I was trying to pretend NAAM didn't exist

So here it is November 3rd and another National Adoption Awareness Month is underway. My plan for this year was to just ignore it all. I didn't really want to get into any of this stuff on the heels of the most ridiculous presidential election season ever. But - I got pulled back in yesterday and this morning by some comments on Instagram.

Many months ago I posted this picture. This is a painting I did as part of my Silent Voices series that I exhibited in Macon GA earlier this year.

I didn't post any comments with it other than the usual info about the exhibition. Yesterday began a little conversation.....

just_in_nashvegasChoose closed adoption!!!

• carlynnehershberger@just_in_nashvegas Closed adoption is a horrendous and inhumane system. Everyone is entitled to know their history and it's horribly cruel to keep a mother in the dark about the well being of her child.
• just_in_nashvegasMedical history yes and it's no longer her child when she signed the rights away k
• just_in_nashvegasAnd if she wanted to know the child so well she should keep it.. Let's be honest too broke to raise it but still thinks she is a mommy when she signs her rights away
• carlynnehershberger@just_in_nashvegas What's your connection to infant adoption? I'm a mother who's newborn was taken at birth and an adoptee. Babies are taken and sold every day through the corrupt, coercive infant adoption system. It's big business bringing in over 13.5 BILLION dollars a year for agencies. Without babies to sell the agencies can't pay salaries or keep their doors open.
• just_in_nashvegasWell you shouldn't have gotten pregnant that's on you! And im infertile I believe in a closed adoption very closed no pics no visits only letters
• carlynnehershberger@just_in_nashvegas Do you care at all about the adult adoptee voice when it comes to adoption or just your selfish desires? I suggest you read the many, many books and blogs written by adoptees. They speak loud and clear about the damage done to adoptees by the closed adoption system. Every single adoption begins with trauma and loss for the child. Please do your research before considering adoption.
• just_in_nashvegasWell the girls need birth control and they would be fine but they open wide don't they
• carlynnehershberger@just_in_nashvegas Well I tried. You're just going to be nasty so there's no point in continuing the discussion. I hope for the sake of any future adoptees in your life that you have a change of heart and look at adoption with compassion in your heart for what a mother and child separated by the system have to suffer.
• just_in_nashvegasYour know it's true the sluts get what they deserve!
• just_in_nashvegasSo pay 30,000 in fees raise the kid pay the bills and never be considered the mother never getting that respect from a birth family it's disgusting how whores wants open adoption maybe if they won't open their legs they wouldn't get what they damn well deserve
• carlynnehershbergerIf you have adopted or plan to adopt I hope you don't refer to your child's first mother in that way. You can call me all the names you want- it's obvious you have a lot of anger- but please refrain from bashing your child's biological family. It would cause unimaginable pain to that child.@just_in_nashvegas
• just_in_nashvegasI'll be up front with what the mother is not my fault my kid has a whore as a bio match... Those women can get pregnant 6 weeks later do what's the big deal that's why i believe in closed they get it all

Years ago that conversation would have upset me. Now I recognize it for what it is. There's a lot of pain and anger behind this woman's words. I don't know what the circumstances are surrounding the adoption of her child but it seems to me that it wasn't good and obviously she still hasn't dealt with her infertility issues. Having said that..... that does NOT excuse her attitude. From what she wrote she is the perfect example of what we call an adoptoraptor. I know adoptive parents hate to see that word but there really are those who fit the description.

What upsets me about this is thinking about what a woman like this is doing to her adopted child. She's going to be up front with her child by calling his/her first mother a whore and a slut?! I don't care if she calls me that- no skin off my nose and it's not like it hasn't happened before since starting this blog- but can you imagine being a child dealing with the knowledge of your adoption, trying to figure out who you are and hearing your mother call the woman who gave birth to you those terrible names? I'm so sad knowing that this woman is going to hurt her child like this.

I don't care if the child's first mother really is a crappy human. I don't care how deep this adoptive mother's issues go. There is never a reason to speak to a child about their family that way. That child is a piece of that family. When you talk about their family in those terms it's like you're talking about the child the same way. How much damage is this woman doing? Just the fact of being adopted causes enough pain. What kind of pain is her attitude toward the child's family going to cause?

This is another adoptive parent who believes the minute the papers are signed they take ownership of their prize human. Besides, she paid 30,000. She's entitled. The product is bought and paid for.

 MINE MINE MINE

 ALL MINE

AND.... the jealousy is coming through crystal clear. What does she care about the mother? That woman has the audacity to be able to conceive so all adoptions should be closed. That's what she deserves. She deserves to live in agony the rest of her life, never knowing what happened to her child, simply because she got pregnant in the first place and she might be able to get pregnant again. In fact, she could just spread her legs and pop out another one - what a whore!

So much nastiness and hate. Such a shame the child is the one who will pay for it. Like a friend of mine just said.... I hope she has good insurance for the therapy the child will need. I wish she had spent some money on therapy for herself before adopting.

I don't know if I'll get more comments from her. I thought about writing some more but seems to me anything I say is just going to get blown off anyway. She doesn't exactly come across as one who is willing to learn. I am grateful for the adoptive parents out there who are willing and able to take in the experiences of others and understand that adoption is NOT about them. It's supposed to be about the child.

Well, so much for staying away from NAAM this year. Time to go back to my happy place - the easel.

This means war?!

Imbalance of Power

I haven't been here in a while. You know how it is.... life gets in the way. There are things like survival- trying to make ends meet as a self-employed artist. It's more than a full time job. Sometimes when in survival mode that's all you can deal with. That doesn't mean I don't think about adoption and how things are going in the adoption reform movement. Oh how I wish I could be more involved. I still share articles on Facebook and comment when I can. I still read and follow what's happening. Of course there's been much more of that recently because of National Adoption Awareness Month- that dreaded month that we write about, focus on and try to use to make a difference.

If you've read here before you may know that I'm not only a first mother who lost a daughter to the adoption machine but I'm also a late discovery step-parent adoptee and I'm very proud to be associated with the Lost Daughters. Although I think and write more from the first mother perspective, my sisters there have welcomed me with open arms. I'm so very proud of my adoptee sisters and the #flipthescript campaign and the Flip the Script video that has been the talk of #NAAM. If you haven't seen it yet you must check it out.

So what got me fired up and back on the blog? The push back on #flipthescript. I just read a gem of a post by an adoptive mother. To begin, she calls the post "the war on National Adoption Month". Really? We're at war? If an adoptee talks about her experience as an adult adoptee and it doesn't conform to the industry standard of adoption propaganda, apparently thems' fightin' words. If a person who was/is adopted, talks about what it was like for her to be adopted and how complex that experience is and was for her, she's waging a war. The simple act of telling her story means she's at war? That's a bit extreme isn't it? According to the industry and it's proponents- adoption is beautiful and don't you dare say anything to the contrary. Don't you know that? Because apparently, if you talk about your own personal experience, you're making some other folks mighty uncomfortable. So uncomfortable in fact that they see it as an attack.

Her first paragraph.... and I'll answer her here since it's not likely that my comments will make it past moderation on her blog.

"Adoptees are “flipping the script” during National Adoption Month, sharing the other, unattractive side of adoption. It’s their right. I’m not an adoptee and can’t speak for them, but part of me doesn’t like seeing this opportunity of beauty turned into something that’s looked down upon."

"I'm not an adoptee and can't speak for them" Isn't that the point of flipping the damned script?? Adoptive parents and the industry professionals have had the floor for decades. It's about time the other people who live and breath adoption- the adoptees and the natural mothers- have a say. No, you're not an adoptee so you have no idea what an adoptee feels about adoption. You have hearsay, you have anecdotes by others, you have stories you've heard, you have your experience with your child who is not yet an adult with adult views. There is no triad in adoption. There are 4 sides and only 2 of them have had the country's ear until now- the adoption industry and the adoptive parents.

"Why is it beautiful? Because I can separate what my children went through, their abuse, neglect, and trauma, from their adoption. What they went through before foster care, I would compare with hell, what they went through while visiting their bio parents while in foster care wasn’t much better, but now we see new lives, new people emerging. Beauty."

What you see as beauty, your adopted child may see differently. This is beautiful for you. Maybe you can separate it but can your child? This is your child's history. For one thing... why are you sharing such personal details of your child's history with the world? This is his story, his to share when he is ready. If he's ready at all, ever. It's not up to you. It's not your life. When he is an adult, his view of adoption may be vastly different than yours and that's ok.

"That’s why “flipping the script” on adoption day is so painful. The world is taking what is often a positive event and turning the tables, focusing on those who don’t feel it was a good thing for them."

No, they're focusing on the voices of adopted people, period. That's the point. Whether that person's story is happy, sad, angry, or a mix of all of those, the point of flip the script is to give them the opportunity to use their voice and be heard- be heard without being interrupted by the people in the equation who are the beneficiaries of a corrupt and unethical system.

"Those who are "flipping the script" aren't adoptees who are happy and content with their adoption experience, they're the ones who are angered, feel like something was done to them. The ones who feel they were ripped from their first family, from their country, are hurt by positive adoption language."

Every adoption begins with loss and pain no matter how you slice it or how much positive adoption language you want to throw at it. That PAL was developed by the adoption industry and put into place for a reason- to separate mothers from their babies. That is the sole function of the new words -  to describe what is a tragedy in more palatable terms. 

The "angry adoptee". This is the most common argument thrown at adoptees (and mothers of loss). "You're just angry and bitter". Damn straight I'm angry. Does that mean I'm an angry person? No. My life is just fine but that doesn't mean I shouldn't talk about the experiences I've had and how they've affected me. And, under the circumstances, anger is a perfectly normal reaction to experiences that were beyond our control. We take back our control now by using that anger in a positive and constructive way. 

ALL adoptees have been taken from their original families in one way or another, whether taken forcefully because of abuse or taken from a new mother through coercion or by the courts legally severing all connection with the family through sealed birth records. As an adoptive parent you feel adoption is beautiful. That's great for you but don't diminish or dismiss what adopted people have to say about their life experience. 

"The adoptees who aren't speaking out (and far outnumber those who are calling out adoption) are the ones who are satisfied in life, the ones who accept their adoptive family as their own, ones who've found their birth family and either have a good relationship with them or have decided to let it be."

And here I just have to say- IMO- you're wrong. The vast majority of adoptees I know who are speaking out, are simply trying to make a difference for future adoptees. They ARE satisfied in life. They just want people to understand that adoption is far more complex than what the industry wants the public to believe. They're trying to balance out the narrative so it can be understood that there is more to the story than the story of the happy adoptive parents and the well payed adoption professionals.

"I don't want to belittle anyones experience, after all, it's their own. I can't speak as an adoptee. Maybe there should be separate months, one for National Adoption Month and a month for adoptees to share their feelings, like an Adoptee Awareness Month."

You want to give adoptees a month to speak? How generous. Why should we separated? Haven't we had enough separation as it is??? Hasn't the mic been monopolized by the most powerful voices already? I also deal with this idea as a mother of loss. We have "Birthmother's Day" which I refuse to acknowledge. I celebrate my motherhood on Mother's Day along with all the other mothers. I was still a mother after my daughter was taken from me and I'm still an adoptee the other 11 months of the year. Don't tell me when I can speak.

Myths, Opinions and Facts

Settling back into the day to day routine after the Atlanta trip meant getting back to work, visiting the kids and grandkids and spending time with hubby. It was a very short trip but it was long emotionally. It was all good until about 2 days after getting home and it hit me. A lot of us deal with this kind of thing. You get really immersed in the adoption topic for a while - whether reading about it, writing about it or talking about it and then you hit a wall and have to take a break. It was kind of like that for me because the trip was not only about our right to our birth records but about meeting people I had come to love and admire but only met online AND it was about meeting with someone I hadn't seen in 34 years. He happens to live near Atlanta where the demonstration was held. Having a reunion with the one person who was there for me during the pregnancy with the child I lost was intense, to say the least. I wrote about him here.  It was a wonderful experience. I loved being there and meeting everyone. I loved being able to participate in such an important event and I'm so awed by the strong women and men who make it happen. I loved seeing my dear friend and having a little time with him. It was all great but I was also reliving some hard times. Dealing with the emotional aftermath is just something that gets done. What do I do when it's meltdown time? I throw paint. This is my therapy canvas.

Nope, not much to look at but sure feels good to slap the brush on the canvas and drip paint and then sand back the layers while releasing layers of tension and grief. This is actually just a small portion of the painting. The canvas is 4 feet square so it felt good to work big and get physical. It's very therapeutic. I'll probably set it aside now and bring it back out when I need another release. Who knows where it'll end up or what it'll look like. 

Another thing that came up while I was in Atlanta was the feeling that I was finally hanging out with people who understood. That doesn't happen often. It's rare to be in the physical company of other mothers who lost children to adoption. I've probably been around many of them over the years but didn't know it. Being with those other moms was healing and needed.

Do you ever feel - even within your own family - that no one gets it?

I guess what I don't understand is why so many can't even come close to feeling empathy or compassion. When we see someone we care about lose a child to disease or an accident, as a parent, we can feel for them. We may not have been through the same thing but we can imagine how horrible and painful that would be. Why are people so surprised then that mothers who lose a child to adoption also feel tremendous pain and grief? Because they've been conditioned by the adoption industry to believe that we all made this "loving" choice. They've bought into the idea that it's a wonderful thing to surrender your child. They've bought into the consumer culture that says money is everything.

Money trumps a mother's love.

They're conditioned to think - 

Birthmothers are so brave and selfless.

She'll go on with her life, get married and have more children.

It will hurt for a while but she'll find joy in knowing that her child is cared for in a forever family.

Adoption is a win/win.

All those babies are going to end up in foster care anyway.

Wait a minute.... if she's so brave and selfless and it's a loving thing to do to relinquish her baby then why is it that her baby would have ended up in foster care anyway? Some people hold both of these ideas in their heads. How can that be? She loves her baby enough to give him away but she doesn't love him enough to take care of him? She gave him away because she loves him but if she kept him she would have neglected or abused him?

When it comes to adoption, the list of myths and lies is long. Myths, opinions and facts. It's funny how those get confused. Myths are heard or read. They are shared by people online. They're told to the very women who are in need of help and need to know the facts about adoption. Myths become absorbed into our psyche to eventually turn into opinions and then the facts end up lost somewhere, left behind and forgotten, replaced by the lies. Just yesterday someone said to me that everything turned out fine after all since I'm now in reunion with my daughter. It was said in a way that meant - you're fine now, nothing to complain about. Another myth. Of course it's great that we're together and have a good relationship and yes, that certainly helps with healing a lot of the wounds but no way does it minimize what happened. It doesn't bring back 22 lost years. It doesn't give me her childhood. It doesn't give her a history of life experiences shared with her mother, brother and sister. Not having that history means it's not the same as if she were raised with us. It's a different kind of relationship. It will never be "as if". Just like her relationship with her adoptive family will  never be "as if" she were born to them.

Not so long ago I was told that I shouldn't let "petty" differences of opinion come between me and other people in my life. When an adoptive parent says that to a mother who lost a child to adoption and the difference of opinion is actually about adoption, the word "petty" isn't so petty. When you share facts about adoption and what you get back are myths and lies, it's not just a difference of opinion, it's a huge disconnect. Petty is defined as something of little importance. It's trivial. It's something that should be of little concern. The fact that these myths and lies continue is a monstrous concern to me. Nothing petty about it. When an adoptive parent says to me that these differences are petty it says that her concerns are above all others. It says that my concerns are insignificant, trifling in relation to hers. Is this a matter of opinion? Yes. She looks at things through a certain filter just as I look through my own filter. The difference is.... what she knows about adoption is skewed through the lens that the adoption agency put in front of her. What she thinks are facts are actually lies. What I know about adoption comes from personal experience and researching the facts.

To her it's all a win/win/win/win

 agency makes money/infertile gets baby/mother moves on with her life/baby rescued.

To me it's win/win/lose/lose

 agency makes money/infertile gets baby/mother loses child/child loses entire family and identity is legally erased.

Don't dare tell me it's "petty".

After the fact, the agency is gone. They don't care about anything but the bottom line. The other winning party doesn't want to hear from the 2 parties that lose. They don't want to hear about the lifelong grief of the mother or the identity/medical history/birth record/genetic info/family loss of the child. If they really did hear it and absorb what it all meant, it would no longer be petty. They could no longer ignore the issues because the pain would be too great. Acknowledging the trauma involved in the creation of the adoptive family would put quite the damper on the joy that adoption brought to them. It's much easier to dismiss us as just having a petty difference of opinion. When sharing factual information with people who don't want to know the truth it gets twisted into a difference of opinion. When that's all it is, it's set aside as unimportant. Just as people who have differing political or religious views - it's easier to not talk about it. Maybe for politics and religion it works but for adoption it ends up allowing the myths and lies to continue and the list to get longer. 

This is not a matter of opinion - 

Coercion still happens. Read about it here and here

Infant adoption is a multi-billion dollar industry. Read about it here

Original birth certificates are court sealed resulting in discrimination against adoptees. Read more here

Children are sold every day. Read about it here

There are price lists for babies (AKA adoption situations) on adoption agency websites. Read about it here

Baby brokers have their own lobbying group in Washington - the National Council for Adoption. They have a training program to teach agencies how to counsel pregnant women out of their babies.

so don't dismiss what the two losing parties in adoption have to say because we're getting louder.

I  hope more people open their minds and hearts and realize that we're trying to make things better. I'm so grateful for the other moms and adoptees who share their stories. We need each other.

Please don't thank me!

"Thank you for my child" This is one of those statements that makes me want to hurl. I see it all the time on adoptive parent sites and articles about adoption like this one. In this situation the adoptive mother says that the reason the natural parents of this little boy was surrendering their rights to him was because they couldn't afford a second child. Then she says...

"On the way to the hospital, only silence. The couple was so excited, but the two couldn’t express their feelings with words. So they stayed quiet during the car ride. The two knew the mother could change her mind at any time, and that her family did not want her to place the baby for adoption."

This child has extended family that want to be with him. They don't want to lose this little person who shares their DNA, who is part of their family. If they're expressing their desire for the mother to keep the baby then maybe they would be willing to help the mother. Yes, I know that this is ultimately the decision of the mother and father of that child, not the decision of the extended family but what I want to know is... were the parents coerced by an agency? Will they regret this in a very big way and regret it soon? 

Another thing I'm seeing online is people complaining that there's so much coercion going on in the other direction, meaning women being coerced into keeping their children. Frankly I have a hard time imagining anyone being coerced to keep their own baby. I know there are some mothers out there who really don't want their children. They do exist but I'll bet they are few and far between. In my case, all it would have taken was one sentence from my family - bring her home, we'll handle this together - that's it. Seven little words would have made all the difference in the world for so many lives.

"The baby was in a little bassinette next to her. I thought, ‘Oh no, the baby is right next to her.’ But then she said, ‘There he is.’ And so I walked over to her first and I hugged her. Then I went around to the bassinette.

“I peeked in, and I saw him. Oh, I just melted. I thought, ‘That’s my son.’ Like there, that’s him. He’s ours. And so at that point the papers aren’t signed yet. She has 24 to 48 hours to change her mind. But I picked him up and I held him."

My first thought here was - no, that's not your son, that's her son. 'Oh no, the baby is right next to her' - that tells me that her first thought was fear. Fear that if the mother got too close to her own baby she might change her mind. And, she only has 24 to 48 hours to change her mind - something else that is morally and ethically wrong with adoption as it is now.

This entire article was about the wants of this adopting couple without any regard whatsoever for the child OR the natural family.

“We got back to the hospital and Hannah meets us downstairs. She tells me that the birth mom was upstairs crying. She said that was the first time she ever saw her cry, and she said the birth mom looked down over Mason and she cried over him, and, um, that was sad. Because I thought, I could never give up my child.”

While telling the story, Rachel wiped tears from her cheeks. The memory is intensely sad to this woman who waited so long to have the chance to be a mother.

and, um, that was sad. Because I thought, I could never give up my child.”  

"That was sad."

"I could never give up my child."

Then why are you asking this mother to do it? What is it that's happening in your mind that makes it ok for you to put your needs ahead of this child's right to be with his mother. What is it in your mind that makes it ok for you to take a newborn baby away from his mother while she cries her heart out in agony? Do you think that your desire to be a mother is more important than the connection between this little baby and his mother? Apparently so. The author of this article thinks it's intensely sad for this woman who waited so long to be a mother. I'm sorry. I'm having a bit of trouble sympathizing with the author or the adoptive mother right now. What about the sadness of the natural mother and the pain she'll be dealing with for the rest of her life? What about the sadness of this child who has lost an entire family?

From this mother of adoption loss, I don't want to hear 'thank you'. 

Just a show

I watched Parenthood again this week. I'm not so sure it's good for me to watch that show anymore. All I ended up doing is yelling at the TV. The story line with the PAP and the pregnant girl really ticked me off this time. The PAP is doing her damnedest to help the expectant mother get her GED, find a job, and help her with her situation yet she still plans on taking her baby from her and calling the unborn child "hers". The writers of the show are making the PAPs out to be saviors of this young mom yet they're not helping her so she can KEEP her baby, of course not. It doesn't even seem to occur to the PAPs that the help they're trying to give her is the help she needs in order to do just that. I don't know what the writers have in mind for next week. If I do watch the show I'll be sitting there yelling at the girl to RUN! Run as far and as fast as you can. Don't let anyone talk you into adoption. Your situation is temporary, adoption is forever! Don't do this to you and your baby.

*sigh* ~  it's just a TV show yet I wish someday, sometime a story could be portrayed from the mother's point of view. Writers, give us the other side please.

Imbalance of Power

Imbalance of Power

48x36

oil on canvas

Seems like everyone's talking about the 'b'mother terms right now. There's the argument that it's just semantics and what's the big deal. Then there's the view that the 'b'mother term is used to put us in our place and relegate us to just a walking uterus. So where do I stand? Well, I used to stand with the first camp and now I stand with the second. Robin at Motherhood Deleted just did a very good post about this issue.

I used to think it wasn't a big deal but then I learned how important language is. We create our reality with what we think. We think in words. How we define ourselves in our own minds and in words we speak to other people is what we become. If we constantly tell ourselves and others that we're stupid, can't accomplish something, or we're clumsy then that becomes our reality. This is why motivational speakers are so popular. They're using words and their energy to pump you up, get you excited about what you can do and who you are. A child who grows up being told that she isn't good enough will believe it and it then becomes a self-esteem issue to be overcome as an adult in order to be successful.

If language has this much power then it stands to reason that the terms we use to define who we are in the world of adoption are critically important. If we want to make changes and have an impact on how others see us in relation to adoption we have to be careful with how we define ourselves. I am my daughter's MOTHER. There are no qualifiers needed. I gave birth to her, I wanted to raise her, I wasn't allowed that privilege, the power was taken from me.

Sometimes I think it's a shame that we end up having these discussions over and over again but maybe that's what's needed for people to understand. The down side is we end up embroiled in this battle between mothers instead of focusing our energy on regaining some of our power. I see language as a way of doing that. Changing the language can shift the power. Hell, just the fact that the industry uses that word makes me want to never hear or see it again. Taking back our rightful moniker can be one of the ways we take back our identities and our rightful place in our children's lives. That slight change can be very powerful. Making that change in my own mind made a huge difference for me just like working on the painting series has been very healing. This latest painting gives an indication of just how out of whack the world of adoption is.

There is a huge imbalance of power. The industry has the money, the lobbyists, the clout and legislation on their side. The PAP's have the desire for babies, the money and the clout. The adoptee has no say - she hovers there between two families. The mother of course has nothing - no money (isn't that why she's surrendering?) and certainly no lobbyists (our families and society didn't lobby for us to raise our children).

Here's another word that's a lie - triad. This multi-billion dollar a year industry uses a constellation of people, organizations and businesses to keep the scales tipped their way - doctors, lawyers, lobbyists, religious groups, women's clinics, advertising agencies, even other mothers. They use women against each other. Young women who have recently lost their children to adoption and still believing the words of the agencies are put on display on the websites to reassure other young women that giving their child that beautiful fake family tree won't be so bad. What they haven't realized yet is that tree has no roots and they're the ones who are going to be crushed along with their children when the idea of the perfect life in adoption falls.

I'm taking back my power, one word at a time.

Moms and Stereotypes

This painting to my left is a collage piece done by my dear friend Kelli. Kelli is my closest friend, my co-author on our art instruction book and my teaching partner. She's also an adoptive mother.

This piece is a portrait of me. You can see the letters BFA very clearly on my forehead in the painting and the words they represent are running through the background. It's about me and my story as a first mother. You see, Kelli has been my friend for over a dozen years. She knows everything about what happened, she's lived it with me, cried with me and she was sitting there when I got the call from the agency telling me that my daughter was found and wanted to have contact with me. As I sat there listening on the phone and crying with relief she was motioning me with signals - do I get the tissues or do I get the tissues and the champagne?

In adoption world there's a lot of animosity toward adoptive mothers. I understand why. I see the sense of entitlement, the selfishness and the cruelty of many of them. I know that they are the people who create the demand part of supply and demand in the adoption industry. Without the demand of the adopters there wouldn't be the agencies willing and able to exploit young, vulnerable women out of their infants. Now here comes the "but"..... I also know that this is not the story for every single adoptive mother. There are some who "get" us. They understand, as well as they can, what we've been through and support our efforts 110%. There are some, like my daughter's adoptive mother who was there with open arms, making me part of the family from the moment I found them. It really bothers me when mothers like me - mothers of adoption loss - assume that ALL adoptive mothers are responsible for the evils of the adoption industry.

There's lots of stories out there and not everyone's story is the same. In Kelli's case, she adopted her niece when the girl was 6 1/2 years old. Kelli didn't start out wanting a baby. She and her husband had no intention of having children but when a family member was in trouble, in an abusive situation and needed a permanent home they stepped in and took over. Their niece became their daughter but that little girl always had contact with her first mother. She stayed in her family, she knows where she came from and she's always had contact with all of her original family. Kelli was called Aunt Kelli for a long time. She left it up to her daughter to decide when and if she wanted to call her mom. She eventually did decide to do that but Kelli left it up to her. This was kinship care. This is what I wish would happen more often for kids who are in trouble. In my opinion, my friends saved this girl's life. This is what the industry ought to be about, finding family first who can take care of children that are truly in need.

We, as first mothers, don't like the stereotype of the unwed mother as crack addicted slut who can't get her act together long enough to take care of her children. There are a few adoptive mothers out there who don't appreciate and don't deserve the stereotype of the selfish, greedy woman who thinks of no one but herself and her needs. There are also adoptees angry with first mothers and make the assumption that all of us just gave away our children without even looking back. Hogwash. Another assumption made, another roadblock to getting something done and fixing things. There's a lot of anger out there from all sides. I don't know what the answer is. I wish I did. I just think we all need to do a little more listening and a little less assuming.

Peace