Although I haven’t shared my adoption story here, and likely won’t ever, I have shared parts in other places, and perhaps even here that I wasn’t happy when I came home. The reality was that for months on end, I screamed unless I was sleeping, or being rocked which helped in the moment, but one other action made me calm…
This post by an adoptive mom, in the third paragraph it starts: “What we know to be true is that an infant in utero begins to attach to his Mother.” and explains in one paragraph what is lost for the adoptee, better than I ever could. Go read it because the ending below will make more sense.
That other action I talked about above, is what dad did, he created a consistent substitute environment, where, I (as an infant), felt safe and knew I’d be okay. Dad would come home, lay down on the bed, and lay me across his chest, and just be still, and then slowly rub my back so I’d feel safe and content.
The adopted ones blog 
momsomniac
September 12, 2015 at 4:36 pm
I wish the agencies would be more honest with prospective adoptive parents about this. It makes so much sense. How would anyone feel if one day they just had to go live with a new family?
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eagoodlife
September 12, 2015 at 11:38 pm
Reblogged this on The Life Of Von and commented:
At last an adopter who really seems to understand the loss and trauma of adoption even if the adoptee does not ‘remember’.
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eagoodlife
September 12, 2015 at 11:39 pm
Thanks TAO for this post and link to an adopter who really does seem to get it.
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pj
September 14, 2015 at 11:07 am
Thanks for posting ! Wanted to share this link from a TED talk about how much we connect in the womb -really helped me on my journey…
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Tiffany
September 14, 2015 at 10:14 pm
I hesitate on how much to share as I try very hard not to share my daughter’s story, only my own.
I became a firm believer in attachment parenting after giving birth to my older daughter; she and I were so inextricably connected, and I felt like we knew each other the instant our eyes met. The familiarity between us, just meeting, was overwhelming. She always wanted me, never her dad, and she needed my arms almost constantly for months. Everything about her, I just “knew.” I could hardly stand to be apart from her, and she from me. I became a firm believer in the “fourth trimester.”
When we were awaiting the birth of my daughter who is adopted, I was thinking about all of this and worrying for her. I knew that I would be a stranger to her, someone whose voice and smell would be totally unfamiliar. I cried for her that first night I brought her home, and for many nights after. I felt her loss, her confusion, her longing for the voice she had known for nine long months. The voice she needed to soothe her cries in the unfamiliar outside world. I ached for what she lost, and I heartily disagree with anyone who says infants do not experience this loss or that it doesn’t matter. There were many signs throughout her first months, especially in our visits with her parents, that indicated she indeed was experiencing that loss.
I worked very hard to compensate, and I believe she and I are very connected now. She still falls asleep with her hand on my tummy, still stumbles in to my bed in the middle of the night and finds security from the dark in my arms. I feel confident that she attached to us. But I would never, ever deny that in those first days and weeks and months, she knew she was being cared for by a stranger, and she mourned the absence of her mom. For some people, I can well imagine that carries into adulthood. It probably depends on many factors on if it does or not. I hope it does not for my daughter, but she will never find in me anything but a supporter that babies do indeed have a deep connection with their mother, and she had one (still does?) with her mom that matters. It was severed, and that matters. She and I grew to love each other (my love for her was instant as soon as I saw her, but it didn’t grow for those nine months like if she had been born to me… it was still different), but it matters what happened to her as a baby, and I am sad for her that she had to experience it.
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