Imagine you could lessen a massive trauma for your kid before they were even born. Imagine you could soften the blow, line up early support, and educate yourself to be able to handle it better. What parent wouldn’t do this? People who have kids via surrogacy (and other means) could choose to do so yet don’t. Why? Because it’s never phrased this way and folks don’t want to recognize that their choices are the ones causing harm without also thinking about what they could do to lessen it.

I struggle to engage with adoption material sometimes, despite the obvious overlap. So much of it centers around how coercive adoption is with the root storyline being that the birth moms would have chosen to keep their kids if society were different (less judgmental, more support, etc). I encourage folks to read and educate themselves on this topic but I don’t have the capacity to expound upon it.

I don’t see my story reflected back in these narratives. There is no societal support that would cause the outcome of how I came into the world to be different. There was no pathway for me to be kept by my birth mom. The ideal outcome came to pass: I was given to my parents (or “intended parents” as the fertility world dictates). The “ideal outcome” being so centered on the adults in the arrangement that it came with tremendous trauma for me. Trauma that was and has never been directly acknowledged by those in the industry. The reality of traditional surrogacy is one of folks intentionally signing up to have their kid given away. There’s a reason it has very much fallen away as a chosen method to have kids. The same surrogacy agency my parents used admitted as much calling it an old technology.

At the same time, I see a rising tide of folks using sperm and egg donors, with its own share of complexities, including the profound loss of a genetic connection. It’s not just connection to the genetic parent that’s ripped away! I never met or even had the opportunity to meet any grandparents on my birth mom’s side. I only just met my half siblings and extended family a few years ago after many years of slowly reconnecting. This is the reality of the complexity of the arrangement and the lack of real support for me, the product of the entire situation, starting with the unregulated agencies in the world. I firmly believe the agency my parents used is also profoundly better than most and, even then, there was no guidance or awareness or space for the impact this would all have on me. There was no thought that I might want to have access to this wider set of connections let alone to my birth mom.

In reading Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier, I came across for the first time the abyss that many adoptees feel. I felt incredibly seen as each year I’m alive, I feel that pit within me with no end and no beginning. With the trauma happening before words could be formed, it’s maddening to experience this extreme, wordless pain as someone who longs to process with what I can’t access. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to get myself to sit down and write with each word that comes out being so painful and awkward to force out. The sentences hardly make sense and very few words form. It’s part of why I created this site where I could share shorter snippets without the need for a larger narrative.

What’s been hardest to swallow recently is the continued lack of recognition or understanding of this pain even from those who have seen me slowly come to terms with it and find words I can share. I’m at the baby making age where those in my life are on their own fertility journeys. Some joke about picking sperm donors as if it’s not a monumental decision and others toss out “we can always just adopt” as if it’s both an easy option and one that’s good for the kid. There’s no talk of centering the actual baby everyone says they so desperately want. I try to ask questions, share facts, and leave myself open for dialogue. The silence I am met with rings through the deepest parts of my soul. I am not handling it well nor should I. “Handling it well” would be making it palatable to others to do what they want, regardless of the impact on the life they are creating. Rather than doing research, having the hard conversations now, and deciding to do things differently, I see folks choosing to be incredibly ignorant and self involved. At this point, it feels like actively choosing to create harm rather than engaging in any kind of harm reduction efforts. Harm reduction is ultimately the best you can ask for and that requires acknowledging the harm to the child at the root of it. Both of these things, acknowledging the child as the one who will carry the harm and that harm will be caused, are ever embraced or centered. The disappointment I feel in seeing the way folks are choosing to proceed, despite knowing better because of the first hand conversations I have had with them, is mind boggling.

It’s as if folks forget that that child will turn into an adult. If you are lucky, they might ask you questions directly. More often than not though, they will likely silently and painfully live the questions themselves. I can’t tell you how many years I spent utterly depressed and emotionally distraught growing up without understanding what was going on. Even now that I have more awareness, the pain hasn’t eased and I don’t think it ever will. It’s meant to be painful and to be felt. I must feel it and leave space for it as it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s not likely for space to be created for it. I have spent most of my life trying to have this be an intellectually interesting thing to discuss and ponder with others, knowing it’s safer and easier for folks to engage with than hysterical sobs. The sobs are winning these days and I am finding it harder to stuff down how I feel well enough anymore to talk about this without making those I speak to likely feel like absolute garbage for pursuing kids so recklessly. I won’t hold back as perhaps they should feel like garbage, learn from it, and choose differently. The truth seems to be that many both don’t want to hear what I have to say and, upon hearing it, cannot un-hear it. They might eventually forget the questions I raised but their kids will only grow into them. Kill the messenger but the message remains. These stories must be told and, for now, I continue to be the only person writing here. I hope that changes.