I did feel a wave of relief--this "YES!" sense of rightness--when I heard my birthmother's voice on the phone and then when I saw her in person.  This wasn't a sense of "rightness," it was more of a sense of "comfirmation."  Something in me knew--and this was not rational at all--that she was out there and she sounded, looked, smelled, felt a certain way.  When I spent time with her, I felt my system being bombarded with sensory confirmations that acted on my brain.  It felt like doors could be closed in my nervous system.  I was no longer waiting for the "right mother."  She was there and my entire system got the message.  I used to be searching for someone--a man or a woman or an experience--to fulfill me.  After meeting my mother and being with her--the search ended.  I have not looked outside myself for anything or anyone since.  I lived like a person who lost something and couldn't stop searching.  I don't live like that now.  

But, I will be dishonest to say I am at peace and calm and feel "right."  The brain has been trained and experience has been ingrained.  That cannot be undone.  

Meredith: In your opinion, is there a primal wound? Or are those words that try to capture something that perhaps the human race can feel as a whole, and not only the individual who was left behind?

JENNIFER: When I read the work of Nancy Verrier, who coined "Primal Wound," I had a deep sense of "yes, that is how it is for me," and then, "why did no one tell me this sooner?"  I read her work very carefully but must admit, it was difficult to ingest in one sitting.  It was painful to see myself so aptly described.   She makes perfect, painful sense to me.  So does the late B.J. Lifton, who wrote about adoption from Jungian and mythological views.  But more so, Nancy Verrier.  She is more practical and common sense and I just know, in my own gut that she has nailed what it is to be adopted.   

I also understand the backlash against the label "Primal Wound" for some people (usually adoptive parents and birth mothers from my own experience).   A strong negative reaction means a chord has been struck--something is being touched inside when we say "NO" and push things away.  So, I find the negative reactions very interesting.  And I also know that when we label anything, we miss the essence of it.  Words are limiting.  Language is limited.   

I do not know what it is to be a "bonded human being" in the human family, or to belong to a tribe, a culture, a town, a home or to feel a sense of peace in my skin that is lasting.   So to try to say all humans feel this primal wound, I cannot speak to that.   I can only know myself and I believe that my sense of displacement and discomfort result from the loss of my original mother at birth.  I also believe our violent separation became my first experience of welcome--which was no welcome at all. 

And, through my own experiences, I have also witnessed how my son's similar birth circumstance resulted in restlessness.  My son, born premature, was taken from me and treated with great violence by the medical professionals who followed established medical policies.  This was a great tragedy for him.  He was deprived of my nurturing touch and those essential moments of bonding that are a necessary part of the birth experience.  He is a very different child than my second child--a daughter--who was never taken from me.   She is a calm human being.  He is reactive.  She is peaceful.  He is agitated.  She has no learning challenges.  He has struggled to learn.  She has no issues with her brain, eyes or hearing.  He has optical nerve damage that is credited to a brain injury (despite the fact he has had not had a head injury--his only trauma was our four-day separation).   This is evidence enough for me.  I find my son and I are much closer in temperament and reaction to the world.  This is because we share a similar birth experience.   

If there is great suffering in our culture which is one that medicalizes birth (for stunning profit) and turns it into a fear-based procedure where mothers and babies are separated during those first crucial hours post birth.  You might call this the societal "primal wound."  I would not apply this to all cultures, not all cultures take babies from mothers.  I only know what is happening here, in the U.S., where I have been told we have the highest infant mortality rate of all the developed nations.  We are a very barbaric culture, we harm our children from birth on and wonder why we are a nation at war inside our own skin and with the world.   Look at the root to understand what grows from that root.  And looking at how we birth is very important.  

Meredith: How did you fortify yourself on all levels--body, mind, spirit--to keep moving forward during the greatest challenges?

JENNIFER: An outlet, from childhood to the point I began writing about my life, was vigorous exercise.  This was way to let off steam in a socially acceptable way.  The anger build up in my body, not really allowed or even understood, could dissipate with running, fitness classes, weight lifting and cycling.  

After I started writing about my life and doing some therapy, the greatest soothing came from being in warm water.  I soaked each day for many hours to give myself a sense of calm.  I also had to nurse my son this way, he was also calmed by warm water.  Adding salt to the water was a great aid.  

Just before I found my birthmother, I did EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and also took up knitting as a way to heal the trauma-based tracks in my brain.  This required me to accept I had a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder type injury in my brain, which I denied vigorously for a long time.  EMDR was very helpful but not lasting.  Knitting provides some calm but again, not lasting.  I find my brain is fast to shift into old patterns of hostility, anger, negativity, restlessness and self-loathing.