Birthmother Stories: I was a Teen Mother and Placed my Infant for Adoption

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June 8, 2004

Adoption as a Solution to Crisis Pregnancy

The following is a collection of post recounting my experience as a teenage mother and how I found myself in the situation where I placed my infant son for adoption.

It is wholly based on my current memories and my writings of that time of my pregnancy and relinquishment, and while I might be off on some things due to memory lapse, it is not embellished for effect.

Certain people might recognize themselves by name or reference, and if you find that unsuitable, please let me know and we will come up with a way to hid your involvement in my story. My adoption story here is not meant to hurt any participants, nor cast blame, no shovel guilt, but to accurately convey what the experience of becoming a birthmother was like for me.

The Story of a Birthmother: How to Give your Baby Up for Adoption

Most Birthmother Stories are very different, yet very much the same.

The feelings are usually along the same themes. The loss and grief after the relinquishment are pretty universal.

Please remember that for all intents and purposes, I was a willing birthmother who choose adoption as an option. I gave birth in 1987 and my agency was considered progressive and top knotch and the adoption tactics I faced were standard for that time, and many continue to this day. My adoption counselling was, in hindsight, subtly coercive and at times, the adoption agency was unethical. But, overall, this was and is, considered a “good” adoption story. Very typical for my agency and still in other adoption agencies of today.

As we see adoption promoted by the National Council for Adoption and even promoted as an alternative to abortion by President Obama, let’s keep in mind that THIS is what we are asking women to life with. THIS is what we are asking them to do. THIS is what we think is logical and a “win-win” solution to a crisis, unexpected, teen or unwed pregnancy.

All I can tell you, that THIS SUCKS. It was horrible to live through it at the time and the legacy of adoption and life as a birthmother is still no better now.

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About the Author

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Musings of the Lame was started in 2005 primarily as a simple blog recording the feelings of a birthmother as she struggled to understand how the act of relinquishing her first newborn so to adoption in 1987 continued to be a major force in her life. Built from the knowledge gained in the adoption community, it records the search for her son and the adoption reunion as it happened. Since then, it has grown as an adoption forum encompassing the complexity of the adoption industry, the fight to free her sons adoption records and the need for Adoptee Rights, and a growing community of other birthmothers, adoptive parents and adopted persons who are able to see that so much what we want to believe about adoption is wrong.

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