Forced adoption is a drastic step; there aren’t words to express the trauma it causes to all concerned. It surely should be preserved as a last resort, a final call for those cases where children are in grave danger and need a fresh start. In the case of loving parents who also happen to use illegal substances there are almost certainly much more appropriate methods to help, if help is required.
I put the wings on they gave me
Woven of diaphanous words
“Gift giver”
“Selfless”
“Angel”
They kept me aloft for awhile
Where I hovered above my son and his family
Their voices murmurs far below
“Yet whether it was an accident, ambivalence, or a careless mistake, it’s always the woman’s fault. She allowed herself to get pregnant. She couldn’t keep her legs closed”
Other women, other mothers, who have faced the surprising results on the dreaded “pee stick of doom”. But it’s not about adoption, it is in support of parenting, and parenting young. Rolling with the natural and biological results of sex, accepting a pregnancy before it’s time and the battles of birth control, but most of all the judgment that society, often other women, thrust upon us for daring to get pregnant in the first place.
On a foundation of good intentions and corruption, domestic infant adoption has rebranded itself thorough strategic public relations moves, market research and a well funded legislative lobby. While the public thinks sweet thoughts about adopting all those “unwanted children”, the adoption industry creates a product and cashes in on a billion dollar business.
They agreed to send updates (letters and pictures) every 6 months until she turned 18 and kept up with that until about 3 years ago when the updates suddenly stopped. No explanation, no warning, nothing. The updates were being sent to me through CHS so I called the agency and got the run around. This, to me, is one of the most heartless and cruel things that can be done to a Mother and I’m in utter shock that this is actually happening.
And like many of us affected by adoption, for a spouse of a birthmothers, it helps just to know that one is not alone, which is then altered with the desire to help others also feel that validation and acknowledgment. I do infrequently run into other spouses that wish there was more public support. Perhaps one day we will have something really good for you all. Of course, we’ll have to make it ourselves. The adoption industry probably never will, as then they will have to admit that adoption has long term affects on behalf of relinquishment.
WHEN: First Wednesday of the Month 7pm to 9pm
WHERE: Hillside Children’s Center 2075 Scottsville Road, Rochester NY
BONUS: Jeff Hancock Runs the group!
WHO: Hudson Valley Adoption Support Group
WHEN: 1st Thursday of every month
WHERE: locations change, please confirm
BONUS: You get to hang out with me!!
WHO: RIARG: RI Adoptees Resource Group
WHEN: 3rd Thursday of every month
WHERE: 5 New London Avenue Cranston, RI
BONUS: John Greene runs this Adoptee Support Group!!
We make it out the double glass doors and I burst into hysterical tears. Not weeping, not crying, but gut wrenching hysterical deep soul crushing sobs. Rye looks at me shocked, I am beyond all logic. I make it about ten steps to the car, and then turn around….sobbing, tears flowing down my face, I am not sure what I said. It was like I had stepped on an emotional land mind and now all this shrapnel of myself was just flying.
I had no way of knowing it, but when I had to leave my “baby” cat behind and walk out that door without turning back..I hit that place that every relinquishing mother fears. It really was an emotional land mind that exploded when I walked out that door. I wasn’t crying over the cat, it was over Max…two days old. It’s no one’s fault that this experience reenacted the worst trauma of my life, but it did. Just ripped that scab off with such a force, that it took me hours to find the place to stop the bleeding.
She is not a saint. She is not a whore. She is a woman faced with one of the most awful concepts a mother can imagine: the willing separation of one’s child for life. Saints or sluts are not real. They are labels use to dehumanize the relinquishment experience. Both are used to separate the birthmother form the rest of the population and create impossible social contracts from which any person, birthmother of not, cannot continue to love within. The saint cannot admit to the pain and the slut does not deserve to feel the love. Polar opposites and not realistic for anyone. Not helpful for anyone. Not healthy for anyone.
Inside Out Adoption Healing in California
WHO: Inside Out Adoption
WHEN: Saturday, May 18th, 2013 10:00am until 6:00pm
WHERE: TBD
WEBSITE: Inside Out Adoption
I was sitting on the bus, waiting to get home and I was amazed at the what ended up bubbling forth. Not that I am a skeptic on the need for healing, or finding issues, but I had really managed to convince myself that I had control of that volcano of emotion. It is a testament to both Craig and Patrick that the program they are perfecting is a very helpful tool for identifying areas that are still needing some attention. I’m coming home with a new shopping list of things that require further exploration.
It’s not the “gay” that makes adoption lesser, for adoption is an equal opportunity loss provider. Children who are adopted, no matter how wonderful their gay or straight parents are, have already experienced a known harmful trauma; the breakage and separation from their original family. It’s not that they are getting substitute Daddy in place of a substitute mommy, or trading a daddy for a second mommy that is adding to the issues. It’s that the mommy and dada that they were born to have been replaced at all: period.
But that STILL has nothing to do with Marriage Equality. Nothing.
I’ve decided to once again stick my neck out. Because giraffes have such long necks, they always see the “bigger picture” – the bigger picture is that someday no child will have to be separated from their family of origin and no mother feel forced to give up her a child. I’m hoping that those of you who also see the bigger picture will want to become giraffes and join me. If so, think of ways that you can stick out your neck – and help to change an very archaic system.
If you are facing an unplanned pregnancy and are considering becoming a birthmother and making an adoption plan there are some things you should know about first- as in BEFORE you contact an adoption agency!
Adoption relinquishment is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Your child will be born knowing your voice, your small and needing YOU; his or her mother. Mother child bonding happens pre-birth and sets up a model for the rest of the child’s life. Children do not care, especially at young ages, about brand name clothing, special diapers, or fancy toys. They want their mothers.
Separating of a mother and child is painful to babies, even newborns. They might not have the ability to verbalize their pain, but it can cause damage. Some adoptees suffer what is called the Primal Wound. Many adopted children are colicky. Others adapt by being complete “content” which means they are in a survival mode. Adopted children are over represented in both the mental health field and the prison system. Many suffer from trust issues their entire lives. No matter what happy adoption story they are told, some will feel abandoned and rejected by you.
Chances are, your child will be denied their civil rights to access their original identity.
Research studies show that the long term consequences to relinquishment increase over time and continue to affect a birthmother, her subsequent parenting and her relationships.
Birthmothers suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and long term unresolved grief.
The rate of secondary infertility in women who have relinquished is 7 times higher than the general population.
Open adoptions are NOT legally enforceable. It doesn’t matter what you all agree to now; once you sign the relinquishment consent, you have no rights and no say. Many “open adoptions” close when the child is about five due to the verbal communications that show a preference for their original mothers.
The adoption industry is an almost 6 billion dollar a year business whose job is to transfer the parental rights of children form those without resources to those who can pay for the privilege. It’s legalized child trafficking.
The rest of the world will not think that you are strong and selfless, they will think you are horrible person for getting pregnant and giving up your child.
There is no “right ” way to do this. You’re no different.
And like many of us affected by adoption, for a spouse of a birthmothers, it helps just to know that one is not alone, which is then altered with the desire to help others also feel that validation and acknowledgment. I do infrequently run into other spouses that wish there was more public support. Perhaps one day we will have something really good for you all. Of course, we’ll have to make it ourselves. The adoption industry probably never will, as then they will have to admit that adoption has long term affects on behalf of relinquishment.
She is not a saint. She is not a whore. She is a woman faced with one of the most awful concepts a mother can imagine: the willing separation of one’s child for life. Saints or sluts are not real. They are labels use to dehumanize the relinquishment experience. Both are used to separate the birthmother form the rest of the population and create impossible social contracts from which any person, birthmother of not, cannot continue to love within. The saint cannot admit to the pain and the slut does not deserve to feel the love. Polar opposites and not realistic for anyone. Not helpful for anyone. Not healthy for anyone.
The latest batch of pro-adoption propaganda, “What’s Mine is Yours”, by Katherine Nelson and Deanna Harper, has set a “beautiful” song that highlights the pain and suffering of infertility while promoting adoption and glorifying relinquishment. But with this song and the simplification and romanticism made of the relinquishing mother, Katherine Nelson leaves out millions of real mothers who have suffered a real loss of living, breathing children, many now gown adults. And often this trauma was inflicted by the hands who those claim to want others to understand; women who should be able to appreciate the true longing to be mothers. She promotes a false cure, a band aide, in adoption, by glorifying the very need that claimed so many of our children.
I really have to almost get a chuckle out of it when people try to tell me to shut up. Really? You are going to tell ME to STOP? And you think I will listen to YOU? How’s that working out for you? Yes, it IS FUNNY! You did not bother to find out who you are talking to. I take my rabble rousing VERY seriously. Why are you spending all your energy trying to convince me that you got it so good and adoption is so positive and “not like my experience”. Did I mention that I just do not care?
No matter how perfect the outcome, it still hurts. The only way to avoid the hurt is to avoid adoption, and it’s too late for that, for me. The adoption of my son was perfect, I did everything the “right” way and still; the adoption of my son caused unnecessary pain and was wrong. This is way I speak out against adoption today. It’s not because I had a “bad experience”, it’s that it was a “good experience”, and yet there are too many tears and the worry never stops.
So, the patter was 30 years old, but just this past Thanksgiving we had a 24 pound bird on it. Yet, this past week, just a mere two days after my new anger directed towards my mother, it broke. It didn’t break due to someone dropping it, or banging it or anything logical like that. Nope, it SHATTERED in MID air as Rye held it. With our much desired dinner on the floor, he was shocked. He didn’t drop it; literally disintegrated in his hands. My immediate thought was that my mother did it.
What strikes me now is that clearly, from the letters, one of my major concerns is what would I do afterwards, where would I go, how would I survive and that my mother’s home was an unsafe place for me to be. Like really, for my mental health, my mother was damaging to me and returning home after such a loss, I would be even more venerable, but yet.. they sent me back there after I had my baby.
They gladly took my child to protect him, but then left me right back here I was. How is this looking out for my best interests?
” I go to the agency. Talk about depressing! We had to go over all these horrible forms which I’ll have to sign. All official shit. No turning back. ” You understand that you are giving up all rights as a mother and you will never see your child again” I don’t want to sign THAT! It’s so horrid. Until today, it didn’t seem so very real. I feel like it’s a bad dream and I’d like someone to wake me up. There’s no choice. There’s no way out. And I don’t think I like this at all. I’ve always thought about it and felt I could do it fine, but now I can’t image really going through with it forever and I have to. It sucks. I hope I can just stick I tin a box deep deep down like I do with everything and not think about it. As long as I don’t think about it, I’ll do OK, If I can just do it and stuff it in a box.”
What Really Happened When I was Away On the surface, everything here is OK. Inside I’m feeling pretty lost – but nothing can be done about that. I’ll hold out. From my first letter written August 24th, 1987 I think it was back in ’06
Where Is All This Birthmother Cake They Speak of? The mysterious “Birthmother Cake” that birthmothers all expect to feast upon. Somehow, people actually believe that being separated from one’s child is easy and maybe even selfishly pleasurable? Pardon my pun, but do they think that relinquishment is actually a cakewalk?A mother is suppose to give her children away to more deserving parents, dry her tears, buck up and move on. She is suppose to leave the adoptive parents alone and “get over” herself.
I figured I am usually so means against adoption agencies and never do anything nice for them. I am always doing things like the Craigslist Adoption Truth Project that makes it harder for them to find babies to place for adoption. So I figured that I would write a post that makes it easier for women to become birthmothers. See, look at me supporting adoption!
Hence, here’s a handy guide on how to become more vulnerable for adoption agencies and ways to ensure that you will place your baby.
The agency is telling me that I am asking too much from the adoptive parents, and that I need to get into therapy and move on with my life. They have no idea what being a birthmother is about. They cannot imagine what it feels like to give your child away because others have convinced you that you were not good enough for your own child, only to come to your senses after it’s too late and say to yourself, “I would have been good enough.”
Adoption Odds and Ends: Adoption Music, Arts, Films and Events There are ways to finish up National Adoption Awareness Month by supporting and sharing information and links to really great projects the support adoption truth. Here’s some great projects created by adoptees and the people
The article points out that the BEST results were from Craigslist. All the other avenues of baby procurement were trickles as far as results. I’m not sure why expectant moms are turning to Craigslist for the adoptive parents of their unborn children rather, but maybe they are looking for used cribs and get sucked in by their sad stories? The fact is the article clearly tells US where WE have to go to reach moms BEFORE they answer the horrid pathetic ads and get sucked into the adoption machine. To that I say thank you very much.
When I relinquished Max, it was suppose to be something that affected ME. The pain and loss was to be mine to bear as Max would be “better off”, his father unaware, my brother and extended family equally as clueless and my mother, well she didn’t matter.. at least I was not give pause to consider how nay one else felt. Like so many things in adoption, the professionals were wrong. Like we say, the “gift of adoption” just keep on giving and giving.. the pain has a huge ripple effect that touches every aspect of a woman’s lives including ALL our children
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