We all worry. We all fear so much that we will lose what precious little we have managed to obtain, that we are frozen solid in fear. Adoptees, birthmother, fathers, siblings.. all dancing to a song that we don’t known the melody to but desperately tying to sing along hoping we don’t step on another’s toes.
Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence. So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life in the context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud.
Make noise.
Often, because I spend much of my time & energy pointing out the negative aspects of adoption, I have been called “anti-adoption”. The very concept of those two words applied together — “anti” and “adoption” — are met with disbelief. But before you are horrified and that title is cast upon my head like a noose, I would like to explain what the words, anti-adoption, mean in my world, You might just find that you agree.
Now I would assume from your note that you are a Christian woman, so helping out a mother in need would come naturally. I am wondering about how you personally feel about the Tenth Commandment? I tend to want to add a bit to it myself about how thou shall not covet thy neighbors ( or friend’s friend’s cousin’s ) baby either. I note in particular where you write: “I instantly fell in love with him.” and “I did not want to let go of him.”
Do you think that perhaps you DID covet this child and would you consider that breaking God’s law?
Grace grew up knowing not only she was adopted, but, was also informed by Kay, the woman who adopted her, that if she didn’t “behave herself”, her adoptive father, Charlie, would “send her back to where she came from”.
I do not “relax” well. I feel guilty when I am not producing things, making things, painting things, cleaning, things, commenting with a vengeance, writing, building sites, networking, etc. Yet, I have been waking up past TEN FREAKING AM and then staying IN BED until NOON. Yes, really. WTF. And that’s what I was doing on Christmas Eve morning, until, that is, I started crying….
In many ways, you are restarting your life from scratch. You were not a birthmother before. You did not have this child before. Now you do. You are newly born as a mother, as THIS mother, for THIS child and that mother has been relinquished as well. She is gone. You mourn not only your child, but the mother you would have been, the girl who did not live with this sorrow, the woman who didn’t hold sadness in her eyes.
Adoption Support and Healing in Florida
When: March 28th to 30th, 2014
Where: Celebration Church Tampa Florida
Who: Deanne form Adoptee Restoration and other real therapists!
Register: Right here on InnerHealingConference.com
Fee: 10$ Yup! TEN!
It seems that Santa’ Claus’ birthmother, like many birthmothers, she went for what she perceived as “better”, leaving the child originally on the Burgermeister Meisterburger’s front steps. No home study there and we hope he would not have passed the psychological components as he was holding on to just a little bit of anger.
If children are a gift from God then the Birthmother is a regifter!!! Now I don’t know about you, but when you consider adoption to be regifting what God gives you, then I dare say it’s a bit tacky and, again based on my limited churchgoing self, might annoy him when he finds out ( as is unavoidable) that you went and regifted your baby.
We are the kept children, the siblings of the one that got away. We didn’t experience the trauma. We are not the rock and we are not the water. We are THE RIPPLE EFFECT. We are the ones who grew up with damaged parents and phantom brothers and sisters.
I could not stand to see nonstop “Yeah Adoption” posts or images or news articles. And 30 days of adoption activism was NOT scheduled and so it just went quiet.
Today, I shall find reasons to celebrate. My son was born 26 years ago today and though was separated from him for 19 years and 111 days until I saw him again, his birth is known and celebrated among many people he doesn’t know. A whole community thinks about him on this day and it was his birth that started it all.
Introducing What “Anti-Adoption” Means to A New Group of Folks & hopefully reframe the concept of being “anti -adoption” in a way that is palatable for anyone who wants what is best for children and mothers and parents overall. These are very important conversations to have especially when they can reach a wider audience with many who have never even had the reason to think this way before.
It’s bad enough that the adoption industry is still promoting that somehow it is OK to relinquish a baby to adoption and that the long term effects of relinquishment on birthmothers does not exists despite all the scientific research to the quandary. But by putting the impossible task to “healing from relinquishment” on the actual birthmother; they are also setting her up to fail.