Reply to Asking if anyone has experienced engaging the birth mom of your adopted child?

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Reply to "Asking if anyone has experienced engaging the birth mom of your adopted child?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your dd needs to do this herself. You can help her, but neither of you have any idea how the birth mom will respond or whether anyone in her life now knows that she had a child.

A lot of pregnancies, even in the US, are the result of rape. Please keep that in mind. [/quote]

Daughter of mom who lost children to adoption here.  My first sister was conceived through coercion and violence when my mom was 18 and her married boss 20 years older than her took advantage of her first time drinking alcohol at a work function.  She never called it rape and her mother never believed that she wasn't the instigator, but I knew it was SA by my mom's trauma and shame.

That said, relinquishing her baby and being in the dark about the child for decades was 1000x more traumatizing than the assault that resulted in a pregnancy.  The circumstances of my sister's birth made their reuinion more complicated because my mom didn't want to hurt her daughter with the truth, but it didn't make the joy of reunion any less palpable and it didn't in any way interfere with my mom's and our love for her or her love for us.  A one-time violent trauma is terrible but can be less damaging than chronic trauma, such as separation from a child.  Uncertainty.  Constant worry.

Of course YMMV.  I am a rape survivor myself and chose to end the pregnancy that resulted, in part because I did not want my life to be like my mom's.  But I don't value my sister's life any less, nor does she begrudge my freedom of choice.

Please don't assume that all birth parents after rape will reflexively not want contact.  Some won't; some will.  In my experience, reunion was tremendously healing and welcome.[/quote]

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