There, I fixed it for them

One of the things that makes me crazy is the blatant coercion that agencies use to lure in single, pregnant women. I can't even count the number of times I've heard that expectant mothers always have a choice. "No one held a gun to your head" is a common line. "You're the one who signed the papers" is another one. Why don't people understand that coercion takes many forms and sometimes that gun is shaped like this simple piece of paper.

I was poking around online the other day and came across this agency site. One of the most reliable "guns" in their arsenal is this piece of paper. Can you imagine being a young woman, single, pregnant, not knowing where to find resources or who to turn to? You think you found help and are then faced with this worksheet. Do you think the agency is going to give the woman information about where she can find resources to parent? Of course not. They're just going to show her this list and explain to her why the HAPs are so much better than she is. They'll grind down her resolve number by number until she surrenders.

So here, I printed the form and filled it out for them. This is what a mother has to offer. This is what every expectant mom needs to put on her list.

And for those who can't read my messy handwriting....

  1. Love

  2. The safety of remaining with the only heartbeat and voice she knows.

  3. Health benefit of mother's milk.

  4. True birth certificate with all rights intact.

  5. True identity and name.

  6. Forever relationship with extended family.

  7. Forever relationship with siblings.

  8. Freedom from the damage of separation trauma.

  9. Medical history.

10. Genetic mirroring.

11. Freedom from the feeling of abandonment.

12. Knowledge that her mother did everything in her power to keep her and love her.

13. Knowledge that she'll never have to worry about APs closing an open adoption and keeping her          family from her.

My guess is, a child would be pretty damn happy with mom's list and glad they both dodged the adoption bullet.

2 Conversations

This past week someone close to me, a family member, asked me how old I was when I was pregnant with my oldest child. She was referring to the one lost to adoption and when I said I was 19 her response was

"you were old enough to make your own decision"

Last night I was chatting online with a friend of mine and he said -

"even the strongest rocks crack and erode from constant pressure- that's how we got the Grand Canyon"

He was talking about a situation that is totally unrelated to adoption but when I read those words, they resonated with me, not just in the case we were discussing but also in relation to adoption. It was interesting to me that these two conversations happened so close to each other. His comment reminded me immediately of the other one about me being old enough to make the adoption decision and I thought how strange it was that someone who has known me for so many years and who has had numerous conversations with me about adoption, still didn't seem to understand the coercion for what it was. I guess she still thinks I had a choice and freely made the decision to surrender my daughter.

My friend's comment about cracking and erosion was spot on. That is what happens to mothers being groomed to surrender their babies. They crack and erode from the constant pressure. The pressure may be subtle, the techniques slick and fluid as water, but it's still pressure. Sometimes it's blatant but still not recognized by the mother because of her unsupported and vulnerable position. I sometimes still see comments from people on articles about adoption that say to the grieving mother - "well, no one held a gun to your head". Well, that person would be right. No one held a gun to my head. But what the people around me did hold was......

the ability to help me but they didn't. 

the information I needed in order to keep my child but they didn't share it. 

the knowledge of how adoption affects mothers and their babies but they didn't share that either.

the financial support that would have enabled us to remain together, once again, no sharing.

the emotional support that would have helped sustain us until we could stand on our own but wasn't given.

the emotional manipulation tools that would steer me in their chosen direction and they used them well.

Guns are not the only weapons that can be used against someone. If something as simple as water can carve out a canyon then why is it so hard to believe that a young, vulnerable, pregnant woman can be coerced out her newborn child?