What if? What if?

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"What' and ‘if’.  Two words as nonthreatening as words come. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: ‘What if?'..."  from Sophie's letter to Clair in Letters to Juliet.

An adoptive parent asked me to write a post on how I think my life would have been different if I'd been a child of an open adoption instead of a tightly closed one.  Actually, I rarely dwell in the what if realm.  Thoughts come to me —longings-- and I am confronted with phantom grief for all of the lives I didn't live.  I visit there sometimes, visit the what if.  But that realm is at the end of a long, lonely street.  It takes a while to get there, and once I leave I don't have the desire to return very soon.  I'm stating only the obvious what ifs in this post, from my perspective.


If I start dwelling on what if I'd had an open adoption, then I have to think about what if I hadn't been adopted at all:    I have to think about the fact that I wouldn't have been there for my a-parents when they were close to death.  I have consider that Teresa wouldn't be my lifelong best friend from my home town in California.  I have imagine life without my two brothers and older sister.  I have to imagine a life built on something other than my Faith.  I have to consider a childhood without piano lessons.  I have to think about not meeting my husband at BYU, getting married and having my four wonderful children.  It's too much.  It gives me migraines.   I never say "I wish I weren't adopted."   I never will say it.  I don't feel that way.

Now, the question of what if I'd had an open adoption.  If I had known my birth mother, I would not have felt depressed every birthday wondering about the day I was born.  I would not have looked at brunette models on Revlon TV commercials and fantasized that one of them was my natural mother.  I would have know who gave me my freak double-jointed fingers and crooked pinkies. 


 I could have answered medical history questions at the doctor's office.   I would have felt more comfortable living in my own skin.   I would have confidence that my sometimes serious, too analytic, Information Nation style of socializing was inherited honestly, and not a character defect.  I would have had more adults in my life to mentor me, to love me, to be interested in me.


I will not attempt to address the what if from my birth mother's perspective.  But here's something she wrote on the subject:  "When I surrendered  I knew I could not have contact with my daughter and should not even start looking for her until she was 18 . I could force myself to cast aside thoughts about her until she reached that magic age.  Mothers in open adoption have to navigate a relationship from day one."


Relationship navigation is very tricky.  I think my adoptive parents could have managed an open adoption though, especially with my particular birth mother.  If my adoptive parents and known my birth parents , perhaps they would have had an easier time parenting me.  They would have recognized my body language, my sense of humor, my seriousness.  They wouldn't have had to figure me out from scratch.  

Can the Temple Ordinances bring Adoptees and Birth Parents Closer Together?

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I had First Contact with my birth mother when I was 31 years old.  I didn’t tell my adoptive parents for months, and maybe never would have, except that my Bishop counseled me to.  My adoptive mother’s reaction was exactly what I expected, which is why I didn’t want to tell.  She was shocked.  She felt betrayed.  She wondered what she should have done differently as an adoptive mom so that I would not have gone down the path of finding my first mother. 

Up until the day he died, even after he developed dementia, my adoptive father was upset with me for having a relationship with my birth mother, because it had upset my a-mother.  “You broke your mother’s heart,” he used to say. 

I’d like to think my parents see things differently now that they are on the other side of the veil.

My mother feared that my adoption reunion meant I was on the brink of apostatizing from the LDS Church.  “You were sealed to us in the Temple!  Your natural parents don’t matter anymore,” she asserted.  She feared that my search for my natural parents meant I was losing my testimony.   She told me that when an adopted child is sealed in the temple to parents, a “blood change” takes place so that the adopted child becomes biologically connected to the adoptive parents.  She felt that the "blood change" should remove my curiosity about birth parents.  She promised to send me some quotes from Joseph Smith, Bruce R. McConkie and John A. Widtsoe about adoption and the “blood change.”  She’d been saving these quotes for years.   But when my mother pulled the quotes from her file and reviewed them, she was chagrined to admit they weren’t about legal adoption.  The quotes were about converts being adopted into the seed of Abraham.

Towards Reconciliation

My parents’ attitudes about adoptees' contact with biological parents were not uncommon for their time.  Unfortunately, these attitudes can still be found in some adoptive parents today, and there's no excuse for it.  I am saddened to read about adoptive parents who close adoptions that were promised to be open.  Do they feel that their status as parent may be diminished if birth parents are in the picture?  Truth be told, I probably would have bonded more closely to my adoptive parents if they had been able to acknowledge my emotional needs.  If an adoptive parent cannot accept a child’s family of origin, he/she cannot fully accept the child. The child will sense it.  I know.  I've been there.

I realize I am preaching to the choir here.  I am sure adoptive parents coming to this blog understand the importance of keeping adoptions open.  But perhaps you could broadcast it to other adoptive parents at FSA conferences and such.  Or send them to this post, please.

Some a-parents may ask, “What about the Temple? This child has been sealed to me.  He is mine now.”   I am going to propose something that may shock some of you.  I don’t think that in the next life it will matter who children are sealed to as much as some think it will.  As we do temple work for our deceased ancestors, we join more and more of the family of mankind together.  If an adopted child traces ancestry back far enough, he will find an ancestor that is common to both adoptive and biological families.  Once temple sealings are performed for that ancestor and descenants, the child may be linked to both families.

In the 2010 magazine booklet Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley says, “For the most part, temple work is concerned with the family, with each of us a members of God’s eternal family and with each of us as members of earthly families…  [As] the doctrine is enunciated in language both beautiful and impressive, the participant comes to realize that since every man and woman is a child of Heavenly Father, then each is a member of a divine family; hence, every person is his brother or sister…”

President Hinckley further teaches that family relationships bound together through the sealing ordinances may continue in the world to come.  Adoptive parents will have a relationship with their children for eternity.  Still, the temple sealing ordinance is a binding ordinance, not a separating ordinance.  It does not separate birth parents from the children they relinquished.

President Hinckley states, "...When asked by the scribe, 'Which is the first commandment of all?' the Savior replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.  'And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself' (Mark 12:28, 30–31).

The teachings set forth in modern temples give powerful emphasis to this most fundamental concept of our duty to our Maker and to our neighbors. Sacred ordinances amplify this ennobling philosophy of the family of God. They teach that the spirit within each of us is eternal, in contrast with the body, which is mortal. They not only give understanding of these great truths but also motivate the participant to love of God and encourage him to demonstrate a greater neighborliness toward others of our Father's children."


How can temple-worthy adoptive parents "demonstrate a greater neighborliness toward others of our Father's children [birth parents]" and then close an adoption, denying birth parents a relationship with the one they brought into mortality? Why do they deny their child's emotional needs for this connection?  Please read this post by adoptee and adoptive parent Rebecca Hawkes. She explains much better than I could how adoptive parents can tune into their child's needs.


Children sealed to adoptive parents in the temple do not have greater distance from birth parents than children who are not sealed.  In fact, the sealing ordinance can bring adoptive children closer to birth parents.  The temple does not sever biological ties; it expands families.  There is room for everyone.

Note:

In addition to doing guest posts on the B4A blog, I have started my own blog called Earth Stains.  My messages on Earth Stains are more targeted to adoptees, with a focus on health and wellness.  I hope everyone can glean something from my writings, so please stop by.  I signed up for the Adoption Interview project, so look for my interview on Thursday, November 17th.  I interviewed a fantastic mom named Rachel who has an adopted son and daughter from China.  Rachel's interview with me will be posted at her blog, Everybody Wants a Cupcake.

Happy November!