My Biology Matters. It Did All Along.

By Kristen Steinhilber

My whole life, when everyone told me that biology doesn’t matter, I did everything I could to believe that they were right. I learned to ignore my gut and tirelessly struggled to silence my insides that grievously screamed otherwise. It took me more than three decades of fairytale-oriented platitudes and assumptions thrown like bombs my way about adoption to piece together one very relevant thread: everyone who told me that biology doesn’t matter—including both sides of my own adoptive family—had intact bloodlines and genetic histories. And that what they were really saying, whether they meant to or not, was that my biology doesn’t matter.

Before I finally understood this, my takeaway was hardly stretch, considering the message I was sent: if my biology doesn’t matter, then I do not really matter. That’s what I believed above all else.

After my adoptive mother died, I found out she knew exactly who and where my biological family was and had kept it a secret from me. She had even allowed certain biological family members to attend my gymnastics practices without my knowledge. These kinds of things—withholding and secrecy—are encouraged in the world of adoption when it comes to the biology of adoptees. In fact, withholding and secrecy are legally enforced through sealed birth records. So when I found out, I assumed this was normal, understandable, or even maybe for my own good. My adoptive mother may have even believed that herself. Still, to know that there was nothing but a glass wall that separated me from the family I’d only daydreamed about as they watched me, or that maybe I’d accidentally brushed up against one of them on my way to get a drink from the water fountain, was a a mind fuck, even at the time. It just didn’t equate to anger the way it should have.

That’s what a person feels and should feel when they find out they have been lied to their entire lives by the person that raised them and who insisted that honesty is paramount. Anger. But since I’d always been told that adoption was such a gift, I didn’t feel I had the right to it. I pushed my own feelings away and suppressed what was in my gut. Of course, the lesson I took away from this is that my truth (or the truth in general) doesn’t hold much value. I’m not worthy or deserving of the truth; betrayals are to be immediately forgiven, no matter how all-encompassing. I applied this lesson to every aspect of my life without realizing, allowing others to manipulate me and believing them when they told me it was for my own good, telling lies myself and dismissing the feelings of those I’d wronged.

When I met my biological mother, I also found I had two sisters, one who is just four years younger than I am. Four years. So, my mother wasn’t an unfit parent, yet, through adoption, I was still legally severed from all ties having to do with her. My sisters got to grow up together, and I, an inherently and dangerously lonely only child without even the knowledge that they existed.

There is no way I at 18 (or anyone at any age for that matter) could possibly wrap my head around that thought all at once without exploding. That my mother gave me away and then had two more children, and that they all built a life that went on without me, and that the only thing that separated me from them and that life was four measly years. So I pushed it away and again, suppressed what was in my gut; the same method of self-protection I’d used my whole life. Your feelings don’t matter. Don’t have them. Biology doesn’t matter, and therefore all of the years you missed out on don’t matter either. Yes, you were the one who was given away but it doesn’t matter. You had a “better life.” Believe that, not yourself.

I had a beautiful reunion with them for years and “fit” naturally. Not in the same way that they fit with each other; that’s simply not possible when you miss out on all those years. I was also still under the thumb of the responsibility placed upon me to believe and feel they didn’t really matter. Not like the adoptive family who “saved” me. So I kept the feelings of everyone else protected and them at a distance.

Then one day they were gone. One fight was all it took. This is extremely common in biological reunion; many of our birth mothers have been both pressured to relinquish as well as shamed from every angle for relinquishing their children, not to mention having rarely been supported through their grieving process. So by the time we meet again, the combination of intense desire and fear of authentic connection often backfires, as do the reunions themselves.

During all of those years that I was included among them, I could never allow myself to be present with them. I never let myself dwell too much on the fact that my mannerisms and sense of humor are exactly like theirs and that I grew up without that. I didn’t dare admit to myself how good it felt to lay in the arms of my mother and sisters while we talked about everything under the sun and laughed in sync. I certainly never allowed myself to ask questions about my birth or the before and aftermath. I felt that would only cause upset and come across as ungrateful for the “gift” I’d always been told she had given me by giving me away. Like, “Did you ever regret your decision? Did anyone in the family want or try to keep me? Did anyone hold me or comfort me during the five days I spent in hospital nursery before I went home with my adoptive family? Did you name me? Can you tell me more about my father?”

And now, it’s too late.

After a lifetime of searching like Nancy Drew on the case of “Why am I like this?” Only now can I see my adoption trauma and maladaptive coping qualities through a lens of clarity. Because of the fairytale narrative that is everywhere and enforced by seemingly everyone who has ever seen a movie about adoption, my clarity has been systematically hidden from me. What I was conditioned to believe was self-preservation was actually self-abandonment.

The spiritual and psychological isolation of having two families but not belonging to either has ripped me from limb to limb, over and over, my entire life. My humanity has never once been seen by the adoption industry and the laws that bind, through which family ties and preservation are rendered unimportant. My voice and dignity have been robbed. Every memory of family I have is tainted either by lies or painstaking regret.

My story is not any other adoptee’s story. But the gist of it is not uncommon. These themes of diabolical dishonesty, betrayal, unbearable rejection, and hopelessness run through countless adoptees’ stories, and are begging not to be ignored.

Adoptee Rebecca Autumn Sansom made a film titled Reckoning with The Primal Wound that captures the complexities, forsaken years, and mirror smashing pain of adoption better than any other I’ve seen. My favorite part is the “Adoptee Army” featured in the credits. There’s a massive number of names listed, all those of adoptees who stand in solidarity for adoption reform. After a lifetime of feeling utterly alone, I was moved to tears seeing my name included with all of the rest.

We are the adoptee army, and our biology matters. It did all along. 

Steinhilber is a private domestic adoptee with a passion for adoptee rights and mental health advocacy. You can follow me her on Instagram and Twitter: @girlxadapted 

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