Why your child’s birth mom might be silent

I placed my son for adoption almost 12 years ago.  I remember those few sacred days in the hospital like they were yesterday.  The sounds, the smell, the heartbreak.  Moments like that, they stay with you and they change you.

I came home from the hospital to a slide out RV trailer that was parked in the driveway at my parent’s home.  They had a full house at the time, with no extra bedrooms for me.  So, I took my few belongings, my hospital dressings, a journal and a ton of movies and retired to the trailer.  It was silent in there.

I remember just lying in the bed.  Alone.  Empty belly.  Empty arms.  Empty heart.  Just breathing in and out.

Silent.

It has been so interesting over this past decade to see how silence has followed me through my journey.  It has become a great comfort and a great burden.

As a birth mother I always felt that if I could just NOT talk about it, just bite my tongue and just “move on” with my life that it would somehow be easier to cope.  That in some way not talking about my grief was going to make it non-existent.

I learned over five + years of self-destruction that staying silent was the one thing that was keeping me from healing, processing, moving forward in my reality post placement.

“I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified…We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t.”   – Audre Lorde

Silence comes for many reasons through the grief and healing journey of a birth mother.

One question I get asked often from Adoptive Parents is:  “Our child’s birth mother has gone silent.  We have reached out to her, we have tried to set up visits, we have sent gifts and nothing.  What do we do?”  

I wanted to share four things to consider when faced with this situation in your adoption relationship:

• Silence doesn’t mean stop.  In the silent seasons of an adoption relationship, it can be easy to feel like what you are doing is not helping.  I am here to tell you that it always hurts, but that doesn’t mean that we want you to stop.  Stick to your routine.  Stick to your commitments.  Stick to what you know and keep loving us well.  If nothing else, you will be able to tell your adopted child that you loved her well, that you always kept in touch and that you never stopped doing what you promised…which was loving the child.  The efforts made will be long lasting and knowing that the door has been left open will heal hearts in more ways than you can even comprehend.  Unless specifically asked to stop, never stop.  If you don’t have a place to send correspondence, keep them in a box.  If your messages go unanswered, keep sending them.  You can love and honor her well through your unanswered efforts.
• Silence is grief AND healing.  I spent the first 5 years post placement silent.  I was trying to “get back to normal”.  I was trying to move on.  The only way I knew how to do that was to pretend that I as the same person.  The more conversation I had about my son, the less “normal” I was able to be.  I was in pain.  I was grieving so deeply.  Communication was not what I was looking for.  I moved all the time, changed my number, was always in and out of relationships, would no-show for visits and would come in and out of the picture.  And then in seasons of healing I was silent.  When I was getting married, when I was giving birth to the children I parent, when I was sharing my story as a public advocate and processing and living in the moments of my life, I was silent.  Even when I am vocal with others, I was silent in my adoption relationships. When I would have a visit, I would go silent for weeks.  Processing.  In this journey, silence has now become a huge part of the big picture.  Sometimes saying nothing is everything.  Silence can mean pain, but it can also mean healing.  BUT NEVER forgotten.
• Silence isn’t personal.  I know that it can be frustrating to send and send and give and give and never receive.  Open adoption is rarely a game of “even steven” although I think as adoptive parents, you try hard.  There is so much gratitude and love for the birth mother that you want to “repay” in any way possible.  But if that isn’t acknowledged, if there isn’t recognition and thanks given you tend to lose the desire to love well.  You need to understand that unless you have done something to push the birth mother away, her silence is not personal TO YOU.  You must remind yourself why you give, why you honor commitment, why you send updates, and why you make effort to love well.  It should never be about you!  It should always be about her and more importantly about the child.  After years of silence, after years of no, after years of feeling forgotten, the adoptive parents received an email from me.  I reached out, after almost non-existent conversation for years, and I asked for a visit.  I asked for communication, I asked for a relationship.  THEY SAID YES.  They had been waiting and they left the door open.  When I was ready, when I was healing, when my heart could handle it…they brought me in.  If we can remember our WHY and not make it about being acknowledged for “how good we are” maybe, just maybe we can keep resentment and hurt feelings at bay and keep the door open for a lifetime of love.
• Silence can be fear based.  Adoption is terrifying!  All sides of the triad are filled with SO much unknown that it is hard to jump in and blindly walk in faith that things will work out.  So, we do our research, we ask questions and we are bombarded with more opinions that we can count.  We turn to the internet and Facebook groups.  We ask our churches and our “friend of a friend” for information.  We hear 1% of what adoption looks like and we are freaked out! We hear ONE situation and that is what we remember, that is what we believe as truth, we believe the worst.  We do our best to go in open minded and prepared, but we are extremely guarded.  There is an unseen power shift that takes place after relinquishment.  After the power shift takes place things shift and change.  And in the “name of the child” we set boundaries and restrictions and separation to protect ourselves.  So many birth mothers are TERRIFIED to ask for updates, to ask for contact, to ask for visits.  They are very aware that they have no power.  We don’t want to ruffle the feathers, so we tend to walk on egg shells.  We feel that if we say the wrong thing, post the wrong thing, do the wrong thing that our access to our babies will be taken from us.  REACH OUT, initiate the conversation, let the mothers know that the door is open and that the hearts are open.

My dear families, adoption is hard and confusing and there is no manual on how to navigate these adoption relationships.  BUT you have had relationships with humans before.

Grief equals isolation and silence. Healing equals reflection and sometimes that includes silence.

I am asking you to be bigger than the silence.  You can still love well, you can still show up and you can still honor your commitments even when we can’t.  Is it always fair?  Maybe not, but don’t ever take silence as resentment, as forgotten, as uninterested.

Sometimes silence is all we’ve got. 

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