There are wonderful birth parents that, for many reasons, make a very sacrificial and selfless plan for their soon to be born children. The birth parents represented in my family are much different; their children were removed from their custody due to neglect and abuse, sending the children into foster care and the angry unknown.

By the time they come into my family, their forever family, a new adoptive family, they are emotionally bruised and battered, bearing physical scars often, and angry, disillusioned and reluctant to trust, to put it mildly.

One 10 year old came with her six siblings in August of 2000. Her two older siblings, tired from years of parenting the younger children, were relieved to receive my help. The two middle children were, and are, challenging, the three youngest have their own unique needs and issues, but were relatively unscathed.

The 10 year old, Vanessa, is now a beautiful sixteen year old with 67 months behind her of learning to properly release her anger and to begin to trust me. She’s become admirably attached to me, after several years of therapy, and watching me deal with my family; an often uphill climb where she’s seen me constantly hang in there for all the other children. Eventually she could personalize my love and devotion, and comprehend that she too did deserve a mother’s love.

Unfortunately, she’d born the brunt of the abuse in her birth family, horrifically inflicted upon a very young, defenseless child; she’d been tied up, beaten, locked in closets, and neglected.

I walk a careful line here in my family, in regards to the birth families. All my older children remember their early lives, the good and the bad. Their feelings range from pure veins of hatred to utter indifference, I know though that to move forward in their lives they need to come to some sort of an understanding within themselves, where they truly accept that this was not their fault, where they can realize that they deserve a family, and even towards forgiveness, as I believe otherwise will only lead to a festering anger that will not benefit them in the least.

Vanessa wrote a poem several years ago that she’d entered into a contest and she has allowed me to use it here.

What You Have Caused

What you have caused is beyond you.
What you have caused is for a child to be filled with sorrow.
What you have caused is hate to come into her heart.
What you have caused is for her to turn away from everything.
What you have caused is suffering and pain, anger and shame.
The worst is that your child is impatiently waiting for you to die.

A grown son of mine, who has since faced down his birth mother, and thereby empowered his own self to move on, remarked, “that’s right bitter of you,” when he read this yesterday.

Vanessa’s reply, “I wrote it several years ago, I’m better now. I just had to get it out of me.”

Her rage has lessened considerably over the years, her self-confidence has grown in proportion, and I know that when she truly can forgive and let go, she’ll be fine. She’s never going to forget the pain, it’s too primal, but she’ll learn to live with it appropriately, it won’t cost her an ulcer, jail time or stress, it’ll remain a dull ache, and it will slowly fade as she continues to replace the pain with the joy that she allows herself to experience.