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Last Updated: Feb 16th, 2008 - 17:39:39 |
The mysterious bond that links mother and child can't be seen, but if you're in the right place at the right time, and you're not afraid to trust your instincts, you can feel it.
One of those times and places will be June 8 at 7 p.m. in the atrium at Saint Paul University. The Ottawa Parent Finders chapter will be celebrating its 30th anniversary. Its members are mainly parents and children, separated by adoption, who used the organization's know-how to find each other and are now helping others.
In almost four decades of producing daily columns, stories of reunions of this type were frequent. After interviewing dozens of the reunited, I formed some beliefs. They aren't backed by science, but they are shared by many who have been close to the reunion phenomena.
An adopted girl can start feeling the tug of the birth-mother bond at about age 13 to 16. It can become an obsession. If denied help, she will often become rebellious and ruin her life. Meanwhile, many birth mothers will at that time sense the needs of that child, and start searching.
The experience of male children is similar, in that they start in their teens to wonder about their birth mothers. But the male emotional make-up and attitude seems to be: This will eventually be solved by a woman.
Many successful mothers who tracked down an adopted son report hearing the same line when they made telephone contact. "I've been expecting you." My memory of hearing so many say the same thing is supported by Monica Byrne, a founding member of the Ottawa group that in 30 years has facilitated about 1,500 reunions.
Jennifer Charles of Oxford Mills will be among those at the June 8 reunion. She was 19 and a Carleton University student in 1968 when she became pregnant. In those days, society made adoption almost mandatory. Pressured by social workers, clerics, medical professionals and her own parents, she gave up her baby.
"After that I lived a half life of lies and repressed feelings. Although my son was always on my mind, I was supposed to pretend the birth never happened. I became an emotional cripple. When you repress your emotions, you repress joy. I never married. There's a name for it now. Disenfranchised grief."
Asked if she was willing to be identified, Ms. Charles said she was not only willing, but she demanded it. She has strong opinions, and they would be weakened by anonymity. She's a professional communicator. She completed her university studies and is an editor for a government department.
She has a daughter who shares the view that privacy regulations have to be loosened up to help facilitate reunions. Emily Charles-Donelson is 20, was always aware she had a brother somewhere, and shares her mother's joy at finding him.
"The most joyous day of my life," recalls Jennifer, was when Monica called and said: 'We found your son. His name is Andrew.' Then we started making arrangements to meet."
They met in Vancouver four years ago. As she tells the story, her joy returns with the telling. She laughs and she chokes up. "We were meeting in a public place and I saw him standing there waiting, looking around. He didn't see me. I recognized him right away. He was 33, a tall, good-looking man. He looked just like his father, and I had been very deeply in love with his father.
"As I got to know him I marvelled at what a wonderful job his adoptive parents had done. He's everything a mother could want a son to be."
One thing reunion seekers should be warned about in these situations is a hidden cost. Phone bills. Ms. Charles reports she never in her life spent so much time on the telephone than after making contact with her son. "We sometimes talked all night."
The son has other relatives in Ottawa and visits the capital, and his birth mother, two or three times a year. Ms. Charles makes as many trips to Vancouver as she can. They're still catching up.
"If you have faith, good things will happen," she says. "But it still angers me that people would separate mothers from newborns and think it would have no effect. It is not an OK thing."
That doesn't mean she opposes adoption. If a mother is willing, it makes a difference. Now that society is accepts unmarried births there are more of them. But there's a side-effect. When a young woman has a child that cuts short her education, she and her baby are usually condemned to a lifetime in poverty.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
© Copyright 2008 by AdoptionDesk.com
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