There was a point in my life that I wondered how I got to where I was. Finally at the age of 21 I took an active step in finding out and initiated a search for my natural family. I knew virtually nothing about what had happened to me the first four days of my life and why. Through search I had hoped to find the answers.

When I initiated my search the internet wasn’t what it was today and it wasn’t until I was into my search that I had a computer or access to email. I wasn’t able or didn’t know how to search for books written on the subject. It wasn’t until I started reading and educating myself that I learned a few things that I think will be helpful to many of you searching today.

When an adoption takes place, there are three parties involved: the couple who adoptes, the child and the child’s natural parents. This is called the adoption triad or adoption triangle. Some seem to forget that there is a third side of the triangle and that is the natural parents. At any rate, thirty or forty years ago unwed mothers were forced into hiding. They spent months in maternity homes. Unlike the natural fathers, most of whom quietly walked away, the natural mother couldn’t hid the visible evidence of the participation in a socially unaccepted sexual activity.

For decades natural mothers of the closed adoption era have been shrouded in secrecy and misunderstand. Negative fantasies segregated them from the rest of society. A natural mother recently said to me that “the general perception was that we are deviant women who callously discarded our babies” I truly believe that this is one of the many myths that surrounds and intensifies the pain of the natural mothers experience.

I have heard from many natural mothers who “made the decision to give up” their babies to adoption. Some feel that they made an informed decision without pressure from social workers or the case workers who worked in the maternity homes and adoption agencies.

I imagine that there were many natural mothers who at the time didn’t know what a “Home for unwed mothers” was until they suddenly found themselves on the door step with their suitcase in hand. These institutions were thought to offer safety and shelter from society’s scorn. In reality, they were punishing in nature.