A Birthmothers Life

Birthmother Regrets & Lessons, Relinquishment January 27, 2013

This is Adoption Happily Ever After

No matter how perfect the outcome, it still hurts. The only way to avoid the hurt is to avoid adoption, and it’s too late for that, for me. The adoption of my son was perfect, I did everything the “right” way and still; the adoption of my son caused unnecessary pain and was wrong. This is way I speak out against adoption today. It’s not because I had a “bad experience”, it’s that it was a “good experience”, and yet there are too many tears and the worry never stops.

A Birthmothers Life, Rants and Raves January 22, 2013

Blog for Choice 2013 Lame Style

If you don’t believe in abortion, then don’t have one. I promise I won’t force you, but please don’t force my daughter to feel shame or cross state lines for wanting to control her fertility. Don’t give our countries women fake choices and then blame them and shame them for doing what they must. Don’t make them endanger their lives or be slaves to their bodies. Don’t let sex become something only the rich deserve. Don’t feed the adoption machine at the risk of women’s lives. You decide your moral code for your body and I will decide the moral code for my body.

A Birthmothers Life, Relinquishment December 26, 2012

Deep Sadness, an Illness of Body and Spirits

So, the patter was 30 years old, but just this past Thanksgiving we had a 24 pound bird on it. Yet, this past week, just a mere two days after my new anger directed towards my mother, it broke. It didn’t break due to someone dropping it, or banging it or anything logical like that. Nope, it SHATTERED in MID air as Rye held it. With our much desired dinner on the floor, he was shocked. He didn’t drop it; literally disintegrated in his hands. My immediate thought was that my mother did it.

Birthmother Regrets & Lessons, Relinquishment December 23, 2012

Pain from the Past, Feeling the Presence

What strikes me now is that clearly, from the letters, one of my major concerns is what would I do afterwards, where would I go, how would I survive and that my mother’s home was an unsafe place for me to be. Like really, for my mental health, my mother was damaging to me and returning home after such a loss, I would be even more venerable, but yet.. they sent me back there after I had my baby.
They gladly took my child to protect him, but then left me right back here I was. How is this looking out for my best interests?

Birthmother Regrets & Lessons, Relinquishment December 22, 2012

Letters from Boston, Notes to the Past

” I go to the agency. Talk about depressing! We had to go over all these horrible forms which I’ll have to sign. All official shit. No turning back. ” You understand that you are giving up all rights as a mother and you will never see your child again” I don’t want to sign THAT! It’s so horrid. Until today, it didn’t seem so very real. I feel like it’s a bad dream and I’d like someone to wake me up. There’s no choice. There’s no way out. And I don’t think I like this at all. I’ve always thought about it and felt I could do it fine, but now I can’t image really going through with it forever and I have to. It sucks. I hope I can just stick I tin a box deep deep down like I do with everything and not think about it. As long as I don’t think about it, I’ll do OK, If I can just do it and stuff it in a box.”

Birthmother Regrets & Lessons, Relinquishment December 21, 2012

Letters From My Pregnant Self – Pre Adoption

What Really Happened When I was Away On the surface, everything here is OK.  Inside I’m feeling pretty lost – but nothing can be done about that. I’ll hold out. From my first letter written August 24th, 1987 I think it was back in ’06 when I first asked Laura if she still had my letters from Boston saved. I used to inquire about them periodically. I was writing out…

A Birthmothers Life, Guest Posts, Relinquishment December 5, 2012

The Reality of Adoption 2012;

The agency is telling me that I am asking too much from the adoptive parents, and that I need to get into therapy and move on with my life. They have no idea what being a birthmother is about. They cannot imagine what it feels like to give your child away because others have convinced you that you were not good enough for your own child, only to come to your senses after it’s too late and say to yourself, “I would have been good enough.”

Adoption Koolaide & Birthmother Denial November 29, 2012

Go Be Happy About Adoption, But Don’t Call Me a Bitter Birthmother

“Encouraging Discontent”? Look lady, I’m not the one going over to other people’s blogs and telling them what they should do and how they should feel like royalty and scream about “Birthmama” pride from the rooftops. That whole blog bombing with your “outrage” is not the sign of someone who is content and secure in their decision. See, this wasn’t a blog post about YOU and what YOU wish YOU knew about adoption relinquishment. It was a post about ME so I talked about what I wished and MY experiences. I never said they had to fit YOU. If it doesn’t fit you, it still fits ME and wait, what’s that, a whole lot of other people who bothered to agree in comments, but you didn’t bother reading any of them, did you? You have no right to go dismissing other people’s feelings if you want your own pint of view to be heard.

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Birthmother Grief, Costs of Adoption November 20, 2012

The Weight of Adoption Baggage

I don’t pretend to know the secrets to get through this unscathed. I know there is no way not to carry this weight forever and not be affected. I know my soul will be heavy until the day I die and I expect that my eternal soul will know this loss for many lives hence. Yet, I have a measure of control, I think. We exist in a symbiotic way, my pain and I, this trauma and this hope, a sadness that fuels the fight. As of late, I find more new moms, wrecked with this pain find me, and I have little to offer, but my ramblings of what I think contributed to keeping me..me. I don’t know the answers, but I will share what I do know in hope that it perhaps, maybe, can help another navigate the journey.

Birthmother Holidays & Adoptee Birthdays, Cultural Views on Adoption, Reunions & Support, Searches November 16, 2012

Searching For Birthmothers on Huffington Post Live & AOL

I had NO IDEA that was going to happen, but it did. Ok, more exposure, right. Good for the cause and education of the masses. I ignore the stupid comments. I ignore the stupid comments. I ignore the stupid comments. Yes, that s a mantra for me, but please feel free to educated the masses. I guess they had the headlines messed up as well and I was supposed to be divorced three times?

Here’s some doozies:

“Cute, real Cute.. This is a Prime Example they have BIRTH CONTROL Girls Like her Should NOT have Children in the 1st place! That is what she should be

Birthmother Regrets & Lessons, Costs of Adoption, Relinquishment, Reunions & Support November 15, 2012

Thinking About Adoption Affects on the “Kept” Child

When I relinquished Max, it was suppose to be something that affected ME. The pain and loss was to be mine to bear as Max would be “better off”, his father unaware, my brother and extended family equally as clueless and my mother, well she didn’t matter.. at least I was not give pause to consider how nay one else felt. Like so many things in adoption, the professionals were wrong. Like we say, the “gift of adoption” just keep on giving and giving.. the pain has a huge ripple effect that touches every aspect of a woman’s lives including ALL our children

Birthmother Regrets & Lessons, Relinquishment, The Adoption Industry November 14, 2012

What Preplacement Adoption Counseling Should Look Like

Over and over we hear again, “I wouldn’t have done this if I knew it was so hard”. The intensity of grief is really glossed over. Maybe we can never truly begin to understand this until we live it, but “feelings of peace and contentment” do not come close. Maybe if adoption agency counseling warned of blind, toe numbing, soul clutching waves of grief and never ending tears that you eventually sort of get used to “living with” then we could talk. I have yet to see that on ANY agency website or in their literature. How about we just begin to include BOTH sides of the coin with their “Birthmother Testaments” so considering mothers get an idea of what COULD be the outcome.