My Baby

I am 8 months pregnant with our second son. And I am elated. I am carrying a healthy baby according to ultrasound reports, and it is a joy to be expanding our family to a foursome. It is a wonderful that we will soon meet our next child and provide a sibling for our son Aidan, who will turn four in January.

But in addition to all the anticipatory joy, I carry with me the baggage of being an adult who was parentally abducted as a child. This affects my pregnancy and my parenting. I share this in the hopes that it can help others dealing with custody issues, so that others understand the effects of custodial strife on their children. Being a child of a severely conflicted home inevitably affects adult children as they start their own families.

I was parentally abducted from my mother at the age of four, and would not see her again until I was eighteen. My father took me from our home in Norway to New York City, and I was led to fear my mother´s culture, family and love for me. I spent my childhood on the run, in fear of a mother I had loved. I have spent years rebuilding my shattered relationship with my mother after the devastation my father´s actions caused.

As young adult I began to deal with the long-term ramifications of the abduction. Until then I had accepted my father´s lies and justifications for his actions. I stopped trusting myself and others at some point, since I had believed a lie for so long. I had learned to deny the existence of the part of me that came from my mother. I had to question everything I had been taught about my family history, every perception I had about my life and my past. It was and is painful , but early adulthood was particularly filled with confusion.

My name, identity, background, history, appearance, all the basics that make up a person´s selfhood and frame of reference had to be questioned and patched together to create a new self-image. I stopped fearing my mother as we became reacquainted, which was liberating. It helped me to accept a part of myself I had rejected. For a long time I denied her existence in my life because of the negativity I was taught to feel towards her. I even insisted to other children that I had never had a mother when I was very young, as I had forgotten what she looked like and she had become an apparition to me. I cried when another little girl insisted that everyone has a mother. But as I grew more sophisticated in my understanding of what had really happened, I was left with the awful realization that my father did not do what he did for my benefit, although he tried to make it seem that way. He knew that there were other options, but he chose the most drastic of them all. I felt deeply betrayed, and fell into deep depression and despair.

My name was changed when I was abducted, from “Cecilie Rina” to the name “Sarah. “ While I had several other assumed names during the years on the run, Sarah was the one I had used the most, and had grown to feel most familiar and comfortable with. As I began to make sense of my history, it struck me that the name Sarah was tied to an injustice, and I struggled with how to deal with this. I experimented with using Cecilie as my primary name, but dropping Sarah felt forced. I felt I lost a part of myself when I experimented with letting it go. Sarah was an integral part of who I had developed into. I could not turn myself into the little girl I once was or deny the part of me Sarah had come to represent. However, it felt like I was continuing to live a lie by using it.
A few weeks ago, ready to make legal peace with this at long last, I decided to officially change my name to “Sarah Cecilie” and drop the middle name I never used, “Rina” which had been my father´s choice when I was born. This way, I get to keep a name that is familiar and comfortable, while acknowledging the importance of the name Cecilie in my life. I cannot right all the injustices of my father´s actions, but it feels good to resolve the name issue this way, and to honor my needs and comfort levels.

Naming our new baby will be a joy, but also a reminder that for a vulnerable child, something as basic as a name can create chaos and heartache.

Identity and cultural issues still loom large. My mother was raised Protestant in Norway, my American father was raised as a secular Jew, and the rest of the family is a bit of everything. It has caused tension, especially since family bonds were already weakened by the years apart and the rifts in the family. My husband, John, grew up Catholic. We take part in celebrating both major Jewish and Christian holidays, but cultural divisions still play a role in creating a sense of being split, especially on my side of the family. Unfortunate for a family already divided in such significant ways.

Like many others who have lived life on the run, there is no physical place I can truly call home, and no culture that I am an integral part of. There cannot be, as I did not spend enough time in any one place to develop a real sense of belonging. My roots, my heritage, a sense of connection to these, have been fragmented by parental abduction—lost time with loved ones, years on the run, and the fact that I disattached myself mentally from people and places as a child in order to cope with the feelings of loss as we constantly moved from place to place.

On the positive side, I am open to all cultures and religions, and this is a gift that has enriched my life in many ways. But the fact that I am not an integral part of any unit, even that of my own family, is painful. The years spent apart and the inevitable cultural differences informs the way people relate to me. I am thankful for my husband´s family, who have welcomed me with open arms, and this is a new joy for me.

I struggle with depression. It started when I was abducted, and it continues, though not constantly, to today. I had post-partum depression when Aidan was born, which manifested as insomnia that did not allow me to sleep even when the baby did, irrational fears of not being able to protect my baby, deep anxiety, and reliving my own traumatic childhood when I became a parent myself. The emotions were strong, and though I am a resourceful person, it took all my energy to maintain a sense of normalcy on a daily basis. I was exhausted and overwhelmed. I was also deeply in love with our darling little son, which ironically made the depression deeper as I did not feel adequate as a mother. I had no “norms” to fall back upon and incorporate into my own parenting, and I felt lost. I worried about my relationship with my boy while still in the hospital. Gnawing, nagging fears of not being able to communicate with him, of becoming like my father, flooded me. Memories of my own losses also came flooding back, and I did not breathe freely those first months.

I also struggled with the idea that I was going to have the title of “parent.” I had such mixed feelings about parents. Aidan was very much wanted. But at the same time, I knew how awful parents could be to their own children, how blind they could be to the pain they can cause, and how powerful they are in the heart and soul of a child. I had, and have, problems trusting in my own abilities, so I agonized over this.
I am slowly learning to trust myself more, but I still agonize a lot. Aidan is my guide, and I learn so much every day by being with him. He is a sensitive, loving, wonderful little boy, and it is wonderful to have a family of my own. This pregnancy is easier emotionally, thanks to Aidan and the confidence I am slowly building as a parent. The struggles remain, though. The dark legacy of parental abduction casts a shadow on generations after it.