed on.  In those seconds I wondered if what I was about to say would change who they are or who they will become. Would my being adopted somehow contaminate their little lives; making them feel less connected to the people they’ve known as their family? Would they be less who they are once they knew the truth?

I couldn’t deny. I wouldn’t lie.

“Actually, yes, I was adopted.”

I smiled, appearing pleased to relate this joyous news. And suddenly I felt joy.  I was released. The prison had been self-imposed, the shame undeserved, the fear unfounded. Finally I could see that in their innocent eyes. I felt lighter the second the words were spoken aloud.

“Wow,” they said in unison. “You were?”  Like I’d garnered celebrity status. “Do you know your other mom and dad, did you always know you were adopted, why didn’t you tell us?” The questions came—fast and forceful.  And my answers followed.  One by one, as best I could, truthful and whole, on this Saturday morning in my minivan, I shared my truth with my kids — what I’ve always known — My name is Jennifer, and I am adopted.

And my children?  They are who they were always meant to be.

Originally published in the Washington Post.

We want to hear from you! Leave a reply (comment) below.

“The adoptive mother believes she is the real mother because she is the one who got up in the middle of the night and was there for the child in sickness and health. The birth mother believes she is the real mother because she went through nine months of sculpting the child within her body and labored to bring it forth into the the world. They are both right. The adoptive mother who loves and cares for the child is the real mother. And the birth mother who never forgets her child is also the real mother. By denying that adoptees have two real mothers, society denies them their reality.”

These words are of particular importance to me as an adoptee because not only did “society” deny me my reality, but I also denied it to to myself. An important therapeutic moment happened the day I fully acknowledged myself as the child of two mothers, allowing myself to embrace that duality and all that it meant. I suspect I am not the only adoptee to internalize the struggle between two mothers. The day I gave up the belief that I needed to prioritize one definition of “real” over the other, something important shifted within me: I found wholeness.

Lifton also writes, “For me, a real mother recognizes and respects the whole identity of her child and does not ask him to deny any part of himself.” By this definition, I am happy to say that my adopted daughter Ashley clearly has two real mothers. The acknowledgment and valuing of all that Ashley is, including those parts of her that come from the other mother — this is the core, the very essence, of what her first mother and I are attempting to accomplish through our open adoption relationship. Acknowledgment of the whole of an adopted child’s self, writes Lifton, “is difficult to do in a closed adoption system that requires the child be cut off from his heritage, and that pits the original mother against the replacement mother.”

I don’t want my daughter to have to wait until she is an adult in therapy to discover wholeness. In traditional family situations, nature and nurture come in one package. In adoption, they are split, but they don’t have to be pitted against each other. The more that I am able to embrace my child’s whole identity, the better equipped she is to embrace it herself. Like me, she a child of two mothers and is loved, wholeheartedly, by both of us. We are each a part of who she is, and we are both very, very real.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for my parents who adopted me, but it’s not the same. I want to know where I came from.

When I talk to people who are considering adopting I’m often asked, “is it possible to love another person’s child”? I’m always a little worried when someone asks the question in that way, but I do understand what they’re talking about, adoption is a mysterious process until you live it. I had an interesting experience with my daughter Stacee that does demonstrate how some adoptive parents simply stop thinking about how their children came into their lives, and how real they are as parents.

When Stacee was three she had a persistent fever and was turning bright red. After a few days of trying to figure this out, my pediatrician told me to drive directly to Children’s Hospital and get her admitted. He suspected, rightfully so, that she had Kawasaki’s disease. This is an unusual disease, common among Asians with just the symptoms. It’s a very treatable disease, but time was of the essence and the result of not treating it was the possibility of permanent damage to Stacee’s heart.

As I sat in the admitting department, with this hot bright red child on my lap, I was very distraught. The nurse began getting a health history about my health and my family health. For 15 minutes I answered all of her questions, and then thought, Jane, have you lost your mind, your health history is totally irrelevant. I’ve forgotten that I wasn’t Stacee’s “real mother”, and in fact knew nothing about her health history. I apologize to the nurse for wasting her time.

Happily I’ve gotten there in time and 36 hours later after dosing her with aspirin through an IV, symptoms were gone, and there was no damage. The doctor asked me if he could bring medical interns to see this rare disease, and I said he could. Each time he came by he would always say, “this is Jane and her daughter Stacee. Jane forgot she wasn’t Stacee’s mom, and I never knew an adoptive mom could ever forget that.”

I think my answer to the question is that Stacee and her brothers have two moms. I’ve always wished that they were interested in at least trying to find their birth parents. As of now they are not.  Sometimes I try to envision what it would be like to sit in a room and have Stacee meet her first mother, I think that I would have a moment of profound sadness realizing what her mom has lost, and that I’ve been more than a babysitter, but not her “real mom.”

This week’s edition of the magazine addresses this issue for many points of view. Be sure to share your point of view by sending us your comments and thoughts.

Marianna has stirred up some debate with these assertions. “I don’t think adopted kids should seek out their birth parents. It’s selfish. It’s rude. You’re gonna break her heart just because you are curious? It would not only break my REAL parents’ hearts, but who knows what kind of life she has gone on to lead?”  And then later, Marianna says this:  …”there’s my birthmom, but I don’t ever care or think about her. She did a very selfless thing to give me up, so why would I want to bug her? That’s incredibly selfish of me.”

As an older adoptee, I have compassion and understanding for Marianna’s views.  As one adoptee said in the on-line comments:  ”The author of this article sounds very much like me, and many other adoptees at that age. We are very concerned about loyalty to our adoptive parents, even at the expense of our own feelings, which we have buried so deeply. I said the very same things at that age…but at 44…I now know my natural family.”

I too was most concerned about the feelings of my adoptive parents at Marianna’s age.  That’s not to say that Marianna will surely change her thinking at some point.  Many, many grown adoptees search for their origins — a quick internet search will attest to that fact.  Other adoptees have no interest in searching out their roots, and that too is fine. It is extremely divisive, however, to pit one group of adoptees against another, and to suggest that one approach is wrong, and one is right.  In adoption, no one approach is right for everybody, and such disagreements detract from the very real and important work that needs to be done to reform adoption practice so that it truly serves the best interests of children.

The view of adoptees about adoption often changes over time.  The young adoptee who says she has no interest in her original mother and father today often changes her mind when she has children of her own. Genetic connections do matter for many people, and the world of adoption is not exempt from this basic truth.

Some adoptees are still conditioned by the culture in which they live to accept the thinking that their roots are none of their business.  They have been told that searching for their original parents is intrusive and unnecessary.  The sealed record system reinforces such thinking, and some adoptive parents, who want to believe with all their hearts that they are the only mother and father, welcome such thinking.

Therefore, for some, it is hard to accept the fact that our original identity is a basic human right.  While original parents have a right to privacy from friends and neighbors, they do not have the legal right to lifetime anonymity from the child upon whom they have imprinted their DNA, particularly when that child becomes an adult capable of independent thought and critical analysis.

The issue of adult adoptee rights is not about whether adoptees should search or not or who the “real parents” are: it is about treating an entire class of people as adults differently than we treat everyone else.  While every other citizen can apply for and secure her original birth certificate for a nominal fee, adult adoptees in most states are unable to secure theirs because the documents have been “sealed” — that is placed in a government file — when adoptions have been finalized.

Some adoptees, like Marianna and my adoptive brother, have no desire to search.  Some want their original birth certificate simply because it belongs to them and was sealed from them by other parties without their input and for their own interests.  That certificate that I cannot access records my birth and is a glimpse into my personal history.  My original mother doesn’t own me, nor does my adoptive mother own me.  I am my own person, and shouldn’t I be, at the age of 62?

Some people very effectively use denial to cope with their life experience; others do not and are compelled to confront their life stories for their own well-being. The sealed record system is unjust because it forces everyone impacted to use the coping mechanism of denial, and for many people, denial techniques just don’t work.

The fact is that every adoptee has two sets of parents, the original set who gave her life and her genetic traits, and the nurturing set, who are hopefully raising her to become an autonomous and free-thinking adult. As Lesli Johnson, an adoptee and marriage and family therapist specializing in adoption-related issues, states: “The adoptee’s desire to search is not a rejection of the adoptive parents. Part of knowing who you are is knowing where you came from. Search is about the adoptee’s history and histories have a beginning. For adoptees, their beginning started before they joined their adoptive family.”

Several grown adoptees echo Johnson’s words in their responses to Marianna’s article:  ”Perhaps it is my age (‘somewhere between 40 and death’), or that I had the ‘real’ mother / ‘real’ family question longer than I have had speech, but the decision to seek one’s genetic relatives is not only an adopted person’s desire. Relatedness and connectivity is human. People spend decades making family trees to pass along through generations. … “Adoption is not about ownership; it is to shepherd and coach, to love, nurture and guide, and support and eventually, release – major ingredients for any good parenting effort.”

Then there is this thoughtful response: “I’ll never tell another adoptee she’s wrong for feeling the way she feels about her life and experience, but I expect the same from her. There’s nothing selfish or rude about wanting to know who you are. Ancestry.com is a multi-billion dollar business for a reason. People spend decades tracing their bloodlines back centuries, building family trees, etc. Genealogy is the most popular hobby on the planet. No one ever asks non-adoptees why they consider their heritage worth documenting. When it’s adoptees, though, it’s, “Why do you need to know about your family history?”

As this commenter goes on to explain:  ”Every adopted child has two families: A biological family and an adoptive family. That anyone ever questions whether or not both families should be important to us is perplexing to me. Should we pretend that the people who made us don’t exist?”

Not only adoptees reacted to Marianna’s article.  Original mothers also responded to her feeling that adoptees who search are causing unnecessary trouble. Marianna says of her birth mother, “She did a very selfless thing to give me up, so why would I want to bug her? That’s incredibly selfish of me.”

Here’s one response:  ”As a birth mother I find this sentence a little annoying. …I am interested in my son’s happiness, and I wouldn’t think it selfish for him to seek me out. … I did give my son up for adoption because I love him and my circumstances were dire at the time of his birth. I don’t regret my choice, but I’m deeply interested in his well being.”

This viewpoint is not an aberration. The data from the countries and the states that have restored adult adoptee access to original birth certificates supports the fact that the vast majority of relinquishing mothers want to know how their offspring are faring or have fared. Marianna’s assumption that she would be journeying into territory where she is not wanted is not necessarily true.

In reality, the searching adoptee has no idea of what she might find, and again that’s not the point. Some adoptees wish to search; some don’t. In adoption, as in life, there is no “right” path to peace for all. That is why we must respect the rights of grown adoptees to direct their own journeys, and not assume that their intent or the results will be harmful. The door to love, understanding and closure is a door that should always be left open.

Adult adoptee rights is about giving full-grown human beings the right to their own birth records and the right to pursue their peace on their own terms. Not every story has a happy ending, but everyone should  have the right to secure the truth about her ancestry and her own life story if she so desires. As an older adoptee, I long for the day when we will no longer have debates about who the “real” parents are. Both sets of parents are very real, and arguments about which is more important are counter-productive.  The relationship between a relinquishing parent and her child, now grown, is intensely personal, and the two parties should be free to handle that intensely personal business on their own, without agency or government interference.

Doctors Ruth McRoy and Harold Grotevant have identified twenty-seven levels of relationships through which families might move over time, ranging from closed through mediated with use of a go between, semi-open with communication between adults only and not including the child and fully disclosed or open adoptions. It is typical that different levels of relationships might be formed with different members of the adoption kinship network. Fully disclosed adoptions may move into a less open or mediated relationship because of safety or boundary issues, either temporarily or permanently. Closed adoptions may become open as a result of the need for information, perhaps due to a medical crisis, or because the adoptee expresses the need for reconnection to the family of origin.  Adoptions can move from open to closed in extreme cases, as well.

Open adoptions are the creation of continuing relationships that occur when a child is placed from his or her family of origin into another permanent legal family or is placed with extended kin.  A fully disclosed open adoption implies an active, building of trust, open communication and a concern about the other individuals connected to this child. It is an attitude of the heart and is child focused. By nature, relationships require an investment of time and emotion, an ability to accept risk, mutual respect, and an ability to accommodate people whose needs and beliefs are different from yours.  People may move, new people may arrive by way of marriage, birth, or change of heart.  Sometimes individuals who did not believe that they could participate in the open adoption find that they would like to join the adoption kinship network.

The adoption kinship network is broadly inclusive of all those people who the child has had meaningful connections with in the past or who could have meaning to them in the future.  Birth Family is defined as not just birth mother and birth father, but extended family and near kin. That would include former foster parents, therapists, teachers, Court Appointed Special Advocates or guardian ad litem, religious leaders, neighbors, former foster siblings, fictive grandparents, aunts and uncles, and peers. In later placed adoptions where the child comes with a history of relationships, someone should assist the child in exploring all of the individuals who have meaning in his or her life and with whom the child would wish to maintain an ongoing connection.

Open adoptions include infant placements; older child placements, international placements as placements with relatives. A future blog will explore the benefits of open adoptions to the child over time as well as the other members of the AKN.

Book:

Emotional Disturbance in Adopted Adolescents: Origins and Development
by Ruth G. McRoy, Harold D. Grotevant, Louis A. Zurcher

Open adoption gets its due in this comprehensive study of its effects on all triad members. The research seems to prove that more openness is better; and that adoptees who have ongoing relationships with their birth families have stronger, better bonds with their adoptive families, too. This isn’t easy reading — as the results of a research study, it’s written in academic style — but it should still be required reading for all prospective adoptive parents.