The Torn Maternal Connection

An excerpt from my memoir - Choiceless: A Birthmother’s Story of Love, Loss, and Reunion

“For those three impossibly short days….I spent as much time as possible in the nursery with Ryanne. … I asked her to remember that I loved her completely and that I always would. I asked this innocent baby girl if she could ever forgive me for what I believed I had to do. Mine was the voice she recognized. For months, her tiny heart had beat in rhythm with my own. The familiarity of me was her safe place. In a few days she would be taken away, and her little world would be a terrifying mixture of strange people and sounds. I hoped with all of my heart that those entrusted with her care would deliver on the promises I was making.”

As a pregnant teen in 1970, the only message delivered to me was that the responsible thing to do was to give my baby a chance at life by allowing her to be raised by a couple — a mother and a father — so that she could experience all of the financial and emotional comforts that only a two-parent family could provide. I was told she would be a gift to some childless couple — and it would be a righteous and worthy gift.

I was not told that my child would grow up with a deep, unconscious feeling of abandonment and rejection.

A quote from the book written by Nancy Newton Verrier, Primal Would: Understanding the Adopted Child “What I discovered is what I call the primal wound, ……..I began to understand this wound as having been caused by the separation of the child from his biological mother, the connection to whom seems mystical, mysterious, spiritual and everlasting.”

I feel defenseless as I reflect on the challenges that my daughter faced throughout her life, as a result of my naive choice. Although she was raised in a big, loving family to whom she has a deep connection of love and gratitude, there is no amount of love that can completely heal such a cellular wound.

Had I known, would I have made another choice?