This year, it felt like the universe was telling me something. Every inspirational quote I received, every email I got, every horoscope I read, every little tweet that caught my eye said some version of “Start Now”. From the “In a year from now, you’ll wish you would’ve started today” morphed a real observation that the universe was smacking me over the head with a two-by-four.
I keep on trudging alone and not listening.
The universe got louder.
Suffering a Serious Lack of Grandpa’s Around I won’t be sending my father a Father’s Day card. I won’t be talking him out to dinner or buying him a Father’s Day gift. My children will not be making him goofy pictures telling him what a great grandpa he is. He doesn’t know their names. He has never seen them. My children do not have a grandfather. In fact the ONLY…
The adoptee bill of rights would grant people who are adopted the right, upon their 18th birthday, to obtain an original or certified copy of their birth certificate and learn who their biological parents are. The legislation would also ensure adoptees have access to their family’s medical history, if such records exists, as well as any other information birth relatives might choose to provide.
Though now the trend of many adoptions are “open”, sharing various information regarding identity, medical history, with shared pictures and letter, visits, and lifelong contact, there is still little hope for those who were born or gave birth during the times of the past. The face of adoption has changed with new advances in the nature of human responses, but the laws still remain the same, ignorant to new information and ways of thinking.
The history of sealed adoption records in the US and the current battle in New York’s legislation to free them open. Since, my little blog here is now featured in the local Kingston paper online, I thought it would be most fitting to re-publish this piece I wrote specifically about New York and the adoption laws here. Since it is rather long, I broke it up for ease of…
Some deaths take us by surprise ( Davey Jones) and some we know are coming ( Steve Jobs). Some we should know are coming, like MCA as he was sick, but still we are surprised. At age 83, Maurice Sendak’s death should not come as a shocker, yet I was not, by any means, prepared.
I think I imaged that he would live forever.
I know his influence on my life will.
I haven’t had to defend myself in quite some time as I usually assume anyone here knows the story by now, but I think I need to make a cheat sheet! Since there is just SO much happening over there AND since it’s May first, I have decided to try and join in NaBloPoMo and kill two birds with one stone! The “theme” of NaBloPoMo is “play”. Yeah, I’m “playing”…
Adoption was supposed to be the thing that let me move on with my life as if I was not a mother. 25 years later, I never expected to see us on the front page of Yahoo news; about adoption of course.
Dan Rather Reports: Preview Trailers Dan Rather Reports, “Adopted or Abducted?” will devote the entire hour on Tuesday, May 1st to the heartbreaking accounts of women — most of whom were teens at the time — who were forced to hand their babies over for adoption. In a sweeping and exhaustive six month investigation that spanned from Australia to the United States, producers from Dan Rather Reports conducted nearly one…
Have you noticed my new profile image? Rye treated me to a photo session with the AMAZING Tamme Stitt. I say amazing with good reason. The pics came out great. I will admit it; I look great, but it’s not ME; Tamme does something magical with the camera. Anyway, this was the one pose that I had been thinking about for over a good year now. I wanted a…
Dan Rather Investigates Adoption & Coercion Yesterday, April 6th, 2012, I was interviewed by Dan Rather. I usually don’t like writing these kinds of “I’m going here and doing this” kind of thing because it feels insanely self promotional and I end up feeling like a show off and that’s not my intention. However, enough people know and will ask me about it. The one thing I love about…
I received an email yesterday, that I am sharing here. I would not normally do this, but I think that in this case, words of wisdom need to come from more people than just myself. It’s one thing for one person to offer advice, but it’s different if many give the encouragement and support.
I know there is a small chance that the whole story is made up and perhaps someone thinks they are sneaky and is digging for information to use against me. I don’t care about that. Have fun it that’s the case. My advice would be the same no matter what. Plus, I really don’t believe that to be true. I am leaving out the new mother’s name and the date of the baby’s birth to be safe.
I don’t care about how you got by my side, who you are, color, creed, place in the triad, age or adoption era; all I care about is if you are at my side or not. We all need to work together, use our collective voice, and cry out to fix adoption. Face the facts about adoption, then you must demand ethical reformation.
In my last post, Australia’s Adoption Apology, I was informed that comparing Adoption to the Holocaust was not in good taste or to quote: “offensive and overblown. Adoption is bad, and many were hurt. The Holocaust was the murder of 6 million men women and children for no reason other than that they were Jewish, or Gay or handicapped or Gypsies or some Slavs. The two things are just…
Adoption is a very isolating experience. Many birth mothers and adoptees go through life without having other people understand the journey and the lifelong affects post-relinquishment. Most birthmother support focuses on pre-birth and immediately post-adoption, but relinquishment changes everything. The feelings change over time, while new situations in life have a funny way of bringing up the initial loss and grief. Plus, losing a newborn is one thing, 10 years later, it’s a whole childhood you have missed. In 20 years, it’s a life. Death, marriages, new births, search and reunion are all frequent triggers and moms often need additional support, or just someone who understands.
I certainly have found that I was not prepared for what it all entails to be a birthmother, but I did learn some things along the way that might help.