Hasenpfeffer asked
(Before I begin, I’m a bit concerned that people are going to see primal wound and dismiss all this because that term is so alarmist. I’ll repeat that I don’t think primal wound is like being born without a leg; I don’t think adoptive babies are dismembered. Like I say further down, babies used to lose their mothers all the dang time so my Darwinian mind would say that they’re also built to withstand it but still — it’s a stressful world out there for any old baby and losing a mom right up front has to make the whole transition to planet earth that much more difficult since it certainly isn’t the best way to start out a little life. And I wonder — would people who are dismissive to primal wound theory be more sympathetic to a child who was grieving a first mom who died at birth? It’s the adoption part people find threatening — the perceived competition — because it implies that adoptive parents aren’t as good. Of course we’re good! We’re grand! Or at least as good and grand as other parents but this has nothing to do with us. It’s a big mistake — the biggest — to think that it has anything to do with us. We can be an impediment to our children’s understanding or we can help them. Taking it personally will just muck up the whole deal.)
Now to Hasenpfeffer!
I always think your views are interesting - and I have no doubt that you know Madison. I’m wondering how it would be in the case of surrogacy … do surrogate children, who share their “adopted” parents’ DNA but their “first mother’s” womb also have a “primal wound”?(I know the terms don’t really apply, but bear with me.) Do those children also percieve themselves as having experienced a great loss? Or is there simply not enough research on it yet?
That’s a really good question and the answer is — people aren’t sure yet. (I think that Nancy Verrier, author of The Primal Wound, is against surrogacy but am not sure about that.) (Oh and another thing — I know that the term primal wound creates this picture of damage that cripples a child forever and I don’t think that image is helpful and is likely to turn parents away from exploring the needs of their adopted child. The primal wound, really, is about integrating a reality with the specific challenges of that reality. I do not think that Madison has a disability created by her adoption but I do think her adoption has very real psychological impact on her. Does this make sense? I’ve written about this before.)
This stuff is going around the blogosphere! We can go further and talk about the genetic connection, too. I agree with LisaV’s response to Karen’s concern about the use of the term “adoption” applied to embryo donation. Adoption is politically problematic when we’re talking about clusters of cells but when we start talking about the issues that kids have when they’re not genetically related to one or both parents, well, it’s just something we don’t know a whole about yet and maybe adoption is a good term then.
While we as parents may not (or we may) perceive donor embryos as adoptions, do the kids? The truth is that this really is unknown territory and there’s an awful lot we don’t know. What we think as adults doesn’t matter as much as what ultimately happens for the kids and if we’re talking about it, we’re going to be studying it and that will create (hopefully) more fertility options that respect every member of the party. So this discussion is good stuff, which will hopefully make for better outcomes for all of us.
So far I can only find research arguing against secrecy and some editorials by folks in the midst (fertility specialists, bio-ethics people) who are concerned about the potential impact our rush into technology might have. But this is all pretty recent discussion in the adoption community (I think Verrier’s book was published in ‘93) and it’s still very controversial so it’s no wonder that it’s just drifting into the world of ART as a serious concern worthy of research. (Not that they haven’t looked at ART but the psychological studies usually focus on the parents — are they as good as “normal” parents? why yes! the researchers are so pleased! — or on the medical impact of IVF and ICSI on kids — you know, that they are physically normal.)
My personal gut feeling about it? I think that different kids are going to react differently. I think that the process of coming to terms with adoption goes beyond primal wound and goes to integrating the reality of first mom being alive and yet not being there by (as perceived by the child) “choice.” I strongly believe that children are resilient and babies must have the evolutionary know-how to survive the death of their moms because goodness knows it used to happen often enough but adoption also brings with it all of our cultural ideas about adoption: that adoption is second-best, that birth moms are bad, that adoptive moms aren’t real, etc. Also parents are stuck with those cultural ideas and sometimes our need to deny them backfires. Those of us who are unable or unwilling to be honest about the adoption are the ones who give more weight to the ghost of that mysterious first mother. Might that be true in ART? I have no idea. But that stuff — that’s not primal wound. That’s … I don’t know what it is but it’s not positive parenting and it makes for crazy.
It’s clear in adoption that most of the kids who are the most miserable about their adoptions have some cautionary tales for us adoptive parents. Those Transracial Abductees have a lot to tell those of us who adopted transracially about how NOT to do it. Likewise, adult adoptees who are most wounded by their experiences have much to say if we’ll listen One day we will have the children of embryo donation to lead us; meanwhile we’ll just have to muddle through best we can. Meanwhile let’s all agree that DENIAL is just a bad thing all around when it comes to helping our kids understand how they came to be.
I personally believe that babies born of surrogacy would have a primal wound BUT I’ll repeat that I don’t think a primal wound is a death sentence. Losing a gestational parent — by death, by adoption, or by surrogacy — is likely going to be a hard thing on a baby. How parents handle it will matter (and wouldn’t it be nice if we who are handling it had more information couched in less alarming terms?), what the baby’s fundamental personality is like will matter, and the specifics behind the loss will matter. My guess is that surrogacy has baggage that isn’t present in adoption just as adoption has baggage that isn’t present in surrogacy. But for that wee baby wondering where that familiar movement, that familiar heartbeat, that familiar smell went? It’s all one and the same and for some babies, it’s going to be more challenging. (Here’s one Son of a Surrogate who’s pretty angry about it all but again — look at all the denial happening in that family.)
I’ve got more to say but have to get back upstairs. In short (ha!), I think that we parents who are parenting with the help of someone else (whether they placed their babies with us or simply donated genetic material) are going to have to be open to hearing some scary things. But I also think that it doesn’t have to be scary; it’s all in how we interpret it. I think we need to be open to the idea that kids from ART might need specific kinds of support so that we can give it to them. Unlike Verrier, I’m not a doom-sayer about this stuff; I feel hopeful.
In fact I’d been meaning to write this but as hard as Madison’s recent grieving was, it didn’t make me miserable. Because the fact is she’s adopted and the sooner we start digging in and making sense of it, the sooner she can start writing her own story. I am optimistic about Madison and Jessica and me. There’s a difference between believing that we’re simply making the best of a bad thing and believing that we’re postively handling our family’s specific challenges and I’m of the latter camp. I will not weigh Madison’s lifestory down with the taint of tragedy and I believe that acknowledging her grief is part of what helps us do this. (Ironic, no?) That’s why I hope that families of embryo/sperm/egg donation can explore this discussion in a way that won’t make them feel less than. Information is power.
i have not read any articles yet on primal wound, will read this post completely when i am not in a mad rush to get out of the house.
i do feel there may be what is being referred to as primal wound. i do think an infant has a loss when they are taken away from their bio mother. because they grew inside of her. cause this is the environment they have known for nine months. birth is traumatic enuf in and of itself. they must know their mother. i think biology is very powerful. some animals will reject their infant if a strange scent is on them. (however, i dont know that it works the otherway. of course, infants are not as strong as adults and have limited abilities to fulfill their needs.)
however, i dont feel that this loss is felt years later.
while triggering for me, i have been enjoying your posts on this and the resulting comments and dialogue.
two thoughts come to my mind. one goes to the recent post I had about demonizing the natural mother. i suspect many adoptives may feel the need to disregard the primal wound concept much the way they demonize ther natural mother. for to acknowledge the primal wound, might mean they have to acknowledge their part in it. (I think you were getting at this in your numerous posts). For adoptives to admit that they werent/arent the be all and end all perfect in every way solution for a child, must be a difficult thing to acknowledge when you have been fed the social construct crap that adoption is golly gee, perfect for all concerned. it is not. every member of the adoption plane loses, has pain. pain that cannot be fixed, erased by adoption.
additionally, your posts reminds me a great deal of Hellingersthoughts on the orders of love and the chaos created in a natural family system when a child is lost to adoption, death, etc. the entire natural family system is forever disrupted. primal wound goes beyond the original intended victims (IMO). there is collateral damage to the extended natural family members as well - for generations. my sons have lost a sister, my mother her first grandchild, my sister her first niece..
what I love, no, ADORE about you dawn is that you are a strong enough, confident enough woman and mom to embrace these concepts. it makes you a better mother to madison because of it (again, imo). you embrace your childs entire being - all parts of her and her extended family - natural and adopted - not just the parts of her that are comfortable to you and make YOU feel good.
Thanks, Dawn, for such a thorough answer! The reason I asked is that on reading the Verrier article you linked to much seemed to focus on the connection formed between first mother/baby during the pregnancy and immediately after birth. This, of course, would not at all be different in a surrogate situation, since a baby has no knowledge of DNA. Thus, they should also have the same loss/grief issues that she describes, if her concept is true.
The link to ’son of surrogate’ is interesting, but not quite the scenario I mean, since he seems to be biologically related to his surrogate mother and his “adoptive” father. I was thinking of a scenario where the surragate shares no DNA with the child she carries. I guess we’ll have to wait for more research to emerge ….
And for the record, I am also very optimistic about Madison, Jessica and you. Adoption IS a challenge, and like most challenges in life, it’s about what you make of them.
Getupgrrl — who used a gestational surrogate — actually wrote about this two or three times, including after the birth of her son, but she went off-line before really fleshing out her ideas. She was insistent both that her newborn son did experience a primal loss after his birth, because he had spent nine months learning his gestational surrogate’s voice, smell, heartbeat, etc., AND that she was his mother for reasons other than her (and her husband’s) genetic ties to him. I wanted her to write a lot more about it, but she didn’t.
I recently read “The Primal Wound” and found it to be both frightening and enlightening. I agree with the concept that there is a huge loss at a primal level and that this loss must be properly grieved by the adopted child in order for it to be successfully integrated into his or her life, but I don’t see it as the gloom and doom, disastrous, wholly NEGATIVE event that the author portrays it to be. There are many “primal wounds” a human being can experience. There is the primal wound of incest and molestation, being born addicted to crack or alcohol, the primal wound of being born to and living with a mother who did NOT want to have the child. The list is endless and the wounds equally as deep, although qualitatively different. I don’t see adoption as nearly as devastating as what many other children experience at the hands of their “real” parents. I agree with Dawn that being adopted is not a hopeless state of being for which little can be done to assimilate the experience in a postive manner. People have been experiencing and surviving and thriving with primal wounds since the beginning of time. Yes, in adoption there is tremendous loss and sadness for all parties of the adoption triad, but there is also tremendous joy and happiness and celebration. God’s hands are all over adoption. For all the members of the triad, there can be peace and harmony if we can be open and honest and put the child’s needs first and foremost. I feel deeply for birth mothers, but adoption IS a choice they made. Just as abortion is a choice. No one can force a mother to “give away” her child. Anyway, of course I have these opinions. I’m an adoptive mother with a beautiful daughter, who is at times sad and grieving the loss of her birth mother and who at most times is a proud, happy, little girl who loves her mom and dad and is thrilled to be alive!!
[...] Remember when we were talking about it? Well, someone surfed into my site using google’s blog search and looking for primal wound and this is one of the sites on the front page: Umbilicly_Challenged: On Surrogacy and the Primal Wound [...]
I’m a 29-year-old adoptee who is only just beginning to acknowledge what happened to me. Reading about the way you are raising your daughter is inspirational and strangely comforting, and I hope your writing will be given to potential adoptive parents so that they can have an understanding of specific needs their child may have. I know that my mom would have found it so helpful, and I’m sure she would have been inspired and comforted too, but sadly things were different in those days. Anyway, keep on keeping on, you rock.