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 an adoptee or a birthparent planning on an adoption search and hopeful to have a family reunion, there is no such thing as too much planning. The time to start preparing for an adoption reunion is actually way before you start your actual adoption search. I have seen searches that take 30 years and I have seen searches that take 30 hours, so you can’t think that you can let the search pace be your timeline. Get ready.
An adoption search and the subsequent reunion with family can be both time consuming and sometimes even obsessive inducing. It’s often very hard to go from some sort of life removed from adoption to a life where adoption “stuff” is constantly on our minds. Plus every situation is different. There is no one right way or one wrong way, a check list of sorts, we all just wing it somehow.
You will want to be reading all the adoption reunion stories that you can so you can gain insight and knowledge from other people’s experiences. As much as everyone has a different take on the whole thing, there are many common themes in adoption reunions. Make sure you read adoption stories from the adoptee point of view and read adoption reunion stories told form the birthmother or birthfather’s point of view. Read the good happy family reunion stories and read the tales of adoption reunions gone bad.
I cannot stress this enough; READ
Read “The Girls That Went Away” and read “The Baby Thief” to understand the history of adoption in the USA. You can find more Books about Adoption Reunions here.
You MUST be prepare for the realm of possibilities that you might find and you need to know how to prepare yourself for the emotional up and down that happens! Read adoptee blogs and read blogs and stories from the birthparents point of view too. I always say that my heart hurts the most for anyone who finds success at the end of their adoption search and has ONLY their emotions to guide them. Emotions are just not enough. The term “emotional roller-coaster“ is used by almost every person in a search and reunion and with good reason.. it can make you feel crazy and if you are not prepared you might begin to think you really are! ”
Start gathering together the people who “understand” and will support you . An adoption search both emotionally exhausting and wonderful when it starts a reunion with family, but that’s only the beginning of a new journey. It’s a good time now to find and adoption group for support.. want to find adoption people? Friend me on Facebook..seriously, most of my network there is adoption related. The bonus of sharing an adoption reunion with others in adoption is that we know you are not crazy as we all lived it too.
You can also check out these various groups booth off line or one.
Adoption Search and Reunion Support
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Not all these groups are for everyone, so take a peak and find one that feels good. It’s also not a bad idea to see if you can find a local group that physically meets once in a while. Finding your family is like any long term relationship; it is hard, but worth it. You do need to invest time and effort for an adoption reunion to succeed.
I have tried over the years to share both stories from my own reunion experience and also to talk about other issues that adoptees and birthmothers face. I am as flawed as the next person and I don’t think any of us are experts, but I try to share what I have learned and my thoughts. You’ll find some relevant post regarding adoption reunions below and others that should be read on the side bar.
If you have a specific question about a reunion, you can ask me directly and I can offer my insight or, especially if the Adoptee perspective is needed, I am happy to post adoption questions and enter needed topics for conversation.
Please feel free to get in touch with any adoption reunion questions.
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!!
There are many heart wrenching cases of children wanting to be reunited with their biological parents or relatives wanting to know whether they are truly related to a person they suspect to be their blood relatives. These people simply want and need answers to be able to find that inner peace. The not knowing who you are or where you came from can be a very distressing, life long experience.
I had NO IDEA that was going to happen, but it did. Ok, more exposure, right. Good for the cause and education of the masses. I ignore the stupid comments. I ignore the stupid comments. I ignore the stupid comments. Yes, that s a mantra for me, but please feel free to educated the masses. I guess they had the headlines messed up as well and I was supposed to be divorced three times?
Here’s some doozies:
“Cute, real Cute.. This is a Prime Example they have BIRTH CONTROL Girls Like her Should NOT have Children in the 1st place! That is what she should be
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
No one is trying to find their birthmothers to throw stones or cast blame, yet on that emotional level we have to acknowledge that the adoptee can feel rejected by the act of adoption placement whether voluntary or forced. It doesn’t matter how they can now, as adult, intellectualize the circumstances of their relinquishment, the child inside still knows the pain and that child wants it’s mother. There is an innocence there in this need to reconnect. It is pure feeling.
“Parent and child go through a very complex bonding process from the beginning of life to the first six years,” she said. “They go through phases and in the teen years, they separate. That whole process goes dormant until they reunite as adults. It’s almost like it awakens back the recognition in that the other person is a mirror of yourself.” DeNeen said she felt like she was regressing back to childhood, falling in love and looking to her dad as a hero. “I felt a lot of need for intimacy,” she said. “The lines were so blurry.” But she makes it clear that she never had sexual intercourse with her father, even though the relationship was “very inappropriate.” And like others who experience GSA, she crossed physical boundaries that were “embarrassing, confusing, amazing and overwhelming,”
Expectations and Experiences of Participants in Ongoing Adoption Reunion Relationships:A Qualitative Study Marian K. Affleck, M. Psych & Lyndall G. Steed M. Psych, PhD; Curtin University of Technology 2001 Abstract of Contents This article describes the expectations, responses to unmet expectations, and factors that influence
I can tell you that many moms are just so worried about saying the wrong things that we are still afraid to open up and be real… the internal censor is on big time because we do not know what to do and are SO afraid of being sent away emotionally. Maybe this isn’t the case with her since you say she really reacts intensely, but that openness and honestly is a hard place to get to. I think it hard to trust the new relationship as permanent and get to that place.
ess than 1% of Birthmothers in the US desire to keep their adult children at arm’s length. So out of the 6 to 8 million adult adoptees in the United States, we can assume that there are say 6 million birthmothers and .993471% want to be left alone. That comes to 39,174 birthmothers. So because of 40 thousand mothers another 6 to 8 million people and their children and their children’s children get denied medical histories, get denied their identity, get denied their truth.. for the good of 40,000?
I wrote this in August of 2006. It was for some publication or contest that I don’t ever even believe came with a rejection letter. I know it didn’t get published, but I think it deserves some time in the light of day. Not much
Last Minute Plans and Adoption Visits This post is dedicated to the lovely Miss Doom, whom was not only the inspiration and catayst of the whole visit, but also, quite a trooper. She gets my “Favorite Person of the Week” Award! Maybe it just had
So, Tomorrow is Officially Birthmother’s Day. You know that that they give us to keep us separated from the “real” mothers of the world. Because, as you should know, it takes more than just giving birth to make a person a real mother. And being
The Adoption Community Rejoices at the Hope of Oprah Giving Adoption a True Voice Dear Oprah, Welcome to the Adoption Community! I know you didn’t plan on being one of us, but I have seen that often adoption sneaks up on people. I don’t think many
Adoption Relinquishment Can Cause Sexual Feelings and Confusion The New York Daily News has a story about a mother sent to prison after having sex with teen son she gave up for adoption. The comments, which currently rest at 135 are particularly cruel calling her
Something in the Air with Birthmoms? Being a birthmother is definitely and added life complication. Granted no one gets a planned itinerary with life, but at least “normal” folks have some sort of role model. There is that generic-like “this is what you do in
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