Adoption

Born Baby Wagner, Died Alyssa Rachael Toner

I did not know Alyssa Toner. What I do know, though, is that Alyssa was searching and cannot finish her search. She made the video, but it does not show up in searches for her birth date. The article about her adoption birthmother search does not seem have been published. The news stories about her death, do, right now, but as time passes, news articles like these get achieved and fall way down on the search rankings. Maybe her search will be forgotten completely. Maybe her account will be taken down, the video eventually deleted and, if her birthmother ever does decide to search, she will never find anything at all.

The message will be lost.


Collecting the Adoptees and Families Searching Images on Facebook

This is one of those times when I am asking for your help on a project. It was barely two weeks ago when Facebook started exploding with the Adoptee Searching Picture memes. Though I know we all tried to keep up and share like crazy cakes, it’s proving to be a difficult task! I was trying to share all the images of Adoptees begging for help finding their families, but I quickly had the longest blog post on the east coast. And then, I remembered Listly!




Infertility Does NOT Give You the Right to Adopt!

The latest batch of pro-adoption propaganda, “What’s Mine is Yours”, by Katherine Nelson and Deanna Harper, has set a “beautiful” song that highlights the pain and suffering of infertility while promoting adoption and glorifying relinquishment. But with this song and the simplification and romanticism made of the relinquishing mother, Katherine Nelson leaves out millions of real mothers who have suffered a real loss of living, breathing children, many now gown adults. And often this trauma was inflicted by the hands who those claim to want others to understand; women who should be able to appreciate the true longing to be mothers. She promotes a false cure, a band aide, in adoption, by glorifying the very need that claimed so many of our children.


The Myth of the Happy Adoptee

When we are pregnant, we don’t pump our own gas or dye our hair. We stop smoking and drinking and eat right. We watch our medications, don’t eat sushi, go in hot tubs or ride roller coasters. There is a mass of other “don’ts’ that I forget since it’s been a while, but I think even goat cheese is “bad” when you are pregnant now. Bottom line, we do not do all these that MIGHT somehow endanger our babies. Even if it’s like .00096% of all pregnant women who eat unprocessed cheese get the weird amoeba that could cause blindness in the fetus, we don’t take that chance. So why are we encouraging mothers, who really do NOT have to relinquish to endanger their babies with maternal separation?


15 Solutions To Fix Adoption in America

I do not believe that we will see the end of adoption completely, but these solutions could very well produce a country like Australia where the relinquishment rates dropped about 95%. That is not unrealistic to me. Ideal, yes, but… People will want children that they cannot bare, and here will be people who have children who do not have any desire to ever be a parent. Yes, adoption will still be there, but let it be a safe guard that provides families for children who need homes rather than finding children for families that want them. Adoption relinquishment should be seen as the last possible choice.


Adoption Relinquishments by the Numbers

Based on a 100% population, then, the USA IF it had similar adoption practices and supported mothers would have 539 Voluntary Domestic Infant relinquishments annually give or takeWant to do it again? Based on the 2006 numbers, we are looking at only 826 infants relinquished in the USA rather than the 14,000.
I don’t even need my calculator to know that it means we are looking at aproximately 13,500 babies relinquished by mothers who, IF given accurate information regarding parenting and had options and support, would most likely NOT have placed their babies for adoption. Now multiply that by the last ten years: that’s over 135,000 families separated for no other reason than the fact that adoption is a huge profit driven business in the USA.



Sorry, I’m Not Going to Be Convinced & I’m Not Changing My Mind

I really have to almost get a chuckle out of it when people try to tell me to shut up. Really? You are going to tell ME to STOP? And you think I will listen to YOU? How’s that working out for you? Yes, it IS FUNNY! You did not bother to find out who you are talking to. I take my rabble rousing VERY seriously. Why are you spending all your energy trying to convince me that you got it so good and adoption is so positive and “not like my experience”. Did I mention that I just do not care?


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.


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.


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?


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.”


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…