The Adoption Bullet

It's Sunday morning and I'm relaxing, eating breakfast and listening to the quiet in the house. I got on line and read Robin's blog about the night she last saw her daughter. She wrote about signing the surrender papers and it was like I was transported back to 1980. There I was again, sitting in a room with a large desk, the woman behind the desk with her bobbed grey hair, looking at me with no expression. As I sobbed my way through the signing she said nothing to me, just pushed a box of tissues across the desk. Now here I am, 30 years later and reunited with my daughter, and this scene in my head can still reduce me to the sobbing girl I was then. The pain comes rushing to the surface screaming. It stops at my throat choking me until I let it out and have a meltdown.

A couple of days ago I wrote a message to a young pregnant woman who wrote on a public page that she just decided to give her baby up for adoption. I felt odd writing to her, a complete stranger. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing by saying anything to her. I don't know her situation. I don't know if she's being pressured (after her reply to me I think she is). Now after re-living that moment in the adoption agency, remembering once again what it was like to leave the hospital without my daughter, I know I did the right thing by contacting this girl. She's still pregnant. She has no idea what's in store for her if she follows through with this. She needs to know what this will do to her and her child and you know the agencies aren't going to share that info with her. It's up to the moms who have been there before to tell her what she's going to face. It's also up to us to share with her any knowledge we have of resources that can help her if she decides to keep her baby. My guess is that the agencies aren't that forthcoming with that info either. I'm starting to compile a list of websites that might be a help to her. If any of you know of some good sites I can add to the list please let me know.

www.keepyourbaby.com
www.singlepregnancy.com
www.singlemothers.org
www.singlemothersoutreach.org
www.singlemom.com
www.whattoexpect.com

Girls/women in this situation need to know that there is help out there. It such an overwhelming feeling to be in the position of being pregnant and alone. What an easy target for the agencies and their greed. Every time I hear of another infant adoption all I can think about is that mother sitting in an office or even her hospital room still recovering from the birth, signing that paper and what it's doing to her. I think about that baby crying for his/her mother. I see the posts from the happy, smiling couples who are advertising that they want a baby. I want them to leave that mother alone. I want her to know that there's other options besides the so-called "loving option".

The girl I contacted may never write to me again. I may never know what she decided but I had to at least give her the information I never got. I had to tell her what I wish someone had told me. I couldn't dodge that bullet but maybe there's a way to keep other moms from getting hit.

Marketing Madness

In my recent travels through websites and Facebook pages I've come across more and more stories about folks advertising that they are looking for a child to adopt or agencies that are marketing to the unwed, pregnant mother. When I'm on my own Facebook page I see ads popping up on the sides that are advertising adoption agencies. Simply because I look at pages on this topic it automatically generates these ads. When they appear I can feel my blood pressure rise and my teeth grind.

This webpage called midwest voices has a guest columnist talking about his volunteer work with a Kansas City adoption agency.

"As a volunteer for a local Kansas City adoption agency, my caseworker supervisor has been training me to assist her as a “child scout”; connecting children with people who wish to adopt. Based upon the family and individual requirements (some are potential single parents), I search upon national websites, like AdoptUSKids to help connect “forever families” with children seeking homes."

The first sentence alone had me twitching - "child scout"???? Doesn't that just say it all? Scouting for babies. Isn't it obvious who the agency is working for? It's all about the PAP's. ......."with children seeking homes." Do you really think that those newborn infants - if they had a voice - would be asking to go home with strangers? Are these babies seeking homes? Who do these babies really want holding them?

"Presently, given the many State and private databases, I prepare search documents in MSWord, tables that are the result of “screen-scraping” data from the websites; tedious but crucial and much appreciated by adopting people with whom we work. But, what if we had a national “Facebook-like” platform to help fuse all of this information and share it? For the techies out there, yes this begins with a comprehensive “requirements document” to explain what everyone needs.

What if Facebook donated some of their time, talent, and treasure to this human endeavor?"

So, now they want to get FB to donate their time to help them find babies to sell. Why am I still amazed by this? I'm continually appalled at what people will do but this shouldn't surprise me. Sandy at Musing Mother came across another agency trolling on Craigslist. I've even heard of prospective adoptive couples handing out business cards to pregnant women who are not wearing a wedding ring. Just how low will they go? Well, it seems that all I've managed to do in this post is ask questions. Some of the answers are obvious but how low will they go? I hope we've already seen the lowest.

Pain Wars

My pain is greater than your pain. I see a lot of this kind of thing going on in the adoption world. I just read another great post from Declassified Adoptee about adoptees supposedly not understanding the pain of infertile couples. Like Amanda said, adoptees live in the real world too and have the same issues that everyone else deals with. The same can be said for us first mothers. Many, many first mothers deal with infertility later on after losing their children. That child they lost to adoption may have been the only child they will ever have. They certainly know what that pain is like.

I understand what the pain of wanting a child is like. I lived with that pain for 22 years before I found my daughter. I had 2 more children after the adoption but that doesn't lessen the pain of losing the first one. Children born later are not replacements for the first. They are beings in their own right, separate from the first. The longing for the first one doesn't go away. This is what I want to say to people who say that we, as first mothers, don't understand the pain of yearning for a child. I think people who say such things haven't really thought that through. Unfortunately I know it all too well.

People on all sides of this issue have a tendency to live in their own little bubble of self-interest. I think we all behave that way at times, not wanting to hear what the other side has to say. We all want validation of what we've been through and there's nothing wrong with that but we also have to listen to other people's stories. Not all adoptive parents are demanding, greedy and filled with a sense of entitlement to other women's babies. Not all first mother's are drug addicted whores that can't be bothered to clean up their act for the sake of their children. Not all adoptees are angry with first mothers. You know that the big business beast known as the adoption industry is just eating it up. It probably loves to see the animosity between the 3 sides of this triangle. We end up playing this game of "I went through worse stuff than you went through" and then end up bickering with each other.

What is the point of that? Shouldn't we be focused on the children and what's good for them? While there's all these little battles going on out there in the field, there's the industry and it's weapons of manipulation taking more and more prisoners. Those of us affected by adoption all have pain in one way or another. In order to make people aware of what the industry does we have to talk about that pain and show them what the tools are that the industry is using. Maybe I'm dreaming, but wouldn't it be nice if instead of bludgeoning each other with our pain and complaining about how we don't understand each other, we could work together and use it to change the source of the pain?

Peace

Peddlers of Flesh

I came across this site on Facebook today and just had to post it here. When I told my hubby about it he called them flesh peddlers and he was right! I sure hope there's some other people out there that find this just as offensive as I do. I'm not just talking about first mothers either, it should be offensive to everyone. They make this look like a vacation package. Look! Absolutely free! All for the simple act of giving us your child. Take a look at the photos on the left of the page, there's actually a smiling young mother holding her very pregnant belly with one hand and shopping bags with the other as if to say.... look at me, I'm out shopping and having a good time, yay! All I have to do is give birth and then I can go back to my life without any hassles.

This is not the only place that offers packages and deals. After seeing this I really don't want to hear anymore about the industry no longer being coercive or manipulative.

OK, time to go back to Robin's blog and know that life CAN be good. Make sure you visit, you've got to see the photo she posted.

Peace and have a good holiday weekend.

Tattoo Tales

I never thought in a million years I would ever get a tattoo! Not me. Nope. Never.

Well, as you can see, never say never. After 2 major events in my life in the past 8 years I decided I would do it. The first event was finding my daughter. After I found her I started thinking.... maybe. Then last year was the cancer diagnosis and surgery. I had radiation early this year and now I'm fine. That was event number 2.

Since I decided to get the tattoo, I thought, I want to be able to see it all the time otherwise I'm not going to bother so I put it on my forearm. I came up with the idea for the design and my hubby did it in photoshop for me. It's lovely having a hubby who does graphic design. The design is a triquetra, for me representing mind, body and spirit. The red ribbon running through it forms my 3 children's initials - E, A and S. For me this celebrates life and the reunion of my 3 children.

So now I'm curious. Are there any other moms out there who got tattoos relating to the adoption of their children? If so and you don't mind sharing, what did you get?

Peace

Expectations

Danger - warning - some people who are sensitive to religion talk may be offended, but it's my blog......

We live with expectations all the time. What people expect of us at work, in our families and from our friendships has a lot do with how we run our lives. We're taught to behave a certain way so that we fit seamlessly into society. As children certain conduct was expected of us and of course that makes sense. I know what it's like to be out in a store or restaurant and be around children who aren't taught to behave - the kids are having fun but the adults around them are swearing a blue streak under their breath!

I appreciate the standards we set for ourselves, we need rules and we need to raise our children with rules for them to follow but....... where do we draw the line and when do we say - I don't think so, I'm going my way and making up my own mind? Sometimes we need to take a look at what we believe and the rules we follow and see if it's really in our best interest to keep believing and keep following. A re-evaluation of our values can be a good thing.

The painting above is about being caught in the web of the rules of religion. The white lilies are the girls like me - unmarried and pregnant, the girls who were expected to remain virginal until they began their lives of wedded bliss (I'd like to know who coined that term) no matter the age. The background shapes aren't legible here but they're bible pages. The web itself is done in gold leaf. Isn't religion many times wrapped in opulence? Religious organizations are very involved in the adoption process. Catholic Social Services facilitated my daughter's adoption. Did they do what was right? NO. Because of this connection, this was the first painting I did in the series.

As humans we want to be part of the crowd and fit in but sometimes we need someone to be bold, say no I'm not doing it that way and maybe wake everyone else up from the herd mentality. Surely, out of all those people involved in the cruel treatment of mothers and children over the decades, someone had a gut feeling or a thought as they were going to sleep at night that what they were doing in adoption was wrong. Surely, there was a family member who had the thought.... the hell with what society or the neighbors think, that baby needs to stay with us. We'll help take care of her. I know I wanted to tell everyone to just stick it, I'm keeping my baby, but I was too scared. Is that what happened? Was everyone too afraid to speak up?

Maybe if a few people had spoken up and said - hey! that's wrong, you can't just keep babies and mothers apart, you can't take that infant from it's mother right there in the delivery room, things could've been different. Maybe if people speak up now, things can be different.

One of my favorite new words is "unchurched" thanks to my friend Robin. It's a good word for how I think of myself. I've been unchurched for a very long time. For me it began when I was a senior in high school but it really took root after my daughter was born. No longer was I going to follow man's rules about morality and to me that's what religion is, a collection of man's rules put in place to control people. If there is a god, he/she/it is probably wondering why more people don't stand up for what's right. (I know the question is going to be... how do you know what's right without religion? I believe we all have an internal compass that if listened to we know what is harmful to ourselves and others and if we pay attention to that our conscience guides us) I don't think any organization has the corner on the market when it comes to morality and ethics, that's been proven time and time again in the news.

When it comes to this issue, deep down in our hearts most of us know that mothers and babies belong together and shouldn't be separated for any reason other than neglect or abuse. At least that's my hope. The Beatles had it right... all you need is love..... and compassion.... and empathy.

Peace

Baby for Adoption

Sometimes when doing these posts it feels like I'm preaching to the choir. The wonderful mothers I've met online know what I'm talking about, they've been there, they understand and thank heavens for them. After 30 years I've finally found people who get it. It hasn't taken that long because they weren't out there, it's taken this long because so many of us have been silent. We were too ashamed to talk about it or too hurt to talk about it.

Now, I'm seeing a new type of mother out there, the happy mother of adoption loss. These are the mothers who have no idea what happened in the past. They don't understand why we speak out. They call us "meanies" for just speaking our truth. Even if we just express an opinion in a kind, civil tone we are called names, deleted and dismissed. They don't understand that if we as a society don't acknowledge the crimes of the past we might be doomed to repeat them.

When I was in the hospital giving birth to my first child, the one I lost to adoption, that red sign above is what I saw on the door to my room and on the wall above my bed. There were 2 of them, they glared at me, they mocked me. BABY FOR ADOPTION: the standard code for decades. It let the staff at the hospital know that they were not to let us see our children.

Because of that sign I never saw my daughter. I wasn't allowed. I was her mother, I had every right to see her, hold her and feed her. Did I know that then? No. I was a good girl and I did what I was told. I was told that seeing my baby would make it harder for me to deal with the adoption. What they actually meant was.... it would make it harder for them to take her because they knew that if I held her the chances of me letting her go dropped dramatically. Even in the delivery room I wasn't allowed to lay eyes on her at all. As soon as she was born they whisked her away and quickly wrapped her up in a blanket. I got a peek of a little arm as she flailed and I heard her cry. It didn't last long, her cry got weaker as she got farther and farther away. That was my last contact with my daughter. It took over 24 hours to find out if I had a girl or a boy. It took 22 years to find out how much she weighed.

No one could be bothered with what I was going through. I only found out the sex of my baby because I was walking down the hall in the hospital and one of the nurses asked my last name. When I told her she said with a big smile...."oh, you don't have to worry about signing the form for circumcision, you had a girl". She didn't see my scarlet brand. She didn't know I was one of those girls - BFA. If it weren't for that little slip up I wouldn't have found out it was a girl until 4 days later when I signed the papers. What a way to find out the sex of the child you've given birth to. How could women be treated this way?! And by other women? This happened to so many of us and so many people have no idea. This is why I comment and blog and run my mouth now. The young mothers coming up behind us need to know what happened then AND what's happening now.

And, to the mothers who know..... thanks for being here and understanding.
Peace