Birthday celebrations - Advice from adults who were adopted as children

[guccigirly]

Every year my DH and children get very excited as my birthday approaches planning celebrations for the day. I on the other hand just want to let it pass without too much fuss. It is only in the last few years (I am in my 40's now) that I have realised that the reason for this is that my birth was not a celebration, I was given away by my unmarried 17 year old Irish Catholic mother a few weeks after birth.

Although I am now in touch with my Birth Mother and we get along, I still can't bring myself to enjoy my birthday. Can anyone who has been adopted as a child identify with these feelings or offer advice as to how I can overcome it and enjoy my birthday like everyone else ?

I can completely understand their reactions, as that is how I felt too. :) It is also a huge compliment to you and your parenting as well.

I think it is grossly unfair of the agency to pressurise adopted children into contact when they dont want it too. The decision should always be the childs to make, and nobody else in my view.

Hi, we've moved this into Adoptions at the OP's request. Thanks.

Hi Maryz sorry I had gone to bed when your post came through.

I loved my adopted parents as though they were my own parents. I had no desire to trace my birth mother until after my adopted mother's death when I was 18. I was curious about her and how she looked as I didn't resemble anyone in my adopted family. I only traced my birth mother 2 years after my adopted mother's death when I was 20. I felt as though a small piece of jigsaw was missing and once I met her I felt strangely complete. My birth Mother became a small part of my life, but would never replace my deceased adopted Mother who was a wonderful woman and loved me as though I were her own biological child. It was my adoptive Mother who had cared for me since I was only a few weeks old, loved me and raised me.

In my teenage years, when you are feeling hormonal at the best of times, I thought about my birth mother giving me away more than on previous years, but only around my birthday. I would escape to my bedroom a lot around this time. I wasn't encouraged to talk about it, and to be honest this is exactly what I wanted, just time on my own to think things through.

You sound like a very caring Mother and I am sure your children will talk to you about how they are feeling when they are ready. If my adopted Mother ever asked if I ever thought about by birth Mother, I would always react in the same way as your Son, saying why would I , she gave me away? But for me, this was because I felt that she was panicking I was going to trace my birth Mother when I was older and I felt it would be an insult to her if I wanted to. If she was still alive I am not sure if I would have traced my Birth Mother until I was much older.

I'm glad you got this thread moved, guccigirly. I'll come back to it a bit later (got to do supper now!)

Just one thing I meant to say to rollingfog143, was that I know 'birthday distress' can happen to people who are bought up with their own birth families too; the only reason I mentioned it was because of the OP's original question.

gucci, i was adopted as a baby and have always had trouble with my birthday. i dont know how much this is related to my a parenst attitudes-they wouldnt celebrate my birthday but only the day they brought me home. obviously this caused problems once i was in school and more aware of the date.

once i was in high school i was able to be away from home on my birthday by going to camps etc ( my birthday is in the school holidays), although i relaise now that the staff must have thought it odd that i didnt receive cards or presents from home!!! as a teemager and youg adult i used to tell my friends that i was celebrating with my family, but instead i spent it at home alone. i was too embarassed to tell them how i felt

the only party i have ever had was a surpirse 21st thrown by my friends

now we have kids i have a small celebration just for them. but NEVER any parties, frineds round etc. id just rather ignore it TBH

bunny my birth mother decided during her pregnancy that she was going to place me for adoption, she didnt even see me when i was born.so i know it wasnt anything personal IYSWIM.

OP Please accept my apologies, I really didn't mean to be insensitive

Reading through the posts on this thread I do wonder whether in most cases it is best not to make contact with birth parents... I know my dh has no intention whatsoever to go looking.

Maryz, would your children like to celebrate a different day instead? Maybe their adoption day would be difficult for them too, but maybe they could choose a different day that meant nothing at all? If they love the summer months, perhaps they could choose a summer day eg Midsummers Eve and have that as their day? They could share a day - have a sibling day, if they liked. They wouldn't have to tell anyone (ie friends) but on that day you let them have a party, a meal, a treat etc.

KristinaM thanks for your input. That must have been lovely to know that your parents were celebrating the day your life began with them, but very surreal that your actual birthday wasn't being celebrated.

I am the same on my birthday, I just want not too much fuss and let the day pass by. The very next day after my birthday I have a sense of relief, after maybe 10 days in the lead up my birthday dreading it, I then feel "normal" again once it has passed and the pressure has gone from friends trying to organise a night out for me etc.

BabyGiraffes , don't worry, everyone is entitled to their opinion, no offence taken.

Maryz I don't know about the age of your children, but instead of talking about their birthdays and ways to celebrate, how about one week before or one week after each child's birthday taking the whole family out to a theme park for a day out?

You would know that it was your way of celebrating their birthdays by treating them to a great day out, but without actually telling them that is why you are there. Does that make sense? Make a fuss of them whilst they are not realising it is a birthday celebration.

ImperialBlether, sorry I have only just noticed your post and have realised that I have suggested something similar to Maryz. Your idea of a sibling day is a brilliant idea.

Maryz I am so glad that you feel you have found this thread helpful. It's my first post on Mumsnet. I don't have any adopted friends so it's hard to get advice from people in the same position.

I too have found everyone's input on this thread really helpful and it makes me realise that how I am feeling is normal for someone from my beginnings, although not everyone who is adopted may feel like this around their birthdays.

Maryz, do you mind me asking how old your children were when you adopted them?

You've made me think about my dd now, she's 13 and a surrogate baby. Never had birthday issues but we opened a bank account together the other day and I had hr birth certificate with me.
We have two for her, one with birth parents, (dh and surro) and a new one that shows me and dh (this is because she legally became a child of our marriage at 8 months old via a parental order)

I am going to casually mark that day this year, which is this weekend

Sorry, I should add, she had questions about who has her other certificate and then the bank lady came back in .... I need to have a sensitive chat and pressie from dad and I

QOD, I may be criticised for this by other Mumsnetters, but I wouldn't tell her now. She's only 8 and it may unsettle her.

I'd take advice from a professional about when and how to do it if you want to tell her.

You can still mark it this weekend with celebrations without explaining why until you have decided how you are going to do it.

The conversation of when you tell her will be remembered for the rest of her life, so it needs to be done really carefully.

Best of luck !

It's interesting to read that some adopted people - and also parents who have adopted children - celebrate the day that the child came into their adopted family, as opposed to their actual birthday. As an adopted person I have to admit I'd never heard of that, or realised it happened. My parents always celebrated my birthday on my real birthday.

It's also interesting to know at what stage of our lives we were told we were adopted. I've always known; as in my Mum made up a story (as in like a bedtime book story) as soon as I was old enough to understand, which explained being adopted. So it never came as a shock to me at any stage of my life. I just ... was ... adopted (specially chosen, of course!), IYSWIM - there was no 'big reveal'.

QOD, I have absolutely no idea how you approach the issue with your daughter. And I wish you the very best when you do discuss it.

I am adopted and when I was younger (teens/20s) my birthday was always a bit double edged in that I was very aware that I was adopted and just hoped that my BM was thinking of me. Having said that my adoptive parents were and still are fab and made a real fuss of me but we rarely talked about my adoption (it was in the 60s so a very different approach then).

I now have 2 adopted children myself and my DD1's behaviour always declines around birthday time. Her birthday is any day now and sure enough she is very emotional and behaviour is very challenging. There is lots of talk about BM, birth family etc so think she def has issues around her birthday.

Sorry sorry I didn't explain very well. She knows she is a surrogate baby, she knows her, she knows she not biologically mine, but I think I should/would like to make the day I really, in the eyes of the law, became her mum

I had her from conception, and first person to hold her (apart from the surgeon!) after birth.

Just thinking,after this thread, that as she matures she may start to question more about her birth story. It is VERY different to adoption, she's been brought up knowing that she wasn't given away or unwanted or removed or rejected or whatever, but that she was born for dh and I, she accepts this completely but may question as an adult from what I've read here.

Hmmm

Ds who is only 6 (so plenty of time for issues to crop up in future!) has no current issues with having as big a celebration of his birthday as I will allow. I on the other hand (as some posters here will know) get terribly maudlin in the week before his birthday, I think about his birth mother a lot and wonder if this will be the year that he connects his birth day with the day his birth mother left him.

We do celebrate the day we first met (not court or Uk adoption order or any of the official dates but that moment we first met) as our "family birthday" ie the day our family was born but its a very low key celebration of tea out and a conversation remembering things about when I first met him, which he loves.

If at some point he chooses to drop his birthday as a major celebration then thats fine with me. He isn't defined (in my view) by having been adopted but choosing not to "celebrate an event which radically changed your life in a way very different from the norm is in my humble opinion very understandable and wouldn't make him (or any of you) a freak!

I don't choose to really celebrate my birthday these days except to a degree that someone else wants to (DS or my mum for example) - for no real reason, it just doesn't feel like a massively important date to me. So choosing not to for more valid reasons doesn't seem to me to be unusual at all.

Thanks mn, we had a good old chat today, I told her it was my 13 th anniversary of legally being her mum, explained the technicalities of the legalities behind it all for the first time really.

She was fascinated, she totally gets the physical thing but thought it was very cool to have had her own social worker until she was 8 months old lol