Here I am, 25 years later and adoption has been the single most life altering instance upon my life. It still continues to this day. If it wasn’t for adoption, I would not be here. This is a simple fact. I would be getting ready for my son’s birthday. He will be 25 tomorrow. We would have cake. Instead, we will text him and hope we can get in a call.
When I think about my own relinquishment and I could not tell you who “supported” it and who didn’t. I guess in public view, I was “supported” because no one told me it was a really bad idea, but no one, except of course the adoption agency, said it was real great idea either. I don’t think anyone knew what the hell to do or what to say, so they just followed my lead and “supported” whatever I wanted. Based on that definition of “support” I wish someone had been really “unsupported” of the adoption and given me a hard time!
Somewhere inside, they are baby who misses their mothers smell and they don’t have the words to describe that feeling. Someone inside they could be a 3 year old who is scared and angry and wishes that you could come and take them away. Someday, they could turn out to be a person who doesn’t care about stuff, but only wants to fit in with people that get them. Or maybe, just maybe, they think that THEY should have been important enough to warrant a better plan on our part. That THEY were worth working harder, pinching pennies, putting off school, fighting the system, arguing with parents, going on social services.
.
I would undo it, I would change it, but I can’t. Yes, I regret that I let my son be adopted. I know no one held a gun to my head and no one, in my case, forced me to sign those papers. I know that I had my reasons at the time and they are perfectly acceptable reasons and common to adoption practices to this day. In many ways, I know that I was an ideal birthmother and I admit, over and over, that I was visibly a “content, peaceful and happy” birthmother for many years. I am aware that I sent myself away; I plucked the idea of adoption out of thin air, and I presented it as a solution to my friends and family.
We see the messages that mother who keeps the child that she can ill-afford is considered irresponsible. The mother who needs public assistance is considered a freeloader. The mother who gets pregnant again too soon should “know better how babies are made”. The mother who is too young and unwed should have “thought about the consequences before she spread her legs”. The single mother raising her children is “breaking the fabric of the American values”.
No one is trying to find their birthmothers to throw stones or cast blame, yet on that emotional level we have to acknowledge that the adoptee can feel rejected by the act of adoption placement whether voluntary or forced. It doesn’t matter how they can now, as adult, intellectualize the circumstances of their relinquishment, the child inside still knows the pain and that child wants it’s mother. There is an innocence there in this need to reconnect. It is pure feeling.
Often, the adoptive parents who are writing these stories are genuinely upset and confused. They actually believe in the benefits of open adoption for their children. They want the mothers of their children to have contact with the children they relinquished and to know that the kids are doing well. They don’t understand why the mothers, and sometimes fathers, of their adopted children just disappear.
While I do get to see more moms in one sitting, I usually have to wait for a conference or the Adoptee Rights Demonstration for such numbers. This was our party, at my house! We didn’t have signs around our necks or take a group picture or anything, but I was ridiculously excited. We were not out numbered. We didn’t even every really talk about adoption. We were normal.
I usually see the family connections, or lack of, as a failing on my part.Sometimes I think it’s because I was hurt and therefore have a mistrust. Sometimes, I think I’s just because I am a horrible person or something. Sometimes I blame the affects of relinquishment..after all, when you give your baby away to strangers when he is a newborn, you really can’t get all emotional over Christmas cards from cousins.
It is only after the true depth of the loss can be accepted that we see that we made a great error in judgment. There is value in the connection between mother and child that cannot be replaced by monetary things and perceived life successes. There is value in being with our own clans and the biological connections that make us who were are. There is great pain and loss in adoption for both the original family and the adoptee no matter how beneficial their placement is. The adoption industry is just that: an industry and it is often corrupt and money driven.
Granted I already wrote about what’s wrong with the Adoption tax Credit, but I’m just SLIGHTLY more excited about it being in the New York Times. With my picture and links to here and the Adoptee Rights Coalition.You know..because it’s THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Association for Research on Mothering York University Karen Lynn 2001 Good afternoon. This speech is a message from the mothers of the Canadian Council of Birthmothers, mothers who have suffered the trauma of having lost a child or children to adoption and who are learning to understand what happened to us and our children. Much of what I say here is a collection of thoughts shared by the members…
The Twin Towers could really have not fallen down. I could not have really given away my baby.
This isn’t real. It can’t be true. It didn’t really happen, right? With the same horror, my mind tells myself that both. are our sad reality.
And yeah, so I sit around at least once a year and cry. I still miss the World Trade Center. I still my son.I believe I always will.
There is always someone who says that they could never ever do it no matter what. Maybe it is a way of deflecting judgment, but I understand the sentiment. It comes back down to the pure horror at that thought that IGAVEMYBABYAWAY. People aren’t meant to do it. It’s not natural.
7/3/13 EDITED TO ADD: This post went live on the morning of July 2, 2013 in it’s original version which is what you see here. Where AdoptHelp.com Rips Off My Personal Branding OK I know that I am not the first person to use a play off the Rosie the Riveter images. I understand that this is an iconic image that has been co-opted in many ways since Pittsburgh…