Why Does My Birthday

Make Me Sad

Julie McGue

Author

For a lot of folks, birthdays are complicated. Over the course of my sixty years of life, celebrating my birthday has run the spectrum from joyous to tentative to dread and back to being a special occasion. As a child my birthday was pure excitement and anticipation, but when I became an adult the complexities of adoption tarnished my birthday. In middle age now, it is a relief that my special day has returned to the original, happy place in my heart.

Adoption experts say that it is not uncommon for adoptees to experience sadness and loneliness on and around their special day. The seesaw of emotions has little to do with love for the adoptive or foster care family. For a child separated from their birth parents, being down, reflective or angry on a birthday is about who is missing (see my post on 3/6/2019 “Adoption Anger”). No amount of cake and balloons are going to fix the pervading sense of loss, unless birth relatives can participate in some way.

When I was a kid, my birthdays were much anticipated, joyous occasions. My adoptive mother made cupcakes and I passed them out to my class during lunchtime (this was obviously before all the food sensitivities and allergies eliminated outside food being allowed in schools). The night of my actual birthday, Mom prepared my favorite dinner entrée and served it in our formal dining room. My two brothers, three sisters and favorite grandma gathered around the fancy table, and sang Happy Birthday as my twin sister and I blew out the candles on our cake. I loved my birthday, my family, and how we celebrated my special day.

After college, I took a full-time job and left home permanently. On my own for the first time, I supported myself, crafted my own rules, and delighted in making my own choices. I also began to reflect on being adopted. I considered how to go about digging into my birth circumstances, as well as, how to approach my adoptive parents about launching a search for my birth relatives. First, I wrote an exploratory letter to Catholic Charities, my adoption agency, and was told: nothing could be shared at this time. I felt like a door had slammed in my face.

Denied access to the details of my personal story, restlessness stirred in me. Adoption anger took hold, smoldered throughout the rest of my 20s, and into my 30s. In my 40s, I began to have some health concerns. Resentment about my lack of medical history and personal background reached a peak. This seeped into how I viewed my birthday, how I wanted to celebrate it and with whom. I no longer relished being the queen bee and was quite content to minimize the celebrations. On my husband’s suggestion, I launched a second search for my birth relatives.

In 2011, Illinois adoption statutes changed and I was allowed access to my original birth records. With the help of my adoption agency and a confidential intermediary, I located my birth mother. Three days before my 51^st birthday, my birth mom denied contact with my sister and me. That’s when ‘Birthday Joy’ hit the bottom of its downward spiral. For the two years that followed, I hated my birthday. I dreaded its approach and couldn’t wait for it to be over. A previously happy event had become onerous, full of loss and rejection. The day of my actual birthday was like going through a funeral.

Just as abruptly as my birth mother rejected my sister and me, she had a change of heart. The first year we celebrated our birthday with her felt like a walk in heaven. Our reunion has had its own ups and downs, but the occasion of our birth is still honored. I hope I never return to those years when the idea of celebrating the day I was born wreaked havoc on my emotional stability. Being adopted is tough enough without dreading your birthday.

“The day of my actual birthday was like going through a funeral.”

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