The Feelings of Birthmother Regarding the Words “Gotcha Day”
Not all discussions are going to have a resolution..and for many discussions that is not even the point to begin with.
Alas, Adoption Discussions Cannot Happen Without the Word “Gotcha”
This isn’t a “Gotcha is yucky for some people so we have to find a new word and enforce it on everyone and judge those harshly who use it” post. It’s a way for people to share how they feel & hopefully as an adoptee I know so beautifully put it:
“All we can do is listen and try to hear each other, and then be open to reexamining stuff if we hear something that makes us think twice.”
My son was born Nov 14, I saw him for the last time on the 16th, and signed off on the 18th. I went home the next day. He went to his new family on the 18th once all was signed off. I imagine that they were thrilled beyond all belief when they got the call to come pick up their new baby. This is their “Gotcha Day”. For THEM the 18th is probably a wonderful day in their memory..whether they acknowledge it in any way or not..I don’t know.
This is What “Gotcha Day Means to Me
I don’t do well the month of November at all.
I had a friend call it recently “the season of Max” and it is well put. Not thinking about it, being totally happy and content with life in general, putting the positive “spin” on it;nothing matters..around Nov 4th, a deep unrest starts. Often I have not been even mentally aware of the cause. It’ like a bad PMS come home to roost;for a long time. I get irritable, weepy, nasty, unrest, depressed, unable to sleep..Eventually, I realize the date and recognize my old friend “ah, yes: that is why I feel this way.” Even if my brain tries to forget, I swear the cells of my soul remember and go into mourning. It is like they shut down.
I Cannot Ignore my Relinquished Son’s Birthday…
…no matter how much I might try.
The Day of this Birth: I become anxious about “the day”. By time it is here..I am in a bizarre mental frenzy of sorts. Things come back to me that have been dormant all year;new thoughts and memories surface. I always write to my son on his birthday. I always cry. The next few days, I go through the motions but I am living in the past.I go back to the precious 48 hours in the hospital when he was him and still mine; no longer a resident of my body but firmly entrapped in my heart..when I could hold him, smell him, watch his butterfly lashes flick in his minute baby dreams..when I whispered over and over again how sorry I was, how I could see no other way out, how I loved him and how I must do what I would soon do, how I had no choice.
Leaving the Hospital without My Baby: The 16th is worse that his actual birthday; I remember the last time I held him, the blinding searing pain of walking out the door hits me all over with new freshness. Hands down; watching my mother die, young and racked with Cancer, the broken heart and confusion from having my best friend boyfriend of almost 4 years, fiance for one week announce he was gay and drop out of my life forever, living though a crumbling marriage/ divorce, having my next child have open heart surgery;..nothing beats walking out of that hospital and leaving my new born son behind. I still shudder when I think about what compelled me to even be able to do it. I can’t imagine, even been there, lived it, how I pulled that off.
Then there is the muddled blur, the next few days,my memory is hazy though the nonstop tears. I remember walking though the mall, shopping for the perfect gifts to leave with my son. The small trinkets that would somehow convey the endless mother love for him and keep me somehow warm and alive to him. My legs still jelly from the birth, stitches inflamed, belly soft but now void and empty, my breasts engorged and leaking..I walked the mall..painfully choosing the perfect pen to inscribe the perfect book, with the prefect stuffed doll for my perfect blue eyed son.
Signing over my Maternal Rights: And then the day of the signing; over and over the lawyers? agency reps? judge? I have no idea where I was and who I was with nor anything..but their endless repetition of “no longer your son, no longer any parental rights, forever ,forever, forever… until I wanted to scream from the pain that “forever” brought forth and would do anything..even sign the blasted paper never in my possession..to make them stop.
Gotcha!
As an unmet, joyful and excited couple marveled and cooed over my precious baby, now theirs; I then packing all my meager belongings, waiting for my mother, sad goodbyes, uncomfortable silence, more feelings of shame.
As they fussed over the first diapers changed, and made happy phone calls, I was on the cold drive back..5 hours due to traffic into a winter evening sun; mindless chit chat while my body ached to scream “TURN AROUND;I FORGOT MY BABY!”
Yes, the Adoption Industry Got Me
Words never uttered. I was showing them all how “good” I was by being so strong and determined. And with that thought I pushed myself back into regular life and did what I must..I lived. But I was never the same again..and November comes..no matter what has transpired in the 22 years since then.. even with an eventual search and a dear reunion with my now grown man boy son;..and reminds me..No I am not the same. I never will be. I can’t undo it. The day I broke my life in two..I left part of my heart back along that cold winter road..I was permanently blinded by the setting son, the fog of tears;
Yeah..”stomped” on is a pretty accurate way to describe it. There are no words that really convey it. “Stomped” is as good as any. And I guess if “stomped” is just as good as any other word, then “gotcha” is as good as it’s opposite. Just a word? Sure; many meanings..yeah.
I say “Gotcha” makes me feel yucky all over again..even for just a tad; it makes me shudder. I see it on board, in a thread, a post, a card..and my stomach flops.
Yes, my breath catches. I am not your child’s mother..so your word for your day should not effect me; but is the loss of a child different across international borders? Is the feelings of separation and emptiness any less though different years, different eyes? Are my tears any less bitter, more sweet?
You say “Gotcha” and my mind races back to those days;with no regard to what it might be like, was like, is like. There is no room in the word “gotcha” for me. And while I can understand the feelings of joy my son’s parents had; heck, I comforted myself with the fantasy of what it was like for them..to balance it out, to give the pain some meaning, some purpose besides myself; I like to think that they did think of me..wondered too..if I was sad and feeling alone, empty. Like I thought of them..full of joy..loving my child.
The word hurts me. I have as much control over that small sharp feeling from Gotcha as I do over how I feel during the month of November.
Whether you care or not is up to you.
I had to go and read the long post, and then left what people will probably think is an incredibly insensitive reply.
And I don’t care.
The term makes me feel like screaming and saying “no baby for you!” to anyone who uses it.
It shows a disturbing lack of awareness to me about identity issues for adoptees.
So here’s another insensitive comment, that makes two, if I can just do one more, my work will be done for the day, and it’s only noon, must go run out this ickiness.
Joy
yeah, i gotcha. (pun intended). i agree completely. it seems really off. i think the concept may be good, to celebrate (for the adopters) but to me the word seems really really off. very callous, lacking a huge amount of sensitivty for the adoptee and their natural parents.
that being said, i have friends – older adoptees – who have celebrated their birthdays and their “adoption” days and they say they like it. it makes them feel special.
i have still others who were told by their a-rents that their birthday reminds them of their natural parents so they prefer to celebrate the child a different day. what? um, hello? what does that say to the child? doesnt it futher the duality and fractured nature of an adoptee identity? “lets forget the day you were born to other people and celebrate the day we got you”. yuck.
its just yucky to me. the sentiment may be okay (i guess) but the words is very wrong.
its like being told “The day we bought you” (and I have friends who were told this). Talk about feeling like an object and not a person?
Ugh. I could go on. But I wont.
aw f**k
(((Claud))))
There you go. Get me reading up on that blog and posting on it.
Claud,
You have put into words my own “season” of my child’s birth and reliquishment. And I do agree that the memories around my son’s birth and reliquishment might be cellular.
I believe that we as human beings know really so little about the vast frontier of our neurology particularily the neurology of memory. I think it is entirely possible that each of our cells contains all of our memories, just as each cells contains all of our DNA.
Thank you so much for your writing.
As I sit at my PC typing this, I’m reminded that at the beginning of our adoption journey – 1989 and pre-internet for me – we were figuring adoption out on our own. Two white parents with no experience with adoption, and a Korean child (two by 1991) hoping to do the right thing. We made mistakes, no question about it. This is one of them.
I’m not proud to say we call the day our children arrived “gotcha day.” We started using it on the first anniversary of our son’s arrival, which we spent with the family whose son arrived on the same plane. They invited us to dinner for “gotcha day,” which was not uncommon in the Korean adoption community at that time. After that the name stuck.
It stuck because way back at the beginning I was simply too stupid to know better. Over time I grew to understand how loaded this phrase is – the sense it conveys that the adopted person is property, the lack of sensitivity to the loss of first family, country, heritage, language. And I’m coming to understand how painful it is to first mothers.
Language is powerful, and perception is reality. Sometimes, even if your intentions are good, you have to acknowledge the damage you do with your words, even unintentionally. This is one of those cases.
I have since gravitated to a more neutral name for this day – “arrival day”. I encourage our children to call the day something else, but it’s hard for them to totally let go of the old name, which is now connected as much to our friends as it is to their arrivals.
If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, we’d have called the day something else. Hopefully the discussion at hand will help new families make a better choice on this than we did.
Margie
Your post is exactly one of the reasons I will never celebrate “Gotcha Day” or use that phrase in association with our son’s adoption. I find it insulting to first parents and adoptees.
I think it’d be very easy to do what Margie is trying to do, find another word!
When I think of gotcha, I think of sneaking up on my sisters and scaring the tar of them. I didn’t know that was a word for adoption. Its sickening to even think about it. Thanks for teaching me something new even if it was a nasty lesson. My own adoptive mother would consider it horrifying and nasty. We celebrate my birthday. Not when they adopted me. My mother has way too much respect for my birthmother. Some of the things that the adoption industry thinks of is totally beyond me. A lot of my women libber thoughts come from my adoptive mother. That term is just plain disrespectful to all involved in the triad.
What do I think of Gotcha Day, it may be the day my aparents “got” me but it is also the day my natural mother left the hospital mourning her dead baby. Yes she was told I died at birth. She never healed from being told that and she will never heal from finding out I am alive.
I do understand the concept of having a day of celebration coinciding with a day of loss. In my case, every Mother’s Day is painful for me because I am reminded of a mother who did never wanted me, and when her mother refused to put me up for adoption and instead took me in (bitterly and grudgingly), I was reminded by the same birth mother that she never wanted me. She refused to even claim me in public, saying that “every one has secrets”, yet when I started to make my own money with no help from her, she tried to guilt me into funding her lifestyle. However, I in spite of the yearly pain, I don’t think that it is insensitive to have Mother’s Day, even though everyone did not have a nice one. Rather, I embraced those older women who I found who expressed the maternal instinct that I never had from my mother or grandmother. I also chose to share the joy of motherhood with my friends who have children (I am childless). In closing, even though I hurt on Mother’s Day, it would not be compassionate of me to ban or resent a day that means so much to families who find joy in that celebration.
Claudia,
I hope that you do not think that I am minimizing your pain. I am not. There are actually birth mothers out there who give their babies up because they love them and opposed to mine who simply did not want to be burdened. After reading your commentary, I would put you in the first category.
But can we all agree that what may be a joyous occasion for one person can be agonizing for the next person. But, I think we can come to some acceptance on both sides.
Claudia,
As I think about what you wrote, I think that what it is you may want is for people to understand the pain you experienced in giving up your baby and how you are still suffering.
The problem is, that most people and most women have not experienced this life event. And certainly all women who have given up babies do not feel the bonding nor the subsequent loss. A person who has not been through it themselves WILL NEVER FULLY UNDERSTAND YOUR PAIN. NEVER. I can’t, though I can image and feel pain that you are still hurting over this.
Likewise, most human beings are fortunate enough to have mothers who bonded with and loved them, so very few people can understand the trauma I have from the physical and emotional abandonment I suffered.
But, I don’t expect them too either. Rather, I accept my feelings about Mother’s Day, and at the same time redefine it to blend with the day that it was meant to be.
You sound like you still love this “baby”, even though he is now an adult. Have you ever considered reaching out to him by either making your contact information available to him in the event that he wants a reunion, or contacting him outright? He may be pleased to know that what you did for him, you did out of love in spite of the pain and loss that you experienced. Just a thought. I do wish you peace and serenity.
I do understand what you are saying and I greatly appreciate your compassion and understanding. Mother’s Day is not quite as much a trigger for me, personally, as November is, but it is still difficult and I often feel sad about my own mother who has passed as well..I spent years in the food service industry and after she passed I stopped ever working on mother’s Day because I had difficulty both seeing happy mothers and their children along with people who were mean to their mothers on that day!
I actually have been in an reunion with my son since 2005 after I searched and found him in 2004. It’s probably about as “normal” and positive as one can hope in adoption. Even with that though.. whenever I see, read, or hear the word ‘Gotcha” I do internally cringe. It just takes the breath out me and feels like a kick in the gut. “Family Day” or some other kinder word use does not feel the same to me and I can only hope that someday people understand that there are better words out there that can be used for them to celebrate. If not for me and other birthmothers, but then for the adoptees who also dislike feeling “Gotten”.
Claudia,
I agree with you that “Family Day” is a more appropriate term. Because that’s what it should be about the joining of two families with the child at the center. “Gotcha” sounds too adult centered to me.
Here is a question: If it was called “Family Day” that involved both the adoptive parents and birth/first parents taking part would that be a better practice than some take part in now? One of the issues I could see is that it would be triggering for the birth/first parents as the day the adoption of their child finalized. Another and most important is that it could be triggering for the child as well. I’m not sure if this is a perfect alternative but it seems better than the one currently being practiced.
Maybe it’s because I’m not an AP but I don’t see why they need one day to celebrate becoming a family when that should be everyday. It’s like mothers and fathers day. I don’t need one day to celebrate and be thankful for my parents, I’m thankful for them everyday.
As a birthmother; I don’t want to take part in family day!! Triggering? oh yeah! I think I would rather get teeth pulled! I already feel myself getting antsy and I am still 10 days ( and 26 years) out…Already lost count at the number of times I have growled at my husband “It’s November…” whatever it gets called,I am best left alone that day to have myself a big old cry if I haven’t broken down already!
Now, if one MUST celebrate something, then just don’t call it “gotcha”, but leave me out of it! And if the CHILD wants it.. fine.. but it should be up to them first and foremost.
One day.. all I ever wanted on my son’s birthday is to bake him a cake and watch him once blow out the candles.. and just typing that.. crying ..seriously crying…
🙁
I’m so sorry Claudia, I was just throwing it out there as an idea to be an improvement of what the day currently is for some. I never intended to upset you. I hope you get the support you need during these tough times.
Take care of yourself.
Oh it’s NOT your fault! Don’t worry about that.. It’s rather unavoidable this time of year. 🙂 Just got to keep on breathing and working though.
I can understand what you are saying. Even though I understood the spirit in which “Gotcha” was used, perhaps one could probably come up with a better one that would make all more comfortable.
The words “Gotcha Day” prioritize the feelings of adoptive parents and dismiss the pain associated with adoption. It focuses on the adult’s experiences of events and ignores the fact that adoption cannot occur without loss or abandonment. The bottom line is that children are not something to simply be gotten like a computer or kitchen appliance.
http://redthreadbroken.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/whats-wrong-with-gotcha-day/