All people experience grief in their lives. However, in adoption there are no standard grieving processes or universal rituals to help the natural mother cope. When there is a death of a friend or family member, there is often times a religious services, a wake, a funeral and visits to the survivors home by friends and family. However, the natural mothers grief is distinct from most other types of grief because it is not socially acceptable to talk about what happened.

Unresolved grief will cause issues in other areas of our lives. It can affect romantic relationships, parent child relationships, the ability to work effectively, and a person’s feelings of happiness. As a natural mother if you are having other issues in your life it could be related to your not having fully grieved for the child that you placed for adoption.

It takes time to move past the initial grief of relinquishing the child to adoption. Sometimes professional help is needed to deal with the emotions that accompany the loss. Some may feel that the adoption decision was the right decision and accept that the decision has certain consequences. Natural parents wonder about their son or daughter and how they are doing especially when the child has reached the age where certain life events such as starting school, graduating from high school and college, getting married and becoming a parent.

Through my experience in the adoption community I have noticed that natural mothers seem to do things in extremes. Those from the closed adoption era seem to have married the first person who comes along so that they become respect members of society or they stay away from a partner for years. Some may divorce and marry again and again. Some marry and abusive partner and some marry a rich partner they don’t love so they will have financial security and never again be in the position of having to give up a child because of the lack of money. Some natural mothers have married a decent, loving, supportive person but get caught up in their unresolved grief that the marriage falls apart.

Some natural parents who planned the adoption together get married and have other children. Other natural parents choose not to get too close to any person ever again. They may go from one relationship to the other on purpose because the intimacy and loss are always a package.

Some natural mothers have happy marriages. They have happy marriages because they have partners who are supportive of their need to talk about the natural parent experience and of their search for way to help them grieve. Some who didn’t have happy first marriages learned to forgive themselves and have a happy second marriage.

Natural parents may even go to extremes when it comes to parenting. I know several natural parents who had children immediately after getting married and others not for years. Some may only have one child while others have more than 3, 4, or 5. When I found my natural family, my sister said that my natural mother was very overprotective of her. In hindsight my sister realized that my natural mother was afraid something would happen to her. I have had natural mothers say that they adoption experience has affected the way they parent and they way they feel about their other children.

There are some natural mothers that do not have other children. It may be a conscious or subconscious choice because they don’t want to be reminded of their adoption experience or because they can not get pregnant again.