A second child doesn't replace the one lost to adoption

Jane

“You can go on to have other children.” As a young woman, I had heard these words in countless soap operas, read them in teen magazines and advice columns, as social workers urged young women into giving up their children for adoption. After I placed my first daughter Rebecca for adoption in 1966, I did go on to have three more daughters that I raised. The oldest of these Anne, was born five years after Rebecca and turned 40 last month. As our family celebrated Anne’s birthday, I reflected on the circumstances of her birth, so different than that of my first daughter.

Rebecca was conceived in Fairbanks, Alaska.  Several months before her birth I went to San Francisco where she was born and surrendered.  I knew no one there. My family was in Illinois and Southern California and I did not tell
them about my baby.  With the exception of a few people in Alaska, no one knew about my pregnancy, and I intended to keep it that way. I did tell my husband about first child to my shortly before we were married, but we did not talk about her again.

'IS THIS YOUR FIRST BABY?'
When I was expecting Anne, the first question people asked upon learning of my pregnancy was whether this was my first baby. “Yes, I answered. “It is my husband’s and my first baby” the equivocation apparently went unnoticed. First babies are special not only to the parents-to-be but to relatives, friends, co-workers, even casual acquaintances. Mothers gave me advice on how to keep from gaining too much weight, and how to avoid stretch marks. They offered tips on cribs, diapers, all manner of baby paraphernalia. They cautioned me about spoiling the baby if I picked her up every time she cried. My sister sent me a book on baby care; my mother-in-law made me a baby blanket. Friends held a party and showered me with all the sleepers, gowns, and shirts my baby would need for the next three months.  

I did my best to display the exuberance expected of a first time mother. Underneath, I felt I was a fraud, passing off my second pregnancy as my first. I did not, as many first mothers do, talk about my changing body, excitedly about every kick, complaining about heartburn and weight gain.

During my pregnancy, I continued to work at the law office where I was the junior attorney, partly because the money came in handy, partly because I didn’t want to be stigmatized as one of those women who abandons her career when a baby comes along, and partly because work helped me to ignore my changing body, as I had done when I was pregnant with Rebecca. 

I told my obstetrician about having a first child only because I believed the information necessary for my care. I did not mention the adoption. My husband and I took Red Cross classes on baby care. One evening our class visited the maternity section of a local hospital. The instructor provided details on labor and delivery; I pretended to my classmates this was all new and valuable information. 

It snowed the week before Anne was born, and then turned cold, leaving the sidewalks and streets slippery. The evening I went into labor, my husband, worried that I might slip and harm myself and the baby, held my hand and guided me down the stairs leading from our porch to the street. He drove carefully to the hospital, provided the information to the admitting clerk, and sat with me in the labor room until I was taken into the delivery room.

CONGRATULATIONS ALL AROUND
Anne was born about three am. I was allowed to see her for a minute and then she was whisked off to the nursery, as was common then. As I was wheeled out of the delivery room, my husband gave me a quick kiss, and he was off to see his new daughter through the nursery room window. The next day my in-laws came by with a onesie for her. My friends followed with flowers in a vase shaped like a diaper. I called my mother to tell her about her new granddaughter, and she called my sisters and brother with the news. Within a few weeks, I sent out a baby announcement. More gifts arrived.

How different when Rebecca was born. A neighbor drove me to the hospital and left when I was taken to the maternity ward. I saw my baby briefly during my hospital stay. Her birth went unheralded. No congratulations, no flowers, no help.

Betty Jean Lifton

When Anne was born, I thought to myself how this time everything was right: This was how it was supposed to be. A caring husband, a delighted father, happy families celebrating a new addition. I had played by the rules--she was born under the auspices of marriage--and I could take this baby home.

DELAYED GUILT

As I cared for Anne, I was often consumed with guilt; I had not fed Rebecca, nor bathed her, nor rocked her to sleep. I stared at Anne, looking for Rebecca in her face. As Anne progressed through the stages of childhood, I imagined Rebecca at those stages. Sometimes the two children morphed into one; Anne was both herself and Rebecca.

The late Betty Jean Lifton wrote that for some birth mothers the lost child becomes a "golden child," superior to the children the birth mother raises. I've read the same thing about replacement children who are conceived to substitute for a dead child. The living child can never measure up to the idealized, deceased child. Some adoptees endure this fate as well, always wanting when compared to the never-was biological child. It has been suggested that playwright and adoptee Edward Albee, suffered from being compared unfavorably to his adoptive parents' phantom child, and this theme permeates his plays.

Edward Albee

I did not intentionally have Anne and her two sisters that followed to replace Rebecca, and they did not replace her. Yet she remained a presence, a sort of shadow, a cloud, sometimes close, sometimes almost unnoticed. Contrary to the implication of the social workers’ refrain that having other children would  erase or at least the diminish the pain of losing your first, I continued to suffer from my loss.

I do not believe that I compared my raised daughters unfavorably to my vanished daughter. However, I did feel that Rebecca had been a sacrifice of sorts for my raised daughters and I felt incredibility guilty. I pressured (or at least strongly encouraged) my raised daughters to do well in school, in sports, in life in general, perhaps so that their lives could justify excising their sister and so that they would not follow in my path. Yet I sometimes thought I surely must have it backwards--if Rebecca was indeed better off than she would have been with me, then shouldn't I have relinquished Anne, and her sisters, as well?

Now that my children are grown and I have reunited with Rebecca, I do not dwell on these questions. I am incredibly proud of all four of them, fortunate to be their mother.

___________________________________________________

Thank you, Betty Jean Lifton!

Replacement Children

Me and My Shadow: Edward Albee's alternate selves