In Lifegivers: Framing the Birthparent Experience in Open Adoption, chapter eight is a doozy: heavy and long, I figured it needed to be broken into two separate posts. Entitled, "Gnawing on What Might Have Been: Bithparent Regret," it is bound to contain information that may be hard to understand or difficult in general for those both in and outside of the adoption world.

Gritter starts out the chapter with some various definitions of regret, hoping to show the reader that it is not scary, something to be feared or resigned only for those who are overtly negative in nature. Regret is a natural response to certain events in life. He does point out, however, that we feel the regret most deeply when the regrettable outcome is a result of our action or inaction.

He then tackles the idea of how responsibility and regret are intertwined. It makes sense, of course, to regret something that we had, in some way, the ability to control. Before people get angry and start throwing angry words about the lack of decision many birth parents had, Gritter also addresses that issue. However, he doesn't call that regret, he calls it resentment. While it sounds, looks and acts a lot like regret, resentment is reserved for those that had absolutely no choice in the matter. Of note, Gritter says, "resentment is a response to exterior forces, and it often carriers more anger than does regret."

It isn't a surprise that grief and regret are tied close to one another as well. Gritter feels that regret can be viewed as a variation on the denial and bartering themes in the grieving process. I wonder if many birth parents get them confused from time to time, especially without help to figure out which would be which at any given time.

Gritter then launches into a lengthy talk about ambivalence and regret. He states that ambivalent decisions are often breeding grounds for regret. These decisions are often susceptible to questioning, a round of "what if" questions to last a lifetime. Birth parents will continue to question the original if-y question as their lives grow and change. As views continue to mold and change over the years, the regret can mold and change as well.

Interestingly, Gritter then talks about the similarities between hope and regret. Not because one hopes for regret or because regret is especially hopeful but because of how they both act.

In other words, it is completely comfortable with objectively improbable conclusions. Reasons and factual analysis often have little effect on regret.

Gritter then begins to explain the different kinds of regret for the different kinds of people. Though he didn't say so at the end of this section, I am curious to know whether more than one variation can apply to the same person, the same situation. I feel my own regret explained in various ways in this section!

He describes the "Regret of the Typical Decision Maker" as the regret that we feel when our best decisions work according to plan and are still plagued with moments of doubt. This would be like a birth mother who knows that adoption was her only true option, accepts that fact and is blessed with a great relationship with the family and her child but still has hard days (birthdays) or moments of, "Well, it would be nice if..." in her brain and heart. "The Regret of the Mediocre Prophet" explains the regret of those who felt they should have been able to predict the future where things would happen that didn't meet their expectations. This would be for the birth parent who has had an adoption close, a child abused in an adoptive home or any other number of unforeseen events.

"The Regret of the Astonished Griever" could be said about a lot of birth parents.

It is impossible for a birthparent who is considering adoption to anticipate the depth of loss that accompanies that decision. The loss almost always proves more intense and prolonged than she ever anticipated, and the visceral anguish of separation can create an overwhelming sense of longing. Intense, relentless grief drives a person to crave relief in some form or another. Frazzled and worn out, and without meaning to, she may find herself entertaining unexpected thoughts about ways to undo her decisions.

Even in ethical agencies where the loss of a child to adoption is explained as something to be dealt with over life, not to just move on from in a year or so, the true extent of that grief is not fully understood. (Even less so when you're dealing with unethical agencies!) Some birth parents are so caught off guard by their intense grief that they regret the decision to place.

"The Regret of One who Lives in Isolation" might be hard to understand for those who have many friends or family members in constant reach. Grieving alone, completely alone, can leave the mind to wander to not-so-happy places. The loneliness itself could make a birth parent wish that she was parenting the placed child, just to end that constant quiet.

"The Regret of the Forgetful" may also confuse those who have never been in a traumatic situation. You may have heard some birth parents talk about how they cannot remember the details surrounding the physical birth of their child. (To be honest, some were completely drugged so that they would not remember. But that's not what we're talking about here.) For some, the details of the adoption decisions leading up to the birth are equally as fuzzy because of all of the emotionally overwhelming circumstances involved in such a thing. Birth parents experiencing such a thing are unable to mentally reconstruct the decision making process and therefore are unable to evaluate it in the future. That creates a regret of its own.

"The Regret of the After-the-Fact Flourisher" hits home. Gritter explains it well.

Having, over time, worked herself into a circumstance of multidimensional properity, it may occur to the birthmother that she is presently well-positioned for parenting. she wonders how she could have decided to forego the tremendously fulfilling opportunity to raise a child. She fuels her second-guessing by applying her current advantages to a past decision made in very different circumstances.

"The Regret of the Impulsive Relief-Seeker" describes birth parents who feel that their decision during an unplanned pregnancy, full of chaos and crisis, was made in haste. They wanted to get out of the uncomfortable place of being untimely pregnant and thus ignored the "small inner voice" that was leading them in different directions.

"The Regret of the Naive" is another one that speaks loudly. It's been said that you don't know how to be a birth mother until you are one. It's also true that you don't know a thing about making an adoption plan until after your signature is on the dotted line... and sometimes you don't fully understand that until months and years later. The truth is, some unethical agencies and attorneys take advantage of the fact that expectant mothers and fathers don't know the difference between a pregnancy center and their business of adoption. Lured in by promises of "help," birth parents assume that one of these places is like all the rest and they naively trust the first place that they have turned. The regret comes into play for not knowing better, researching more or contacting more places before going through with an adoption plan.

"The Regret of the Stubborn" is easy to understand but somewhat sad. We all know some stubborn people. You're reading the writing of one right now. For those birth parents that absolutely refused to accept help from family members, friends or society in general, the realization, later on, that accepting said help could have helped them keep and parent their child can be laden with heavy regret.

"The Regret of the Wishful Thinker" is something I think many people could identify with: dreaming about what could have been. Not always the healthiest place to remain, sometimes it's necessary to cope with the harsh reality that one is living in with regard to how their adoption has turned out.

That's a lot of different kinds of regret, no? My mind was on overdrive as I read through the differing scenarios, picking out which ones applied to my situation and which ones some of my birth parent friends could relate to in their own experiences. I was left feeling kind of drained getting through that part of the chapter. And that's where I left off in my reading for the day!

Tomorrow we're going to finish the chapter by discussing the effects of that regret, the poles of regret, what birth parents can do, whether or not regret can be prevented, coping with regret and coming out on the other side. Another long and heavy section, hopefully with some more answers!


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For more on Lifegivers, read:

1. Beginning a Chapter Review of Lifegivers.

2. Lifegivers: Chapter One.

3. Lifegivers: Chapter Two.

4. Lifegivers: Chapter Three.

5. Lifegivers: Chapter Four.

6. Lifegivers: Chapter Five.

7. Lifegivers: Chapter Six.

8. Lifegivers: Chapter Seven.


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Photo Credit: Book cover.