"Opening" the adoption 13 years later

My "coming out" about being a birthmother started with computer bulletin boards. I was a member of Prodigy, and as a new member, saw a forum for Adoption. I started reading the posts from real adoptees, birthmothers, and adoptive parents. There was so much I didn't know! I didn't realize how many other birthmothers there were out there -- in the thirteen years since my son's adoption, I had never had another woman tell me she was a birthmother. Now, on this computer forum, there were dozens of women with amazingly similar stories to tell. I could finally admit to someone else that I had TWO children, and that I deeply missed my oldest son.

The adoption forum members on Prodigy helped me work through a lot of my grief, and also helped me by telling me about this amazing thing called "open adoption". I found out that I could have been sending letters and photos to be placed in my file all those years, and possibly even sent to the adoptive parents!

The most wonderful part of all this knowledge was getting to talk to adoptees. They told me how it felt like to be adopted, what they thought of their own birthmothers, and what they wanted to change about the adoption system. I never even realized that my son had no medical information all these years, except what was provided at his birth.

I initially contacted Catholic Charities to update my son's medical information for his adoptive parents. I found that the agency allowed non-identifying contact between adoptive and birth parents. I wrote my son's adoptive parents, assuring them that I did not want to disrupt their lives, that I didn't want to take my son from them. I only wanted to be available to them to answer any questions they may have about his medical history, ethnic background, and birth experience. I provided all this information to them, and included pictures of myself at different ages, and of my youngest son.

The waiting was horrendously stressful. After a few months, though, they wrote back! It wasn't the greatest letter, but it wasn't a "dont' ever write us again, leave us alone" letter, either. Since that time, we have corresponded once or twice per year. On my son's 17th birthday last year, his parents sent what I had been hoping for -- his first name, and pictures! To have a name and a face to place with my thoughts and dreams of him was wonderful! His name is John. His parents told him of my initial contact when he was 13, but he has not been interested in contacting me himself, yet. That is ok, because all I want is to let him know that I'm here if he ever needs to ask me anything. I'd love to meet him some day, but not until he is ready.

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