I admit that while reading stories of other birthmothers online that I will tear up. It really doesn’t matter what the exact situation is, it’s just some of the thoughts and feelings are the same. But when I read this, I wasn’t just teary, I was weeping.

A friend read the blog post linked above and told me about it. It is one of the most eloquently written stories of a birthmother that I have ever read. It’s not actually written by the birthmother but by her daughter who was just finding out that her mother had placed a baby boy for adoption years ago.

It was the typical adoption story from the closed era of a young girl who becomes pregnant back in the closed adoption era, is sent to a home for unwed mothers, her baby was adopted, and then she was told to not speak of it again. She never told her children of him. She never searched for him; she was too scared.

I've never looked for him. I couldn't. What if something had happened to him? What if he hated me? What if he didn't want to know anything of me? What if he never forgave me? Her voice cracks. I couldn't stand knowing.

We sit quietly. I reach for the wine bottle between us and fill her emptied glass.

Still, she says. Still. I've often wondered whether you or your sister would ever look for him.

Would you want me to?

She takes a sip of her wine. She doesn't look at me.

Yes.

Then I will.

And so I wept. I wept for this birthmother and the pain she has carried in her heart and soul. I wept for the daughter who tenderly shared this story and agreed to search for her birth brother. I wept for the boy – now a grown man – who may or may not know he was adopted, who doesn’t know that his mother thought of him every single day, who doesn’t know that he has sisters, and who doesn’t know that his birth family is looking for him.

My own words can not do this piece justice, so read it for yourself.


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