Mother's Day arguably is a holiday invented by card companies to stimulate business, but regardless of its origin, it certainly stimulates strong feelings about motherhood. For those of us whose lives are shaped by adoption, these feelings can be especially powerful or even raw. As an adoptive mother, I feel more intensely around Mother’s Day my gratitude for the gift of motherhood, for my sons, who have brought more meaning to my life than I ever could have imagined. This gratitude is immeasurably sweet but always mixed with sadness. Some of the sadness comes from not having carried them in my body, but most is from the knowledge that what brought them to me was tragedy and loss. I can’t help thinking about how Mother’s Day feels to two other women, bereft of the joys of my life. I send them notes, photos, cards (our relationship could be described as “semi-open”), handmade cards, if I can manage, into which I pour as much love as such an offering can hold. Yet I know these really are feeble gestures that can’t begin (or maybe only just begin) to touch their world.
Although it’s not widely publicized, the day before Mother’s day has been observed, mostly by groups of birth mothers, as Birth Mother’s day, a day to acknowledge their unique, bittersweet experience of motherhood. A few years ago, I saw in the local Catholic newspaper an announcement for an observance of Birth Mother’s day at the chapel of a local hospital, hosted by a Catholic adoption agency. I was excited that someone had organized such an observance and eagerly wanted to be part of it, to witness, honor, affirm the experience of the attending birth mothers, of all birth mothers, and especially, even though they wouldn’t be present, my sons’ birth mothers. At the same time, the thought of being close up to a sharp reality from which I’m usually insulated, which can be scary even in my own imagination, made me hesitate, made me feel shaky as I locked my bike and walked through the hospital doors.
In the chapel, I was handed a program of songs, readings, and prayers. The gathering was small. Beside myself, I think there was a couple with their young adopted daughter, two social workers from the agency, and three or four birth mothers. I don’t remember the details of the ceremony, but the songs and readings were meaningful and beautiful. Each birth mother shared a brief summary of her story: how long it had been since the adoption, what her circumstances were, what her reunion and present relationship with her birth child was like. Needless to say, many tears were shed. Afterward cake was served, and more informal conversation followed.
Though I was glad to have participated, I wondered whether I should really have been there. No one made me feel unwelcome, and one birth mother spoke to me with tears of gratitude that I would want to hear her story. But I wondered if my presence made them hold back, feel uncomfortable expressing, say, their rage and frustration about having so little to say about the fate of their children.
Not everyone finds gatherings with songs, readings, and candles to be a comforting place to bring their feelings of gratitude and loss, but I for one, very much do. In the blur of bringing home a new baby, my husband and I didn’t attend the adoption blessing ceremony put on by our agency shortly after my first son’s arrival, but I know that his birth mother was there and read the prayer I’d written for the day we brought him home. Even this little report is an ember that still glows in my heart. The following year, I drove two hours to meet her at another such ceremony, where we sat together, listened, sang, prayed, and lit candles. Afterward, we talked about the things she was saving for my son, about her mother, about her Swedish grandfather. I remember that she took it upon herself to get me some cookies and coffee, like a hostess, and when it was over I gave her a ride home. It was like a dream, framed with poetry, song, candlelight.
I’ve attended, and even been involved in planning, several “adoption blessing” events since then. These events, organized by adoptive parents and adoption workers with all members of the “triad” in mind, always are emotional and meaningful for me but also a bit disappointing because few birth parents or adult adoptees attend.
Once I tried to organize a reading of adoption poetry by putting up a few fliers on bulletin boards around town. (What did I know about publicity?) I naively expected at least one or two birth mothers, adult adoptees, and of course lots of adoptive parents, to see my announcement and jump at this opportunity to share, through their own words or those of others, their experience of adoption. Not surprisingly, it was attended (yes, and enjoyed) by a few fellow parents and myself. A little reflection on a couple of pieces, quickly chosen from A Ghost at Heart’s Edge by Susan Ito and Tina Cervin (“Letter to the Adoptive Parents from the Birthmother” by Carrie Etter and “Hunger” by Julia Sudbury) made clear to me that the walls of the coffee house may have had a hard time withstanding the emotion, let alone strangers venturing to hurl or catch it.
Adoptive parents’ magazines feature articles that speak about the difficulty of a birth mother’s experience with respect and gratitude, but they never approach the scale of intensity I’ve heard from the birth mothers’ own unguarded voices from other sources. I wonder whether there just is too much pain for an honest meeting, a mutual witnessing and sharing between birth and adoptive mothers, to be humanly possible. Yet, this is my dream, my vision. In my vision, it’s Mother’s Day/ Birth Mother’s Day. We are together, reading, singing, lighting candles. We are sharing stories and feelings, shouting, “I need you to hear this!” raging, weeping. And we are silent, listening, listening. We are hugging. We are taking leave, exhausted, maybe carrying the seeds of forgiveness, of healing. We think about gathering next time.
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