The importance of knowing your roots

In general people can agree that children of a traditional adoption might have some abandonment issues, or a harder time trusting the world around them, and that issues such as these would be understandable. I feel that children conceived of donors don’t get the same understanding. People will tell you repeatedly how wonderful it was that a family wanted you so desperately that they were willing to spend huge sums of money to get to have you. People will emphasize the fact that you were wanted by someone.

Being wanted a positive thing(maybe that depends on why you’re wanted?)?  I believe that within all of lies a biological clock, which makes us more aware of our wants. Particularly when we know that our time might be running out. So why would we want to create a child through a sperm bank or a surrogate? Possibly the laws regarding adoption are someone antiquated and for one reason or another and prohibits us from adopting domestically. (If you can afford surrogacy I know you can afford an international adoption). With international adoptions there are more issues with children suffering trauma at their orphanages and we find ourselves not up to the challenge of parenting these children with special needs. Perhaps perspective parents have already gone through adoption agreements with mother’s who backed out after giving birth and they can’t face that heartbreak again? For a lot of couples I believe that they want the genetic connection with their children even if it’s just a half connection.

From what I can see these wants are more about the parents then about the children they will be welcoming into their families. I can empathize with the pain that parents go through when they can’t just conceive a child on their own to start their family. But I think that a lot of the times the adults forget to put themselves into the shoes of their prospective children. When adults choose to start their family by hiring a traditional surrogate, or going to the sperm bank, they are deliberately making the decision to bring a child into this world and to separate them from a biological parent. People who grow up in houses where they are related to everyone don’t ever pause to wonder, where do I get my eyes from? Or feel like they’re a little crazy because they’re acting in a way that no one around them acts.  I can say these things from personal experience.

Possibly there are some schools of thought that if we’re honest from the beginning our child won’t contend with these adoption issues. Or I’m sure some people think, if we shelter our child from the truth and let them believe that they are ours genetically  that they’ll never know and what they know can’t hurt them. I don’t believe that people set out to intentionally cause harm to the children who were so wanted. But an outcome a lot of the time is that children who are born through these ways grow up knowing that something just doesn’t fit. Even if they just don’t know what that it is.

When I was 26 I found my biological mom who had been promised that I would be told about her and given an option to have a relationship with her if I chose to at when I was 18. Unfortunately the family that I grew up with did not honor their commitment to her (or me). I eventually found  her information by going through a personal phone book of my bio-dad. As soon as I had her contact info I immediately called her and we made plans for me to come up to Michigan to meet her. Within a week we got to see each other for the first time since I was given to the family that I grew up with. During the first week that I went up I got to meet my birth mom I also met her three sons, all twelve of her brothers and sisters and most of their spouses and some of my cousins! I was immediately shocked to see that I had been wrong in my belief that genetics didn’t play a part in shaping people into who they were. I also hadn’t realized how unsettling it was to have all these personality traits within me that I didn’t know where they came from. I am completely different from my bio-dad and adopted mom, and just never fit in with their personalities. When I met my birth mom we quickly discovered that I had her sense of humor, my Aunt Gail’s love of travel, the same belief’s as my aunt Leslie on how people should treat one another.. and I could go on. It wasn’t until I had found myself in my birth family that I realized it had always left me unsettled to not quite see myself in the people I’d spent my first 26 years around.

It wasn’t until I started to see where a lot of my personality traits came from that I was able to start to accept myself. It wasn’t until I was able to start accepting myself that I was even able to comprehend that I had struggled with trying to find out who I was!

I honestly can’t explain what this need within me was to find my birth mom and family, but there was a drive within me, and if I hadn’t gone through my bio-dad’s personal belongings I believe that I never would have found her. For myself so much self acceptance, awareness and peace came from understanding better who I was that I would hate to see on an emotional level where I would have been in 30 years time with all the issues that come from adoption sitting just below the surface. My birth mom gave me the biggest gift in allowing me to know her and be in the family’s lives, that’s a gift I will eternally be grateful for.