I was alerted yesterday of a group film discussion in the Sarasota, Florida area surrounding the film “Philomena”. It’s at 7pm at The Unitarian Universalist Church of Sarasota 3975 Fruitville Road, Sarasota, FL lead by an adoptive mother. We need VOICES!
I feel COMPLETELY different when it comes to adoption. With abortion, I trust a women to know what she wants and exercise her right to make an informed choice. With adoption, I feel like she has no clue, cannot know what she wants and is not making an informed choice. This has plagued me. Why are my feelings different?
I noticed most of the open adoption information is very general. Then I noticed the language that was being used – and it was manipulative. Lastly, I noticed how the information was being presented – and again, it was manipulative.
The intent behind “protecting” a person from the ugly or not so ugly truth about one’s self might be begun as a kindness, but it is still a lie. So even if you love the person you wish to protect, you are betraying their trust and making a decisions for them based on your feelings, not theirs. You are not trusting them enough with knowledge that is theirs, not yours, to withhold. Truth is truth and no amount of wishing can change that.
A Guest Post About Speaking Out on Adoption Truths: I speak out about adoption, not because of ‘poor me’, but to bring awareness of what is happening in the world with hopes that unethical practices will end.
Why does the adoption middle man sanctify the baby trade? What magic fairy dust does an adoption agency or facilitator or lawyer have that makes it morally acceptable? Why is it OK to give a child away, to relinquish your flesh and blood, to place a child, to abandon a child, to make an adoption plan for a child, to give the “gift” of a child, but not just openly sell the privilege to parenting?
Starting on July 1, 2014, Washington State adoptee 18 and older who were adopted on or before October 1, 1993 will able to request their original birth certificate with the passing of Senate House Bill 1525, minus, of course, the dirty nasty contact veto.
Are you an out right asshole hiding behind the fact that you hope no one in your real life will figure out that you are an out right cyber bully? I’m gonna find you.
At the same moment that I relished that feeling, I hated it. The second, I felt that I was doing exactly what I should have been doing, I wished I was on a different path. The confidence that I have found my true calling in life makes me curse the God’s that placed me here. I wonder in amazement that I am living a life of value and then I shudder with dread. In two seconds, I can be so sure, and then all at once wish more than anything else that I was lost in bland life of mediocrity. It’s my almost daily struggle as a birthmother.
There is that classic saying, “you can’t change another person’s actions or feelings, but you can change how it affects you.” I think that is really important to remember in an adoption reunion. No matter how much we might want another person to think and feel and usually more importantly act, we cannot make that happen. No matter what you do, what hoops you jump through, the emotional gymnastics you attempt, you cannot change which you cannot control. If life was controlled by forces of sheer will alone, this world would be a much different, though I don’t know if necessarily better, place.
Truthfully? I have no idea. What works for one reunion might not work for another. The measure of what makes an adoption reunion successful really does depend on the parties involved and how they measure that success. Are they both satisfied with the measure of contact? Are they both getting what they need out of the relationship? Are the interactions relatively “healthy” aka not destructive to the other party? Again, so many variables, so many different personalities, so many different experiences, differences in timing, in support; how is one supposed to make heads or tails?
Let’s face it ; we all love a good adoption reunion story. The media loves a reunion story. Most people off the street love a reunion story. In AdoptionLand, we especially enjoy hearing that another family separated by adoption has managed to beat the industry rules and find their way home. We marvel at the similarities and “near misses”. We get teary eyed seeing the cries of joy and the airport hugs. Yet, what happens after that first contact, that first find, that first phone call, that first hug is really where the determination of “success” comes into play.
So what does an adoption reunion look like when it works?
I have had a few people tell me that I should stop saying it because by perpetuating that reunion rejection by a birthmother is rare, then it sets up adoptees for disappointment when they are rejected. I can understand that. Yet, as I tried to explain, the factual research that I have available DOES really indicate that less than 1% of relinquishing mothers opt for no contact when given the choice.Of course, we do face the fact that any adoption research is never 100% accurate due to the fact that there is no one agency that oversees or even counts the numbers of adoptions and would enable the entire population of people affect by adoption to be counted.Yet, I would say that about half the adoptees I know struggle with have an nonexistent or unsatisfactory relationship with their found mothers. Why such a difference?
Now, we must remember she is a former ABORTIONIST PROFESSIONAL, so she’s must KNOW better than I about things like MY LIFE. Especially as there must be GOD on her side!
Please tell me what to do. After all, I have had many years of training being a “good birthmother” Yes, yes, perhaps I just need an adoption Kool-Aid booster shot? Give it to me, Abby! I’m just JONESING hardcore for that Adoption Kool-Aid! Yum..Pro-Life flavor!! My fav-o-rite!
There is a good chance that motherhood will never be the same for a birthmother. Even under completely different circumstance than the adoption, years later, the mother we could have been has been altered. She is gone. What is left is a new mother, a new persons, one forever altered by the relinquishment experience.