Digging deep: adoptees share the emotional journeys of discovering their roots

The B.C. Catholic concludes its series on forced adoption in Canada. In Part 3, adoptees share their stories, while a counsellor talks about the value of support groups. See links to additional stories at the end.

Marnie Tetz grew up in Edmonton knowing she had been adopted, but that was all.

She and her older sister, also adopted, didn’t know what had led to their birth mothers giving them up for adoption, and they knew better than to ask. That just was something the family didn’t talk about.

But at age 28, Tetz’s curiosity outgrew the imposed silence.

“Wouldn’t you love to see our file that mom and dad have hidden in the box in the back of the closet?”

One day, while their parents were outside of the house, the pair sought out that box and found some scarce records: adoption orders from the 1950s and a paper for each one with a name, weight, and birth date recorded.

It wasn’t enough for Tetz. She phoned social services in Edmonton to ask for more information and was told the records were sealed.

“I was stunned. I could picture this woman at a desk, with all my information. She could see and I could not,” she told The B.C. Catholic. “It was really important for me to find my roots.”

That conversation was in 1983. By 1995, a registry had been created where adoptees and parents could signal their desire to reconnect and be notified if another family member registered. Tetz signed up. Five years later, she received a letter saying there was a match.

“Of course, I’m over the moon thinking it’s my mother and I’m picturing the white picket fence and the recliner her husband sits in to watch TV.”

It turned out a brother had registered. They exchanged letters for a month before they met in person July 2000, and while Tetz had learned little about her family, she continued the search for her mother. She met a social worker who helped place infants in adoptive homes in the 1960s and in recent years had begun to wonder how they had turned out.

Finally, someone who saw the subject from all sides, Tetz thought.

The social worker worked hard to help Tetz reconnect with her birth mother, but even with him and her husband on her side, Tetz found trying to learn about her sealed history emotionally exhausting. After one tearful breakdown on the phone, the social worker told Tetz about the Forget Me Not Family Society. It changed everything for her.

The Forget Me Not Family Society is an adoption support network in the Metro Vancouver area. It holds regular support groups and peer counselling across B.C. for adoptees and parents.

“I went to the first meeting and I walked in that room and these people could finish my sentence,” she said. “It’s huge to have the support. It’s huge to have people who understand what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling.”

Tetz is now the president of the board of directors. She said the organization has been instrumental in changing B.C. legislation on opening adoption records and continues to receive inquiries from people seeking support and yearning to know about their families of origin.

It’s one of several organizations that adoptees and mothers, including those who were forced to give up their children, turn to for hope.

Another is Adoption Support Kinship in Toronto. President Wendy Rowney said she has heard many heart-wrenching stories from women who believed they had no other option but to give up their child for adoption and were given no power or support in making the choice to parent.

“For something to be a choice, you have to be able to choose between two different outcomes. When you are a young person who is unsupported and don’t have the finances to support yourself – most of these women were teenagers and in their early 20s – there was no other option than to surrender the child,” said Rowney.

She said it’s a myth that mothers, having given up a child to adoption, move on with their lives. “Many of the women spend their entire lives waiting for the child to find them as an adult.”

Meanwhile, adoptees often carry a deep longing to know their history, even while growing up in loving, healthy families. They do it for the same reason anybody studies genealogy or takes DNA tests, she said.

“You can’t take human beings and pick them up and put them somewhere else and expect them not to want to know what happened to the people they left behind,” she says in the adoption documentary Mum’s the Word.

The most important thing to do for someone who was adopted or gave up a child to adoption is to listen, said Rowney, and despite the rapid rise of online support groups in recent months, it’s something that happens better in person.

“They are often very used to being judged. Everyone knows the stereotypes around a mother who has given up her child for adoption. Adoptees are aware that they are going to be judged for wanting something in addition to their adoptive families,” she said.

“What they really want is for people to listen to them and understand what it is like to lose a child to adoption, or to grow up cut off from any knowledge about your ancestry or family of origin.”

Sarah Ruggier, a registered clinical counsellor in Vancouver, said giving up a child for adoption “mixes up a person so deeply and triggers all kinds of vulnerabilities and potentially traumas, depending on how the pregnancy came about and family history.”

“A support group or therapist can really allow a woman and potentially a father differentiate between all of that and find their own voice, their own heart. Having support, on a basic level, provides some energy from others who want the best for you.”

Ruggier said when a person confides in someone about personal challenges connected to adoption, the best thing to do first is to physically turn to face them, look, pause, and listen.

“It’s going to take a lot of courage for a person to be open and vulnerable,” she said. “It could be a doorway to healing that they don’t know they need yet.”

She said it’s natural for people who have been adopted to yearn to know about their roots. “Just to know where your roots are, you can grow.”

Tetz did eventually reconnect with her mother. They met in 2001, in the nursing home where her mother was living at the time. It was awkward.

“She would gladly have me come and visit. She would say she wished she had a daughter like me, but I wasn’t her daughter,” said Tetz.

Despite the rejection, Tetz continued making regular visits. Eventually, her mother warmed up to her enough to begin calling her “my adopted daughter.” She would later learn her mother had given up three children for adoption and was forbidden from ever talking about any of them.

One day, with some help from counsellors, Tetz braved the subject with her mother again: “I know that I have two moms. I have the mom that raised me and the mom that gave birth to me. And I think you are the mom who gave birth to me.”

They had been sitting next to each other, holding hands. Her mother turned and said, “I think so too.”

Her mother died seven months later.

“We weren’t able to expand our relationship, but I just felt so honoured that she was finally able to get to a place where she trusted me, she could let her guard down, and be honest.” 

Doorways to healing

These Canadian organizations and peer support groups (not an exhaustive list) offer information and resources for people who have been separated through adoption. The B.C. Catholic interviewed representatives of some of these organizations in this series.

Forget Me Not Family Society

A B.C.-based non-profit society formed for education, consulting, peer counselling, and to offer support to anyone affected by adoption. They provide monthly support groups in New Westminster, Cloverdale, and Kamloops. 604-828-9577.
www.adoptioncircles.com

Origins Canada

Origins is a national organization founded to provide confidential support to people separated from their families by adoption, to provide resources to mothers considering an adoption plan, and to advise governments, mental health professionals, and others with respect to adoption policies, practices, and trauma. It is based on Richmond Hill, Ontario. 416-400-5730.
www.originscanada.org

Adoption Support Kinship (ASK)

ASK, based in Toronto, provides search and reunion assistance and support in a caring, empathetic, and non-judgmental atmosphere. Support is offered to all members no matter where they are in their adoption journey. 416-545-0912.
www.askaboutreunion.org

Parent Finders Ottawa

Parent Finders, founded in 1976, is Canada’s longest-running adoption support group. This non-profit organization offers help to reunite family members separated by adoption. It is based in Ottawa, but is linked to a network of resources across the country. 613-730-8305.
www.parentfindersottawa.ca

Canadian Council of Natural Mothers

The CCNM, founded in 2000, supports mothers and fathers who have lost children to adoption, people who have been adopted or grew up in foster care, and relatives including natural siblings, natural grandparents, and natural aunts and uncles. It operates under a philosophy of keeping families together and supports the rights of adoptees and parents to access information adoption records.
Connect on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Canadian-Council-of-Natural-Mothers-277088990223.