Rejection is the second core issue. It is human nature for individuals to cope with a loss by personalizing it. Triad members often times try to decipher what they did or didn’t do that led to the loss and become sensitive to the slightest hint of rejection. Therefore, situations are avoided where they might be rejected or to provoke rejection in order to validate their negative self perception.

It took a lot of hard work for me to not view my placement for adoption by my natural mother as anything other than total rejection. The concept of being “chosen” means that the adoptee was “un-chosen” If the first person in an adoptees life can reject us what stops others. In the past, and still there are folks who will say that a “good” adoptee is the one who is not curious and accepts adoption without any questions. The opposite of this is the “bad” adoptee who is questioning and may create feelings of rejection in the adoptive parents.

Natural parents will beat themselves up for being irresponsible and society has done the same in the past. Adoptive parents create fantasies for the adoptee about the natural families and all of this can reinforce rejection. For example, my adoptive parents blocked my interest in searching when I was a teenager by saying that my natural parents may have married and had other children and implied that my searching would be an intrusion into their lives.

Infertility for adoptive parents may feel as if their bodies have rejected them. We have struggled for three years now with infertility issues. It has taken us over a year to get pregnant the first time and since then have gone through three pregnancy losses. For us, we feel betrayed. With considering an open adoption we are afraid that the natural parents will reject our parenting. We are questioning ourselves and wondering if we are ever meant to be parents.

Guilt/Shame
There are many triad members who experience a tremendous amount of guilt and shame. They may believe that there is something wrong with them or they cause the losses to happen.

Some triad members may feel shame of being involved in adoption. Triad members may feel shame of an unplanned pregnancy or infertility or the shame of having been given up. Adoptees may feel that the adoption was because of something about their being and then intensified by the secrecy that exists in the closed adoption era.

Adoptive parents may feel ashamed because they must have done something wrong to be diagnosed as infertile. They may be ashamed of themselves or their bodies or the inability to have a natural child of their own.
Natural parents may feel shame and guilt for having had sex, and the act of conception.