A Different Kind of Relationship

Thoughts on Adoption: An interview with Nancy Verrier

Nancy Verrier is an adoptive mother and therapist and whose groundbreaking 1993 book, The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child brought to light the effects on children of separation from their birth mothers. (See "What Is The Primal Wound?" for an overview.) In this interview, Nancy shares her views on a variety of adoption issues, including what adopted children need to develop healthy self-esteem, the advisability of having adoptive parents in the delivery room, and the optimal adoptive birth scenario.

MA: I've been having some conversations with a colleague, a birth mother, about the subject of a prospective birth mother establishing a relationship with prospective adoptive parents. Her position is this: Prospective adoptive parents don't belong anywhere around a pregnant woman.

NV: I completely agree. It's too coercive.

MA: She feels that the expectant mother's work at that time is to really be thinking about how she is or is not going to be able to parent this child.

NV: Exactly.

MA: That what shouldn't enter into it is any thoughts about how great these people are, they've got so much more than me, etc.

NV: Or that they've gotten into such a close relationship that she can't possibly tell them no, that she owes them that baby. No, I have changed my mind 180 degrees about that. There was a time when I thought it would be better for the baby to have heard the voices of the adoptive parents and such, and have the baby-giving ritual that some people talk about, which [adult] adoptees just absolutely abhor. I'd been trying to find a way that maybe somehow, unconsciously, that baby would have a better feeling about it if there were a ritual around it. But adult adoptees have pointed out to me that it seems like a ritual sacrifice, and they are the ones being sacrificed. So I have changed my mind about that. I think it would be just for the adults, not for the baby at all. And it isn't even for all the adults. It's only for the adoptive parents, because the birth parents, if you've ever seen them at any of those rituals, are absolutely in agony. And I certainly don't believe that the adoptive parents should be there at the birth. That birth mother needs to welcome that baby into the world herself, and, if she needs to say good-bye, say good-bye to that baby herself, without anybody else being there. I mean, of course the doctor has to be there at the birth and so on and so forth, but she needs time alone with that baby after that, and nobody there to snatch that baby away as soon as it's born.

MA: Let me play devil's advocate here. What about the woman for whom there is seemingly no ambivalence from the very beginning? For example, I'll take a dear friend of mine, who got pregnant when she was twenty-one. Her mother was dead, she had no close family for support, there was absolutely no possibility that she was going to be able to raise that child, nor did she want to. She ended up deciding on an abortion. But I'm thinking--if she were to have considered adoption--given her circumstances, that it would have been a comforting thing for her at 6 months, 7 months into her pregnancy, to find the people who were going to be the good parents for her child, and have that arrangement securely in place. What about the woman who wants that, whose mind is eased by that, who wants to have the adoptive parents in the delivery room, who wants the baby to go right to those parents?

NV: I know that's what they think they want before the baby's born. I've talked to a lot of pregnant young women, and they have all kinds of thoughts about this before the baby's born. They're absolutely sure they're going to give it up, etc. They haven't yet really seen it as a baby, as a real, live baby. And so I mean, many of them do want to have the parents there, but some of them, later, look back on it and think it was very coercive, and are angry about it. At the time it seems supportive, but afterwards, looking back on it, it seems very coercive.

MA: Speaking as an adult adoptee, when you mention those adoption rituals, it does make me squirm. It seems like something good to do, and yet it somehow rubs me the wrong way. Like it's all about this miracle, this joy, and nothing is mentioned about the great losses involved.

NV: And isn't that what most everything has been? That's why my book was such a bombshell for some people because I did tell about loss. Every other book that I've ever read would touch on the abandonment, they would touch on that wound, and then back away really quickly from it.

MA: Given the fact that adoptions are going to continue to occur, what would you say would be the optimal way to go about it?

NV: My scenario would be that the baby would spend at least a week with the birth mother, because there are certain things that have to happen in the brain, in the neurological system, that will not happen if the baby is separated from her at that time. So I would give her at least a week with that baby, and have her nurse the baby and do everything for that baby, and then make a decision about it. She can have known the prospective adoptive parents, but they have to know right from the start that she may or may not give this baby to them, and they have to live with that. But they're not at the birth and they don't even have anything to do with the baby at the beginning of its life. That's too confusing for the baby. I mean, it's terrifying. It's going to be terrifying anyway. Birth is such a traumatic event in the first place, to have the very first thing that happens to you after you are born be taken from your mother is just unconscionable and inhuman.

MA: What if the prospective adoptive parents were there to simply witness the birth, not participate in any way, having already been counseled that they may or may not end up being this baby's parents? Any thoughts on that?

NV: Witnessing is participating. I think it important that adoptive parents not confuse adopting with giving birth. For whatever reason they are not able to give birth, so they are adopting. The witnessing of the birth by anyone is going to affect the birth. Remember what physicists have learned--that the observer affects that which is being observed. No matter if the prospective adoptive parents have been warned that the mother might change her mind, they are still very anticipatory, hopeful that the baby will be theirs. They may even be hoping that their presence will make a difference. Adoption should not take place in the delivery room. The baby should be allowed to rest upon the mother's left breast to allow a subsiding of the birth stress hormones to take place. He should not be rushed away from the mother for any reason, including hospital expediency. The baby will never need its mother so much as he needs her at the moment after birth when he has traveled that long distance down the birth canal with all its attending sensations, when he is shot out into the wider world of sights and sounds and other stimuli not experienced in the womb, when the sights and sounds of the womb are missing, when the stress hormones which helped him during the birthing process have to be turned off and serotonin maintained, when brain and neurological connections have to be made, and when the heart, eye, and skin contact of the left-breast position automatically stimulates the five senses and helps the infant feel safe in his new environment. When all this does not happen, the baby goes into shock, which is nature's way of dealing with trauma. All adoptive parents are dealing with traumatized babies.

MA: I think of the sense of responsibility a baby might feel, with these extra people around, anticipating his arrival. I was an open adoption like so many of the ones today, so my mothers were together in the last couple of months, shopping together, whatever. In my own primal therapy I got in touch with my feelings before my birth, which were that I didn't want to come out, not just because she was going to give me away, but also because everybody wanted something from me.

NV: Mm hmm, yeah.

MA: I mean it was this overwhelming sense of responsibility, all these voids I was supposed to come in and fill.

NV: I know, and that is the expectation on that poor little baby.

MA: And I think that's the flip side of the coin of what some people think would be a positive thing of hearing the voice of the adoptive mother and all that. I think that's a very superficial perception of what that experience could be.

NV: Well I think so, too. In the first place, it's more about the energy of that mother than anything else, and that energy is the energy that the baby's feeling in utero. And this is what I hear so many times from adoptees when they have reunited, it's that "Ahhh...", there's something about feeling relaxed around the birth mother, where they did not around their adoptive mother. And I can see it in my own daughter, I can see her relaxing in the presence of her birth mom. She and I have a wonderful relationship, but it's different. And it's different from my other daughter's relationship with me.

MA: Your biological daughter.

NV: Yeah. I mean, there's just a level of comfort that does not exist for my adopted daughter.

MA: See, and my feeling is if we could just admit that, say it out loud, then the adoptive parents are in such an incredible position to then really love their child, and really offer that child opportunities for healing. If they can get that piece, then they can't help but feel empathy for their child's experience, including the loss and separation. One adoptive mother whose sons feels allowed to talk about all their feelings, including sadness about losing their birth mothers, puts it this way: "I don't lose standing. I gain standing. I emerge a hero in the eyes of my children. I emerge as trustworthy, stable, sure."

NV: Yes. Because the child feels understood.

MA: And then he trusts you.

NV: You know, I have talked to a lot of adoptive parents and many of them are so open to hearing this. I mean, they just really want to know what to do for their children, and they can hear me when I say, "You know, you're never going to take the place of that birth mom. You have to have a different relationship. And if you have a different relationship, it relieves the child of having to guard that so tightly, and you can have a real relationship with him or her."

MA: So it's sort of like if the adoptee senses that you're trying to come in and replace the birth mother, it's like they--

NV: --hang on for dear life. Yes. I sensed that, and I think I even mentioned it in my book, when I finally came to the understanding myself that I couldn't take her place. I mean, we're told we're taking that place, we're the mothers, we're it, that's what we're told. And at that time, when I adopted Giselle, I believed it, I didn't know anything, you know? And when I finally came to the conclusion years later that this wasn't happening and this wasn't going to happen, I didn't ever say anything to Giselle, but there was a sense there that she had that my attitude had changed, and it made it much easier for us to relate to each other.

MA: This brings up a subject that I find I have some strong feelings about, which is adoptive mothers breastfeeding their babies. You spoke earlier about that energetic connection to the birthmother, and I wonder if it isn't confusing or maybe even disturbing for an adopted baby to be breastfed by his adoptive mother.

NV: I don't really have an opinion about that. If the baby takes to it, it's fine. I wouldn't force the baby to, and sometimes babies won't want to because it's not the right smell or something. The only thing, I think, that needs to be made clear to this mother is that she didn't give birth to this baby, and she needs to keep that in mind. And in breastfeeding the baby, if she gets confused about that, I don't think that's good.

MA: Just from the point of view of being an adoptee, it really rubs me the wrong way, like one more way of conveying to this baby, "It's just as if you were born to me."

NV: Yes, well, some adoptive mothers are going to believe that anyway, that "as if born to" mindset. But I just don't know. I think that you as an adoptee would have a better idea about that, because of your own gut feeling about it.

MA: I guess like so many of these other issues we're discussing here, I think under certain circumstances it can be fine, for instance where you have an adoptive mother who's really conscious of her baby's loss issues, and who is attending to them, and who's breastfeeding out of that sort of a nurturing place. Obviously this mother would be attuned enough to her baby to watch for his response, and to respect it. But I think that breastfeeding can also be done out of a selfish impulse, where the mother is determined about wanting to have the experience of breastfeeding her child. I think it's fine for a mother to want that, as long as she's alert to whether her baby wants it as well, and to follow his lead.

NV: Yes. There are some babies who will look right in the eye of their adoptive mom, and they will have a lot of eye contact, and there are some babies who will not look at their adoptive moms, they'll turn their face away every single time. So I think it probably would be the same thing with breastfeeding--some of them would and some of them would not.

MA: It's funny--I'm passionate about the benefits of breastfeeding, both for the bonding aspects as well as the biochemical ones, such as the immunological and amino acid components of human milk. But again, as an adoptee who has gotten in touch with that experience of having had my mother replaced by someone who was energetically all wrong, I feel like the bottle is more honest. Less invasive of that primary relationship that you mentioned, that the baby may feel she needs to protect. And there is still plenty of closeness and comfort and eye contact that can be done while bottle-feeding.

NV: Well, that's true. This also relates to the issue of accepting that this baby did have another mother, another primary bond that needs to be respected and honored. I'm working with some adoptive parents who are trying very hard not be so possessive and who can talk about the birth mother with their child, and can empathize with that loss. And they get so much more out of their kids, I mean their kids will open right up and talk and talk and talk. But then there are certain ages where they will not acknowledge that there's anything different at all.

MA: Like what ages?

NV: Oh, like adolescence. If they've had therapy previous to that time, they sometimes can say something, but if parents all of a sudden realize that their kids are incorrigible or something and try to get them into therapy, the kids think this has nothing to do with adoption.

MA: A talk I gave recently was entitled "Affirming the Adoptee's Reality", and I spoke about how important it is to begin to lay this foundation early, of empathizing with this baby--"I know I'm not the mom you expected"--because otherwise it can become hard to get through those defenses they build up. For myself, even at age seven, when my mother sat me down to give me the big "You're Adopted" talk, and she started talking about how much she and my father loved me, etc., I just felt like, "yuck". I had already shut down to anything that felt like intimacy or authenticity or any of that. That door inside me had slammed shut.

NV: Yes, you have to acknowledge that from the beginning. And I can tell adoptive parents that we--and I can say "we", which helps a lot--we don't have the right energy for these kids. They do not feel comfortable with us. They do not feel mirrored by us. We cannot mirror them, we cannot. Because we don't look like them, we don't act like them, there's nothing about us that makes them feel as if they're being reflected. And we have to know that, and have to realize that this baby is missing something essential that's part of one's self-esteem. Because how does a baby gain self-esteem? Part of it is through how the mother treats the baby, but part of it is in that mirroring, the good self reflected back: "I'm okay". It's like the Ugly Duckling--why did the Ugly Duckling think he was ugly? Because he wasn't like anyone else in the family. He was a swan living in a family of ducks.

MA: And also what I believe happens with adoptees when their parents won't affirm for them the truth that they have lost a crucial connection is that they also become disconnected from their inner truth, which is so devastating.

NV: Yes. When adoptive parents say, "I don't know why my kid lies," I say, "Well, look-he is living one of society's biggest lies: You belong in this family." It's very confusing. A lot of things that felt like inner truth to him or her is denied on the outside, in the family and in society in general, and so he begins to be very confused about "What is truth and what is not?"

MA: I see lying as an acting out of that inner experience. When I was young I used to lose things, and throw good things away--perfectly good things, like my camera case once, just threw it away because I didn't need it at that time. And then I got into shoplifting. So, as I see it, I was acting out my experience, relative to myself--feeling lost- relative to my birth mother--having felt thrown away--and finally, ultimately, relative to my adoptive parents, having felt stolen.

NV: Absolutely. I was talking to some people in South Africa who called me and wanted to know, "Why do adoptees steal and then lie about it?" And I say, "Well, those are sort of two separate things, but they're also connected to the same idea: having felt stolen, and the lies that we perpetuate about who they are and where they belong."

Marcy Wineman Axness, axness@earthlink.net an adoptee, lives in California with her husband and two children. ADOPTION INSIGHT ~ Booklets, Audiotapes, Articles to illuminate heart and mind http://home.earthlink.net/~axness/

Credits: Marcy Wineman Axness