Recognition.

My biosister, Nicole, is a teenager and is 5 months pregnant. Obviously, when most people find this out, they are curious to know if she will place her child for adoption- maybe because her (our) father placed me for adoption....some people think it's a family hobby or something. Which is pretty awful. There are a few reasons why the answer is "no":

1- She got pregnant on purpose. It's a long, sort of sordid, story.

2- She has a job (is a high school graduate)

3- Manages, with her job, to pay her basic rent. Other expenses are paid by our father, but so far she is doing pretty well, above all because she is still very young!

4- She got pregnant on purpose (worth repeating, since that is the major motivation).


My sister and I are not friends, as most anyone who reads this blog knows. In fact, we are quite the opposite of friends. Its another sad and sordid story.

But I, too, was curious. Would my first father attempt to convince her to place? The only way I could find out was by asking him. So I did.

He told me that "no" , he did not bring up adoption and had no intention of doing so. I  asked him why, and didn't have very high hopes for his answer. I figured he'd say something along the lines of: "this is my first grandchild and I want them in my life" (the same cannot be said for me, his first child...but I digress).

I thought he'd say that he knew Nicole simply would not listen to him. Which is probably true.

But his real answer was something very different, something that warmed my heart in a (you guessed it!) sad and sordid way.

He said to me :

"I will not bring up the topic of adoption because I do not want her to place this child. I do not want her to give him up, because I see what adoption has done to you. I see what it has done to your (first) mother, and I see how it has affected you."

This was a curious statement to make, since I have never shared my *real* feelings with him in regards to my adoption, adoption in general, and my feelings on the relationship I have with his family. How could he possibly know how adoption has affected me?

"You've basically worked through it all," he said. "But you've said things, casually, over the years that have lead me to believe that adoption has not been the perfect solution I thought it was over two and a half decades ago".


I could have kissed him. I might do so, the next time I see him (it's been 6 years..!). He has spoken to my parents privately in the past, talking about "blood", and how strong of a connection he feels with me. But he has NEVER outright told me that he regrets placing me for adoption. Which is something I guess, in a fucked up way, I was waiting to hear. And how could I not feel that way? I suppose many adoptees, deep down, want to hear their first parents say: "Legally severing our relationship as parent and child was not the best decision of my life. I miss you, I wish you were here. I am sorry".


This? This was his "confession". His daughter (my sister) is not ready to parent, not yet. She is a selfish and often horrible person, who got pregnant intentionally for some pretty interesting (horrifying) reasons. Everyone sort of knows this, and no one has been afraid to say it. And yet....my father does not want her to place his grandchild for adoption. He won't even bring it up.

I don't think my sister will make a fantastic mother....I don't even like the girl! But I would never, ever, EVER advise her to give away her child. Never. Not because the child is my niece or nephew, not because I love my sister (sadly, I don't). But because I want to be the last adoptee in that family. Am I particularly happy that I get the honor of being the only child exiled? Not especially. But they are a good family, they are not bad. Their children and grand children will be happy.

As for Nicole? She'll learn. At least I hope so. And if she doesn't....well this child will have a grandfather- a man whom I've always loved, but who the other day has proven himself to be a sensitive, honorable man.

Honorable because he is seeing the good in a situation where he has previously only seen the bad (see: my own conception and birth!) Sensitive because.... he has listened to his daughter, his first child.

Without having done it on purpose, it seems he has understood my message:

"The legal annulation of our father-daughter relationship was not the best thing to happen in my life. It has been the most bewildering and intense pain I have known. But I am happy to know you. I have missed you. I forgive you. I love you."

No strikes...you're out?

How do we, as adoptees, deal with rejection from our birth family members?

I’ve been fortunate in that only siblings have rejected me..not the dreaded mother or father. But it still hurts. A lot. And it’s really not surprising.

Most people don’t understand what it’s like to be despised on such a primal level. Sure, there are a lot of people who fight with their siblings, or who don’t get along with a brother or a sister. But those kinds of things happen in normal families because of conflict- actions or words.

My sister Nicole? She just hates me. Not really because of anything I’ve done to her, or vice versa. But because I exist- and frankly, it just pisses her off.

How do we, as people who have grown up outside of our families of origin, cope when we discover that in reunion, we aren’t as welcome as we would have liked?

I wish I had the answer. After nearly 10 years of conflict…I’ve learned to just live with it. I try to comfort myself with the fact that its not “ME” as a person, but me as an entity. Nicole couldn’t possibly hate me, she doesn’t know me! We were friends as young children, but puberty (and the notion that I wasn’t going away..as she’d hoped) promptly ruined all of that for us.

Now, at a very tender age, she is expecting her first baby. It’s a niece or nephew that I will never know, who will never call me “Auntie A”, who will be deprived of his only aunt just as me and my sister were deprived of each other.


How do we heal?  How do we make amends? Apologies don’t work- what are we apologizing for?

“I’m very sorry I exist, Nicole. I’m sorry you aren’t really an only child. Sorry our father loves me too.”


With my particular case, talking doesn’t work. Neither do letters. She insists, as she always has, that she hates me and that she will never love me. She talks to other  half- siblings of ours who HAVE done some pretty terrible things to her.  Just not to me.  I am her only full sister- the only sister with whom she shares a father. She hates me because she is jealous that I  too have a connection with him.

Um…..my bad.

How do we move on, my adoptee friends? How do we just “accept” that sometimes our own families will probably never love us, simply because we exist? Luckily- the problem most commonly lies within the other person. Most people cannot imagine hating or being hated by someone they don’t even know. Let alone someone they don’t know who is also their brother, or sister, or daughter.

I find my only salvation is to wait. Maybe one day Nicole will change her mind, maybe one day she will understand. She is very young. We still have time.


Do I hold my breath? I do not. Do I wish her well? … I try to.

But mostly I just accept it for what it is. I add it to my list of unique situations that being relinquished     for adoption puts me in. Another unfortunate thing that I have no control over, but that will affect me for the rest of my life.

How do you all deal? Did your families welcome you back into the fold? If not, what helps you?