Dear Prospective Adopters

I woke up early this morning and the first thoughts that went through my head were about the comments I've seen on news articles about Veronica Brown and other similar cases. I've noticed a common theme among the comments by prospective adopters - the idea that "birthparents" can come back at any time to reclaim their children. I've seen many say, and I've personally heard people say, that's why they would rather adopt from over seas than adopt from within the U.S. They don't want to run the risk of parents wanting their children back. They want complete ownership.

Why is it that the child's original parents are always the ones vilified instead of the adoption agencies? Cases like Veronica's and others give the impression that parents can choose to just walk in and demand their child be returned to them. These people are either misguided by untrue news reports or are willfully ignoring the truth. I don't know of a single state where that is possible. Some states have a time period where a mother can change her mind. It  might be 3 days or 30 days and there are some, like my state of FL, where there is NO revocation period. None, zip, nada. Once you sign on the dotted line and you can do that only 24 hours after giving birth, there is no going back. You can change your mind on buying a car but you can't change your mind on forever altering yours and your baby's life.

Then why do I keep seeing these comments about the evil "birthparents coming out of the woodwork YEARS later to take the children"?

Dear prospective adopters,

Of course the first thing I would say to you would be - don't adopt. Don't take another woman's baby. You have no idea what that will do to her and the child.

Do your research. Really think about why children like Veronica end up in a tug of war. Instead of blaming the original parents, how about looking at the adoption agencies and how they operate. Really look at their practices for what they are - unethical and coercive. Really research and understand coercion. Understand that most infants were gained that way, through coercion. Notice I said most, not all. If you don't do this and you just go along with whatever the agency tells you, you run the risk of taking a baby from a family that wants and loves that baby. You run the risk of traumatizing a child for no reason other than your wants.

If you were duped out of your baby wouldn't you fight back? Instead of just blaming the parents, how about following the money. Take a closer look at what the agency is doing. If you find out after only a few weeks or months that what the agency did was wrong or that either of the parents wants to raise their child, do the right thing. Give that child back to the parents! Don't drag it out in court trying to hang on to someone who doesn't belong to you because the one who is getting hurt the most is the child. I know it will hurt you but there are other children out there who really do need you and that baby only has one natural/biological/original family. He or she has the right to be with them.

Please stop making this about what you want. Make it about the child.

If you want to do something, stop looking for pregnant girls who aren't wearing a wedding ring and start looking for the children who really need help. There are plenty of them out there. Yes, there are some really bad parents who abandon, abuse or neglect their kids. Those kids need you. They need your help but they don't need their names to be changed or their identities wiped out. They need your love, not your ownership.

Stop believing whatever the adoption agencies tell you. I know how much you want to believe them but don't. They lie. And please realize that your demand for an infant is what's keeping this horrible adoption industry going. They're not only still going - they're thriving to the tune of 13 billion $ a year. That's your money! Can you think of a better way to spend it besides lining the pockets of people who think it's ok to lie, cheat and steal babies?

There are some adoptive parents out there who get it. They've come to understand what the industry does to families and exactly how they make their billions. Please, please read what they have to say. Read what adult adopted people have to say. Read what original families have to say. It's easy to do, just google. The list of blogs is long. Don't just read what adoption agencies have to say. The agency is just catering to you and telling you what you want to hear because, of course, you're the one paying them. It's all about the money and it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be about the children.

Please.

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.

Picture time at the Adoptee Rights Demonstration!

Sunday was the day. I was taking off for Atlanta to take part in the Adoptee Rights Coalition 2013 Demonstration. Me and two wonderful ladies hit the road. We've never met in person but we've been friends online for a while so of course when you have 6 hours to spend in the car you spend it talking. And talk we did! All the way!

                                                           Me, Tonja, Lynn and Claudia 
When we arrived, we got checked in and it was time to make signs. I can't begin to tell you what it meant to me to be able to meet these lovely ladies. I've been following Claudia's blog for a long time. Her blog was one of the first ones I read when I discovered the adoption community online. And Lynn, my goodness, there's no one more dedicated to family preservation than this woman! Finding other mothers was incredible. It meant I wasn't alone. It meant I could connect with others who understood me - that's huge!

Do you see what Claudia's shirt says?

Adoption

yeah,

it pretty much sucks!

I want this shirt.

My other sisters.

It was great to meet Julie and Karen, my adoptee sisters. Being a step-parent adoptee along with being a mother of adoption loss, puts me in the position of having a double reason for being at the demonstration. My birth certificate is trapped in New Jersey and my daughter's birth certificate is trapped in Florida. Of course we also had to use this opportunity to show our support for Veronica and her father. If you're not familiar with the case, please read up. It's astonishing what people are trying to do to this child.

 Why was free speech restricted to this pen? I'm sure there were reasons but still made me wonder.

 In front of CNN

Back at the World Congress Center

A final supper after a good day of walking, chanting, sharing and educating (and sweating, damn it was hot!)

Our fearless leaders, Julie and Claudia, ready to talk to the legislators at the conference - because that's how they roll! We had to head home but that doesn't mean the demonstration is over. They're spending several more days with the booth sharing info and stories (and candy) so more people, more legislators will hear us. Ladies, thank you for all you do!!!

Leaving without them

This week my 6th grandchild was born. It's an amazing feeling to have 6 grandchildren and an even greater feeling to be able to tell the world that I have that many grandkids because there was a time when I wasn't even allowed to admit to having 3 children, let alone having so many grandbabies.

Before my open, out there, truthy days, when I was pregnant with my second child, I would cringe every time someone asked me how many children I had. If a nurse, during a check up, asked me about the number of pregnancies I had experienced, I went through the usual struggle in my head. Do I tell her about my first baby, the one I surrendered to adoption, or do I pretend that this is my first go around this block? Of course, because I was dealing with the medical profession and there was a reason they were asking me this, not just nosiness - I fessed up to it being my second time with this particular experience. Ok, the stretch marks were going to be a clue anyway so there really wasn't any getting away with a deception when dealing with people who are going to see you naked so might as well tell the truth. Even then, it wasn't easy. There was shame. There was the quiet moment when you shared the information and waited for the judgement. Am I turning red? Please don't let me cry in front of these people. I just want to get out of here!

So what brought me to thinking about all this? When I was in the hospital, walking the corridor on the maternity ward, excited about seeing my new granddaughter, I was passed by a woman in a wheelchair being escorted out of the area. At first glance, I thought - oh, a new mom leaving the hospital with her baby and getting ready to set out on her new life with her child. The reality was, there was a woman being escorted out of the maternity ward by deputies. There was no child in her arms. There were no congratulatory balloons, no flowers. She was sitting with her head hung low and her tear stained cheeks told a different story. Where was her baby? Did she die? Was she leaving her behind for a family member to raise? Did she surrender her child to adoption? Was she leaving the hospital in the same state I was in 33 years ago? This woman, leaving the maternity floor was obviously in the custody of the state. I don't know what her crime was but I felt for her. 33 years ago I was in the custody of the adoption industry and the church. My only crime was being pregnant and single yet there we were. She and I. Two women separated from our children.

When I saw her my heart hurt. I was immediately taken back to the day that I was pushed out of the hospital, sitting in the wheelchair, arms empty, a voice in the distance, to this day clear as a bell, asking me - "where's your baby?". Me, unable to answer. All I could do was sit with my head hanging low, just like she was, quiet, desperately trying to hold it together, tears pouring and throat closing, not able to beg or plead for my child. I was transported back to that young woman who was dying inside.

No matter what that woman's crime was, I hurt for her. Whatever was causing her to leave the maternity floor with empty arms was causing her a pain like no other. I wanted to put my arms around her because I know that look. I've lived that look. She had that haunted look, the look in her eyes that said she was lost. It was a look that said - my life will never be the same again.

In the middle of the joy of a new grandbaby, I was reminded. I remembered that there are mothers leaving hospitals without their babies. With each new grandchild I'm reminded that there are grandmothers who won't get to see their grandchildren, mothers who won't get to hold their babies and families who won't be together - ever. This is what infant adoption does.

Eventually

Photograph: Alamy

"People don't tend to have the same respect for emotional brokenness as they do physical brokenness. Because they can't see the broken heart like they could a broken leg, it's easy to doubt that anything significant is really wrong."

A dear friend, who I feel a great connection to although we've never met, said this in one of her blog posts. Really, you should read her story from the beginning. She is an adoptee going through a tremendous amount of emotional turmoil, stress and upheaval at the moment. Actually those words really don't convey what she's been dealing with but how do you get across the ridiculous amount of trauma that a person goes through. How do we explain to people who really have no experience with this kind of thing, what it is we go through. You really can't. Unless you've walked in those same shoes you really can't know the depth of the emotion. They hear the words and try to understand but since there's no physical evidence it's too easy to move beyond the brokenness without considering that the break is still there on the inside. It's too easy to forget that the pain is still there. A cast on a broken bone is a reminder. There is no reminder with emotional trauma.

When I lost my daughter to adoption no one could see the broken me. No one had any idea because I was expected to hide it. She was a big secret so of course no one knew what had just happened. Imagine this scenario - your child dies and no one knows. In just a few days you go to work and you're expected to smile and act as if nothing has happened. You can't talk about it. You can't cry about it. You can't even seem sad let alone be able to really grieve. Your friends don't know so when you go to a party or out to dinner, you have to pretend not to think about it and just make small talk until you can get through the evening without crying. Your coworkers don't have a clue of course so you have to put on the professional face and maintain your composure throughout the workday. You run into people at the grocery store that you know from school or church or work and you have to pretend to be happy that you've run into them and have to now act like nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

Then you have the family members who DO know what happened - the very few who were privy to the actual events- the ones who knew where you were when you were gone out of town for 5 or 6  months during the pregnancy. I'm starting to realize that when dealing with this type of trauma, it's really not much different when people know what happened as opposed to the folks who really didn't have a clue. If you're not part of the adoption community in one form or another it's difficult to understand the trauma that is involved for that person. For the people who knew what was happening, it became about not only keeping the secret but keeping the peace. I think on one level they just didn't want to upset me. The thinking at the time was... just don't mention it. Just like the idea of keeping a baby away from the mother after the birth was supposed to make it easier to deal with the separation, the idea of not talking about the loss was supposed to make the transition back to "normal" life easier. Did that work? Of course not. On another level, this kind of denial just made it easier for them. Just get back to the status quo and everything will be okay. If we make it look good on the outside, it will be good on the inside. Keep the surface squeaky clean and all will be good.

But.... what happens then? Sure, you manage to maintain on the outside but what's happening on the inside? You're still broken. You swallow the pain. You go home and try to figure out how to cope. You cry when you're alone. You have nightmares. You deal with fear. You deal with anxiety. Why do we struggle to deal with this alone? Because like my friend said.... the emotional brokenness is not as obvious so it doesn't get the same amount of respect. We hear.... just move on, don't be bitter or angry, put the past behind you, why can't you just leave it behind? It's been so many years... why are still crying about it? Why are you still writing about it? Oh, you're writing about that again... that's why you're banging on the keys so hard. Well, pardon me, don't mean to be so noisy while I do my best to work through this and try to do something to help others. Sorry, hard not to get snarky when dealing with this issue.

With a broken bone you can see the result of healing - the cast comes off. The wound is healed. With adoption, whether adoptee or mother, the wound is never really healed, it's just scabbed over. Sometimes events pick at the scab. Sometimes people pick at it with the comments they make and they don't even realize they're doing it. Sometimes the comments are intentional because others don't want to deal with the truth - it makes them too uncomfortable. Maybe that's because they had a hand in making the adoption happen or maybe it's because they participated in the adoption of another child because like so many millions of people - they got sucked in to the adoption industry propaganda. 

However it happens.... the wound is there and the respect isn't. We have to hold each other up. We have to be there for each other - mothers for mothers, mothers for adoptees, adoptees for adoptees. Eventually we'll get there. Eventually people will understand more. Thanks to my dear friend for putting herself out there and letting people see the turmoil and raw emotion of what being an adoptee is like from her experience. It's only through the telling of these experiences that we can gain the understanding and eventually the respect of others.

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?

Well, here it is again....

Mother's Day. And "Birthmother's" Day. The second one I refuse to be part of. I never was a birthmother, I will always be a mother. Thankfully, this weekend doesn't carry the pain that it used to. The memory of that pain is still buried in the recesses and it gets easier over time to keep it there and not let it cloud the time I spend with family.

There are defining moments in our lives and those moments have a profound affect on certain holidays and celebrations. There was life before Liz and then life after losing Liz. There was life before reunion and life after reunion. Of course there were other defining moments such as the births of my other 2 children and they affected these same celebrations but for now I'm just talking about the life altering event of losing a child.

Life before Liz.....
Mother's Day for me was spent pretty much the same way as any other average kid growing up - shopping for a card, trying to come up with something different for a gift, a special church service to honor mothers, going somewhere special to eat.

Life after losing Liz and before reunion.....
Mother's Day became a day of strained relationship with my own mother. Searching for a card was no longer easy. The sentiments expressed no longer fit for me. If I were to give them I would feel like a liar. Honoring her as mother became difficult because my own motherhood was not only not honored, it was hidden and denied. I think I spent the first post-adoption Mother's Day in a fetal position. I remember lots and lots of tears. After the births of my son and youngest daughter, I could accept the many well wishes of family and friends. I could smile and feel the love of my husband and children but there was always a little girl in the back of my mind. Where was she? Who was she calling "mom"? What were they doing on that day? I thought of her every day of the year but certain days meant those thoughts were in the foreground every moment, coloring a grey veil over what should be a happy time.

Life after reunion....
The day became easier with my own mother. We've made some peace and done a lot of healing. This week my sister and I took her out for a nice dinner and we had a great time.
I am truly one of the fortunate mothers of adoption loss. Now on Mother's Day I can think of my daughter and smile. In fact I'll be talking to her shortly. She'll tell me about her life and what's happening with my grandchildren. I'll tell her about my life here, about her sister and brother, nieces and  nephew. We won't be together because we live in different states but we're in each other's thoughts and can call or text and send virtual hugs. It's taken a while to get to this point because just like other relationships, it takes time to get to know each other. The pain of pre-reunion Mother's Days is almost gone. I don't think it will ever leave me completely. Now what comes up is more the anger at being forced to wait 2 decades before being given the chance to get to know my own daughter. So even now, after reunion, adoption plays a part in the day. The experience of adoption for the mother and the adoptee is part of us always.

For the mothers who are still in the - life before reunion - stage....
I know how painful this weekend is but don't lose hope. You are a mother and there's always a chance that you'll be able to celebrate your motherhood with your son or daughter. My thoughts are with you. Much love and hugs.



photo credit: wallpaperpin.com