What I Wish I Could Tell my Birth Mother on Birth Mother's Day

PersonalMotherhood

May 11

Hi Birth Mom,

It’s me. The baby you carried in your womb for nine months, 34 years ago. Do you remember me? Of course, you do. What kind of silly question is that? You carried me in your womb for nine months, and you went through excruciating labor to bring me Earthside. That is not something that one forgets. I now know what you endured 34 years ago. I have carried two babies in my womb, and I had the privilege and honor to deliver those babies and bring them home with me. A privilege and honor that was ripped away from you. I now know what you experienced during my stay in your womb. The debilitating symptoms combined with the most profound bond to another human being you can ever experience. There is nothing like being at one with your baby nestled into your body. And there is nothing like that baby nestling into your arms once they are born. It’s…euphoria.

I grieve for us because you and I never got to experience that euphoria. Instead, our connection was severed immediately upon my arrival. They ripped me from your arms and determined our destiny without consulting us. They second-guessed your abilities because of your disability. Our society, built on a supremacy of able-bodied whiteness, decided that your disability, your race, and your class were inferior and treated you as such. They stole your autonomy over your body and they stole my only need as a baby in the process: my maternal connection with the only mother my newborn self knew.

I am so sorry this happened to us. And, even though I never knew you outside of your cozy womb, I miss you so much.

Do you miss me?

I wish I could know you, Birth Mother, but I am afraid to. I am afraid to look for you. I am afraid to see your face, to smell your smell, and to hear your voice. I am afraid to come face to face with a stranger that I somehow know more intimately than anyone else I’ve ever known, outside of my children. I am afraid that finding you will upend everything I’ve ever come to know about myself. As much as I grieve for what we lost, I am also so grateful for what I gained once I was finally adopted. I gained a mother and father whom I love more than anything in this world. I gained aunts, uncles, and cousins whom I feel incredibly lucky to call family. I was raised in a city I adore, which I would have never known had I stayed in the city of my birth. I feel like one of the lucky ones in this regard. But, I still grieve that we both had to be traumatized from birth for this to happen. It’s not fair to either one of us. And something tells me I’m the only lucky one here. What about you? What happened to you? Are you happy? Are you living a good life? Did they treat you well? Or, did they continue to discard you and defalcate your humanity?

I wish we could have at least been able to spend our first year together like every newborn deserves to. I am confident that my loss of a skin-to-skin connection and suckling milk from your breast resulted in a lifelong rip in my heart and the hardening of my soul. I’ve grown into quite the stoic adult who struggles to be touched, loved, and vulnerable and I know it’s because my primitive years were spent yearning for my mother. I wonder how our severed connection affected you, Birth Mother? Do you still experience sorrow from that fateful day in April 34 years ago?

I wish I could know more about you and your history, both medically and personally. Have you struggled with your health at all? What about your mother and her mother? What do I need to know? What should I warn my daughters about? It pains me to look at them and have no idea what has been passed down to them. The adoption industry does not honor our human right to have our family and medical history as adoptees, leaving us in the dark when it comes to our physical and mental health. I wish I could sit down and ask you every question I’ve ever thought of throughout my 34 years on this Earth. Do your legs hurt randomly, too? Are you also an introvert? What did you play with as a child? What was your family home like? How did your parents treat you? What made you laugh? What made you cry? Do you also have a coffee addiction?

Oh, the thoughts I'd share if given the chance.

Yet, I have a feeling that if I had the opportunity to meet you, I wouldn’t say anything at all. I would freeze in my overwhelm, fighting every tear that surfaces because tears are foreign and terrifying to me. Fear would paralyze me, preventing me from running away from the pain that I have tried so hard to ignore.

Oh, dear Birth Mother.

If I could only tell you one thing, please know that I love you. I love you, and I hope you have had a lifetime of happiness. I hold nothing against you, and I am grateful that God placed me in your womb even though we were never meant to be together Earthside. We spent nine months together in the coziest place. Your womb kept me alive, and even though I have spent my life wrestling with the idea of my life, I’m glad you kept me. I am thankful that you and your body worked hard to bring me here and I will continue working hard to make you proud. I will continue doing the lifelong work to heal from this trauma so that I can help my daughters, your granddaughters, experience a life of abundance.

I hope you still think of me, Birth Mother. I’ll never stop thinking of you.

Happy Birth Mother’s Day.

Love,
Me

P.S. I wrote a book! In the first chapter, I talk about the Primal Wound of adoption and compare it to the Primal Wound of our nation: White Supremacy. I analyze how the Primal Wound of our nation impacts every single one of us, the fate of our lives, and our battle with never feeling as though we are enough. I hope you know that even though society attempted to cast you aside through every system of oppression possible, you are so worthy. You have always been worthy. So have I.