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.
The Reaction of the Adoption Community The Oxygen Network’s New Show “I’m Having Their Baby” has caused quite a commotion in the adoption community to say the least. While we have seen expectant mothers considering adoption to be exploited before for entertainment value (The 2004 20/20 Barbara Walters Adoption Special “Be My Baby”) or the brunt of “funny” jokes and black humor (2007’s Juno), the issue isn’t so much the…
Dan Rather Reports: Preview Trailers Dan Rather Reports, “Adopted or Abducted?” will devote the entire hour on Tuesday, May 1st to the heartbreaking accounts of women — most of whom were teens at the time — who were forced to hand their babies over for adoption. In a sweeping and exhaustive six month investigation that spanned from Australia to the United States, producers from Dan Rather Reports conducted nearly one…
Adoption is particularly hard because it is never something we really learn about before we find it in our lives. I know I never dreamed that one day I would grow up, have a baby, give him to other parents to raise and not see him for 19 years. I believe that is true for many adoptive parents as well. Maybe you always felt that you would eventually adopt a child, maybe you were always intrigued, maybe you thought about it long and hard, or maybe suddenly, you just felt that you were thrust into it, maybe you entered it blindly; I don’t know, but I bet, looking back now, you would say that you had no idea what the experience of adoption a child would really be like. That you think now there was no way to have planned for it all. You could not have known
The Family Research Council claims to have conducted MORE research for the Birthmother, Good Mother: Her Story of Heroic Redemption, but after reading the two of them entirely, I believe that this new publication is still coming off of the original study. Both reports use the same copy for the methodology and both have the same research group, with the same number of participants in the same age ranges. I see Birthmother, Good Mother: Her Story of Heroic Redemption as a modified piece that demonstrates the actual twisting of the mind of a women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. It’s really like a “How to Create an Kool-Aide Drinking Happy Birthmother” guide. It’s really rather frightening. I’m not sure whether women are really that easily manipulative or we are just really stupid for falling for this. Or maybe it’s just all internal and they have managed to tap into it. All I can tell you is that this feels like reading the inside of my brain during the whole adoption process.
In 1999, the Family Research Council In conjunction with the National Council for Adoption conducted research to understand the factors involved in considering adoption and how best to present adoption as a viable option for women. The Missing Piece: Adoption Counseling in Pregnancy Resource Centers by Curtis J. Young is the result of that study.
I’m in the midst of it all: Adoption Trauma week or better known the Season of Max. So here it is; it’s November. The week from hell. Trying to remain “normal”, but feeling so very tightly strung up as if I could break or snap at any moment. Tired, impatient, restless, annoyed, teary, over excited, sad. Friday: Finish another long week, and promptly get into a stupid agreement with Rye…
“In choosing adoption they can now see themselves as good mothers, the highest form of motherhood – the mother who chooses what is best for her child regardless of sacrifice it requires of her. In doing what is best for her child, she fulfills her need to see herself as a good mother and accept the pain of relinquishment. In this way, she transforms agony of the entire story into a redemptive experience where she becomes a heroine in her own eyes and in the eyes of others.”
Adoption relinquishment is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Your child will be born knowing your voice, your smell and needing YOU; his or her mother. Mother child bonding happens pre-birth and sets up a model for the rest of the child’s life. Children do not care, especially at young ages, about brand name clothing, special diapers, or fancy toys. They want their mothers.
Separating of a mother and child is painful to babies, even newborns. They might not have the ability to verbalize their pain, but it can cause damage. Some adoptees suffer what is called the Primal Wound. Many adopted children are colicky. Others adapt by being complete “content” which means they are in a survival mode. Adopted children are over represented in both the mental health field and the prison system. Many suffer from trust issues their entire lives. No matter what happy adoption story they are told, some will feel abandoned and rejected by you.
Chances are, your child will be denied their civil rights to access their original identity.
I have learned so much from being a parent. I have learned so much from being thrust into the reality of adoption. I have learned so much form my journey online. I have learned so much from the pain of life. My head has been spinning lately and my heart feels heavy. I haven’t been writing because I have been thinking too fast. Life keeps coming and I can’t find…
I don’t know why, but the responses to my last post about my dreading with November was overwhelming to me. It wasn’t that people responded with kindness; I actually expect the innate goodness and compassion of most. It wasn’t that my feelings obviously resonate to what other moms feel during the birthday months of our relinquished children either. It was more like I was so struck at how very similar…
I knew I would have to write about Where the Wild Things Are. How could I not? From the earliest hummings of a this Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Thing Are movie coming to fruition, every ounce of my soul has rejected the reality that I now face. I haven’t wanted to hear about this movie. I haven’t wanted to think about it. I haven’t wanted to face it. I…
Recently, I added some Really Bright Red Highlights to my Hair Now if you have ever been a phony red head like me, then you might be able to relate to what I am about to say, if not, then you’ll have to take my word on it: Being a Red Head is like having Anorexia of the Hair. Now, I don’t mean that in a way to mock people…
Adoption was almost more like a crack that happened in my soul. A crack that that I thought and was encouraged to believe that would be temporary or always below the surface. Over time, the rest of life worked it’s way in, like water in cement and caused the very foundation of myself to crumble
This story begins here:” How to Begin a BirthMother: Chapter 1“ As an unmet, joyful and excited couple marveled and cooed over my precious baby, now theirs.. I was then packing all my meager belongings, waiting for my mother, sad goodbyes, uncomfortable silence, more feelings of shame. As they fussed over the first diapers changed, and made happy phone calls, I was on the cold drive back..5 hours due to…