Birthmothers Story - The Sap Meter

I'm convinced that there is a huge difference between the way male adoptees and female adoptees think about the search and reunion process. I know that's a real broad statement, very borderline sexist. It really is a Mars and Venus thing.

The initial cultural shock of reunion knocks everyones socks off. All of a sudden here's this extra person in your life and it affects all aspects of the triad. The adoptive parents juggle with the emotions of their worst fear being realized...their child's biological mother is back in their childs life and OH MY GOD, she's going to steal the love away. The birth mother has her child back in her life and is walking on egg shells, not wanting to interfere, not wanting to do anything that might remotely upset the apple cart and undo everything that she's worked for, but geeze oh whiz, it sure is great to touch, to feel, to start to heal that hole in your heart. And then there's the adult child that isn't quite equipped yet to handle this emotional roller coaster. Holy Cow...it sure is a lot to handle, isn't it? There's no textbook that's going to tell ya how to deal with this one. There's no set rules on what to expect next. This really is one of life's lessons on how to fly by the seat of your pants.

I can look back at that time now and realize how gushy I was...not only my eyes, which continued to leak for the next 2 years every time I was around Tom, but also my wanting to tell him, every way that I could, how much he meant to me and just how important it was to have him in my life and, and, and....ad nauseum. He finally took it upon himself to start telling me that I was far too sappy for my own good. We soon developed a joke around it, and developed the SAP METER to gauge the amount of "gush". It was also a wonderful way for him to tell me in a very nice way to back off a bit and give him breathing room.

He was having a lot of problems at this point trying to figure out how those damn puzzle pieces fit. He had stopped communicating with his parents about me and his wife felt left out when ever we were together at their house. It really was difficult for him and I felt bad, but I also knew that we were still figuring out how to "be" with each other.

That didn't happen until our third year of our reunion. That year our "special" time was spent on an island in the middle of a huge man made lake in northern Georgia. We packed a canoe full of camping stuff and paddled out to this island. There was no one else out there. We had the place to ourselves for 3 days. Just me and Tom. What an enlightening 3 days it was! Unbelievable!!! It was during that ttime that we finally figured out what all these feelings and emotions were.

We both were struggling with this mother/child thing. Neither of us felt that way about each other. Sure, I gave birth to him, but I certainly didn't feel maternal towards him. And sure, he knew I gave birth to him, but he in no way considered me a parental unit. We knew there was a deep, deep bond and we definately belonged to each other. All of a sudden it dawned on both of us, almost simultaneously, that we were more like siblings. So, we tried that type of relationship on for a while, and by, Jove, it worked...and it worked really good.

His parents had two natural daughters before they adopted Tom, so Tom was raised with two older sisters. One of them is about 9 years older than Tom. I'm 18 years older than him, so , although, chronoloigally it might seem like a bit of a stretch, emotionally and mentally, that's where we were, and still are to this day.