Living with a Split Screen

My Mom and My Birth Mother

Photo by Art Institute of Chicago on Unsplash

On July 20, 2004, my mom called and told me my dad was in the hospital. He had recently had brain stimulation surgery for Parkinson’s, and he wasn’t responding as they had hoped. He was ultimately transferred by ambulance to The University of Chicago Hospitals, where the surgery had taken place. He lost his ability to swallow and needed to have a tracheotomy. He was also put on a ventilator for a couple of weeks.

This was the beginning of a 15-month process of decline for my dad. He had to be transferred to a nursing home because his care was too complicated for him to stay at home. My mom was pouring all of her energy and love into spending every day with him.

Alongside this sadness in my family, I was having a completely different experience connecting with my birth mother. That weekend in July, when my dad went to UofC, the first letter from my birth mother arrived at my home in Connecticut.

It was as if I were living with a split screen. On one side was the slow ending of my life with my dad, and on the other was a new relationship with my birth mother.

The split came with an unsettled feeling about keeping this information from my mom. I felt guilty that, as my dad was dying and my mom was caring for him, I had this other person that I was enjoying getting to know.

I ached to tell my mom about her so she could share this important life event with me. I felt divided keeping it from her. At this time, I was talking to my mom regularly, so not telling her about my newfound connection felt dishonest. On the other hand, I knew she was putting all of herself into taking care of my dad, and I didn’t want to add to her emotional burden.

I spoke with a sibling about it, who shared my ambivalence about what the right thing to do would be. Then I remembered a conversation in my dad’s hospital room. My cousin was there and she, out of the blue, asked my mom how she would feel if one of her adopted children found their birth parents. Since I was getting in contact with mine, the guilt swept over me. I hoped my mom couldn’t see it in my face. She said, “If one of them connected with their birth mother, it would have nothing to do with me.” This felt like a potential expectation of hers, that if it happened, I would keep it to myself.

My parents had always been open about my adoption. They also kept me updated with changes in the laws regarding the ability to search for birth parents through Catholic Charities. I had told them that I received non-identifying information in 1995 when the laws changed to allow that. I had also told them, after the fact, that I had an unsuccessful search in 2000.

However, by 2004, when I was able to connect with my birth mother, the situation had changed. Given my dad’s health and my mom’s attention to it, I worried that my mom would feel emotional pain that would be too much to process if she knew I was in touch with my birth mother. It wasn’t that I thought she would feel her relationship with me would be threatened, as we had 45 years of shared history that could not be replaced. However, she might have felt, to quote something Betty Jean Lifton has said, that “the continuity of [her] own family line” might be threatened. We talked every week, which was supportive to her, and I didn’t want to do anything that could destabilize her sense of family and our relationship, even if for a short while.

The split inside was painful, but the state of indecision about whether to tell my mom about my birth mother was unbearable. I decided to attend a meeting of an adoption group in Boston the next time I visited family there. It was a small gathering. There were only three other people, and they were all birth mothers. They knew each other well and spent time catching up on their relationships with their birth children and their adopted families.

When they looked at me to share my story, I burst into tears. As I sobbed, I explained that I was feeling very guilty and very sad that I couldn’t share with my mom this profound event in my life. They tried to reassure me that my mom would be fine with it, but the more they talked, the more upset I got. I just knew in my heart and my gut that telling her would be selfish of me.

Although the meeting was emotionally draining, it clarified my feelings about whether to expose my mom to my relationship with my birth mother. I needed to protect my mom and keep this information to myself.

After my dad died in 2005, there was a time when I thought I might be able to share my news with my mom, but then she was diagnosed with breast cancer and spent her last few years in a clinical trial. It didn’t feel right to tell her then either.

I would continue to endure the split-screen perspective. Although it was more intense now, it was not a new feeling. Over the years, there were plenty of times I had imagined what my birth parents might be like, and what it would mean to be able to know them. I had never shared these imaginings with my parents, and I would not do so now. I was destined to remain divided.

As I write this, so many years later, I feel comforted by the conviction that I made the right, if difficult, choice.