Where Did the Ideal of Adoption Come From?
I have always been a ferocious reader. I discovered reading in fourth grade. Or maybe it was third. Suddenly, after art class, library was the next best thing and weekly I would carefully choose a new book to amuse myself. I went though all the Beverly Clearlys, the Judy Blooms, and the beloved Laura Ingalls Wilder’s series. As an only child for the first twelve years of my life, books were my best friends.
Certain books really appealed to me. As I got older, and my mother would allow me the lovely forays into Walden Books in the Sunrise mall for purchases, or the Scholastic book club flyers would come home, I would often choose books with certain themes.
- I adored Cancer books: Sunshine, A Shining Season.
- I loved Holocaust stories: Diary of Anne Frank, Another whose name I can’t recall, but I did eventually steal it for a library and I think it is My name is Rebecca??
- I liked books about people going crazy: Lisa Bright and Dark, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, the Bell Jar, Sybil
- And I also thought adoption was pretty cool. Funny, I can’t seem to recall any of those titles.
My mom and I were champions of watching bad made for TV movies. Before Lifetime took over, these were the ones that played when nothing good was really on and allot more often then they do now. We would pretty much watch anything, but I recall quite a bit of adoption themes in there too. Great emotional fodder.
Did I Dream of Becoming a Birthmother?
What I did also have was a great imagination and I would lay in bed at night, thinking of what I had read, what I did watch..and fantasize..what if that was me?
I thought a lot about if I was dying of cancer and what I would leave behind. I thought that “Sunshine” was amazing as the main character did so much to leave a legacy to her daughter Jill.
And likewise, I had thoughts of what I would do if I found out I was adopted, if I “gave away a child”, how finding them would feel.
I constructed a bizarre weird little fantasy world built in drama and good story telling.
Since I missed the Holocaust that was off the table. I did almost lose my mind a few times, but I managed to avoid that one. Cancer I was sure would eventually “get” me, but it took my mother instead. No chance that I was adopted…but I did manage to live out one.
I can be quoted to say that no little girl has dreams of growing up to be a “birthmother“..and I contradict myself completely. Sometimes I think I did. I wrote letters in my head to my yet un-conceived to be lost child. I envisioned a heartfelt reunion before I had discovered sex. I imagined the feelings and tears of what it would be like to walk away from my own child. Somehow, I made it glamorous, beautifully tragic and heartfelt. Absolutely clueless.
When I Was a Doofus
KimKim puts it perfectly as calling it When I was Doofus. Looking back, I think a Doofus is a good term. Or, rather, I was a product of general adoption stories that only told the “happy happy” feel good, glamour and romance versions of what it really means. Course this was 30 years ago, so was anyone in America telling the real story then? And would I even know it now, or care, if it had not effected my life so personally? I think this is one of the main reasons I don’t get mad, only sad, when I hear the general comments of people who just don’t have a clue. I was one of them once.
Someone who thought an adopted child was “lucky”. The first adopted person I knew was a girl I befriended in my elementary school, Valerie Hughes. She had amazing curly long hair and was quiet and brilliant. She got great grades and when I went to her house to play, I was amazed that she had her own sewing machine and she made a little green and white plaid pillow that I very well might still have. Adoption made her exotic. Adoption made her hair and brilliance a mystery. To me, that was cooler than us average kids knowing to which we were born.
One Life Experience I Should Have Lived Without
By time I was pregnant with Max, I had developed and nurtured a life theory that was probably part survival mechanism, probably part of youthful idealism, and a bit self destructive. I was under the impression that it was better to live and know what something was really like then to just read about it in books or see it on TV. Kind of like that better to have loved and lost than not loved at all. Better to have a baby and really experience his adoption rather than just rely on the books and movie versions.
Somethings are just better left as a good evenings reading, but what did I know. I was young. I was pretty stupid in many senses. And I didn’t think beyond my past childhood fantasies of what it all meant. I don’t think I really had the foresight nor ability to do such. I mean kids don’t really. Garin got annoyed with us the other day as we would not let him go to the skate park in a huge snowstorm. The snow had stopped, never mind that the radar on the computer showed more snow a coming. he couldn’t even get beyond the super immediate to see the consequence into the later evening. How many kids don’t seem to care beyond the immediate need to cut a class and have fun..forget fail the test, dump your grade, mess up your college chances, and eventually have a lousier job? Longs as you are having fun now, right? At 18/19, I wasn’t that far from that train of thought.
So I couldn’t see beyond and no one immediately around me had any stellar insights into the reality of adoption either. Just more products of made for TV movies and general adoption sentiment. And the adoption of Max solved a mess load of issues.
Adoption Fixed “Everything” or so I Thought
And I didn’t have to think. It corrected all the “bad” things I had done by a) getting pregnant b) getting pregnant with a man who I should not have been with to start and c) being stupid enough to go into denial for the first 5/6 months of pregnancy and not aborting him. The full on story is here if you really care to waste a few ours in my life at that time.
But, it kind of went like this:
- Mom is freaking out and doesn’t want to raise this baby. Adoption fixes this.
- I am “ruining my life” and will never have an education. Adoption fixes this.
- I can’t deal with HIM. I don’t want to tell him. Adoption fixes this.
- My whole family is going to freak out over HIM. Adoption fixes this.
- None of my friends have babies. Adoption fixes this.
- I am afaid I will resent this baby becasue I still like to go out and have fun. Adoption fixes this.
- I haven’t had good medical care. Adoption fixes this.
- I can’t stand living here. Adoption fixes this.
- I don’t want anyone to know. Adoption fixes this.
- I was bad. Adoption fixes this.
- I am an idiot. Adoption fixes this.
Didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to deal. Wanted to just get away and make it all better. Redeem myself, atone..and feel good in the process. Oh Lordy, adoption fixes this all. And I had all those great childhood fantasies to boot.
The ones who should have seen through my desperate need to avoid all, who could have known the long term ramifications of my denial and avoidance of reality, the ones who had a better idea of the truth than just made for TV movies…..had an invested interest..aka profit.. in my placing Max and enabled me to hide from reality. Yeah that’s what I wanted. That is what I choose to do. I didn’t want to see, think, long term..and I didn’t. But they helped me hid from my family. They helped me not inform Max’s father of his paternal rights. They helped me feel good about adoption. I already felt all warm and squishy about it. I already thought it was cool and glamorous I needed someone to bitch slap me back into reality not coddle me for my own comfort.
Coddles and Enabled to My Own Destruction
But, that didn’t happen and I became very adamant in being the best little birthmother I could to prove how good I really was..again to redeem Make someone proud of me, do the right thing, be mature, strong, smart, responsible, loving. And this is where it gets heady Yes, I never wavered .only the weak and selfish did that. Yes, I made a choice. But Lord, I had no freaking clue to what I was subscribing myself, my children, my life too. Kind of like selling your soul to the devil. Geez..everyone knows you shouldn’t do that! I had no business making that decision..really I did not. I had no idea what I was doing except running away and looking for an easy fix.
I see, so often, woman like me, in the same place..with their “adoption fixes this” checklist and who don’t want to see beyond the immediate. Strong, sure, confident in their decision they sell their souls and join this life long club for mothers in exile of loss. And they want, and they achieve, the “good birthmother” status. How many turn their lives around after the birth and loss of their children because they “want their child and her parents to be proud”. They want to continue to be someone who can be respected and trusted as a good person.
And this is the paradox. After the loss of Max, I turned around and was in all ways “good and responsible”. All the things in my head that I wasn’t before, that made me feel that I was not worthy enough for my own child, was corrected even without my child present. I had to continue to prove myself as good.
The Natural Inner Momma Bear Thwarted by Adoption Glamour
I really believe, with any urging at all, remove the enablers, and maybe a bitch slap or two, all that righteous “proving” would have happened anyway. I believe it happens most naturally when we give birth and become, in reality, mothers.
Poor Statue says it perfectly here:
“And then I gave birth and a new reality kicked in. Me, the girl who was often called cold by those close to her, the one without a nurturing bone in her body, gave birth to the most perfect being in the universe (it came out of me! I did this!) and felt the most intense set of feelings I had ever experienced. I felt like a mother.”
Take out all our preconceived notions, take away all the “adoption fixes this” lists, forget our pre-birth reasonings that are reinforced by the agencies, and forget all the issues involved…what we have is nature at it’s finest and the mother bear needing to protect her cub is born.
No matter how we doubt ourselves or others question us, if allowed to be felt uninterrupted, I believe that the mother bear will realized that though her intense love that she can and will do anything to care for her child. She just can’t imagine it before she sees the true miracle of that baby bear. When she looks into his eyes and sees that he knows her and trusts her and needs her..all things become possible.
I was talking to a co-worker the other day about having children. A nice guy in his thirties, married to a nice woman who has heard the ticking of her clock..and he was saying that he wondered if he was ‘ready’. I laughed and told him no one is ever really ready, but it is a good thing to allow to happen. What he said next made me think…he was commenting on guys he knew who were so much more “not ready than him” and had had kids. And how at first he couldn’t imagine so and so actually getting it together, but the next time he saw them they were acting all dad like, sporting daddy hair cuts and doing all the goodly responsible things that daddies do. And it was afterwards that I thought of telling him that it is because that one cannot imagine the full force of this love that we feel for our children, but once born there is nothing that isn’t worth doing for them. And we want to do what is best. And suddenly, we can. It is worth it.
How else can a mother be able to walk away from her child except that she feels that it is the best and only thing for her baby’s well being? Where else does she get that strength except from her internal momma bear? And what if that momma bear has been given the wrong messages? What is it is based on crazed idealistic fantasies and stupid lists based on doubt? What if she could harness all that internal strength needed to fight the grief and instead use it to fight all the reasoning behind a possible loss? What if she stopped trying to be the “best birthmother” but tried to be the best mother? What if adoption reasoning and lists and generic feel good thoughts of grateful and happy adoptive parents didn’t get in the way of natures supreme processes?
Heck, I wouldn’t be here. And you wouldn’t be stuck reading this. All that powerful momma bearness would have kicked in and I would have been a kick ass momma. Instead of an “good little birthmother”.
If I had only been a healthy child and good at soccer maybe I wouldn’t have read so much. If only someone had bitch slapped me into reality and made me deal. If only I wasn’t such a doofus once. If only the truth of adoption was understood.
I know we would have been OK. Even better.
My internal momma bear would have roared.
You write so well Claud, you have such a beautiful written voice.
I don’t think anything would have prevented you losing Max except maybe meeting mothers like us. But even then, there are some like the recent “train chrash” that went ahead and did it. Then you have others who do listen to you and don’t.
We had no idea about what we were really doing, I mean really doing. I never thought that I would be so busy with it 22 years later nor that it would still hurt like this 22 years later. And it never occurred to me that it might do damage to my child.
I feel like a Mama Bear, it’s funny that you chose that title. My secret name for L. is Bubba Bear.
The thing that you and my other Mama Bear friends who write to is make me feels less alone with this.
I don’t know Claud, its easy to look back and say things would have been okay and that your momma bear would have come forth, but you just don’t know. And if it hadn’t, Max would have been the one who suffered for your lack of maturity and responsbility. Having a baby doesn’t launch someone into being a good mother, nor a bad one — but I have seen many times around me with family and friends that children suffered because their mothers kept dropping the ball over and over again. Luckily there were people around to pick up the peices and make sure that these children were taken care of. (And I am not just talking financially)
It appears so far that Max has had a good life, good parents, and good opportunities. (I’ve seen his webstuff that you have linked through your other web page) For him adoption may not be or may never be seen as a train wreck. Sure adopted kids have issues, but don’t we all?
Also, not sure if I missed this on your blog, but I am curious if Max has read your version/perception of his adoption and how he feels about it. Especially the part where you sought to abort him and purposely withheld information about his parentage. I just find this all disturbing on so many levels, especially that this minor child can readily read all this about himself and his birthmother online.
True, having a baby doesn’t launch one into being a good mother … any more than adopting a baby does.
Yet, for dubious reasons (reflected in adoption history, statistics, policy, and law) the latter continues to be given automatic elevation over the former.
Thus, the second guessing that is often seen in surrendering or coerced moms. It is an awakening, of sorts; a normal, consistent, (even healthy so long as one does not remain there) part of the process not to be dissected or judged by those who have not walked a mile in her shoes.
One cannot judge what kind of parent another “might” have been (unless there are major issues already unveiled).
Conversely, a woman, herself, may certainly call into question or ponder her own life’s journey.
Terri
But you see Kim..I see now all the things that did go on before and after Max.
My brother was born when I was 12. Guess who was such a super sister that came home from school everyday and relieved Mom? Guess who gave baby brother his bath every day? Guess whose room was across from his and got up in the middle of the night to deal with him?
Guess who immediatly went into early Childhood education? Guess who was so good at it and so great with kids that the head of the faculty arranged for the student teaching to be in her own nursery school? Even though we were suppose to be plaed at schools local to us and that meant I had an hour comute? Guess who got offered an assistant teaching job at the same school before she was halfway done with her degree? Guess who was so good with kids that she was the coverted babysitter for the parents of the school? Guess who stayed families of kids while their parents went away for a week..many times, many families?
Guess who had a 4.96 grade point adverage while paying for her own tuition, rent at her mothers, and all expenses?
Guess who was so competely and totally ready to have another baby barley three years later that nothing would have prevented that?
Guess whose biological father was a lawyer and would have forked over a very nice child support check?
Noooo..I know what kind of mother I was able to be. I do know what I was capable of. This is not a pie in the sky. This is real. You can doubt the other hypothetical situations, but one thing I know..I know me.
As for Max..one he is not a minor. Two, he knows his story…even the icky parts. I am a fan of the truth. There is nothing written that he does not already know, or that I would have a problem with him knowing. I don’t shove this all in his face, but it is sure not hidden either. And he has been openly supportive and embracing of this whole expeience.
He has a very realistic attitude, he is very mature and grounded, and he has no trouble speaking his mind to me.
And you really need to get things right..I didn’t SEEK out to abort him..I hid the pregnancy until I could not anymore and the person that “outed” me to my great relief, inisisted that I go to three clinics/doctors..and when it came to the fourth I refused.
And I withheld information on his parentage on the advise and overseeing of the AGENCY…who knew that I knew, and I offered that information as well as the ony picture I had of his father to him at his birth. It was withheld legally, as a legal manever, to faciltate the adoption…something that now I know to be so unethical that it makes my skin crawl to think that I participated in it..and angry to know that I was lead to do that as a “right and good” thing.
If you can get it straight, then don’t abreviate it. Not at our expense. My life facts are not changing to support your idea of discomfort or disturbances.
I thought you said you hid the pregnancy from his biological father. Not just the agency, but you. I am sorry if I misninterpreted that.
I still find it disturbing Claud. Maybe its because I have a son through adoption whose birthmother refused and even lied about his parentage. There was no coercion through an agency, because it was private and she had her own attorney (one she hired)
Still, while it is wonderful that you matured and did all these great things in your life, you just don’t know what would have happened had you had a baby. Its easy to speculate, because you DID mature, grow up and go forward but the fact remains you just don’t know. Had you parented Max would all of those things come to pass? — of course I am one of these people who believe what is meant to be is meant to be and that our life journey is what makes us into we are (Even our mistakes)
I wanted to comment about what anonymous said. I Think you are right, that neither giving birth nor adoption makes you a good mother. However, I think when you do go through the adoption process you are forced to evaluate and prepare for parenthood much better than if you have an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy.
We adopted after already parenting a child. Our parenting spoke for itself, but even that being said, adoption forced us to look at parenting in many more ways. I am not the first adoptive parent to say that at times I feel like my greatest responsibility and obligation in parenting is with the child we adopted. I think most parents who adopt do feel that way — that they need to provide and do the very best for this child, be the best parents. Sure you have some losers and nutsos but for the most part men and women adopting see their parenting on a much wider scale than say the average joe or doe. Maybe this is more so with semi-open and open adoptions or the way current generations think.
Also, unlike just the average couple having a bayb, there is the homestudy process. Sure there are the pay me some cash social workers and I will write you a great review/homestudy but the majority of people we know that have been through the process were scrutinized. Last I checked, when I had my biological children no one asked me if my sex life was normal or had a complete local, state, and federal background checks done.
All in all parenting is hard, no matter how you come to it. I don’t think its a he or she would have done better than I contest — however some people are better prepared to do a better job.
Yes, I made a choice.
Choice implies more than one option. Did you really have more than one option presented to you? If not, you did not make a choice.
WEll I did not tell him..and I still have not directly and clearly..something that continues to be a weight on my shoulders though there are ALOT of extenuating circumsanses that are involved. The fact remains though that I do 100% completley believe that he KNEW…we were involved form pre conception until I was 6 months PG..and I was about 100lbs soaking wet pre pregnancy…so he KNEW…the fact that he did not once address the issue of either comtraceptives ( which I had had covered anyway..they just didn;t work!) or the very visable results of the pregnancy, was further issue to me and made it that much harder to bring it up. Plus for all intents and purposes, I was borderline adult…still a teen and he was in his mid forties. So there is a certain amount of gulit that I do refuse to take on as he was also just as responsible to ask about the very obvious.
There is no lying…an omission for sure, but only to a father that very much seemed to want to ignore and also not deal…denial all around it seems.
My ponit of this whole thing, Kim, is that I did mature…immediatly. Not in a few years, immediatly. And I fully beleive that the actual physical act of being a mother makes that come to pass.
And I do know. That’s the thing..I DO KNOW.
Would I have immedatly gone into child ed…no. I would have not havd to have put all my mother love into a field and an education that is pretty much worthless for me now. I would have probably stayed home for a few years…loving my own son instead of other peoples children. I wold have had a beter reason than wanting for my son to be proud of me in 18 years, I would have had that immediate feedback and immediate need. It’s not just specualting, it is seeing a true and very real path.
Did I have a real choice?? Abortion was not really an option, though it was pushed on me. What was presented to me was that “having a baby would ruin my life”..and my mother was in general just freaking out in many bad ways…so the shame, the hiding, the secrets..were forced upon me.
While parenting WAS offered by the agancy, it was NOT issued in a real light..IE I do not recall anyone ever saying “Go after the father and tell him” ..it is his right to know, it is your right to have his support..my mother knew WHO he was and did not tell me to fight for my rights..very unlike her..she was too horrified, though I beleive she would have come around had I not brought adoption to the table. In fact it was not until TEN YEARS after the adoption that it finially occured to me that OMG childsupport would have been huge..what was I thinking!
WHat was offered by the agency was social services..and as a middle class girl, the thought of being a “welfare” mom was not an option…no one ever said that the struggle would be worth it and temporary. Plus I was very much under the impression that having ths child would make me be “all alone” in this world…no emotional support to parent at all…and I did not see that people could and would change, though now I beleive they just all would have had to deal IF i had made them.
SO on official paperwork..yeah, a “choice”..informed, realistic, non fear based, a real choice…nah, not really.
You said “I fully beleive that the actual physical act of being a mother makes that come to pass.”
For some. Not all. I wish this was so on so many levels. Unfortunately from watching people around me, family even, this is not necessarily the case. And it isn’t the case for some women currently placing children for adoption. In those cases, should they parent? I don’t think so.
Even though we disagree on many things, I think it is courageous/bold to continue your dialogue with me and that you continue to post your story, thoughts and feelings.
I am so sick of these types of discussions. I’m going through a similar one on my agency’s boards… someone just informed me that I WOULD NOT have been the same mom to Moonbeam that I am to Sunshine, if I’d kept Sunshine. Well, gee… isn’t it nice that she knows my heart and journey better than I myself do?
The fact is that I know, 100% for certain, that I would have been a FABULOUS mommy to Moonbeam. I know that because for me, my life-transforming moment, in which I “grew up” and started thinking about my baby before my own needs, was when I got pregnant. I immediately started taking care of myself and trying to be responsible in a way that I hadn’t been before the pregnancy. Had I kept Moonbeam, I would have continued to put her needs above my own and would have loved and cared for her and done anything in the world to protect her.
Furthermore, I personally was in pretty darn similar circumstances by the time I had Sunshine. Only difference? Married instead of engaged; had the college degree instead of being one year shy of it. Everything else? THe same. Same house, same man, same income… same, same, same.
In many ways, in fact, I feel like I have been a WORSE mom to Sunshine, at least for a year or so there, than I would have been to Moonbeam, because the issues and residual grief left from the adoption interfered with parenting. Had I kept Moonbeam, those adoption issues wouldn’t have been present for her! And still… I’m a good mom. I’m a good mom to Sunshine, and I know in the core of my being that I would have been a good mom to Moonbeam.
I am so sick of people assuming they know better than me when my transformation took place, when my “momma bear instinct” kicked in, and whether or not I was “ready” to parent.
Sorry to hijack your discussion Claud, I’m just saying… I feel ya. I hear ya. I totally understand.
I don’t know Kim..I can’t say that it does happen for all..for that would be wonderful, but it does ignore the very real fact that some women do not. Some have other issues, maybe some are already so damaged..
What I do know is that the majority of mothers of loss that I have had contact with..and this numbers hundreds…myself, the other blog moms, we are saying that we COULD HAVE DONE IT WELL.
(no hyjack, N..that is exactly the point..you know!)
And even often, the moms who claim “no regrets” and still sing “for the best”…allot of them..I can’t but help think to myself “Nooo..you could have too..and you can’t admit that ..for if you do..it will hurt too much”
The ones that really don’t get it together…they are not the ones online. They aren’t trying to understand and be “better” using this venue. So, I can’t speak for them, I don’t know thier stories, their deal… but I will speak for the likeminded, similar situation type ones…
The question should they parent? I don’t know that answer. I would like to be idealistic enough to say that they shuld be given the chance if they want it. That we should have better resources in check to give them a chance. That we give them parenting classes and a chance to work though their issues before we deem them unfit.
I know that it would not always work..and you can’t make someone change of they dont desire to..but I think that more people would want to be the best parents they knew how..and that the love of a child is a great motivator. I would love to see the calculated risk factors on a less than perfect person who desires to be a better parent err on the side of parenting rather than always assuming that adoption is best.
I assumed that adoption was best, and everyone just went along with me. No one really made me think it though and determine what I was really after in life, what I wanted to be, who I had the ability to become. And that greatly added to the path of tragedy I was on.
Claud, I absolute get what you are saying. I even agree to a point. I think women should be given the opportunity, the support, the financial means to support their own children. However there are women who have those things, even parenting other children, who choose adoption.
I’ve been in the adoption community for years, talking to all members of the triad, and there is a vast difference between who birthmothers are now (last 10-20 years) than those who placed before 1980. Most are not meek, naive girls being coerced by an industry.
I often wonder if my son would have been better off parented by his biological mother. He is a difficult child with several special needs, sometimes I feel unequipped and lost but when it comes down to it, to his best interests — no matter how capable his birthmother was (and she was) there is no doubt that she made the right decision for him. Maybe not for her, because she now regrets it, but for him — yes. The bottom line is that she was equipped in every way to parent, she already was a parent but she choose (which I still cant comprehend as to why)not to parent this particular child. And this is not the only birthparent I know of who made the choice to place a child for adoption in spite of having the ability and resources to parent.
I guess sometimes I Get the impression (maybe I am wrong) that there is a since of “forced parenting”. That women who choose adoption should be forced to parent for a short period of time a baby they don’t want.
The special needs issue that Kim mentioned is a big one for me. The child who I adopted was completely healthy and normal at birth. He now has some special needs that have created a whole new parenting world for us; parenting ended up being different than we expected, as it does for many people. Could his birthparents have parented a healthy and “typical” child under their circumstances of alternating between mental institutions and homelessness? Maybe. Could they have parented a child with special needs under those circumstances? No way do I believe that (though I know with certainty that they would disagree and that is okay because reality is we’ll never know…what’s done is done and it’s all conjecture). This is kind of getting off on a tangent…but I do think that parenting is not always the walk in a park that some believe iwth a new tiny baby…sometimes some pretty huge challenges come along that have to be prepared for and taken into account. I think parenting is just such a huge and enormous responsibility, even the most stable folks are often not truly prepared for it all. I’m chickening out and posting this as anonymous.
Quote: “Maybe not for her, because she now regrets it, but for him — yes. The bottom line is that she was equipped in every way to parent, she already was a parent but she choose (which I still cant comprehend as to why)not to parent this particular child. And this is not the only birthparent I know of who made the choice to place a child for adoption in spite of having the ability and resources to parent”
Sorry Kim, but how do you reconcile those things? In one breath you say she could have done it, and in another you say she regrets her decision now, and EARLIER you said women aren’t being coerced. What, then, made your child’s birthmother relinquish? That makes no sense to me.
And the special needs thing… this argument also makes no sense to me. So women should relinquish their kids JUST IN CASE they end up with special needs? What does that mean in regards to adoptive parents who put down that they DON’T want any special needs kids, they adopt a healthy newborn, and the child then develops special needs? Should they NOT ADOPT because a kid could possibly develop special needs?
I am really not seeing much logic in these arguments, I’m just not.
Claud, you are so wise. I love the way you write. It is SO true that the preconceived notions of one’s inability to parent and need to redeem one’s “badness” seem to fall away once you are gazing into the eyes of your newborn. At least that is what happened to me. I was thoroughly convinced that I was doing the right thing by relinquishing – I was bad, I was a harlot, I was messed up, I’d only known the father for 3 months before I got pg, I had already had 2 abortions, (making me even more bad, never mind that I was using various birth control methods that failed) I would never be able to be a parent, etc. etc. I thought the a-parents were so much better than me – stable home, stable jobs, religious – everything I was not.
But then there she was, looking at me. And all that just didn’t matter so much anymore. I was more surprised than anyone. Mama Bear is right.
Yeah, parenting is challanging. I certainly didn’t intend to have a child that needed open heart surgery…but when I did, and it happened..I managed to deal with it. Yeah, it kinda sucked to know that they had to turn off my child’s heart…but I mananged.
OK here’s what I don’t get..and maybe this is another post on its own…Why is it that pratically all the natural moms online are “normal”..aka they could really raise their children, yet the natural parents of all the children of adoptive parent really do have “issues”? Hmmm..must ponder that one somemore….
N, my son’s birthmother relinquished her child because she chose not to parent him. There was no other reason. The reason she gave is now a lie, a lie she now admits too. She voluntarlily went to an adoption attorney to place him for adoption. She sought out adoptive parents to parent him. Its hard for me to reconcile why she placed him for adoption, its hard for me to understand so I am not sure how I can explain it to anyone else without it sounding completely insane. I often think she may have placed him because she thought he was damaged due to drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy but I don’t know — I am only speculating.
And N, I am really not argueing. I am just stating my point of view and where I am coming from.
I just read this and have to comment. Maybe I am too late and missed the conversation but I want to say my momma bear woke up just in time, thank God! Eighteen years ago I was pregnant and discussing adoption and the dad said he wouldn’t agree and it was too late to say nevermind, he wasn’t the one, so the agency said it won’t go through if he doesn’t agree. He said I’ll give the baby to my mom, and Momma Bear woke up and growled. At that point I became Momma, and grew up and was a good one. I’m a better one now, but I was good enough then. The more I read these blogs the more I THANK GOD for what I was given. The ugliness that slapped me and hurt like the dickens was part of what got me through on a pretty good path. I never imagined that him being such a jerk would be part of what I am thankful for…
One other really important thing was that I had the grace (not me, but a gift from God) to tell the truth. About being pregnant, about the father, about how it happened, about what my options and resources were, about who my real friends were, about what my strengths and weaknesses were, about all of it. The scariest things were telling the truth but that is also the only way the path was lit.