So Many What Ifs
by Amy Barker D’Alessandro, LMHC
As I sifted through the past CUB Communicators I found myself counting down the years. The first newsletter is from 1976. I was just 11 years old at that time living with my adoptive family who had by that time already been fragmented by divorce and remarriages.
Adoptees and Birth Parents play the “What if” game a lot:
“What if my Birth Mother had raised me?” “What if another family had adopted me?” “What if I had ended up in foster care?” So many “What ifs,” but this was the first time I wondered,
“What if my Birth Mother had found CUB when it first started back when I was just 11 years old?”
I wondered what might have happened if she had met other women then who were deeply grieving
their lost babies, working to support one another and to heal, recognizing that adoption was not as it
had been portrayed to them, and advocating to put an end to needless family separation. Would she
have then been able to tell her parents about me? They passed away never knowing they had a
granddaughter. Would she have been able to process her own trauma over losing her first born and
only daughter before we entered into reunion (13 years later)? Would she have been more able to
handle the tsunami of grief that hit her when we met? Would she have been more in touch with her
tragic and unnecessary loss and been able to help me avoid the same fate before I subsequently
relinquished my own first born and only child?
What if she’d known about CUB then; would I have an entirely different life now?
So many what ifs, which I know are pointless because the past cannot be altered, but as I continued to
read the newsletters that came out over those years I was suffering in silence and confusion as an
Adoptee in an abusive home, and then the corresponding years when I was lost as a Birth Mother and
forever disconnected from any biological family, I couldn’t help but wonder how CUB could have made a difference in my own story, how it will impact future women and children, and how we can increase that possibility in the days ahead. I don’t want any others having to survive and navigate this life-long affliction when it can be absolutely avoided altogether.
I spend much of the time in my therapy practice withAdoptees and Birth Parents working through the aftermath of relinquishment and adoption trauma, but in many cases, this is a trauma that never had to happen in the first place. That is definitely true in my case - both sides of my case. And though adoption has defined a large part of my life (even when I didn’t recognize it), and though the past cannot be altered, what can be changed is the future. I don’t want any future Birth Mothers reading through old newsletters in the coming years wishing their greatest life tragedy had been prevented, if only they had known more. I want the reality of adoption to become common knowledge and the voices of those with lived experience to replace the long-held positive adoption narrative based on fantasy. That may be an ideal wish, but that is the “what if” I want to focus on.
What if together we truly can make a difference in the lives of our future sisters and the future of society?
I believe we can.
Learning from our collective past, helping one another heal from trauma, joining our voices together, and finding ways to be heard will continue to make a difference like CUB has been doing since 1976. Yes, I wish my Birth Mother had known about CUB when it first started, and of course, I wish I’d known about CUB before I made that same life-altering decision myself, but as we continue to tell the truth of our stories and continue to push for reform and changes in legislation and adoption practices, we will change the “what ifs” of the future.
What if together we truly can make a difference in the lives of our future sisters and the future of society?
What follows is a reprinted letter from the December 1982 CUB Communicator:
Dear Friends,
I sleepwalked during the first ten years of separation from my son Michael. Never thinking about where or how he was, was my way of surviving. Yet the memory lingered, of course, as though stuffed in a big toe. As we all know, like an aneurysm, it
eventually made a slow, doggedly insistent trip to the forefront of my consciousness, where it exploded and awakened me. The fallout from that tremendously frightened and later stimulating and beautiful period of fireworks has nurtured and emboldened
me for many years now. When Michael and I acknowledged our 4th anniversary of reunion in October, he said “It's been a time!” I laughed. He too, has had his own process of awakening, coping, and growing. The evolutionary process is especially vivid to me at Christmas time. During a tree-trimming in my “dormant season,” a signal of things to come pierced my protective layers. “This branch needs an ornament,” I told my husband. “My son is celebrating a birthday somewhere. Please pass me that silver ball over there.” My husband's shocked expression reflected the poignant statement I'd unknowingly sandwiched in our conversation. We didn't discuss it further. To this day, he doesn't recall the event. Yet I'll never forget it or my reaction. I escaped as soon as I could to my kitchen where I kneaded homemade bread, driving memories away from my “new” life. Nor was this signal especially accurate for Michael never celebrated his real birthday, which occurs very close to Christmas. His adoptive family always chose a convenient day earlier in the month. I know my family never put up a tree then. The signal served a powerful purpose though, to forewarn me that a tidal process was under way.
Where are you in your own process? Your membership indicates to me you have awakened. Are you still fighting it (I remember well that valiant but futile effort, too) by being in the closet and not sharing with your children, parents, extended family, friends? Have you allowed it to move you forward by refusing to deny your life experiences, feelings and needs? Have you emerged beyond yourself into your CUB family and the world beyond by attending meetings, writing letters to arouse public awareness, financially supporting our work, and other ways that are uniquely right for you?
The Holidays can be very painful. Perhaps this year will be the time you commit to that Center outside of your Self, ever
beckoning your development. Maybe this year you'll share word of your suffering with a few loved ones, and allow them
the opportunity to grow by supporting you. Maybe this year you'll break the cycle that binds you to familiar, but limiting,
isolation.Remember your CUB family this holiday season. Know that many, many others are struggling like you are confronting the same doubts. And taking similar risks. We love you.
Lee Campbell, CUB Founder and first President
(Reprinted from December 1982 CUB Communicator)