Whether you’re an adoptive mother or a birth mother, the love for your child is strong. Like a momma bear, we protect our young and guard them with our lives. Here is what adoptees need to know and understand: your birth mother had that same instinct the moment you were conceived. Even if she didn’t “want” you, she has that instinct inside her and a love for you that has no beginning and no end. Birth mothers physically give up their child but that instinct and that love has nowhere to go, it remains inside the birth mother, tormenting her for all her life. Let’s consider a birth mother that is strung out on drugs or alcohol and acts callous about a baby that she is placing for adoption. The love is still there, however, she is burying it deep, deep down inside and covering up the pain with substances. Birth mothers who say that they didn’t want children also have that innate love and even if she can bury it in the beginning, eventually it surfaces. Some women are incapable of dealing with those emotions so if you find your birth mother and she rejects you or meets you then later rejects you, it is because she simply cannot deal with all the emotions you are making her face. But know this – love is complicated and causes emotions that can destroy relationships. This is definitely a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” for birth mothers. You were gone, but the love was still there for her to deal with.  How can anyone possibly deal with that in a positive way? Since adoption exists so you can place your baby and never have to think about them again, that is what birth mothers think they are going to do but reality is, they have to deal with the maternal instincts without a child to direct them towards. Please do not blame your birth parent, or your adoptive parents, or society. Instead, have compassion for your birth mother and the pain she suffered in giving up her child. If you need to, forgive her for the person she was or is today then forgive yourself. Love is constant no matter how it is dealt with, it is there. The most important love of all is the love you have for yourself.