The term or word abandoned has negative connotations not only in adoption but in every aspect of the word. However, there is a different between how and adoptee can feel abandoned and saying that all adoptees are abandoned. The word abandoned really doesn’t define what happened and doesn’t it invalidate the trauma of the initial loss and the ongoing pay that is carried?

Maybe the term surrender is a more appropriate word for natural mothers because it seems they didn’t have a choice. At least during the closed adoption era. Doesn’t the word surrender suggest that they didn’t have a choice and maybe feel less like a slap in the face. Adoptees are not the only ones who suffered in the adoption process. Adoptees are entitled to feel angry but it isn’t fair for adoptees either. I had to realize for myself that if I ever wanted to gain wholeness I had to reconcile within myself my own adoption experience and situation. That didn’t mean I denied my pain or loss any less to forgive and accept what happened to my natural mother. Using the term surrender doesn’t dismiss the pain of the natural mother experiences over losing her child to adoption.

For a while I blamed my natural mother for giving me up and that did nothing to help me heal and move forward in life. The only purpose blame had was to keep me stuck in feeling helpless and forever a victim.

Everyone reading here is at a different stage in their search and reunion which means they are at a different stage and place in the grief and healing process. Some of us didn’t get or won’t get the kind of closure we long for but that doesn’t mean that you have to be walking wounded forever.

What do you think of letting go of all the actual labels that are being used and get to the feelings underneath those charged words. Maybe more healing would happen. If we look at our situations differently and hear the voices of hurt children and devastated moms then maybe most of us will be able to see that triad members have more in common than you may think. The bottom line is that we all are hurt.

For natural mothers I think that breaking down and crying for their baby is extremely significant. After all the natural mother didn’t ever get over losing her child and she more than likely has never forgot her child. Some natural mothers may feel a tremendous amount of guilt when they learn