Adoption Feelings

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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.

Adoption November 18, 2012

The Comforts of Home

Since apparently birthmother blogs are lacking in recipes, I’d like to change that up. In early appreciation for all in Adoptionland, I offer you my mother’s stuffing recipe. It’s insanely easy and seriously some of the best stuffing you’ll ever have. For me and I’m pretty sure for my brother too, it’s better than best..it tastes like home. It tastes like love.

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.

A Birthmothers Life, Community November 13, 2012

Reflections on the Past 25 Years as Birthmother

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.

Choices of the damned; Damned if you do, damned if you don't

A Birthmothers Life, Community November 12, 2012

Supporting People in Adoption, in Life; What Does it Mean?

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!

Adoption Questions and Facts, Before Making an Adoption Plan, Relinquishment November 11, 2012

Hard Truths; A Birthmother is Abandoning Her Child

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.

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Adoption and regret go hand in hand.

Birthmother Regrets & Lessons, Cultural Views on Adoption November 8, 2012

I Own It; Making Mistakes, Accepting Responsibility and Regret

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.

Research into adoption surrender documents

Adoption Research & Statistics, Relinquishment October 8, 2012

Known Consequences of Separating Mother and Child at Birth Implications for Further Study

 Wendy Jacobs, B.Sc., B.A.    “The past is never fully gone. It is absorbed into the present and the future. It stays to shape what we are and what we do.” Sir William Deane, Inaugural Lingiari Lecture, Darwin, 22 August 1996 Separating mother and child at birth was the way adoption was practiced in Australia in the latter half of last century. We have heard from other speakers about current…

Family Reunions or difficult times ahead? Maybe both.

Adoption Questions and Facts, Reunions & Support October 3, 2012

An Adoptee Asks Reunion Question

I can tell you that many moms are just so worried about saying the wrong things that we are still afraid to open up and be real… the internal censor is on big time because we do not know what to do and are SO afraid of being sent away emotionally. Maybe this isn’t the case with her since you say she really reacts intensely, but that openness and honestly is a hard place to get to. I think it hard to trust the new relationship as permanent and get to that place.

Birthmother Grief September 9, 2012

National Tragedies, Silent Tragedies

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.

Adoption language and use of the word birthmother for SEO

Adoption Questions and Facts August 19, 2012

How do People Search and Find Adoption Information Online

What the date tells me above is what I already know. If you are writing about adoption, then the word adoption needs to be used. And if one is writing about issues in adoption that pertain to being a mother who relinquished, then I want those 1/3 a million monthly searches to have a chance of finding things here and that means using the word birthmother. I won’t call you one, but I’m going to write with it.

Be an Adoption Star

Adoption News, Community December 2, 2011

Adoptees and Sisters Reality Show Casting Call

Prime Time Reality Show Looking for Adoptees and their Sisters I’m just a passing this on….I DO encourage peope to DO these sorts of things, not becasue you want to be on TV, but becasue the more TURE stories out there.. the more it helps. PLEASE remember to SUPPORT ADOPTEE RIGHTS if, you know, you happen to go for it. Mentioning on TV the reality of adoptees sealed records could…

Birthmother Holidays & Adoptee Birthdays November 15, 2010

Talking to Myself

I couldn’t sleep last night. We had spent the whole day in the mountains of the Shawangunks Mountains, hiking with the kids, and then they elected to stay over Grandma’s so Rye and I had a sudden night free. So we meandered back through town, stopping along the way; over the High Falls Cafe where I was thrilled to see my former apartment dweller neighbor Becky, then through town where…